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Back Into The Evolutionary Fray

Apparently unchastened by the last skirmish on the subject, and inspired by the latest hominid discovery in Chad, Susanna Cornett has reopened the ID versus evolution debate.

I don't have time or inclination to weigh in this time, but fortunately, Razib K. and Charles Murtaugh have done so, probably better than I could hope to.

To me, though the money quote is the last one in Charles' piece, that should give proponents of ID pause:

"bad arguments for God?s existence do more harm than good, since they give unbelievers an occasion to laugh."
Posted by Rand Simberg at August 09, 2002 11:07 AM
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hmm. the post on gene expression was by me-not godless capitaist

:)

Posted by razib at August 9, 2002 11:42 AM

Sorry about that. I was looking at the current top post, and got confused. I've fixed the attribution.

Posted by Rand Simberg at August 9, 2002 11:54 AM

Razib K. and Charles Murtaugh are, in a round about way, arguing the "nature is a closed system" concept. Which automatically rules out anything other than a natural answer as non-scientific. Yet science is always pondering Intelligent Design in areas not so "sensitive" in the theology arena.

Geologists have no problem considering Intelligent Design when investigating the Bimini Road. Science has no trouble considering Intelligent Design behind the Shroud of Turin, or is the Shroud the result of a natural process?

It is only when Intelligent Design might be construed as God, does it suddenly become ridiculed as "non-scientific."

Posted by Fredrick Irving at August 9, 2002 06:46 PM

Yes. That's because God has special attributes.

Science cannot say that God doesn't exist, or even that God didn't do it, just the way creationists say. For that very reason, God is beyond the reach of science, and any theories that involve Him (or Her or It) are unscientific, by definition.

Science is not about truth in any absolute sense. It is about understanding the world, based on the premises of science and logic.

If you don't share those premises, you're entitled to teach whatever creation theory you want. But you can't call them "science."

Posted by Rand Simberg at August 9, 2002 07:09 PM

If you regard fraud as a natural process than yes, the Shroud of Turin is the result of natural process.

It doesn't matter if you tart up God and give it a more syllable laden lable, it works out to the same problem of an entity that magically exists outside the observable universe yet influences it.

Posted by Eric Pobirs at August 10, 2002 03:17 AM

Sorry, the point may have been missed here. I'm not saying that the Shroud is a natural process. I'm saying that a scientific inquiry raises the possibility that the Shroud is of Intelligent Design (i.e. intelligent "human" design). To say that any investigation that considers a non-natural process is non-scientific "by definition" rules out forensics as a science.

Check Out, Disciplined Minds: A critical look at salaried professionals and the soul-battering system that shapes their lives, by Jeff Schmidt, published by Rowman & Littlefield, Inc.

An interesting take on why Science Professionals are not as objective as they purport to be. Shoemaker was ridiculed for years for suggesting that Earth had been bombarded by space rocks.

If I theorize that the Bimini Road was of "human" design, is that non-scientific because it's not a natural process? Is an investigation into how the Pyramids were built non-scientific?

If someone suggests that Terran life is the result of an alien lab experiment run-amuck, does that make it slightly more "scientific" because science is about understanding how the universe works "without God?" I thought science was about evaluating the evidence wherever it may lead.

Evidence:

* A strain of e.coli bacteria was produced that lacked the enzyme needed to metabolize the milk sugar lactose, which is their normal food supply. Two particular mutations occurring together will create an alternate mechanism. The calculated chance of this variation coming about through random mutation under the conditions of the experiment described was about once in a hundred thousand years. Nevertheless, 40 instances were found within a few days. -- Lee Spetner's Not By Chance!

To not believe in Evolution is NOT to believe in God. The dogmatic run away from God has blinded may scientists (since science is only non-God) into elevating Evolution higher in consideration than it deserves based on the evidence.

Posted by Fredrick Irving at August 10, 2002 05:30 AM

It seems contradictory, to me, to argue that God is simultaneously outside the natural universe and constantly interacting with it. But a Supreme Being could do both, I suppose. The question is, could we possibly recognize one if it existed, since it would by definition be outside our understanding?

