Re: God and evolution

On Oct 20, 6:47 am, nos...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (J. J. Lodder) wrote:
wf3h <w...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
another classic misunderstanding from the roman catholic church:

http://firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=6038

Where do you see a misunderstanding?

Jan


hello jan...well here's where i have a problem with dulles' article.
first he says, regarding a papal speech:

'The pope was interpreted in some circles as having accepted the neo-
Darwinian view that evolution is sufficiently explained by random
mutations and natural selection (or "survival of the fittest") without
any kind of governing purpose or finality. '

no 'neodarwinian' says this, and to say that they do is an offense
against reason. he's setting up a strawman for his position that
religion MUST be part of science. and no science...none...addresses
'purpose' or teleology. again, he's offended by a field of
study...science...that looks as teleology as irrelevant. he's offended
because it's the very basis of his belief system; his life, who he is
as a person, depends on the importance of teleology.

quoting the speech, dulles says:

'the pope declared at a General Audience of July 19, 1985: "The
evolution of human beings, of which science seeks to determine the
stages and discern the mechanism, presents an internal finality which
arouses admiration. This finality, which directs beings in a direction
for which they are not responsible, obliges one to suppose a Mind
which is its inventor, its creator."

first dulles attacks scientists who say that science DISPROVES god's
existence, THEN he says that science PROVES god's existence. this is a
double standard. if it's irrational to say that science steps outside
its bounds when discussing god, WHY is it acceptable to say science
proves the existence of god?

he quotes a quote from a 'neodarwinist':

'He quoted one such neo-Darwinist as stating: "Modern science directly
implies that the world is organized strictly in accordance with
deterministic principles or chance. There are no purposive principles
whatsoever in nature. There are no gods and no designing forces
rationally detectable."

religion has, for thousands of years, asserted that nature drips with
teleology; it's so detectable it can almost be measured with a volt
meter. yet every answer religion has posed to questions about nature
has been false. there are no demons, no angels, no spirits no purpose
detectable in nature. if there ARE then the good cardinal should have
been able to cite an example of when religion WAS successful at
answering a question about nature with 'god did it'.

he can't. if religion INSISTS that supernaturalism is present in
nature, it shouldn't be surprised when science finds no such examples.

in a rather ambiguous statement, he says:

'Cardinal Schönborn shrewdly observes that positivistic scientists
begin by methodically excluding formal and final causes. Having then
described natural processes in terms of merely efficient and material
causality, they turn around and reject every other kind of
explanation. They simply disallow the questions about why anything
(including human life) exists, how we differ in nature from irrational
animals, and how we ought to conduct our lives. '

quite simply there's no reason science SHOULD include these ideas any
more than ballet dancing or auto mechanics does. there's no reason TO
include them; they aren't scientific questions, and the cardinal
doesn't understand science well enough to appreciate that. and that's
because he's a person whose belief system is wrapped up in the idea
that teleology is ESSENTIAL to the nature of the human person, so
science should reflect that.

it's a wrong idea and has led nowhere for 2000 years, in scientific
terms.

he quotes a number of atheistic authors...christopher hitchens...sam
harris...as believing:

'These writers generally agree in holding that evidence, understood in
the scientific sense, is the only valid ground for belief'

having read harris's and hitchens' books, i can say they NEVER said
this at all. harris, in his book 'letter to a christian nation' points
out that there are many modes of human thought that lead in many
directions. they can lead to satisfying and fulfillng lives. dulles
ignores this.

he says:

'An important school of scientists supports a theory known as
Intelligent Design. Michael Behe, a professor at Lehigh University,
contends that certain organs of living beings are "irreducibly
complex."

having graduated from lehigh's chemistry dept, and having had a chance
to talk with behe, i think the man is a paranoid nut. he told me that
all journal editors across the world were atheists.

dulles, however, doesn't seem to realize behe is a fringe nutcase. his
inability to see this, and his belief that behe represents a 'school'
indicates he's arguing, not on the basis of rationality, but on
emotion.

dulles then steps back into medieval science when he discusses
polanyi, et al, about biology:

