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Mark P. Shea is a popular Catholic writer and speaker. The author of numerous books, his most recent work is The Work of Mercy (Servant) and The Heart of Catholic Prayer (Our Sunday Visitor). Mark contributes numerous articles to many magazines, including his popular column "Connecting the Dots" for the National Catholic Register. Mark is known nationally for his one minute "Words of Encouragement" on Catholic radio. He also maintains the Catholic and Enjoying It blog. He lives in Washington state with his wife, Janet, and their four sons.
Last time, we noted the surprising fact that Thomist fans of the Argument from Design and partisans of Intelligent Design don't see eye to eye. This confuses many people, who ask the very reasonable question, "What's wrong with noticing, as Intelligent Design fans do, that a cell is incredibly complex and fine-tuned (compared to, say, a rock) and that if you can't account for this specialized complexity of a cell by natural means, you should suppose it's due to supernatural intervention in the normal course of nature? How is that any different from what St. Thomas Aquinas has to say?"
Actually, there are several problems with that approach, though not with the basic instinct of intuiting a Designer.
The first is this: St. Thomas himself never says "We can't explain X, so God did it", and for good reason. The problem with "God of the Gaps" arguments ("I don't know how this thing works or originated, so God must make it work by a direct miracle") is that we are constantly filling in the gaps. A few hundred years ago, people could have said, "If there's no God, then explain lightning!" Then somebody explained that lightning was a big static electricity discharge. A little after, they might have said, "If there's no God, then explain magnetism, or immunity from disease, or where babies come from!" Now we know how these processes work pretty well. People who thought such arguments were bulletproof often lost their faith when those arguments fell apart.
That's why St. Thomas never relied on them. It's also why he was never bothered when the sciences found (as it is the job of science to do) natural explanations for natural processes. Thomas (much to the surprise of moderns) never appealed to things like miracles or the inexplicable to demonstrate the existence of God. And that's where he differs from Intelligent Design arguments.
Intelligent Design arguments look at the radical difference between living organisms and non-living matter and say, "There has to be a supernatural explanation for these radical exceptions to the Rules of how matter normally behaves." But this is another God of the Gaps argument, and one whose holes have, in great measure, been filled in by Catholics themselves.
(Fun fact: Two of the most important figures in the sciences who contribute to our understanding of both the evolution of the universe and of life on earth were Catholic.
Gregor Mendel, the guy who basically invented the science of genetics, was a 19th century Augustinian monk pottering about in the garden and noticing how cross-breeding different flowers led to change in the coloration of subsequent generations. The science of genetics (which gives us a mechanism of mutation) is hugely important in describing the process of evolution.
Monsignor Georges Lemaître was a 20th century physicist who looked at the evidence that everything in the universe was moving away from everything else and realized that if you ran the film backwards you eventually wound up with all of time, space, matter and energy crammed into a single "primeval atom" as he called it. Run it forward and you have what is now commonly referred to as the "Big Bang". Interestingly, that name was originally used as a sneer at Lemaître's theory since, as the product of the mind of a Catholic priest, it appeared to atheist materialists that his theory gave entirely too much aid and comfort to the idea that the universe had a beginning in time (as revelation had always said) and was therefore trying to smuggle You Know Who into cosmology. Many scientists clung to a Steady State theory with an eternal universe because it kept that uncomfortably biblical picture of a universe with a Beginning at bay. Wish fulfillment fantasies aren't something only religious believers can fall for.)
So what did St. Thomas do? He appealed, not to exceptions to the Rules, but to the fact that there were any Rules at all. His Argument from Design is not that living systems are amazing exceptions to a lawless and chaotic world, but that the world is not lawless and chaotic. A complex living thing is not a proof of creation while an uncomplex rock is not. Rather, the rock and the living thing and everything else in creation bears witness to its Designer and Maker by the fact that it exists, it is obedient to the Rules, and it is intelligible to the three pound piece of meat behind our eyeballs. It is this lawfulness of all of nature, not the exceptions to the laws, that impresses St. Thomas. It is from this that he infers Design, just as we infer design when an arrow (that is not itself intelligent) keeps finding its mark or a goose (also not too brainy) keeps finding its migratory nesting ground every year. And it is this consistent lawfulness of nature that makes things like science possible at all. If there were no consistent laws governing time, space, matter, and energy, there could be no science to discover what those laws are and make use of them to create the technology we enjoy. So the irony is that those who keep appealing to "science and reason" in opposition to God are, without realizing it, bearing witness to St. Thomas' point that nature is lawful--and therefore the creation of a God who not merely exists, but who is an orderly Legislator. And this is why, as we shall see next time, the best fig leaf atheist materialists have for their philosophy--evolutionary science--no more disproves the existence of God than the science of hydraulicss, nuclear power, or optics does. Of which more next time.
"Anything is possible but there is no evidence that natural processes can create even the simplest systems let alone the incredible systems necessary even for the most primitive cell."
What are you talking about? Every system, every observable iota in the universe is by definition the effect or cause of a natural process.Talk about blotting the sun with one finger..!
As Dobshansky mused evolution is God's or Nature's method of creation.
ID, apparently like many of the materialist atheists, assumes that the "forms" of life are not intrinsically "built into" the laws of nature.
Not true. I do not know where you got this idea. Most ID people I know and I know a lot of them through discussions would accept this as a possibility. But given that the laws of chemistry and probability do not seem to support this, it is not rejected but assigned an incredibly low probability as possible. Anything is possible but there is no evidence that natural processes can create even the simplest systems let alone the incredible systems necessary even for the most primitive cell.
The ID person would say that if the laws of nature were designed to do this then this is how it was done. But there has never been one instance where anyone can point to where this happened a second time let alone that it was built into the natural laws. Why was it built into the laws of nature to happen just once. Seems an absurd position. But if the first cell was somehow guided by God, then that is the same as an ID position. This objection lacks internal consistency which I think St. Thomas would reject. So I would look elsewhere for an objection to ID.
I think this question exposes the heart of the Thomistic rejection of ID
I am not very knowledgeable let alone an expert on Thomistic reasoning or thought. But I have seen people use Thomistic thought as a validation of ID. I fail to see how it applies either for or against. Especially the inappropriate use of the "God of the Gaps" argument which is a complete non-sequitur. No one is saying that it could not have happened by a naturalistic process, only that if it did it seems to violate all physical processes that we know about. And the more we learn about these physical processes, the more unlikely it seems. In other words the more we investigate, the more unlikely the process becomes.
It seems the more inflexibility exists with those who oppose ID or denigrate them. They tend to distort the position and to have faith in some unknown process and reject out of hand a likely process. It is not the same thing as LaPlace saying to Napoleon, "I have no need for that hypothesis." Which became a corner stone of modern atheism. So while you have no need for the hypothesis of God's participation past the universe, the atheist goes back a step and says there is no need there either.
Except LaPlace was talking about what has become well known since, and has played out in modern particle physics, cosmology and astrophysics and known as the standard model. However, for life they are at a dead end and there is no hypothesis that can explain it. M. LaPlace would be stuck. Life doesn't follow the standard model. It is LaGrange's quip that may be the appropriate one, "Ah, it is a fine hypothesis; it explains many things."
You position is in sync with the atheist's position which a very high percentage of the young have adopted. Darwin has swung them over. They might buy the universe scenario but once they have heard the gospel of Darwin, they have no need for the other hypothesis since life is so simply explained. But the lie is that it is not and Darwin is nonsense.
Your example of hydrogen and oxygen forming a water molecular is like saying that if one found a brick and then saying that this explains how the Pentagon was built. Given enough time and circumstances, all these bricks would appear at the proper place and assemble into the Pentagon. Possible Yes. But how likely?
If you are going to criticize ID, don't you philosophy, especially Thomistic philosophy. It is inappropriate.
Side comment. If you agree that there is no known biological process that can explain life or the increasing complexity of life since the first cell appeared, then I assume you would support that any reference to such a process in textbooks or lectures is inappropriate and should be removed. Specifically to be consistent, you should support the removal of Darwinian processes from biology textbooks as an unfounded scientific explanation.
How did the FIRST bio-chemical pathway come into existence?
I think this question exposes the heart of the Thomistic rejection of ID. ID, apparently like many of the materialist atheists, assumes that the "forms" of life are not intrinsically "built into" the laws of nature. Therefore, all they can see is the colossal improbability of undirected matter crashing into itself and forming a replicating unit.
But this is almost certainly not what's going on, even if the evolutionists are right about the fact of evolution, from abiogenesis to the full tree of life. As an example, consider two hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom, floating around (for the moment) separately. These do not, by some fantastic coincidence, "happen" to come together in the bent-V shape that enables water to take on all those unique properties. That shape and all water's properties are built into the nature of oxygen and hydrogen themselves. That shape is still "there", in a sense, even when the atoms themselves are separated, just like a photo of your family, stored on your hard drive, is still there, encoded in the ones and zeroes, even when your computer is turned off and the screen is dark.
I don't think it was simply a fantastic coincidence that the right chemicals came together to form a replicating cell. That possibility (maybe even inevitability) is "coded" in the laws of nature. When these chemicals came together to form a replicating cell, they were just following the built-in natural pathways to the end.
"The ID people rely on the fact that Darwinists currently don't have mechanisms that completely account for common descent to make the argument that "intelligent design" is thereby the best alternative."
The fact that evolution can not explain anything means that it should should be thrown out. We don't still believe that the sun revolved around the earth anymore.
Intelligent design is very appropriate description of the super complexity of life. It is a no brainer.
The ID people rely on the fact that Darwinists currently don't have mechanisms that completely account for common descent to make the argument that "intelligent design" is thereby the best alternative.
Properly understood, your statement is correct. But there are notable IDists who do accept common descent, viz., Michael Behe. I personally don't accept it since I can't accept that intelligent design can be simulated via random processes (yes, though, through a 'filter'; i.e., NS)
That only works if you know that currently proposed bio-chemical pathways are the only options. But you don't know this. Let me repeat myself: you don't know this.
Answer this question please: How did the FIRST bio-chemical pathway come into existence? If you can't answer this question, then you can't answer the question as to how an 'alternative' bio-chemical pathway arose.
By all means, if an ID advocate wants to set up shop as a critic of any current biological theory, then let him do that. But how he can jump to the conclusion that he has thereby proved that the laws of Nature do not in se entail life is beyond me.
Michael Denton, one of the earliest Darwinian critics, wrote a book entitled, "Nature's Destiny." He believes everything necessary for life and its evolution was already present from the beginning. But, of course, he would still see this as a work of great intelligence.
But, how can you demand that it be proved that "the laws of Nature do not 'in se' entail life," is beyond me. Look at our solar system. Where do you see life—-except on earth? It seems to me that someone who wants to say that the laws of nature are intrinsically ordered towards the appearance of life are the ones who need to provide a mountain of proof.
Another long screed by me that seemingly met with a technical problem. Or is it on your next blog?
I think the part you left out in your reply was "I'm sorry for being such a rude guest in your comboxes by instantly accusing you and calling you names instead of assuming it was a technical problem, as it, in fact was. Next time I will try to be more charitable."
You're forgiven. Oh, and it's "ad hominem".
I tried to send two posts addressing and deriding materialists' folly, Mark, and was told, mistakenly, that I had incorrectly copied the gizmeter attesting that I was a person and not a spam-machine.
The two posts immediately following them, to which you refer, were posted without a problem.
"If the facts don't support them then they resort to ad hominins."
Hay Stoopid… I'm not the one who started it, duh!... but your conviction to stoopid is even more telling.
See: Pre-big-bang physics, dumbass, and then consider actually learning about that which you speak before you babble.
If the facts don't support them then they resort to ad hominins.
"Thought about fixing your lame thinking, but now I'll just let idiots remain…"
Like a true materialist. If the facts don't support them then they resort to ad hominins. But don't leave. Please try to understand the posts. The truth will set you free.
"trolls say the darnest things."
Thought about fixing your lame thinking, but now I'll just let idiots remain…
What are you talking about?
"Whoops, no physicist would claim that nature didn't exist before the big bang."
I guess Nasa has no physicts, and Albert Einstein wasn't a physicist either.
"How does WMAP data enable us to determine the age of the universe is 13.77 billion years, with an uncertainty of only 0.4%? The key to this is that by knowing the composition of matter and energy density in the universe, we can use Einstein's General Relativity to compute how fast the universe has been expanding in the past. With that information, we can turn the clock back and determine when the universe had zero size, according to Einstein."
trolls say the darnest things.
Now I don't know whether you're pusillanimous or magnanimous! Problems! problems!
"...no physicist would claim that nature didn't exist before the big bang."
It must be getting too late in the day for me to be able to grasp double negatives so I'm asking: Does this mean that the physicist in question was absent at the very moment his universe popped into being, or simply that he blinked and missed the event? (ha-ha!)
Pity you lost the argument so extravagantly, though…
You win, Mark. As I anticipated.
It must be supernatural since it happened before
nature was created.
Whoops, no physicist would claim that nature didn't exist before the big bang.
I saw Spitzer's video. I didn't want to go into that much detail on a side issue. Multiverse suffers from the infinite regress problem and should be rejected on the surface, unless your a desperate atheist. As Spitzer says, this is the best time to be a believer since the scientific evidence is in our overwhelmingly in our favour. I wholeheartedly agree with him. That is the reason I am pushing the science over Thomism. It is a much stronger argument.