It's inconsistent to accept the physical laws of the universe and then say "they don't always apply because God keeps fiddling with them." You thus have both sides of the argument - anything we can see and verify is acceptable as real, and anything we cannot see or verify is also acceptable. It would seem to me that the only reasonable argument would be that God, if existing, is outside the universe He created and therefore does not physically manifest Himself in it. Arguing otherwise requires that both the natural and supernatural coexist, which essentially denies the basis of all science as we understand it.

Or in simpler terms, dividing the universe into things we know and things we do not does not mean the things we do not know are magical.

Posted by Stephen Skubinna at August 10, 2002 03:04 PM

As a deist, I have my doubts about a personal God, but there is at least one way for prayers to be answered and for God to intervene in the Universe without breaking natural law. That is, through the agency of human minds. We get our inspiration and creative ideas from somewhere, and it's a process we don't understand. Nor do I believe that its a strictly Skinnerian-like behavioral process that's completely determined. What the implications of this are for the free will / determinism debate, however, I'm not entirely sure.

The quantum physics underlying the Universe isn't fully deterministic, and thanks to chaos theory we have a plausible mechanism for lots of small variations at one scale to behave nonlinearly as they interact at larger scales (the "butterfly effect"). If we posit a personal God that cares about us as moral actors, it's not too hard to believe that God's intervention is through us when we are open to and heed that "still, small voice" of conscience that nudges us towards altruism and the Good. We can still reject that message (assuming free will), and by so doing we reject God.

While this is all rather far afield from evolution, I don't think a personal God is completely outside the realm of possibility. I just don't happen to find it persuasive, unless humanity has a grander role to play in the Universe than one can assume scientifically.

Posted by Ken Barnes at August 10, 2002 07:33 PM

>> The calculated chance of this variation coming about through random mutation under the conditions of the experiment described was about once in a hundred thousand years. Nevertheless, 40 instances were found within a few days.

Why isn't this evidence that the calculations were in error, especially if it's repeatable?

Posted by Andy Freeman at August 11, 2002 04:39 PM

It is.

To paraphrase a guy I work with:

"If the covariance says it's a ten-sigma event, you don't know what sigma is."

In other words, something is going on that you have neglected to account for.

Posted by David Perron at August 13, 2002 04:49 AM

That's the point.

Sigma = Evolution

Posted by Fredrick Irving at August 13, 2002 11:57 AM

So far, you haven't really proven anything other than there's something in the process we don't understand. Your comments to the effect that abiogenesis is a foregone conclusion are unsupported by anything I've read. Please point me to something supporting that.

The idea that there are processes not explained by the theory of evolution, in itself, does not negate the theory of evolution. The whole Shroud of Turin bit is just a red herring, IMO. First, understanding of a process must occur. Only then can you evaluate that process to see if it's consistent with theory.

Posted by David Perron at August 13, 2002 01:34 PM

Hello David,

I'm not sure which thread we shoud continue this discussion on?

We may have a misunderstanding of biogenesis & abiogenesis. Is it at my end? I thought abiogenesis was the concept of spontaneous generation.

Of course I haven't negated Evolution. As I said, that's not my point. The point is to raise a caution flag to those who proclaim that evolution is "proven," or "perfect," or "the only answer that should be considered."

The Shroud thing is for those who IMO wish to avoid a point by point examination of evidence independent of the down-the-line implications of the theory. I could pick anything (re: Bimini Road, Stonehenge), but I think using the Shroud can get people to examine how much their own religious biases (for/against) impact their position on the evidence.

Evaluate the evidence first, philosophize the meaning second.

Posted by Fredrick Irving at August 13, 2002 01:46 PM

Frederick:

And my point is, that evolution is a theory, not a natural law. I'm fairly confident that any scientist worth his diploma would stop you when you started discussing whether the theory of evolution has been proven.

Posted by David Perron at August 13, 2002 01:52 PM


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