'The behavior of living organisms cannot be explained without taking
into account their striving for life and growth. Plants, by reaching
out for sunlight and nourishment, betray an intrinsic aspiration to
live and grow. '

it's EXACTLY this type of nonsense that kept science from progessing
for a thousand years in the christian west. what is a 'striving'? what
is an 'intrinsic aspiration'?

dulles places THESE ideas on the same plane as thermodynamics and
quantum mechanics. his inability to distinguish the very ESSENCE of a
scientific concept from a RELIGIOUS one means he's incompetent to even
discuss the matter.

his argument is circular; by INSISTING that religious ideas (e.g.
'aspriations', 'striving', 'purpose') are scientific ones, he seeks to
prove what he takes as a premise.

he cites polkinghorne:

'In tune with this school of thought, the English mathematical
physicist John Polkinghorne holds that Darwinism is incapable of
explaining why multicellular plants and animals arise when single
cellular organisms seem to cope with the environment quite
successfully. There must be in the universe a thrust toward higher and
more-complex forms. '

such is the distortion of science that religion leads to. what is a
'thrust'? what is a 'higher' form? no biologist i've known has ever
mentioned a 'higher' form of life yet dulles takes it as a given,
along with his ideas of 'thrust' and 'aspirations'.

he says:

'The Georgetown professor John F. Haught, in a recent defense of the
same point of view, notes that natural science achieves exact results
by restricting itself to measurable phenomena, ignoring deeper
questions about meaning and purpose. By its method, it filters out
subjectivity, feeling, and striving, all of which are essential to a
full theory of cognition. Materialistic Darwinism is incapable of
explaining why the universe gives rise to subjectivity, feeling, and
striving. '

again, the cardinal is confused. while science is NOT emotional, that
does NOT mean it CAN"T explain emotion in terms of darwinian natural
selection. dulles likes this argument because, it seems, it allows him
to re-insert the failed idea of religion into science

again...if religion were SO essential to science, religion would still
BE science as it once thought it was. dulles can't recognize a failure
when he sees it.

the very core of dulles argument is summed up in his statement:

'Final causality is particularly important in the realm of living
organisms. The organs of the animal or human body are not intelligible
except in terms of their purpose or finality. The brain is not
intelligible without reference to the faculty of thinking that is its
purpose, nor is the eye intelligible without reference to the function
of seeing. '

there is simply no basis for this conclusion. YES we can discuss the
anatomy and physiology of the eye without EVER mentioning that is
'purpose' is to see. again, if purpose were SO important in nature, it
would not have been a failure for thousands of years.

dulles SHRIEKS that science is, in some sense, invalid because it does
not include HIS view of teleology. such an idea is ridiculous.

it's ridiculous because purpose can not be explained scientifically.

it's ridiculous because it's ALWAYS failed to explain nature.

science IS successful precisely BECAUSE it excludes purpose.

and the good cardinal thinks religion is the answer.

he says:

'The tendency of science, when it gains the upper hand, is to do
whatever lies within its capacity, without regard for moral
constraints'

i'm not sure if the good cardinal has noticed, but morality is the
provenance of RELIGION. if science 'does' evil it's because RELIGION
has failed, not science.

he says, in a classic outburst of paranoia:

'. Science, however, performs a disservice when it claims to be the
only valid form of knowledge, displacing the aesthetic, the
interpersonal, the philosophical, and the religious. '

'science' does no such thing. 'it' does not claim to be the ONLY form
of knowledge, or even to be a FORM of knowledge at all.

he completes his tirade against science by saying:

'The recent outburst of atheistic scientism is an ominous sign. If
unchecked, this arrogance could lead to a resumption of the senseless
warfare that raged in the nineteenth century, thus undermining the
harmony of different levels of knowledge that has been foundational to
our Western civilization. '

he seems to be unware that the longest period of warfare in the west
was precipitated by RELIGION; that the certainty of religion led both
to intellectual stupor and to massive oppression and slavery. he
mentions the 19th century w/o even SEEING the centuries of warfare
that preceded it, and those based on religion.

the cardinal's beliefs are a prime reason why religion is a threat to
knowledge, and why it extinguishes human civilization.






.

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