I would go further and say that science has now shown evidence of the supernatural, the big bang. It must be supernatural since it happened before nature was created. An now that we have evidence of the supernatural we can determine its nature and describe other supernatural events, such as the creation of life from non-life. Therefore we can overcome the god of the gaps argument by showing the similarity between the creation of the universe and the creation of life. You have to be amazed at the author of Genesis that got so much right without a Ph.D. in science. Proof of divine inspiration I think (don't tell that to a theologian it will lower your grades).
Best to stick to science, which is showing that the cell was designed. Designed by what or whom is a question answered by the Catholic faith, for believes, it is God.
Hi Peter,
Actually, it is mathematically proven that either multiverses or string theories universes all had to have a beginning. (see http://www.magisreasonfaith.org/pdf/Magis_FactSheet.pdf) and read Robert Spitzer's "New Proofs for the Existence of God)
This basically means that since the sciences of physics can seek to explain only natural phenomena they are unable to explain the supernatural phenomena of the universe coming into being out of nothing.
JR, you are quite correct. I only want to deal with one of your topics, rapid evolution as shown in the fossil record. It amazes me that a 'scientist' can utter the words rapid evolution. Rapid evolution is a complete disproof of evolution, Darwinian, or otherwise. It is also a confirmation of the book of Genesis and an answer to the wimps that think that God would not have created a world with pain in it.
The problem with evolution is that it is controlled by biologists that are on the low end of the intelligence spectrum in the scientific community. I am sure you have heard Dawkins complain that there is too much mathematics coming into biology. He is complaining because a rigorous science would have to reject his theological theory of evolution.
If biologists were competent in mathematics they would understand how ridiculous their evolutionary claims are. The fossil record as you rightly point out does not show gradualism, but several periods of rapid creation of species. To show how ridiculous evolution is take the example of rolling a dice to getting a 6. According to mathematics it would take six attempts. (http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/42930/what-is-the-expected-value-of-the-number-of-die-rolls-necessary-to-get-a-specifi). The formula is given as EN(p) = 1/p, where p =1/6. Now this is pretty simple math so many people should be able to follow it, especially a scientist. Now to create the simplest functional protein takes thousands of chemicals in the correct sequence. But for a protein to function it needs to be in a cell, which takes a concerted effort of dna, rna, proteins, membrain, etc. So the number of individual parts is astronomical. But wait. A cell can not survive alone. It has to be in an ecosystem. The Cambrian explosion, shows a multitude of phyla, not just creatures, but groups of creatures, appear suddenly. You can see where I'm going. The amount of time required to create a life form randomly within a complex ecosystem is longer than the age of our universe many times over.
Therefore evolution is false, q.e.d.
But if evolution is false, that does not mean we can automatically say god did it. This argument, like Mike's argument that the laws of physics are subject to the God of the gaps argument. Some scientists say that there is a multiverse which randomly created our universe and the laws of physics. Therefore, like the explanation of God creating lightning faith can be destroyed. However there is a better argument than the laws of physics. The creation of the universe took infinite power and intelligence. There never will be proof of a multiverse and a multiverse implies we are the most intelligent creatures that ever could exist. The probability of a random creation of our fine tuned universe is as absurd as the claim of evolution and that we are the smartest creatures in existence. So given the universe was created by god and that only god could create with super intelligence, therefore god must have created life on earth on several occasions. So Genesis is correct. God has acted separately, not with everything designed within the initial cell. God is active in our lifes!
I apologize for this very long comment but it is hard to answer everything in a few words. It is a complicated topic.
Here are some additional answers to points raised about my comments.
The evidence of common descent in the fossil record
What evidence? There is no record of gradual change in the fossil record. There is certainly change but new forms appear suddenly not in slow changes. Darwin predicted gradual change. Here is what Stephen Gould, probably one of the most famous paleontologists in history said.
<blockquote>Many evolutionists view strict continuity between micro- and macroevolution as an essential ingredient of Darwinism and a necessary corollary of natural selection. Yet, as I argue in essay 17, Thomas Henry Huxley divided the two issues of natural selection and gradualism and warned Darwin that his strict and unwarranted adherence to gradualism might undermine his entire system. The fossil record with its abrupt transitions offers no support for gradual change, and the principle of natural selection does not require it—selection can operate rapidly. Yet the unnecessary link that Darwin forged became a central tenet of the synthetic theory..
ID proponents don't necessarily disagree with natural selection. But natural selection, must have something of consequence to work on. Hugo DeVries, the botanist who developed the concept of a gene, said in 1904 his famous oft repeated observation, "natural selection may explain the survival of the fittest, but it cannot explain the arrival of the fittest." DeVries is also one of the first biologists to emphasize the effect of mutations.
Gould and his colleague Niles Eldredge, proposed a new theory to account for the lack of gradual change in the fossil record. It was called Punctuated Equilibrium. Punctuated, because new organisms seem to appear out of nowhere in the fossil record and Equilibrium or stasis, because the new species remained unchanged for sometimes as long as several million years. This would be fine if they were able to provide a rationale that explained how changes could happen rapidly by natural means. But they never did.
So change does not happen gradually and there is no mechanism to explain how it could happen quickly. There are several different research programs that are currently trying to find a way that changes could happen rapidly or even relatively quickly. So far none have had any success. The issue is the creation of new information which must happen if change is going to happen. This change in information is what is beyond the capability of naturalistic processes. All these research efforts are all extensively reviewed in Meyer's book which you said does not pass the smell test. More on Meyer later.
the Vitamin C pseudogene
You criticized my discussion of Vitamin C. You alluded to it as a pseudo gene. I provided three reasons why this is unimportant. First, the change in the gene is a degradation of a gene. It is not new information but lost information when what one should be looking for is how information is formed not how it disappeared. The whole evolution debate is about the appearance of new information and this example is one where just the opposite happens. It is a trivial example and that it was emphasized indicates that support for the theory is missing. Otherwise Miller and Coyle would be touting the support not the pseudo problems with ID.
Second, I brought up that the genomic sequence in question seemed to be conserved across species and within species. This could only happen if the sequence had a function and was prevented from mutating because it was being selected. Conserved genomic sequences indicate they are being selected for and have function. To make your point it would have to not matter and mutate. But I said it was too early to tell because it would be necessary to see if the genomic sequence was wide-spread across all humans and the other primates. So it will be some time in the future before one can say definitely that this is a pseudo gene without any function. And if it has a function, does that make it a good example for your proposition. Thousands of genomes from all over the world will have to be examined.
Third, even if this pseudo gene is a varied degraded remnant (meaning it has no function and mutates) and is only present in some primates including humans it does nothing more than say that they are somewhat related and that they may be descended from some other common ancestor. It does nothing to establish UCD. But this is a small cog in the whole evolution debate. It will show than humans and some primates are probably closely related. We are still left without a mechanism that leads to different species. How are new proteins formed and how are the sophisticated control systems formed that distinguish these so called closed relatives.
The use of the Vitamin C example while interesting illustrates how one uses a minor seemingly contradictory piece of evidence to prove one's point while evading the major questions that would undermine one's belief.
biogeography stands: you have not refuted them but merely thrown up ever more improbable speculative theories as to why they perhaps might not mean what they almost certainly do mean.
And what does biogeography almost certainly mean? How does biogeography establish any particular mechanism for evolution? My understanding of the use of this argument is that an intelligent designer would not make a species on this island and then go to a neighboring island and make a new species. It is an argument against how they conceive an intelligent designer would work, not in support of their theory. It is a theological argument not a scientific one.
I would be interested what proof does anyone have for anything specific on why species vary across island chains. I am accused of throwing out speculative theories but anything that anyone else proposes to explain changes in life forms from place to place or from time to time has never been shown to be valid. I am essentially saying it is a mystery and not proposing any specific theory because no theory has ever been able to explain the appearance on novel functional complexities. I do not appear to be the one who is proposing improbably speculative theories.
Let me give an example which I learned recently about some geographic distinctions. The 16 varieties of Darwin's finches on the Galapagos Islands which differ in morphology from each other and seem to vary by island are all one species. They all can inner breed. They are all part of the same gene pool and have been on the Galapagos for about 3 million years. They are not even an example of the ring species you brought up which by the way has nothing to do with the evolution debate. So I would refrain from using it as an example in the future. The evolution debate is about the formation of new information, not the lost of information which is what the ring species and the Vitamin C examples are about. Also as the Galapagos finches show, morphological differences are not the same as new species formation or the creation of new information.
Furthermore, I have not read Meyer's book, but I looked at the peer reviews - and by "peers" I mean devout Christian biologists - and they don't look good. This is not science that passes the smell test.
This is to be polite is not a relevant comment. Meyer has a degree in the Philosophy of Science from Cambridge which means he studied a lot of science while there. He has an undergraduate degree in geology which would have introduced him to paleontology especially since he worked as a petroleum engineer. Oil exploration is based on the study of rock strata for those era when fossil fuels were formed. So I would guess he was exposed to many of the paleontology concepts before heading off for his doctorate. His doctorate was on the origin of life so I guess he became quite familiar with biology and organic chemistry. Geology requires that one be well versed in inorganic chemistry in order to be knowledgeable about rock formation.
He has worked closely on past publications with two paleontologists. One who is an expert on the Cambrian fossils and another who is an expert on fossil classification. So I would read his book before passing on the smell test. You might then realize that it is the so called unbiased reviews that fail to pass the smell test. It is not good to pass judgment on someone without reading just what they say. His books are available as ebooks on Amazon for a relatively modest amount.
Again I recommend Michael Behe's The Edge of Evolution and Meyer's two books, The Signature in the Cell and Darwin's Doubt. Both of Meyer's books are incredible reviews of the two different topics, heavily footnoted with studies from the relevant literature. He has met the biologists and paleontologists on their own turf and no one has refuted him. Irrelevancies and ad hominems are the best they can do. In a way they are books for the ignorant public. The public including those with science degrees are often clueless on this topic having been misled by textbooks and popular books such as those by Dawkins and by well meaning do gooders who do not understand the issues. They are definitely books for those seeking the truth.
More interesting information on ugly-ducking, putative 'junk DNA', inimical to our atheist buddies Unintelligent Design fantasies.
I believe it's Cornelius Hunter's blog, accessible via the 'Other ID News' tab at Uncommon Descent.
Here are some additional answers to your points.
And the answer, it seems, according to the best science we have, is, "No."
I can cite chapter and verse that says just the opposite. There is no science that can support the natural origin of life (OOL). There is no science that can support the natural origin of complex information to drive the changes on life forms since the appearance of the first cell. Vast quantities of information in the cellular genome have appeared out of nowhere over time. Where did this biological information come from? Unless one can provide an explanation for this, all one is doing is making an assertion, one that not supported by any science known to man. As I said anything may be discovered in the future in terms of a scientific discovery but the science community is nowhere at the moment on these issues. This should be recognized by all.
A That some say there is a basis for these origins is dishonest. This is one of the main issues that the ID people are fighting against, the dishonesty of the science community on this issue. If you disagree, then I suggest you or others provide the evidence otherwise grudgingly admit the ID people are correct on this. I have read widely on this issue and have seen nothing to support your contention. The first one who does figure it out is guaranteed a Nobel prize.
you are as mistaken as the atheists if you think this non-naturalistic interference is the only way God "makes" life. God's directed power and intelligence is manifest in the laws of nature themselves. He doesn't have to "interfere" with nature. He's making her to be what she is right now, directed and intelligible
I don't have any problem with this except the evidence says otherwise. The evidence says that the first cell and then changes in life forms did not form as a result of any laws of nature. One can hypothesize that there are laws we do not know about and that could be true but it is wishful speculation at the moment. The first cell just appeared and subsequent changes in life also just appeared as out of nowhere. There were no gradual transitions.
No law of nature that we know, can explain this. There is however, one process that we witness every day that can explain this, namely an intelligent input. So you seem to have placed faith in an unexplained process and eliminated an obvious answer as untenable for some reason. This is an example where one's beliefs determine the science that is acceptable. In the future it could be true that science will discover new laws of nature but one should not disparage those who disagree with you based on one's wishful thinking. Especially when God has given us the tools and intelligent to understand His creation in other areas. Why there and not with life?
You branch off into speculation about this being the "best of all possible worlds." How could that judgment be threatened by evolution, when it's clearly not by sickness, sin, and common predation?
Yes, this is a diversion. It was just a related thought as to why the science appears like it is. This is the theodicy issue. I happen to think God did not create an inferior world? I choose to think that God did it right or the "best." We just might not know what is meant by "best." We have hints of this in scripture. I suggest the Book of Job. It is invaluable to this understanding about our inability to not understand the Mind of God (a mouthful). Maybe all these things that you mention are necessary for a "best" world. There have been libraries full of books written on this. It can make for some interesting discussions and maybe Mr. Shea might take it up.
More later tonight or tomorrow especially on Meyer's book. He has a Ph.D in the philosophy of Science from Cambridge and his book is straight science footnoted very carefully from the science literature. Please refrain from criticizing it till you have read it.
'You understand magnetism? Really? On what level?'
