Posted on 08/25/2005 3:04:51 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
Bob Davidson is a scientist — a doctor, and for 28 years a nephrology professor at the University of Washington medical school.
He's also a devout Christian who believes we're here because of God. It was these twin devotions to science and religion that first attracted him to Seattle's Discovery Institute. That's the think tank that this summer has pushed "intelligent design" — a replacement theory for evolution — all the way to the lips of President Bush and into the national conversation.
Davidson says he was seeking a place where people "believe in a Creator and also believe in science.
"I thought it was refreshing," he says.
Not anymore. He's concluded the institute is an affront to both science and religion.
"When I joined I didn't think they were about bashing evolution. It's pseudo-science, at best ... What they're doing is instigating a conflict between science and religion."
I got Davidson's name off a list of 400 people with scientific degrees, provided by the Discovery Institute, who are said to doubt the "central tenets of Darwin's theory of evolution." Davidson, at 78 a UW professor emeritus, says he shouldn't be on the list because he believes "the scientific evidence for evolution is overwhelming."
He's only one scientist, one opinion in our ongoing debate about evolution and faith. But I bring you Davidson's views because I suspect he is a bellwether for the Discovery Institute and intelligent design, as more scientists learn about them. He was attracted to an institute that embraced both science and religion, yet he found its critique of existing science wrong and its new theory empty.
"I'm kind of embarrassed that I ever got involved with this," Davidson says.
He was shocked, he says, when he saw the Discovery Institute was calling evolution a "theory in crisis."
"It's laughable: There have been millions of experiments over more than a century that support evolution," he says. "There's always questions being asked about parts of the theory, as there are with any theory, but there's no real scientific controversy about it."
Davidson began to believe the institute is an "elaborate, clever marketing program" to tear down evolution for religious reasons. He read its writings on intelligent design — the notion that some of life is so complex it must have been designed — and found them lacking in scientific merit.
Then Davidson, who attends First Presbyterian Church in Bellevue, heard a sermon in which the pastor argued it's foolish to try to use science to understand God. Science is about measuring things, and God is immeasurable, the pastor said.
"It just clicked with me that this whole movement is wrongheaded on all counts," Davidson said. "It's a misuse of science, and a misuse of religion. "Why can't we just keep the two separate?"
That's a good question, especially coming from someone who believes strongly in both.
Darwin doubted Darwin in the particulars. He spent years fighting the assertion that natural selection was the only mechanism shaping change. He believed it was the most important, but not the only.
You're really on a roll in the 700-series posts. I'm going to ask the mods to find a way to extend it past 799.
You do realize, right, that the one scientist who stops and criticizes the DI is one of the "hundred or more" purported to be criticizing evolution. This is post worthy not because a scientist is criticizing the DI (I suspect that's so common that it wouldn't rate even a comment on a thousand-reply crevo thread), but rather that this shows that in at least this particular case, the idea that this scientists was really critical of evolution is dishonest. It throws further doubt on the honesty of the claim that the rest of the "hundred or more" scientists who criticize evolution actually do so.
Ah ha! You noticed I don't post in the 800's. Hmmm.... What to think, what to think... LOL!
You have misstated the Catholic position on evolution. The actual position is that the physical human body arose via evolution, while the SOUL was put into place directly by God. Obviously, science can say nothing about souls, so this position is completely consistent with the theory of evolution, which can only speak to the origin of the physical body.
Again, leaving aside the "day" disagreements (on which you and I differ, and regarding which I suspect you are as familiar with my arguments as I am with yours), this argument concerning the introduction of sin and death through Adam, with the corollary of the non-existence of physical death prior to Adam's sin, seems to have become a mainstay in Biblical objections to evolution.
As I am sure you know, the meaning of death in this context has a rather long and contentious history. I don't think Paul intended to confer the notion of biological death in Romans 5:15 and 8:21-23. While a consensus developed early on in the Catholic Church that biological death was indeed the inference to be drawn, I tend to believe that Paul's words must be construed in the context of Genesis itself (and, as you know, in the context of physical reality as well).
The apocryphal message in Genesis 2:16-17 includes the admonition from God to Adam that "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Of course, Adam ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (a metaphoric "tree" if there ever was one), and Adam did not die on the day he did so. Indeed, by the Genesis account he lived another 900 plus years, rather successfully reproducing during that time.
