Darwin's Pope

Harvard Divinity Bulletin ^ | Fall, 2005 | Kenneth Miller

[Mrs. Don-o]

I go back and forth. I read Darwin's Black Box (Michael Behe) and was impressed with that; I read Darwin's God (Kenneth Miller's counter-volley) and was impressed with THAT; then I read Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe (Dembski, Behe, and Meyer) and was swayed back again.

You'll notice a certain oscillation going on here.

A big contributory factor must be that I just don't have enough knowledge to place competing claims in context.

Miller is correct in saying that the Catholic Church does not have any dogmas disputing strictly scientific claims (and, pace Galileo, it never did); but the Church does reject the closed philosophical materialism, acknowledged or unacknowledged, which underlies the pronouncements of some scientists in the origins field.

On the other hand, if design is not only empirically detectable, but actually detected, that doesn't necessarily have the theological implications claimed for it. I suppose that if we're not the only technologically advanced civilization in this part of the galaxy, there's always LGM's to consider!

It does not preserve the integrity of scientific knowledge to ignore empirical evidence of design. Nor does it preserve the integrity of theological knowledge to ignore the contingency and the adequacy of secondary causes.

Parse that, earthlings.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Interesting that Miller and Behe, well-matched rivals that they are, are both practicing Catholics.

[Varda]

I haven't read this book. Previously, design proponents have argued that if something was complex, improbable and unexplained that it was probably intelligently designed. Have they come up with a newer argument?

Also, It seems to me that you can't detect intelligent design without having some method of detecting what's not intelligently designed (that's how archaeologists do it). IDers seem to argue that what science can demonstrate is ipso facto not intelligent design.

"the Church does reject the closed philosophical materialism, acknowledged or unacknowledged, which underlies the pronouncements of some scientists in the origins field."

This is true but whenever scientists make such pronouncements they are not doing science. When they do science they don't make these pronouncements. I think the Church is doing a tremendous service to science by calling out the philosophical materialists who are attempting to claim science for atheism.

[Varda]

The book I haven't read, Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe.

[Vicomte13]

Excellent post.

From my perspective, there's some language parsing going on between two camps that amounts to arguing about angels dancing on the head of a pin.

I am going to intentionally use different language than either one of them use to make the point.

The intelligent design enthusiasts say that all life was built to a blueprint, with God as the architect.

The hard-core atheistic evolutionist enthusiasts say that all life was not "built" at all, in that there was no builder. Rather, particles were blown along by pure chance, combining and recombining, certain chance permutations were more durable, and they prevailed. Blind, random nature - chance - luck - probability - the thing that drives entropy - that is the source of blind evolution, which is the source of life and nothing else.

My own view is that the latter is the case, but that luck is not COMPLETELY blind: God set His creation spinning according to his immutable laws, BUT he continues to act universally on His creation in the interstices of probability. Where things are not determinate, where random outcomes are possible, God allows many outcomes, but DETERMINES some of them based on what He wants. He can break His own laws, of course, but He likes those laws: after all, He made them. So, he creates what He wants within the cadre of the rules he set, by determining the outcome of entropic happenstances, sometimes.

[As an aside, in general, theologists and scientists really don't like it when you step outside of their preferred terms and start using other ones. Control the language, and you control the debate. And that is precisely why I have used my own terms, and not theirs, to describe what they each say.]

[MHalblaub]

"What has this to do with the article posted above? The author is a Christian with no less faith in God than you."

and what got the cartoon to do with the article?

[RichardMoore]

Without cilia how did a paramecium exist? Did it evolve from a one cell organism that had no cilia?

If Science cannot comment upon the existence of God or admit that there is the design of an intelligent being behind the universe then how can the universe be studied? Why should it be intelligible at all?

I cannot convince you of the existence of God any more then you can convince me that the evolution of man has actually happened in so much as they are both beliefs which rest on faith. But.... we both can point to evidence of their respective realities. If you think that Intelligent Design is unmeasurable and a purely philosophical/religious concept I can only offer that the counter proposal of randomness and accidental existence is unmeasurable as well.

But that which we can measure is by our nature limited and distorted. If we limit ourselves to what we can measure then we will left with the mistaken impression that the world is flat and the stars are all there is.

[curiosity]

Without cilia how did a paramecium exist? Did it evolve from a one cell organism that had no cilia?

Most likely, but I'm not an expert on cilia. I'm sure if you google "evolution of the cilium" you'll find some articles about how it happened.

I cannot convince you of the existence of God

You don't have to, because I believe in God.

any more then you can convince me that the evolution of man has actually happened in so much as they are both beliefs which rest on faith.

Sorry, but the truth of evolution is established by looking at the evidence. Faith has nothing to do with it.

If you think that Intelligent Design is unmeasurable and a purely philosophical/religious concept I can only offer that the counter proposal of randomness and accidental existence is unmeasurable as well.

First of all, randomness is easily observable and measurable. If you want to observe it, go to Vegas. As far as measurement is concerned, there's a whole branch of mathematics devoted to measuring and quantifying randmoness: it's called probability theory.

Second of all, "accidental existence" has nothing to do with thoery of biological evolution.

But that which we can measure is by our nature limited and distorted.

True, but science provides a means for correcting for the distortions and expanding the scope of the measurable.

If we limit ourselves to what we can measure then we will left with the mistaken impression that the world is flat and the stars are all there is.

Nonsense. It was their ability to measure distance and inclination that made the ancient Greeks realize the Earth is round.