Pavel, that was from the first paragraph, which I quoted from Mark's article. My reply was the second paragraph. Somehow, the space between the paragraphs disappeared when I sent my post. I should think it was due to my pressing the wrong key or keys - or omitting to.
Let me answer your points. I will not touch the Thomistic explanation but deal with the science and evidence. I will let others decide on the philosophy.
would not consider evolution to be a purely "random" process.
What do you mean by this? I can think of two interpretations off hand. First, that evolution is mechanistic and everything that has happened since the origin of the universe has been determined by the initial conditions set up at the Big Bang. In that case are we as humans also just automatons or when did events start that were not determined by these initial conditions? I assume you do not mean this because that would mean life is meaningless and Catholicism and the events on which it is based are just the results of the laws of physics.
A second possible explanation is that somewhere along the way the laws of physics were over-ridden by some intelligence to nudge, influence, steer the elements in the universe to a new a way. If you mean it that way then then you are a believer in Intelligent Design. We as humans are everyday contravening the laws of nature as we go about our way. Pick up something that has fallen and one has just over-ridden the laws of nature unless one considers themselves as just a molecular machine driven by the laws of physics.
Maybe you have a third interpretation but in that case you must spell it out for discussion. If you should take a position that evolution just unfolded according to a plan then is that unfolding the result of the laws of physics. If it is then it should be amenable to analysis and understanding. Or did God specify this particular process for mystery or inability for comprehension when He seemed to make the rest of His creation so understandable. The reason I say this is that the origin of life and life's changes are inexplicable unless one considers an intelligent input. As I have said above, that could change but all the current evidence points to it being mathematically impossible. Certainly the ideas of Darwin do not come close to being an explanation. I hope you agree on that and the correct position on Darwin is that his ideas and the modifications that have flowed from his concepts are bad science at best and horrible philosophy at worse.
That would be an honest interpretation. So I hope you agree and will work to get his ideas out of the science textbooks.
Mark has quoted both St Thomas and St Augustine as arguing that causal powers exist in creation itself, and enable to earth to "bring forth living things." Created forms for things like oak trees, garlic, T-Rexes, and elephant seals all existed from the beginning of the universe, implicit in the structure and laws of the creation itself. Evolution is an "unrolling" of that complexity, but it is not the "creation" of that complexity. The complexity was always there, just not manifest in the same way.
Some in the ID community will argue this after the first cell had been created. Namely, that all the DNA and subsequent machinery for modification was created in the first cell and what unfolded from that point on was based on this creation. This implies that the first cell was not part of the original creation but made afterwards. I personally think this is untenable because there must have been some master cell and where did this cell go and when did it loose what was originally in it. Seems so implausible and not supported by any evidence except speculation.
This implies that there had to be a second act of creation after the universe, one that set forth all of life in an original life form. However, I assume from the above that you and Mark Shea seem to think this was in the boundary conditions set up at creation and that the first cell was a natural consequence of those initial conditions. Again see my very short explanation about Theistic Evolutionist on the other thread which has turned into a political discussion and not on evolution. The problem is that the science does not support this view point. I follow the science. I have never seen one Theistic Evolutionist that does. They nearly to a person support Darwinian processes and they are bad science.
I am going to stop here and continue with additional comments since this is long and the rest will be long to answer your points. As time comes up during the day I will answer the rest of your points. But before I go on, all these points that you make have been made before by others and I have never seen them withstand an honest discussion. Of course we can debate that interpretation.
Jon W
Surely, "random" is simply being used in the sense of "uncorrelated"?
Thus, the numbers stored on my cellphone constitute a random series - knowing the first 10 will not enable you to calculate the 11th. But this says nothing about the reason or purpose for compiling them
There's so much MISinformation by the author, there's no room to write of all of them.
The author writes "[A cell] is fine-tuned (compared to, say, a rock)"
?? Really? I nominate this for stupid statement of the Century.
"supernatural explanation for these radical exceptions to the Rules of how matter normally behaves."
Yes, Rules of how we Observe matter 'normally behaves' = nature. Supernatural = Super (Super meaning Beyond or Outside) of Nature's Observed and Known Laws.
Lightening? Scientists hardly had math and tools we have today to do physics 300 yrs ago. It is not that the processes for evolution have not been found, it is that our understanding of laws of physics - very mathematically defined (which is key) - won't allow it to happen nor has there been any observations that it could happen.
"science of genetics (which gives us a mechanism of mutation) is hugely important in describing the process of evolution."
Wrong, it does not Describe the PROCESS at all. That's why evolution is still a theory: never observed, failing tests for it. It's really a mere hypothesis.
There's so much more wrong in this article. Many other posts have covered quite a few of them well.
@JR Cosgrove:
I think we need to establish something right off. A properly Thomistic (that is, of the mainstream Western Catholic philosophical tradition) understanding of creation would not consider evolution to be a purely "random" process. Mark has quoted both St Thomas and St Augustine as arguing that causal powers exist in creation itself, and enable to earth to "bring forth living things." Created forms for things like oak trees, garlic, T-Rexes, and elephant seals all existed from the beginning of the universe, implicit in the structure and laws of the creation itself. Evolution is an "unrolling" of that complexity, but it is not the "creation" of that complexity. The complexity was always there, just not manifest in the same way.
You seem very exercised by the use atheists have made of evolution. Don't worry about it. Atheists have nothing to say that St Thomas didn't already deal with. Blowhards like Dawkins and his ilk talk a big talk, but they're a political phenomenon, not a scientific one.
Of course the Catholic God is an "interfering God". But the question isn't whether God does or can interfere at all. The question is, "Has he interfered at this spot, here?" And the answer, it seems, according to the best science we have, is, "No." Furthermore, you are as mistaken as the atheists if you think this non-naturalistic interference is the only way God "makes" life. God's directed power and intelligence is manifest in the laws of nature themselves. He doesn't have to "interfere" with nature. He's making her to be what she is right now, directed and intelligible.
You branch off into speculation about this being the "best of all possible worlds." How could that judgment be threatened by evolution, when it's clearly not by sickness, sin, and common predation?
As for your ID explanations and evidence. I recognize that I'm not a biologist and so not fully competent to answer all your objections, but I can tell you that they do not at all convince me. The evidence of common descent in the fossil record, the Vitamin C pseudogene, and biogeography stands: you have not refuted them but merely thrown up ever more improbable speculative theories as to why they perhaps might not mean what they almost certainly do mean. Furthermore, I have not read Meyer's book, but I looked at the peer reviews - and by "peers" I mean devout Christian biologists - and they don't look good. This is not science that passes the smell test.
ID is just plain not necessary. I don't have time now to go into it all - again - since I have to go to bed and I'll be gone this weekend, probably, but in order to convince me, the ID guys are going to have to:
(1) answer the Thomistic objections, which are cogent, and
(2) meet the biologists and paleontologists on their own turf and answer their objections, not perform for the relatively ignorant public in pop philosophy-of-science books, which is all Meyer's book is.
Cornelius Hunter also made a brief but pertinent comment on this article here:
JR Cosgrove,
Great posts, thanks for taking the time.
Another writer about evolution whose posts I enjoy because he not only deals with the evidence, but the logic and argumentation behind the conclusions, is Cornelius Hunter, here:
In general the more refined the breeding of dogs the less vigorous they are. They are less healthy and die sooner.
Refinement is the result usually of inbreeding - the founder effect.
Adaptive means it has to fit into the whole chain of being
One of strongest arguments against a Darwinist explanation for adaptation or evolution is that every organism is extremely limited in how much it can adapt. Every organism seems to have built in limits on how much it can change. That is because every organism needs to fit into an ecology and if it got too successful at how it changed it would destroy the ecology on which it depends.
Using Darwinian processes each organism would get bigger, faster, stronger, smarter, better senses, etc. But such a change in an organism or parts of the ecology would destroy the ecology as the more successful offspring would destroy the system on which it depends. Since all organisms except humans are not sentient to realize this, the only way they can survive is to be limited. So every organism is imperfect in many ways so that it can survive in its ecology. Maybe if humans had the eyes of a hawk or the speed of a cheetah, early humans would have destroyed its surroundings.
We have been lulled into thinking that infinite morphological change is possible through natural selection by observing artificial selection with animals such as dogs, farm animals and birds. But essentially all one has in the end after all this artificial selection is a different type of dog, bird, cow etc. And one that would not be produced in nature in a zillion years. This was Darwin's great rhetorical trick in the Origin of Species. He led everyone by these analogies into thinking anything was possible with deep time and natural selection. But it is nonsense. And the uninformed will fall for it easily.
Yes, all species must be able to fit in and adapt. From an old Dirty Harry movie, "a man's got to know his limitations." Every species has limitations. I wonder why. They seem to be designed that way.
And when people sneer that they could design a better eye, I think to myself - the eye doesn't have to be better, much less perfect - it has to be *adaptive." Adaptive means it has to fit into the whole chain of being, both the animate and inanimate worlds. It had better not be perfect, or it will not be able to fit in and adapt.
It's common descent that's so spectacular and well-established.
Is it? What do you mean by common descent? There are generally three uses.
1. similar species are descendant from a common ancestor species. This has some validity and you won't find many except the YEC's who will argue against it but the evidence for it beyond a few similar species is absent. People will use common genes to argue that common descent is operating but this begs the question as to what is the mechanism for generating a new species and new proteins. Someone could argue common design as well as common descent so one can not start with similar genome parts and argue common descent. It is one hypothesis and one needs to go elsewhere to support it. So far that has not happened except for some very limited examples. Not a big deal though.
2. all species are descendant from a single cell organism some time in the distant past. This is called universal common descent (UCD). And the organism that gave rise to all the descendant species is called the LUCA or last universal common ancestor. This is the proposition that Darwin put forth and is defended to death by the atheists and the TE's but the evidence for this is specious. The Cambrian Explosion leads to an opposite conclusion which is why Meyer's book is so detested and distorted by many.
Also there are problems with many of the organisms that appeared throughout the history of earth not just the Cambrian. There does not seem to be any evidence of a transitions between one species and another of very different characteristics. There is not even one good example of such a transition. There is the occasional fossil that seems to be between one organism type and another but if gradualism is to be accepted then there would have to be thousands if not more. Morphology changes often require substantial genomic changes and so far no one has a clue as to how the genome changes in this matter. Lots of speculation but nothing else. Also, the fossil record is a testament against UCD. New forms seem to pop into existence. New forms which would require large amounts of new genomic elements and their corresponding proteins.
3. all life is descendant from the first cell which formed from some type of chemical reaction. This the molecules to man scenario. I suggest you read Meyer's book, The Signature in the Cell, to understand the incredible odds of this happening through any known processes of nature.
One can always say that it hasn't been found yet. That is true but this is the materialists own "Process of the Gaps" type argument. It is not that the process has not been found, it is that our understanding of the standard model of physics won't allow it to happen nor has there been any observations of any possible natural events to indicate that it could happen. So given this analysis by science why should people demand that one believe it is so. Yes, it could have happened but all we know says it is incredibly unlikely but yet the curriculum tells us it must be so. That is what you are defending.
the Vitamin C gene
The Vitamin C gene is an interesting problem. There is a fundamental assumption in evolutionary biology, that if a genomic sequence is conserved it has function and is subject to natural selection. If the genomic sequence is in several species and it is conserved then it should have a function.
So how does this apply to Vitamin C which is supposed to be a pseudogene by Miller and Coyle. If they were honest they would have to admit that this genomic sequence should have a function and is being preserved. Actually, it is too early to tell just what function it may or may not have. If the same sequence shows up in every human and higher primate genome then that is very suspicious. Because if it had no function it would mutate into various different sequences. So essentially it is too early to tell what is happening here and we will need genomes from all over the world to determine how conserved it is. But if it is in every human, then this example falls apart. It the pseudogene varies a lot over humans in different parts of the planet, then it probably does not have function.
So this example has to be put on hold. But then if it is truly shown to be a pseudo gene, then all that does is say several organisms saw a devolution in their genome and they are probably related. It also was one that didn't affect survival that much. At last count there are 7 billion humans but much less of the other primates. It shows no more. Miller and Coyle are making theological arguments to argue that either God does not exist (Coyle) or that He is not involved in life at all (Miller). Both are non-sequiturs and require a knowledge of God which is contradictory to their proposition.
what you mean by "complex innovations"
There are probably millions of them. Any complicated structure or system within any organism that does not appear in other organisms. Some good ones that everybody can relate to are eyes, flight mechanisms, the avian respiratory system, four chambered heart, the brain, echo location etc. Essentially complicated systems of proteins and sub systems all working toward some function to keep the organism alive and which vary by species. The eukaryotic cell has tens of thousands of sub-systems. The human body has over 210 different cell types orchestrated by a highly complex system of regulatory mechanisms that boggle the mind for complexity. All these just happened by chance? Right?
Do you understand the transcription and translation sub system in the cell and how unbelievingly complex this process is. Try to envision how a ribosome could have arisen by random processes. By the way most of these innovations were present early in life's history. For example, all the eyes we have today poofed into existence during the Cambrian and the ribosome had to be there in the first cells.
my theology and philosophy no longer demanded outside Divine "interference", I no longer had any reason to doubt the biologists.