Was God speaking about immediate physical or biological death in Genesis 2:17? Was God making a veiled threat that man will start to slowly deteriorate towards biological death? Or was God speaking of a spiritual death as a consequence of unchecked hubris by way of the knowledge of good and evil?
Furthermore, did God intend to create the intrinsically contradictory circumstance of instructed, prodigious reproduction without biological death, and thereby create an unsustainable population growth? Nowhere in the Bible is this dilemma addressed, and nowhere is there an indication that God intended life to multiply only to a certain point, and no further.
There are other interpretative arguments as well, of course, but with the "Adam's sin introduced biological death" argument, you are left here with an apparently false warning from God (you'll die the day you eat) and an absurdity resulting from an inexplicable error on the part of God in failing to balance physical life and physical death.
"But again, I go back to the original argument. Why can the resurrection be accepted as a miracle among theistic evolutionists, but not creation? Why do I have to explain scientifically how God created the universe, but not scientifically how God resurrected Jesus Christ? Why does this distinction exist?"
And I go back to my contention that this is a false dichotomy. Do you believe that thunder, sunrises, grass growing, etc. are examples of miracles? If not, how do you possibly view the resurrection as a miracle?
Natural explanations of events need not be ignored, and I see nothing in the Bible requiring me to view biological diversification and speciation as categorically miraculous (although I do view them as miraculous in a more generic sense of the word). I view the resurrection quite differently, as do you.
Thanks. The atronomical theories seem to me to be most persuasive. I must say that likde the celestrial spheres what we can be most sure of is the model. The stuff they find on the ground simply confirms its reality. Good old geometry. Tip of the hat to Plato!
You are most welcome. :-)
Get crackin' posting, then. Eight hundred will be here before you know it. Especially given the time frames you use.
What do you expect them to do? Ignore the facts they don't agree with? That's not science.
Science is facts-and-theories. Facts alone have limited use and lack meaning. A valid theory organizes them into far greater usefulness.
A powerful theory not only embraces old facts and newly discovered facts, but also discloses unsuspected facts (i.e., allows predictions).
When new facts contradict parts of a theory, or when predictions are found to be inaccurate, the theory needs to be modified, or in extreme cases, discarded. That's basic science. I don't know why some people have a problem accepting this, as it is fundamental to how scientists work.
Thanks. I needed something positive.
For years I've had dreams where I was late to a final exam, but couldn't find the classroom, because I hadn't attended any of the classes. No relationship at all to reality, mind you.
This morning I got my grades.
Bummer.
If Adam hadn't sinned, presumably there would be no death, correct? So if God's original plan was to have a world without death, and He commanded Adam and Eve to "be fruitful and multiply" (implying that humans were to reproduce, and that Adam and Eve were not meant to inhabit the earth alone.), where would all the people have lived if Adam and Eve hadn't sinned? Do a bit of math and you'll see that they could not have all lived on earth.
To wit, presuming that the creation occurred 10000 years ago and that the birth rate would be just a bit over 2%, and the death rate would of course be zero, the population of the earth would double every 30 years. After 10000 years the initial population of 2 would have grown to 2 x 10^100 people! Assuming the average weight of a human is 50 kg, they would weigh approximately 10^102 kg. The earth weighs only 6 x 10^27 kg, so this weight is approximately 10^74 times the weight of the earth. In fact, I haven't done the calculations, but I would strongly suggest that the weight of all these people would long ago have caused the gravitational collapse of the solar system into a black hole. Further, this ignores species other than humans. Inclusion of other species only makes the problem worse.
So again, where were all these people supposed to have lived? Even granting the possibility of other inhabited planets in the universe and the means to transport surplus population to them, there simply aren't enough possible planets to provide homes for all these people. Further, my calculations just represent the situation NOW. For any particular time in the future the problem grows progressively worse.
I think you are forgetting that only the right people are allowed to take these stories literally. they are the only ones who know exactly where they are literal and where they are metaphorical.
Just found this. Have to go down a bit, but I like this use of the word "snapshot." "Snapshots" of the presidency of George Washington sometimes do and sometimes don't allow us to predict the events of George Bush's presidency. But we can be sure that the stapshots are useful in themselves. Just be sure you write on the back before you die! ;-)
You missed several really good 7000 post threads.
Maybe it's not contradictory because Christ was not just a man. Science has nothing to say about the behavior of sons of God after their deaths.
Darwin Central really needs a good backup generator and underground cables for internet access.
Change the reply numbering system to hexidecimal (starting with #700)?
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