Well my theology demands outside Divine interference. Catholicism demands it. Every time one prays, they assume there is an interfering God. And then there is the Virgin Birth, Resurrection, Holy Spirit, grace and a lot more. Yes, the non interfering God.
I too once believed the biologists and it had no affect on my faith. I assumed Darwin was the settled science and it made no difference to me. But then I found out the scientists were lying through their teeth and suppressing any dissent that would contradict the atheist dogma. I had to ask why were they suppressing very logical arguments based on solid evidence and good science. So I took a different path in what I believe. I believe the evidence and don't try and fudge it to meet some pre-determined belief. Those who do are telling God how He should run His world. I tend to agree with Leibniz that this is the best of all possible worlds. We just do not know the Mind of God and know what "best" is nor will we ever in this world.
'So you think the physical sciences—the process whereby we measure and manipulate the metric properties of time, space, matter and energy—is *not* methodologically atheistic and that when a scientist gets stuck on a problem he should just shout, "Then a miracle occurs!"?'
No. That's what, mutatis mutandis, atheist 'scientists' proclaim. 'Evamolution done it.' And now that they're REALLY desperate, they've come up with the ultimate killer of all reason: the so-called, 'multiverse', in which everything is possible because there will be as many different worlds as are necessary to cover them.
ID response to Mark Shea.
So you think the physical sciences—the process whereby we measure and manipulate the metric properties of time, space, matter and energy—is *not* methodologically atheistic and that when a scientist gets stuck on a problem he should just shout, "Then a miracle occurs!"? Cuz on my planet that's not usually how the sciences work.
Scratch an atheist, find a Fundamentalist. Scratch a Fundamentalist, find a potential atheist.
'The physical sciences are, quite properly, materialist and methodologically atheistic.'
Mark, that is beyond silly. That held good for classical, mechanistic physics, in as much as it was and remains helpful to strain out all considerations extraneous to the measurable physical aspects of the material objects under investigation. And then to proceed, by the most unflaggingly-pedantic incremental steps.
However, you appear to be unaware that that Newtonian*, mechanistic paradigm has been superseded by almost a century in terms of our knowledge and understanding of matter at the atomic and sub-atomic levels, and you align yourself squarely with the 'bitter-enders', emerging, blinking in the sunlight, from the jungle of the paradigm now marginalised to the confines of the world as viewed at the human scale.
Are you aware that quantum mechanics is the most successful ever scientific paradigm, and that it is has actually been mathematically proven to be perfect, in the sense that it can never be improved upon? And that even in the early days, the great pioneers, Max Planck and Niels Bohr, established through QM that mind preceded matter; that, indeed, matter was an emanation of mind? The philosophical notion that what we see only exists when we see it has now been proven to indeed be the case by QM. I believe the philosophers of science have designated what used to be viewed as objective reality, as inter-subjective.
The fact is that the QM word is choc-a-bloc with paradoxes, what the Church knows as mysteries, but which our atheist friends cannot come to terms with, so that, instead of calling them 'counter-rational, they call them 'counter-intuitive'. You would have to be all but brain-dead to need your intuition to figure out that something can't be a particle and a wave at the same time (which, in certain circumstances, it can be and is in QM).
What is more at that level, non-local phenomena (emanating from a proper reference-frame beyond space-time), i.e 'supernatural', manifest.
You mention Wallace. Darwin was very dependent on the field work and conclusions Wallace performed and came to, respectively. But Wallace, later in his life turned away from 'naturalistic' evolution. Why? Because he said that clearly human intelligence—-which provides us with poetry, mathematics and art—-is excessive: that basically there is NO 'survival value' in any of these. It's simple logic.
This is not simple logic. Darwin's reliance on Wallace's fieldwork would only be undermined by Wallace's turn to Spiritualism if that turn itself somehow undermined that fieldwork. But it didn't. The work remains even if the artist goes mad.
The elements of human intelligence (pattern recognition, certain altruistic behaviors, etc) certainly have survival value. How could they not? So it's easy to see (in those terms) how they could have evolved. Whether the very last "turn of the screw" that unified them in what we call the human intellect and will is naturalistically possible is not at issue here. If you would care to follow the biologists all the way up the evolutionary ladder before disagreeing with them, I won't complain too much.
Lino Di Ischia:
I know that Darwinian evolution isn't the same as common descent, but in most people's minds they are. If we can agree that common descent is pretty well established then we can agree to disagree about whether naturalistic mechanisms have the capability of accounting for it.
But even if all the ID people conceded common descent, it would not, in my mind, make their case significantly better. The ID people rely on the fact that Darwinists currently don't have mechanisms that completely account for common descent to make the argument that "intelligent design" is thereby the best alternative. That only works if you know that currently proposed bio-chemical pathways are the only options. But you don't know this. Let me repeat myself: you don't know this. By all means, if an ID advocate wants to set up shop as a critic of any current biological theory, then let him do that. But how he can jump to the conclusion that he has thereby proved that the laws of Nature do not in se entail life is beyond me.
JR Cosgrove:
You're attacking evolution in the wrong place. Maybe the Darwinists don't have adequate mechanisms on the level of proteins and such. (I actually don't know, but I'm willing to accept your word for it that they really don't.) But those are gaps in knowledge. It's common descent that's so spectacular and well-established. That's why biogeography (which is, indeed, good evidence of common descent) and the Vitamin C gene, and the fossil record were so compelling to me. Once I accepted common descent and my theology and philosophy no longer demanded outside Divine "interference", I no longer had any reason to doubt the biologists.
I just realized I'm not sure what you mean by "complex innovations". Can you give me an example?
Jon W:
I would respond to your latest post by echoing what JR Cosgrove has said.
I'm employing the tips you gave. If they're working, then these two sentences should be properly spaced out.
I had expected you to tell me that the biologist told you that the formula is: duplication, pseudogene, function, co-option, or something along that line. It makes for a nice "just-so" story, but when you get down to the nitty-gritty, the numbers don't work in their favor. Behe's "The Edge of Evolution" also puts a monkey wrench in supposed Darwinian evolution where Behe demonstrates the limits of what Darwinian mechanisms can 'actually' do—-that is, in a real test of evolution involving a life-and-death struggle between humans and parasites.
You mention Wallace. Darwin was very dependent on the field work and conclusions Wallace performed and came to, respectively. But Wallace, later in his life turned away from 'naturalistic' evolution. Why? Because he said that clearly human intelligence—-which provides us with poetry, mathematics and art—-is excessive: that basically there is NO 'survival value' in any of these. It's simple logic.
Finally, I think you find "common descent" to be the same thing as "evolution." They're not. The fossil record tells us that forms appeared and disappeared; and that quantum jumps occurred along the way. But it tells us nothing at all about how these changes occurred.
Apparently the <a> tag does not work for a link. Anyone have a suggestion?
For those interested in a video debate between an atheist evolutionary biologist and and a supporter of ID go to
It is the first of 11 youtube videos between two of the heavy weights of ID/Darwinian evolution, Philip Johnson and Will Provine (about 90 minutes total). It took place at Stanford in 1994 and nothing has really changed since then except the understanding of molecular protein formation is much better understood now and we have thousands of genomes to help base our analysis. This debate which was a classic will be an eye opener for those who support Darwinian processes.
Provine's defense of Darwinian processes is essentially to mock religion and then says he has faith that his atheistic beliefs are true. Sort of ironic. Johnson on the other hand uses science and logic in his part of the presentation.
Several things:
I would never use Panda's Thumb as a basis for anything. This can be a very polemic site especially when it comes to ID. See if their science holds up. Some of it will on evolution but it will not on Darwinian processes for anything of consequence. I would not pay too much attention to their criticisms of ID unless one can verify the criticism elsewhere. They will cherry pick what they criticize and be very selective in how they present the data. It is often a site that uses ad hominems freely to anything they do not like.
If you are going to use their criticism, be specific in what they say to justify your acceptance of their arguments.
Uncommon Descent is a blog of average people along with some very sophisticated ones. So to evaluate it based on some is not going to be a good evaluation of ID especially since many will be YEC's. I suggested some books and people for those who are interested. It is these books on which one should evaluate ID not Panda's Thumb or some at Uncommon Descent.
Biogeography pretty heavily implies it.
Tell me how it does this? It seems to imply a naturalistic mechanism but why does it imply gradualism? What we often call new species are just slight variations of other species as your ring species are and most often the same gene pool. But geographical dispersion does not point specifically to a gradualistic approach for complex novelties. Please provide examples. As I have said, ring species are not an example of anything of consequence. They represent reduced gene pools.
Premise 1: Based on our current knowledge, the likelihood that P could bring about X appears to be astronomically low.
Premise 2: By contrast, we know that Q is perfectly capable of bringing about X.
Conclusion: Q is a much better explanation of X than P. (Hence, probably not-P.)
This is impeccable logic. How is it not? We have one explanation, Q, that explains every instance of an event type we have previously seen. We have another explanation, P, that has never produced even one instance of this type of event. So we conclude that the explanation that has explained every instance of an event type, Q, is also the best explanation of this other very similar event.
It is not absolute but highly suggestive. Especially when there is good mathematical analysis that says something could probably never happen. Again not absolute but what happens is that the highly probably explanation is trashed and the incredibly unlikely explanation is treated as a given. That explains the Modern Synthesis perfectly. If you or Mr. Shea say this is an argument from ignorance, then we have a new definition of this word.
This does not describe any of the ID people that I know of who are not YEC's.
I'm talking about this:
Premise 1: Based on our current knowledge, the likelihood that P could bring about X appears to be astronomically low.
Premise 2: By contrast, we know that Q is perfectly capable of bringing about X.
Conclusion: Q is a much better explanation of X than P. (Hence, probably not-P.)
Uncommon Descent is a pretty mainstream ID blog, so far as I understand. And as for their science being impeccable, the guys at Panda's Thumb doesn't think so.
Not one of your reasons points to a gradualistic form of evolution that leads to complex novelties.
Biogeography pretty heavily implies it. Also, how on earth do all the primates (some of which display some pretty complex novelties) all get the same exact damaging point mutation if they're not all related? My Newton joke was pointing out that you don't have to get all your ducks in a row before it becomes apparent that your theory is pretty good.
I am not a biologist, so I will not be able to lay out to everyone's satisfaction a full case for evolution.
Not one of your reasons points to a gradualistic form of evolution that leads to complex novelties. For example, the ring species are essentially the same gene pool with each link being a subset of the over all gene pool.
Darwin was all about mechanism especially a gradualistic one and so is the Modern Synthesis but your analysis does not point to any mechanism for anything but the trivial. You believe your examples point to a naturalistic process but unfortunately no one can validate any process that would produce the results you use. Except for the trivial cases which the ID people would agree.
I recommend you read Meyer's two books and Behe's The Edge of Evolution and then use them to criticize Intelligent Design.
most IDers come off to me like some 18th century scientist denying Newton's laws because he didn't have any mechanism for gravity.
This does not describe any of the ID people that I know of who are not YEC's. Their science is impeccable. This is a straw man and is a spurious emotional argument. Again, I recommend Meyer and Behe but there are others. See if there is any science in their works that would support your remark.
Thank you for pointing out the formatting. I will probably still make a lot of mistakes.
By the way, most IDers come off to me like some 18th century scientist denying Newton's laws because he didn't have any mechanism for gravity. "How can there be action at a distance?!" they wail. "Surely, in absence of a mechanism, some sort of Intelligent Planet Mover is a more likely explanation!" As though his occult belief in an arcane force called "gravity" was how Newton came to conclude F=GMm/r^2.
So, if you would be so kind, can you tell us what this biologist told you that made so much sense?
I am not a biologist, so I will not be able to lay out to everyone's satisfaction a full case for evolution. I can only say that in my reading the theory "hung together". It made much more metaphysical sense than Special Creation or ID. That said, these are the pieces of evidence that had the most effect on my mind, and which I still remember:
(1) The mammalian Vitamin C gene that's broken, in the same exact place, in all primates.
(2) That humans have 23 chromosonal pairs while our closest relatives have 24, and one of ours looks exactly like the fusing of two of theirs.
(3) That apparently oil companies use the observations and predictions of the settled science regarding the fossil record when they're analyzing unexplored strata, a fossil record that fits very well with evolution.
(4) Biogeography. This one is probably the most significant. It kind of blew me away.
(5) Ring species. Speciation in action.
(6) Computer simulations like Avida and Tierra demonstrated that once you had replication and mutation, a certain amount of complexity was entailed in the system itself and would accrue in the replicating objects. The most significant thing to me about Tierra was that if you let the simulation go long enough, eventually the "creatures" always stopped evolving. There was an inherent limitation to the complexity because it wasn't "coming from nowhere", it was inherent in the rules of the system itself. Darwininan evolution is not a denial that life is inherent in the rules of the universe, it's merely a description of how that life changed and adapted to new conditions. Some people may conclude - improperly - that Darwin entails an complete absence of design, but who cares what blowhards think?
(7) My own realization - and I'm sure I'm not the only one to make this observation, but I haven't run across it anywhere - that "irreducible complexity" was easily produced by the twin naturalistic processes of redundancy and destructive mutation. After that, Behe was no obstacle.
In addition to these, there were also general impressions. I'm not saying these are proofs, but they're the kind of judgments I make when I'm evaluating someone's words.
(A) Darwin's and Wallace's works (as well as Gould, Conway Morris, Mayr, et al) were calm, careful masterpieces of scientific reasoning. I had been told that Darwin just "jumped to conclusions based on no evidence." Balls. Darwin never jumped to anything in his life. The man was an ent, if there ever was one. His behavior once Wallace nearly scooped him showed that he was scrupulously honest.
(B) The Special Creationists could not stand up to the Darwinists in honest debate. Whenever Special Creationists won a debate, it was obvious to me that they were engaging in dishonest rhetorical tricks. I have no doubt Ken Ham thinks he's doing the Lord's work, but his fast-talking bafflegab makes me hang my head in shame that this man is my brother in Christ.
(C) Most Darwinists, on the other hand (Dawkins the Blowhard notwithstanding), struck me not as particularly interested in culture wars but rather in actual science. They were just honest scientists doing research, trying to figure out how the universe worked. On the other side, however, nearly everyone on the ID and Special Creationism side had some sort of ax to grind. Even when I agreed that that ax should be ground, the fact that they were grinding it, and grinding it hard, while pressing their case against Darwinism made me veeeery suspicious of their case.
Okay, this is a practice post to understand the formatting available
This is bold
Can I use the block quote tag? I am going to try it
if this tag works correctly this comment should be indented. If it is not then I have some odd looking characters.
Very quickly for everyone: for paragraph spacing, hit enter, then type
then hit enter again and type your next paragraph. It should come out
like this. Also, as far as I know, you can use <i> and <b> and <a> tags.
Jon W:
[[It's Premise 1 that is the very weak link. It's Premise 1 that makes it an argument from ignorance.]]
If Darwinian "population genetics" is capable of 'proving' that 'random processes' can, via 'natural selection' attain the level of improbable occurrences that we see functioning in nature, then 'Premise #1' goes away. If Darwinists can't demonstrate this proposition, then doesn't mean you have to jump to the conlcusion that "God did it," and hence, to a so-called "God of the gaps," solution. It simply means that the current explanation is wanting. I have a degree in biology. No one ever 'demonstrated' that Darwinism really works. It's just simply assumed.
Jon W:
"Have you gone to the evolutionary biologists and put your objections to them, not in a spirit of 'gotcha!' but because you actually wanted to know if they knew how to refute them? Because I did, and what they said made perfect sense."
Response: I've asked them directly, and what they tell me makes no sense to me. So, if you would be so kind, can you tell us what this biologist told you that made so much sense?
Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/mark-shea/intelligent-design-vs.-the-argument-from-design#ixzz2l7LG9OXH
Even when, as I understand, the very complex series of mutations is accomplished on a molecular level, there are still the external vicissitudes of selection in the environment to be accounted for.
Hence,for instance, the mystery of the Cambrian explosion of phyla.
As for paragraphing, I just hit the enter key.
"I have read that there is a serious problem in the mathematics of random point mutation, that the mutation of codons which form new proteins, which in turn should lead to the formation of new species, cannot be accounted for in the time allowed."
This is the main problem in a nutshell. There are other problems besides this but this is the one for which there does not seem to be any answer possible. Maybe some day but not now. The work of Douglas Axe, who by the way did a post doc at Cambridge, and Ann Gauger have illustrated this problem.
They have published a book that has a couple chapters on this. It is called
"Science and Human Origins" and is available from Amazon.
It is also covered in Meyer's books. He reviews Axe's work and points to the problems with the Neutral Theory which is what you are referring to.
Separate question, how does one get paragraph spacing? Can one use HTML tags on this blog?
I have asked this now maybe five or six times here, and it is ignored.
I have read that there is a serious problem in the mathematics of random point mutation, that the mutation of codons which form new proteins, which in turn should lead to the formation of new species, cannot be accounted for in the time allowed.
This of course would not disprove the phenomenon of new species, but it would call into serious question the standard model of selection working on mutation.
"Have you gone to the evolutionary biologists and put your objections to them, not in a spirit of 'gotcha!' but because you actually wanted to know if they knew how to refute them?"
All the time. Having been doing it for over10 years. I have read most of the recent writings on naturalistic evolution, Dawkins, Coyle, Futuyama, Gee, Ayala, Provine and many others and can probably give a better defense of naturalistic evolution than most biologists. What is interesting is when you question an evolutionary biologist, they cannot answer your questions. They always try to divert or attack your religion. Or just use some specious argument such as deep time.
"And what ID guys and Special Creationists keep pushing doesn't hold together in the same way."
Well ID and Special Creationists are different concepts though some can support both. Catholics have always been Special Creationists. Just look at ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. It is not necessary for all animals and plants but for Man it is. We believe in a God that interferes in His creation. Why do we pray or believe in the Fall, Virgin Birth or the Resurrection?
I have followed the ID arguments very carefully and it has a wide range of adherents. So one can always pick a straw man and say you have shown that it is nonsense. But that is a fallacy and it is what most are guilty of who criticize ID. It is what Mr. Shea is guility of.
One has to be familiar with Michael Behe's Edge of Evolution and Stephen Meyer's The Signature in the Cell and his new book, Darwin's Doubt at a minimum before one can intelligently criticize ID.
"once you understand that classical Catholic theology has no problem whatsoever with evolution, it becomes a lot easier to look at the evidence objectively."
I agree and till about 1998 I always thought Darwin's ideas explained evolution and had no problem with my faith because of it. But then I started reading about Darwinian evolution and it wasn't long before it became obvious that it was a very flawed theory. Darwinian processes or what is now called the Modern Synthesis (this get updated every few years) cannot not explain major changes in life forms over the last 3.5 billion years. There is a whole literature in evolutionary biology about this. It is looked at as a major problem and one for which ID will not let them avoid.
There are good scientific reasons why this is so which is why I cringe when Mr. Shea uses the argument from ignorance or his God of the Gaps argument. They are absurd responses to the science that is known today.
If Mr. Shea wants to bring in someone who is an evolutionary biologist to debate this, then that would be interesting. My experience with them is that they eventually punt when faced with a stiff opposition.
Since we are not discussing evolution until the next post we should really postpone our comments on the subject.
That being said, since there are already a couple of posting I would like to make the following comments.
There is no evidence for evolution. Most evolutionists make the elementary logic mistake of assuming since there are various stages of complexity of life then one species must have evolved from another. It is amazing that this type of gross error is ignored time and time again. Evolution does not say there will be varying complexity, it says species A evolved into species B. Evolutionists need to explain how one species changed into another. Having species with various complexity does not show how one changed into another. Evolutionists assume away what they have to prove. The varying complexity of life is their only evidence and it is no evidence at all. Evolutionists make the elementary mistake of assuming what they are trying to prove. Any elementary course in logic would teach this, and evolutionists should all fail.
Evolution harms faith. I know people who don't believe in God because of evolution. Since actual evidence contradicts evolution then evolution should never be taught. Why else do evolutionists need the laws to protect themselves from criticism. No other science needs legislative protection from criticism. Criticism is an important part of science. Without it science stagnates. Evolution harms faith and harms science. If one person looses their faith in Christ because of evolution then that is one soul who will be harmed for eternity because of this false doctrine.
Also, once you understand that classical Catholic theology has no problem whatsoever with evolution, it becomes a lot easier to look at the evidence objectively.
Frankly, Scott Hahn and Herbert McCabe made me an evolutionist. McCabe because he finally explained to me the true Catholic doctrine of God, and Hahn because he enabled me to read Genesis 1-2 in a way that filled it with meaning even as a non-naturalistic account. Before Hahn, I didn't know what the point of Genesis 1-2 was. If it wasn't a naturalistic account, why'd they even bother going into any detail. Why not just stop at "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth"?
I have been following the debate over evolution for 15 years and never seen anyone who supports naturalistic evolution able to defend it.
Have you gone to the evolutionary biologists and put your objections to them, not in a spirit of 'gotcha!' but because you actually wanted to know if they knew how to refute them? Because I did, and what they said made perfect sense. They didn't have all the answers, but what they said still made a ton of sense and held together. And what ID guys and Special Creationists keep pushing doesn't hold together in the same way.
Read Mayr and Wallace and - if you're into it - Origin of Species. It's a pretty carefully and impressively constructed piece of scientific reasoning. Read the Wikipedia articles on Evolution. (There are a million.) Go to talkorgins and browse through the archives. Ignore the ignorant philosophizing and their contempt for religions they know nothing about. They do know biology, and the evidence they bring to the table seems pretty powerful to me. Biogeography was what convinced me. Check out the wikipedia page on it.
"Also, we're going to ignore mountains of other evidence for evolution that do not rely on our understanding just how the laws of physics entail the development of life.'
I have been following the debate over evolution for 15 years and never seen anyone who supports naturalistic evolution able to defend it. Darwinian processes lead to small changes at best. There has never been one example where it has led to anything more than trivial changes. Darwin essentially postulated what is modern day genetics and no more.
It will be difficult to explain the biology of this but let it just be said that the formation of new proteins is beyond the capacity of Darwinian processes. This is a hotly debated topic but the so called neutral theory which is the basis of modern day evolutionary theory has never been shown to produce one protein let alone the thousands necessary for a complex genome.
So there is no settled science here. That is one of the biggest fallacies of modern science.
There is, of course, the intriguing, if tentative, suggestion of Bl John Henry Newman, "What are the phenomena of the external world, but a divine mode of conveying to the mind the realities of existence, individuality, and the influence of being on being, the best possible, though beguiling the imagination of most men with a harmless but unfounded belief in matter as distinct from the impressions on their senses? This at least is the opinion of some philosophers," adding "what, again, as others hold, is the popular argument from final causes but an "Economia" suited to the practical wants of the multitude, as teaching them in the simplest way the active presence of Him, who after all dwells intelligibly, prior to argument, in their heart and conscience?"
This has the merit of eliminating the gap between things in themselves and their representation in consciousness, for the thing and our apprehension of it are one and the same.
Well, after reading that article purporting to hand him his head, it seems to me that that Shea's not-especially-handsome, bearded mug is still pretty firmly planted on his shoulders.
Rather, design proponents have carefully explicated how we ordinarily come to a positive conclusion of design from physical evidence (by apprehending a purposeful arrangement of parts, in my formulation), and show that sophisticated biological systems which have been uncovered in recent decades by the hard work of science fit those criteria to a T. We then demonstrate that, Darwinian pretensions notwithstanding, no non-design explanation for the elegant molecular machinery and copious genetic information of the cell is anywhere in sight. We therefore tentatively argue (all science is necessarily tentative) that currently the best explanation for those features of life is deliberate intelligent design.
This is absolutely an argument from ignorance. It's saying: no one has explained to our satisfaction how the laws of the universe lead to the evolutionary development of "complex" structures. Therefore, we are going to "tentatively argue" that the best explanation is "outside interference." (But don't call that interference "God". It might be space aliens!) Also, we're going to ignore mountains of other evidence for evolution that do not rely on our understanding just how the laws of physics entail the development of life.
I mean, seriously. Does no one read? I wouldn't have a problem if people said, "I see the distinction you're making, but I dispute this particular premise." Then we could agree to disagree, or maybe even talk about how likely the premise was. But this is freaking ridiculous.
C'mon, guys. Say there's no point in the exercise. Say we're wasting our lives. But don't fail to make basic distinctions and call it victory in debate. Sheesh.
If it was a scientific fact that the universe was everything and always existed, and our understanding was the result of random genetic variations then you have no proof of god.
I give up.
So if you haven't seen this already, you were responded to: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/11/marshall_mcluha079201.html
Once you mentioned "God of the Gaps" arguments, you showed you don't have a working knowledge of ID arguments.
Mr. Shea,
Your head has been handed to you by the ID people themselves. They review your column today at
Several of the ID people are Catholics and they are very familiar with all the arguments by Aquinas as well as others. They have seen every criticism imaginable both coherent and not. They suggest that you learn about Intelligent Design before commenting on it.
'A complex living thing is not a proof of creation while an uncomplex rock is not. Rather, the rock and the living thing and everything else in creation bears witness to its Designer and Maker by the fact that it exists, it is obedient to the Rules, and it is intelligible to the three pound piece of meat behind our eyeballs.'
However, you can only say that there is a god behind the laws of physics and our understanding since there is no scientific proof of another cause. If it was a scientific fact that the universe was everything and always existed, and our understanding was the result of random genetic variations then you have no proof of god. You are relying on the absence of proof to make your point. If science explained the laws of physics then you could not say that god created them. They would be a natural phenomenon. You say that the laws of physics and our mind proof god, but you don't really say how. I think you are just repeating what you've heard and don't really understand the issues.
So your argument is no different than the ID'ers. There is nothing that can explain the cell, or multi-cellular life, dna, first life, consciousness, the laws of physics, therefore there must be a god.
You should stop bashing our Protestant Christian allies and rely less on the flawed medieval scholars when we have the strongest proof of all time for God in the big bang. The entire universe was created with infinitely complex fine tuning to create infinitely complex life from NOTHING. If anyone can believe that there is no god with these scientific facts then who cares, they must be a fool and unable to be educated anyway. I'll take this stand anytime and see the atheist looking absurd any day of the week.
Don't be silly. "Materialist science" (by which you mean the physical sciences) is an epic achievement of human reason and creativity to which the human race owes a colossal debt. The fact that you are able to write and post your comment above is a tribute to one of the many myriad achievements of "materialist science". The physical sciences are, quite properly, materialist and methodologically atheistic. They exist to measure and exploit the metric properties of time, space, matter and energy and they do not progress by inserting "then a miracle occurs!" into their calculations. The problem is not materialist science, but materialist philosophy—which imagines that the one and only way of understanding reality is via the physical sciences.
Divided into four line stanzas
Once I looked behind the altar:
Priests had not their faith enough,
I saw the remnants of their trouble
Dusty cartons filled with stuffs
A priest I saw who red with drink
Had spilled two dozen of the Host
Across the steps beneath the Lord
Who watched His precious Body tossed
I thought: this is the faith of man,
Dust and emptiness alone,
And from that barrenness there came
A low dry wind that made its moan
The voice of One who lived within
Replied: this is the void I knew
When first I came upon this world
And which I filled and where I grew
And when I had filled all of it
With radiance enough to see,
I then withdrew enough to let
The dusty remnants look for Me
November 17, 2013
You understand magnetism? Really? On what level?
'The first is this: St. Thomas himself never says "We can't explain X, so God did it", and for good reason. The problem with "God of the Gaps" arguments ("I don't know how this thing works or originated, so God must make it work by a direct miracle") is that we are constantly filling in the gaps. A few hundred years ago, people could have said, "If there's no God, then explain lightning!" Then somebody explained that lightning was a big static electricity discharge. A little after, they might have said, "If there's no God, then explain magnetism, or immunity from disease, or where babies come from!" Now we know how these processes work pretty well. People who thought such arguments were bulletproof often lost their faith when those arguments fell apart.'
In recent times, increasingly, the boot has been on the other foot. The prognostications of the materialist 'scientists' have proved to be completely wrong, while those of Judaeo-Christianity have been being vindicated. Materialist science has proved to be a sorry little cult, kept on life-support, by the large corporations, essentially hostile, as they are, to Christianity. In truth, such credentials as materialist science might be said to have had, have been totally destroyed by the irrefutable proof by quantum mechanics that mind is the primordial reality, and matter derivative.
You decided what your conclusion would be before you began your argument.
I could tell you why you did this, but sooner or later you will realize why yourself.
" Just because we don't understand why we understand, or why there are laws that describe the universe does not mean there is a god that created them."
You're a bit puzzled as to why we understand or why there are laws? Just minor details, soon no doubt to be worked out. Are you working on them?
The playing field starts out flat? Not even then. Only if the playing field is one designed by one side.
Are you creative?
By the way, to atheist/agnostic commentators who insist on not capitalizing the word, "God": do you see the distinction implied in the following two statements?
(1) If God exists, I will worship him.
(2) Even if a god existed, I would never worship him.
These are both true statements within Classical Theism. If you do not see the distinction, could you let me know, please?
@Lino Di Ischia:
Indeed, I have noticed Premise 2. It doesn't seem particularly problematic to me, but that's not the point. It's Premise 1 that is the very weak link. It's Premise 1 that makes it an argument from ignorance.
@Peter Wadeck:
[Your argument against ID] is equally applicable to the arguments of St. Thomas. Just because we don't understand why we understand, or why there are laws that describe the universe does not mean there is a god that created them.
But I didn't say that our lack of understanding of our own understanding proves, implies, or even suggests God. I said the fact of our understanding itself implies God. If we discover the scientific causes of our understanding, that doesn't undermine the Thomistic case in the slightest. It's not relying on any lack of understanding.
There is nothing *but* gaps. Do you think the science of the rest of time will be a mere gloss on the science of 2013? We know next to nothing. We are right up against it.
[I cannot understand how this can be anything other than a "designer of the gaps" argument.]
Have you noticed Premise 2 at all?
As strong as your god of the gaps argument is against ID, it is equally applicable to the arguments of St. Thomas. Just because we don't understand why we understand, or why there are laws that describe the universe does not mean there is a god that created them. I am afraid your argument fails by your own logic.
You seem to be confused about the claims of ID, Mark.
From the Uncommon Descent blog:
However, Intelligent Design arguments take a different form, known as inference to the best explanation. To understand the difference, consider the following syllogism (I've retained the "P" in order to keep it as similar as possible to the foregoing argument, despite the vast differences in the style of reasoning employed):
nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Premise 1: Based on our current knowledge, the likelihood that P could bring about X appears to be astronomically low.
nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Premise 2: By contrast, we know that Q is perfectly capable of bringing about X.
nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Conclusion: Q is a much better explanation of X than P. (Hence, probably not-P.)
In short: Intelligent Design is an argument from ignorance if and only if making decisions in accordance with the best information you have to date is arguing from ignorance.
Given Premise 1, how is this not an argument from ignorance? How is this not a "designer of the gaps"? (Besides the fact that by "current knowledge" they just mean "known chemical and biological pathways" and not the tons and tons of evidence from paleontology, comparative biology, biogeography, etc.) They pretty much admit that their argument relies on the predicted failure of scientific research and not on the strength of their "research" now. I cannot understand how this can be anything other than a "designer of the gaps" argument.
You seem to be confused about the claims of ID, Mark.
Hello Mr. Shea, I recently stumbled across this article. A question for you: Have you ever actually read anything written by one of the leading Intelligent Design advocates? Behe's "Darwin's Black Box", for example (a Catholic, by the way)? Your article indicates you have absolutely no familiarity with their work at all since you only put forward crude caricatures. I recommend you take the time to seriously engage with their thinking and work - you will be rewarded by the experience, I believe.
Hello—-science has everything to do with the argument. You're only "comfortable with all the physics, all the biology, all the paleontology" when it suits you.
Nope. We're comfortable at all times with all the science. It always properly suits Catholics to be comfortable with science.
If the sciences. IDers may be trying to find "scientific" alternatives to evolution to get schools to "teach the controversy" where there is no controversy. You share with IDers the theology of intelligent design and simply using the science already there to "prove" the existence of a god.
Logan, we know full well that the IDers are trying to pretend a controversy exists where the science is settled. That's one of the reasons why we criticize them so harshly. One of the main points of this article is to distance ourselves from ID, which is bogus.
You [are] simply using the science already there to "prove" the existence of a god.
We're using the fact that the laws of science are intelligible and always work, yes. But you don't disagree with us, there.
You certainly ignore the laws of physics, biology, and palentology with your "beliefs" in the virgin birth, the "miracles" of Jesus, and the resurrection of Jesus as actual physical events.
Where in the physics textbooks does it say that the laws of physics cannot be temporarily suspended by the author of the laws of physics? I've read quite a few physics textbooks in my time, and I've never run across that claim or seen it backed up with any empirical evidence.
You ignore the laws of physics by proposing that there is a "soul" that survives death—with your identity intact—to be punished for eternity, "cleansed" in purgatory, and/or some kind of heaven.
I'm not sure, but I suspect you are gravely mistaken about what we think a "soul" is. A soul is the form of the body, not an ectoplasmic ghosty thingy hovering around and interfacing with our brains. That's a pretty naive understanding of "soul".
In any case, Logan, you sound a little like a Creationist who just came across The Panda's Thumb and intends to argue everyone back into your own extremely clumsy interpretation of Genesis. You should study the facts a little more before shooting off your mouth.
You go Rick! Good night!
I have to go, g'nite wherever it's late… ;)
Course, a "reason" can be as simple as a law of nature or a cosmological principle that explains the observation from first principles, something that science has failed at, (see: Vacuum catastrophe), for about 40 years now, and in fact, have given up on in lieu of multiverses and their garbage failing theories…
The observed order and logic that Einstein and others have recognized and admitted exists in the structuring and evolution of the universe project a "reason" for it, naively, at least, IF you have a complete theory that explains why the appearance of "reason" is just a face in the clouds.
You go Logan! I have NO idea what you're talking about. But you GO!
I don't understand: What implications of what observation?
Pavel, that conclusion also contradicts the evidence that appears to indicate method to the madness, so occam would say that you need a better reason or a complete theory before you throw out the implications of the observation.
As I understand it, the prime question of physical science is: Why should anything exist? It's always possible to say: For no reason whatsoever. But then, that;s hardly any different from: I dunno. And that is hard to distinguish from: Who knows?
Personally, I don't think theists know either, beyond what pertains to our salvation.
Michel Lhombreaud said:
"At the Big Bang time was created as well as al the other laws governing its effects."
OR… At the time of the big bang, time appeared at the planck scale and the laws governing its effects are perpetually inherent.
The logic is still flawed.
The question that you want to ask is; "Why any of this?"
" If the universe is fine-tuned for anything it is for the creation of black holes and empty space."
I think you need to take that up with Steven Weinberg.
Logan, can you astonish us with some personal insight, revelation experience? How about a funny story, perhaps something that happened to you, or something moving and perceptive about life, nature, people?
Do you tell people you meet or gather with that life has no meaning beyond the purposeless motions of dust, and that they have only annihilation to look forward to?
What's happening Logan? You speak of science. Are you a scientist? Are you studying science? If so, which one, and why? Do you love it? What is it you would like to learn from it?
Are you curious about other people? Do you ever ask them to talk about themselves?
There are so many questions about other people, about life.
When you die, will you be annihilated, never to be seen or heard of again, except perhaps for a rapidly diffusing whisper in the ether?
If so, why are you here, fencing with futility, and what is it to you if people believe in God?
"The universe is extremely hostile to life."
Welcome back to the planet after your survey.
"You ignore the laws of physics by proposing that there is a "soul" that survives death—with your identity intact—to be punished for eternity, "cleansed" in purgatory, and/or some kind of heaven."
Which laws of physics disprove the existence of a soul, or spirit, and life after death?
The universe is extremely hostile to life. Extinction level events have nearly eliminated complex life on Earth on five separate occasions. Of all the species that have ever lived 99.9% are now extinct. Furthermore, normal matter like stars and planets occupy less than 0.0000000000000000000042 percent of the observable universe. Life constitutes an even smaller fraction of that matter again. If the universe is fine-tuned for anything it is for the creation of black holes and empty space.
There is nothing to suggest that human life, our planet or our universe are uniquely privileged nor intended. On the contrary, the sheer scale of the universe in both space and time and our understanding of its development indicate we are non-central to the scheme of things; mere products of chance, physical laws and evolution. To believe otherwise amounts to an argument from incredulity and a hubris mix of anthropocentrism and god of the gaps thinking.
Theists often state "God is outside of time". This claim does not actually make their speculation correct. Instead, it brings with it a whole host of problems and may be immediately dismissed as being without basis and a type fallacy known as special pleading.
When I pray, either it comes true or god has a better plan.
Therefore, god exists.
"Because there are no gaps in our scientific understanding which we try to explain. We are entirely comfortable with all the physics, all the biology, all the paleontology. Nothing from science even enters into the argument."
Hello—-science has everything to do with the argument. You're only "comfortable with all the physics, all the biology, all the paleontology" when it suits you. If the sciences. IDers may be trying to find "scientific" alternatives to evolution to get schools to "teach the controversy" where there is no controversy. You share with IDers the theology of intelligent design and simply using the science already there to "prove" the existence of a god.
You certainly ignore the laws of physics, biology, and palentology with your "beliefs" in the virgin birth, the "miracles" of Jesus, and the resurrection of Jesus as actual physical events. You ignore the laws of physics by proposing that there is a "soul" that survives death—with your identity intact—to be punished for eternity, "cleansed" in purgatory, and/or some kind of heaven.
MS: [It is this lawfulness of all of nature, not the exceptions to the laws, that impresses St. Thomas. It is from this that he infers Design, just as we infer design when an arrow (that is not itself intelligent) keeps finding its mark or a goose (also not too brainy) keeps finding its migratory nesting ground every year.]
Response: Your presentation of St. Thomas' argument parallels the argument that ID makes. Let me just paraphrase your comments: "Just as we infer design when an arrow (that is not itself intelligent) keeps finding its mark, so, too, when looking at the astronomically large search spaces that random processes would have to plow through to reach the configuration of one single functioning ribosome (a process that is 'not intelligent'-ly guided) we are correct to also 'infer design'."
MS: [That's why St. Thomas never relied on them. It's also why he was never bothered when the sciences found (as it is the job of science to do) natural explanations for natural processes. Thomas (much to the surprise of moderns) never appealed to things like miracles or the inexplicable to demonstrate the existence of God. And that's where he differs from Intelligent Design arguments.]
Response: St. Thomas lived centuries before Galileo and Copernicus, and the problems their discoveries would present to theology, so this swipe at ID—that is, that ID is no more than a reaction against what science can demonstrate—lacks relevance, and mischaracterizes ID in the process. Or should I say, "maligns ID"?
As to the substance of your remarks: The main thrust of ID is that Darwinism is 'bad science'—not that Darwinism is 'evil science' because it has substituted natural processes for what should be properly supernatural ones. To view ID in this way is to simply subscribe to an oft repeated mischaracterization of ID as "creationsim" invoked by Darwinists in their attempt to undermine ID's credentials. Why don't your read Stephen Meyer's "Signature in the Cell", and his newly published, "Darwin's Doubt"? There you'll find the ID argument rather carefully and metholdically laid out, an argument, I might add, that Darwinists have yet to undermine with facts in any substantial way. (ad hominems are another story altogether!)
MS: [Intelligent Design arguments look at the radical difference between living organisms and non-living matter and say, "There has to be a supernatural explanation for these radical exceptions to the Rules of how matter normally behaves."]
Response: Then why is it "Intelligent Design," and not "Intelligent Creator"? Again, the main argument is that only human intelligence can "design" computer code, and only some kind of "Intelligent" Being/being could "design"
the genetic code. Do you accept the Darwinian argument that random processes could 'invent' the code? Should I?
MS:[A complex living thing is not a proof of creation while an uncomplex rock is not. Rather, the rock and the living thing and everything else in creation bears witness to its Designer and Maker by the fact that it exists, it is obedient to the Rules, and it is intelligible to the three pound piece of meat behind our eyeballs. ]
Response: One more time: ID doesn't posit that "complex living thing[s] is . . . a proof of creation." Design is not creation. Computer scientists "invent" code, but they don't "create" computers or the software system that operates them; they "build" them. Far different from "creation."
Mark, let me intersperse some responses to what you've written. I'm going to leave them as a series of responses.
MS: [Actually, there are several problems with that approach, though not with the basic instinct of intuiting a Designer. . . . . . . The first is this: St. Thomas himself never says "We can't explain X, so God did it", and for good reason. The problem with "God of the Gaps" arguments ("I don't know how this thing works or originated, so God must make it work by a direct miracle") is that we are constantly filling in the gaps. ]
Response: First, those who embrace Darwinian principles tell us that these principles "can explain" the complexity we see. Part of proposing a new paradigm must involve some kind of discreditation of the prevailing paradigm's ability to explain known phenomena. So it's wrong to confuse a refutation of a prevailing view with what is newly being proposed as a better way of explaining the known phenomena. The main argument of ID is that we have the tools to infer design and that cellular complexity demonstrates the hallmarks of what we understand as 'design.' That ID points out the great improbabilities involved in cellular structures is not simply to say that Darwinism "can't explain" these structures, therefore God "did it," but, rather, that the only known ways of overcoming astronomical improbabilites is through the employment of "intelligence." That's why it's called "Intelligent" Design, and not just "Design" theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . But now, let's explore things a little bit more. Here's a question for you, Mark. How did the image found on the Shroud of Turin come to be? Science is unable to "explain it." So, did "God do it"? What's your anwer? How about the Eucharistic miracle that took place in Argentina during the time that Pope Francis was there as Bishop? Is God unable to do these things?
Rick: I wrote "philosophy", not "physics". These are different fields entirely. For instance, the principle of the end not justifying the means, or the law of non-contradiction, belong to philosophy. The argument still stands in physics, but in a different way. At the Big Bang time was created as well as al the other laws governing its effects. Only a supra being could have initiated this: God.
Are you starting from an atheist premise that there is no "supreme creator"? If so, perhaps you might state that outright. It would be helpful.
My personal feeling is that it is impossible to be a theist without bringing to whatever tradition one enters a previous sense of a transcendent Creator, force, presence. It is the perception which is prior to any philosophical or theological framework, or cultural indoctrination.
Otherwise, the idea of God is sterile and merely intellectual. An atheist could offer an idea of God, a definition of God, but it would remain only an intellectual one.
I believe that there are people who think of themselves as believers who are functional atheists, and atheists who are, perhaps unknown to themselves, believers.
Christians believe that God entered into history. Why it should have happened as it did is a question that should be addressed to God.
Good points, Henry. I prefer attempting to answer the second first. It would appear that humans were initially superstitious and felt they had to "bribe" all sorts of "gods" (sun, thunder, rain - here in the UK, of the marshes, etc.) so that they would get favourable ends. Obviously, in order of survival imperatives such as freedom from droughts, floods, war, etc. The most expensive present to these "gods"was human sacrifice. A whole hierarchical system of royalty, priests, etc. established itself in human societies which consolidated these beliefs.
What is interesting in your first question is that in the antiquities all major civilisations (Persian, Egyptian, Greek, Babylonians, Hittites, etc.) had all heard of these weirdoes who spoke about only one God who had created everything. As to the sun and the stars, they had the effrontery of calling them "luminaries" (this was only proved in the 16th century A.D) and as to their customs, they never even made human sacrifices to this creator God! They claimed that God revealed Himself to them and that they were waiting for a messiah. The rest, as they say, is history.
The Thomist arguments methinks are more about consistency of analytical methods of deductions & of proofs than about criticising contemporary scientific findings advancing ID.
"Nothingness" is not a substance you can use to make anything! Therefore the universe was created by an infinitely intelligent, omniscient/omnipotent/omnipresent, etc., being commonly called "God".
I don't think that any physicist ever said that you could, this logic is flawed.
The question that you want to ask is; Why, any of this?
This discussion is interesting but two points originally suggested by Argent, above, interest me:
1. If we do assume, as most people here do, that there is a supreme creator, God, why are we convinced that he/she is as represented in the Judeo/Christian tradition? Are we just relying upon faith based on the words of a small group of people some thousands of year ago?
2. If that God is from the Judeo/Christian tradition, why do we believe he/she wanted homage, belief, sacrifice, etc. from us? Or is that also just faith based upon the words of a small group of people of some thousands of years?
Where does sience or ID so hotly debated in this thread come into this?
Science is about facts and even theories - as opposed to fanciful imaginings - need to be based on facts. Physics are about the measurable universe. This is composed of roughly 7% visible matter, 23% dark matter and some 70% dark energy. We know the mass of the universe, its constants, the infra red shift within it, about its background radiation and about the mathematical proof that all inflationary cosmologies must have a beginning. To re-join the Thomist discussion with one of the fundamental principles of philosophy: you cannot create something out of nothing. "Nothingness" is not a substance you can use to make anything! Therefore the universe was created by an infinitely intelligent, omniscient/omnipotent/omnipresent, etc., being commonly called "God".
For 80 years I've loved science, finding how things work.
Every time a new break thru discovery has been made e.i. E=Mc2, DNA ,RNA
I think 'Oh that's how He did it'
It's like peeling layers from an onion
No one asked to be born into this world, and when they are born into this one they find themselves in the midst of a fine mess, no matter how well off they might seem to be. So they try to survive in all the ways it is necessary to survive. Adopting atheism is one way.
Some decades ago I watched the human world come to the brink of annihilating itself. It stared into the eye holes of death and pulled back.
But the means of destruction are still there, and they are various now.
We try to ignore this, but ignorance, as Dilbert recently put it, is not an opinion.
" It sometimes helps to see what a person means when he writes something rather than telling them them what they really MEANT."
Sometimes what they meant was a scream of rage.
" We can't observe anything previous to the Big Bang, but that doesn't mean that there was nothing "before" that"
Nor does it mean that there was. We do have our limitations.
The problem is that there is no dialogue. One side seems to be composed of opinionated deaf children, except occasionally when they might recruit an adult to write their monologues for them.
They are also apparently some sort of club, or committee, amongst which they exchange names. Sometimes they collaborate amongst themselves.
I have come to the conclusion that my duty is to pray for their souls and their conversion. None of us, your or old, is very far from death or the eternal, and everything is at stake.
An additional problem is that they have inherited a rather bizarre world, and it is rapidly getting stranger. It will not treat them very kindly.
It demonstrates that Isaac Newton was wrong in assuming that the universe is infinite. An infinite past is thus impossible and although time only began to exist at the moment of the Big Bang…
Perhaps a physicist might correct me on this point, but I'm pretty sure that the Big Bang means only the universe that we can observe is finite. We can't observe anything previous to the Big Bang, but that doesn't mean that there was nothing "before" that. (Besides the fact that, as St Augustine pointed out, it's absurd to speak of a "time" before the universe, since time is a feature of the universe itself.)
Josh Billings (journalist/ blue collar philosopher) wrote that "It's not so much the things we don't know that get us into trouble, it's the things we know that just ain't so!". It sometimes helps to see what a person means when he writes something rather than telling them them what they really MEANT.
And how is the zero entropy at the "beginning" to be explained.
I owe you an apology, Argent.
I had thought to pray for your conversion at Mass, but forgot. I will try to amend that next time.
So many points are being thrusted back and forth, I'm enjoying this though sometimes it seems the deaf dialoguing (no political incorrectness meant by this expression, by the way). It's good when unrelated people make an observation that leads to a discovery. Instead of contradicting each other they actually confirm each other. In the recent topic above, the Big Bang some 13.7 billion years ago is mostly accepted by scientists. It demonstrates that Isaac Newton was wrong in assuming that the universe is infinite. An infinite past is thus impossible and although time only began to exist at the moment of the Big Bang every intricate detail leading to the development of human life was pre-planned "before" it. Those that argue that randomness/accident is an explanation for the prevailing state of order in the universe are trying to make coherent sense out of incoherence!
How is your "god of the gaps" different from creationists??
Because there are no gaps in our scientific understanding which we try to explain. We are entirely comfortable with all the physics, all the biology, all the paleontology. Nothing from science even enters into the argument.
Thomas' ways to prove the existence of god are the basis of creationism and ID. Just because you deny that ID has nothing to do with Thomas's argument of design doesn't mean that Thomas' argument is "proof" that any god(s) exist(s).
How is your "god of the gaps" different from creationists??
So much for catholic honesty regarding facts.
Um, you do get that Lemaitre is the guy who formulated the Big Bang theory, right? And that this was my sole point?
Another atheist in need of Insensitivity Training.
Thank you for the gracious clarification.
"Monsignor Georges Lemaître was a 20th century physicist who looked at the evidence that everything in the universe was moving away from everything else"
Except that the Russian commie Alexander Friedmann was the first one to do this (several years before Lemaitre began his work), had an article published in a German magazine on physics and Belgium happens to be a neighbouring country. But yeah - the RCC honoring a Russian commie is almost as unlikely as the Pope converting to calvinism.
So much for catholic honesty regarding facts.
(Sir) Isaac Newton was demonstrating the first mechanical orrery of the Solar System - which he had made. Each planet in its slot went around the Sun at its proper speed as Newton cranked the handle. One member of the Royal Astronomical Society marveled and asked: "Who made this?" Newton raised his eyes and simply responded: "Nobody."
Jon W,
Thank you, and even bless you, for not confusing reigns with reins or rains.
Natural revelation is not "grace" at all. It's simply what we can discern about God on the basis of reason and our natural faculties.
Does the Church teach that we can be saved from original sin and death by trying to do our best using the 'natural law written on our hearts'?
No. But that is a separate question from whether there is such a thing as natural law and natural revelation.
Jerry, you write:
Ah, yes, Mark, another ad-hominem attack by you.
Um, laughing at your grim humorlessness is not ad hominem. Ad hominem is "You are grim and humorless, therefore your argument is wrong." My point was "You are grim and humorless, therefore you are hilarious." My *argument* was "Your argument that disagreement among Christians proves God does not exist is fallacious." I even did you the favor of pointing out the only two good arguments for atheism, but you didn't listen.
Care to point out anything I said that's fallacious?
Not three times.
Dear Mr. Bledsoe,
It is a distinction without a difference. Posit space aliens if you want. ID is still bad science that goes about trying to prove a completely unnecessary and impossible negative.
And it remains the fact that ID has nothing to do with St Thomas's inference of design, and the confusion that reigns in both the mind of the general public and your average atheist - evidence for which I offer the comboxes of the National Catholic Register (see above) - is ample justification for Mark's attack on ID.
I'm such a fan of you Mark Shea. Therefore I am shocked that you have got your information about Intelligent Design so WRONG. I've read most of the material by those who espouse the concept of "Intelligent Design" and NOT ONCE have I heard any proponents of Intelligent Design conclude that because of the complexity of a cell or whatever, the answer has to be "supernatural". NOT ONCE!
"Love is the distinctive mark of those who belong to God, as the mark of those who reject him is hate."
Curé D'Ars
"Care to point out anything I said that's fallacious?"
Sure! You said, "I love humor and sarcasm."
The only thing you 'love' about it is the opportunity to whine like a baby, "Hey! That's not nice! You hurt my feelings! Jesus WOULD NOT approve!" That my friend is what I call FALLACIOUS!
"Can you do it without belittling anyone?"
Of course not. Because your being fallacious again. You want to find an excuse to accuse Christians of being un-Christ-like and so you invite ridicule.
(This is the part where you say, "WHAAAA! Ya big bully, you called me FALLACIOUS!")
There is only one way to be saved, and that is through the grace and power of Jesus of Nazareth, true God and true man, who redeemed us from sin and death by the Sacrifice on Golgotha, and rose in the flesh from the dead on Easter Morning. Period, buddy. There is no other way.
{Posted by Mark P. Shea on Friday, Nov 15, 2013 11:12 PM (EST):Yes, Mark, you go ahead and attack on a typo.
Jerry: Humor is a difficult concept for internet atheists.
As to the rest, repeating a fallacious argument does not make it unfallacious."
Ah, yes, Mark, another ad-hominem attack by you. You attempt use "humor" to make personal slights. Would Jesus do that? It's obvious that people like you don't really live your "faith." I'm not being humorous. I'm being factual. I love humor and sarcasm. I've been at the end of it by people like you who believie (I did that deliberately so you can have something to come back on) in gods and insist everyone else must follow your gods and sometimes, in something they say, they are write (again, for your benefit, Mark). I willingly concede. But you didn't do that, Mark. You were just mad and decided to be nasty. Would Jesus approve of that?
* * *
Care to point out anything I said that's fallacious? Can you do it without belittling anyone?
This is what I get for spending more time reading 'Ten Apples Up On Top' than 'The Summa Theologica'. And hopefully Mark Shea is just spending a nice Saturday afternoon with his family. But even if he never answers another question of mine for the rest of my life I have nobody to blame but myself. But would somebody that I haven't insulted about a million times please help me out with this?
Does the Church teach that we can be saved from original sin and death by trying to do our best using the 'natural law written on our hearts'? And if so, what exactly does an atheist have to fear?
Didn't St. Thomas (pray for us) argue against the Immaculate Conception?
A maxim of the Curé D'ars:
"Make note of the difference there is between believing in the existene of God and believing in him."
Likewise, may God bless you and yours forever.
May God bless you and yours always, Pavel
Perhaps you took my question too personally.
Best wishes,
Pavel: In English grammar you have terms such as "subject" and "object". Also, using the latter as a noun I could say, e.g., "What is the object of your desire?" This could well be the welfare of a particular person. It does not mean that that person is an object per se. Perhaps it would be helpful for you not to assume the worse in people and pick holes in every statement made but keep your eye on the ball and try to understand what is actually being said. Dialogue entails trying to see the other person's point of view. As to trying to learn more about Who/what God is, St Augustine and the Church Fathers spent their lives studying. How do you thing terms such as "the two nature of Jesus" or "the single nature of God relating in three persons" got thrashed out? Studies helped this process. God gave us a mind to be used, not to remain stagnant.
What does: "God is the object of the religions" mean?
BTW, just read this apothegm of Augustine, paraphrasing: God does not offer us some thing, God offers us Himself.
But that isn't God as an object of study.
All this debating is very interesting - at least when the exchanges seek to keep to the points at hand. I can see that the original argument is sound in that Thomas Aquinas addressed the core/cause of the problems and that ID seems to have more to do with their effects. With respect to definitions of God, a remark made by Rémi Brague makes the distinction between "the Christian god" and "the god of the Christians" The former "is an absurd formulation, since God is the object of the religions, not one of their adherents. God alone has the right to be an atheist."
Story posted on another site by someone else:
" I was reminded of an old story about one of the saints. . . no doubt apocryphal, but she was upset at any soul being in hell and asked God's permission to try and convert a few devils. God raised his eyebrows and sighed, but finally relented and said, " Go ahead why don't you?"
She flew off to hell and arrived in no time without a scorch mark on her, and stood looking around as cool as could be. She spotted some wretch hiding and moaning behind a lump of magma and dragged him off to heaven where she took him on a tour of all the delights. He wouldn't stop complaining, groaning, whimpering and nothing she said consoled him. . . he just got worse. She begged him to tell her what was wrong, touching his arm. He flung it from him and screamed in terror, "Don't you know we are all full of hatred. The very touch of love is more painful to us than an eternity in hell. Take me back."
And, even though reluctant, she did. this story always seemed to me to have a lot of truth, even if it was made up."
Actually, I had a chance to ask Francis Collins a question or two at a lecture many years ago.
What stands out in my memory is his answer to a question I asked about manipulation of the human germ line.
He said: Yes, if that becomes something that we do, then it implies great deal of serious trouble.
There are many more, but "X" is a variable so you can add as many as you want. You'll notice I capitalized "god" at one point because the word was at the beginning of a sentence.
Pavel Chichikov:
The existence of god can be proved in X ways:
(1) Atheists say that they don't need god.
(2) Which just goes to show that they need god.
(3) Therefore, god exists.
(1) Some atheists hate Christians and Christianity.
(2) That's why they don't believe in god.
(3) Pathetic, aren't they?
(4) Therefore, god exists.
(1) Atheists say that god doesn't exist.
(2) But they only say that because they want to look cool and intellectual in front of their peers.
(3) They don't fool me!
(4) Therefore, god exists.
(1) I've had religious experiences that can't be explained unless I'm insane or god exists.
(2) Therefore, god exists.
(1) I have proof that god exists.
(2) I won't bother to tell you what it is because, being atheists, you would be hostile to the conclusion anyway.
(3) Therefore, god exists.
(1) What are the odds of that happening?
(2) Pretty long, I'll bet.
(3) Therefore, god exists.
(1) I really want god to be real.
(2) If you wish for something really hard, it'll come true.
(3) Therefore, god exists.
St. Thomas Aquinas:
The existence of god can be proved in five ways.
The first way: Argument From Motion
1. Our senses prove that some things are in motion.
2. Things move when potential motion becomes actual motion.
3. Only an actual motion can convert a potential motion into an actual motion.
4. Nothing can be at once in both actuality and potentiality in the same respect i.e., if both actual and potential, it is actual in one respect and potential in another.
5. Therefore nothing can move itself.
6. Therefore each thing in motion is moved by something else.
7. The sequence of motion cannot extend ad infinitum.
8. Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be god.
The second way: Argument From Efficient Causes
1. We perceive a series of efficient causes of things in the world.
2. Nothing exists prior to itself.
3. Therefore nothing is the efficient cause of itself.
4. If a previous efficient cause does not exist, neither does the thing that results.
5. Therefore if the first thing in a series does not exist, nothing in the series exists.
6. The series of efficient causes cannot extend ad infinitum into the past, for then there would be no things existing now.
7. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of god.
The third way: Argument From Possibility snd Necessity Reductio Argument
1. We find in nature things that are possible to be and not to be, that come into being and go out of being i.e., contingent beings.
2. Assume that every being is a contingent being.
3. For each contingent being, there is a time it does not exist.
4. Therefore it is impossible for these always to exist.
5. Therefore there could have been a time when no things existed.
6. Therefore at that time there would have been nothing to bring the currently existing contingent beings into existence.
7. Therefore, nothing would be in existence now.
8. We have reached an absurd result from assuming that every being is a contingent being.
9. Therefore not every being is a contingent being.
10. Therefore some being exists of its own necessity, and does not receive its existence from another being, but rather causes them. This all men speak of as god.
The fourth way: Argument From Gradation Of Being
1. There is a gradation to be found in things: some are better or worse than others.
2. Predications of degree require reference to the "uttermost" case e.g., a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest.
3. The maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus.
4. Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call god.
The fifth way: Argument From Design
1. We see that natural bodies work toward some goal, and do not do so by chance.
2. Most natural things lack knowledge.
3. But as an arrow reaches its target because it is directed by an archer, what lacks intelligence achieves goals by being directed by something intelligence.
4. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call god.
—-Argument Analysis Of The Five Ways copy write 2004 Theodore Gracyk
Mark Shea:
The existence of god can be proved in eight ways.
Cosmological argument
1 If I say something must have a cause, it has a cause.
2 Ii say the universe must have a cause.
3 Therefore, the universe has a cause.
4 Therefore, god exists.
Ontological argument
1 I define god to be X.
2 Since I can conceive of X, X must exist.
3 Therefore, god exists.
Teleological argument
1 Check out the world/universe/giraffe. Isn't it complex?
2 Only god could have made them so complex.
3 Therefore, god exists.
Moral argument
1 Person X, a well-known atheist, is/was morally inferior to the rest of us.
2 Therefore, god exists.
Argument from intelligence
1 Look, there's really no point in me trying to explain the whole thing to you stupid atheists—it's too complicated for you to understand. God exists whether you like it or not.
2 Therefore, god exists.
Argument from unintelligence
1 Okay, I don't pretend to be as intelligent as you guys—you're obviously very well read. But I read the bible, and nothing you say can convince me that god does not exist. I feel him in my heart, and you can feel him too, if you'll just ask him into your life. "For god so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son into the world, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish from the earth" John 3:16.
2 Therefore, god exists.
Mark Shea's Unquestionable Argument:
1 The Christian god exists.
2 Therefore, all worldviews which don't assume the Christian god's existence are false and incomprehensible.
3 Therefore, god exists.
Argument From Insecurity
1 We have gone to absolutely berserk lengths to establish that atheists are laughable morons.
1.5 Actually, we did so in the hopes of curing our own insecurities about theism—but there's no chance in hell we'll ever admit that.
2 Therefore, atheists are laughable morons.
3 Therefore, god exists.
Mark, you should spend more time studying this issue. I would suggest "The Language of God", Francis Collins-head of the Human Genome Project,"Creation and Evolution", a Conference with Pope Benedict XVI, "Chance or Purpose", Cardinal Christoph Schonborn,and "Signature in the Cell", Stephen C. Meyer. This not just a "God of the Gaps" theory, and your right it doesn't "prove" the existence of a Christian, Jewish, God. "Intelligent Design is an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins that challenges strictly materialistic views of evolution.", Meyer, "Signature in the Cell", pg. 4.
Yeah, it's over my head too. I know about it, but I can't calculate it.
I meant the Psalms thing. The "mathematics of random point mutation as a driver of evolution" thing was way over my head.
"Help me Obi Wan Ye Olde (Statistician) you're my only hope."
Thanks Craig.
"So my hope lies with Christ and her Church to lead me to what is right even though we are surrounded by sin. This isn't always so evident in the natural law even if the natural law changes how we see the world as having meaning and purpose."
Thank you Tim! That is so well said that it goes right to the heart of my concern. I'm afraid that 'natural law' theory provides false hope for people. If they adopt the theory that they can consult their own conscience to come to God they might as well become Buddhists.
Thanks Pavel. That was deep.
Once again, as I have read, there are serious problems with the mathematics of random point mutation as a driver of evolution. In itself, how would this indicate a Designer?
A Designer there may be, we believe there is a Designer, but such is not necessarily a scientific inference from the difficulties.
You don't know people you've met either. Do people who have met you know you?
The psalms tell you who knows you.
Although ID may be true, it is not, so far as I can tell, useful to scientific inquiry.
I agree with Joe Jensen's comments regarding ID. ID doesn't simply "throw up its hands" when faced with something science can't explain and thus say "God did it."
Rather they look at things like the information that is required, say, for the genetic code and say that's positive evidence for a designer. It would be similar to someone looking at a computer and inferring that the information required for the operating system to run the computer is a positive inference for a designer (even if one can't say who or what the designer is).
Learning more about the complexity of life (as with a computer code) only serves to strengthen this connection, rather than diminish it.
OK! Since you're too busy to answer so many questions, I will dismiss myself by answering my own questions. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
"Natural law" will tell you about God the way a book will tell you about a person. You can read a biography about somebody, but if somebody asks, "do you know him?" the only answer is no. If you have not met them, you do not 'know' them.
After you Joe jensen. That was quite compelling. So please, go first.
I believe you have misrepresented Intelligent Designs position. No ID advocate I've ever read about takes the position that if something is too complicated then it must be supernatural.
Rather, the ID community has many scientists and on the strength of the science alone, can confidently state that the biological feature in question may be better explained as the actions of a designer. This type observation is typical of past science disciplines that observe that specified complexity has always been the result of intelligence in the past, and random mutation with natural selection has been unable to account for it yet. Therefore, until proven otherwise, ID is the best explanation, given all we know today. Just like any other scientific theory.
Oh…hey Mark. That wasn't troll bait. Those were real concerns.
Yes, Mark, you go ahead and attack on a typo.
Jerry: Humor is a difficult concept for internet atheists.
As to the rest, repeating a fallacious argument does not make it unfallacious.
Gregor Mendel, the guy who basically invented the science of genetics, was a 19th century Augustinian monk pottering about in the garden and noticing how cross-breeding different flowers led to change in the coloration of subsequent generations.
This is misleading. Mendel was not just "pottering" in the garden and did not simply "notice." He had been transferred into that monastery by his superiors precisely to assist in the monastery's program of studying and improving plant yields for the common folk. The monastery built the greenhouses that he used to isolate the various strains so that cross-breeding could be controlled. Mendel's doctorate was in physics, not biology, and his expertise in designed experiments was perhaps the first intrusion of actual science into biology, what had previously been the domain of "naturalists."
Since Mark evidently has better things to do (good for him), why don't you explain to me the exact nature of your complaint? Is it that the very people you loath claim to love you? That would bother me too.
Ooooh! A fiesty one!
Yes, Mark, you go ahead and attack on a typo. Meanwhile, you do your (or should I say "you're) spin on why you Christians, who all claim to worship the same god, worship other gods. If you don't, then why aren't all of you Christians belonging to the same religion? Why not be honest, Mark? Before Vatican II, the Catholic church barely recongized the gods of other Christian religions. It mandated, in most cases, re-baptism of other Christians. At least, back then, your Catholic religion was honest enough to state that a Methodist god was not a real god. What happened at Vatican II? Did your god change its mind?
Pavel,you "pray" for me, an Atheist. I will educate you that what you believe is bolderdash. Let's see what works: education or "prayer." Mark, look for any typos in what I just said. You can use that as a proof that your god (not anyone else's) is the real one. Oh, and Mark, would Jesus use ad hominem attacks like yours? Or is it your's? You look it up in the catechism and get back to me. Until then, let's see how your (or is it you're?) spirituality is working for you. You know what they say, Mark, by your fruits you shall know them. Yours/your's seem pretty rotten right now.
Pray for the conversion of atheists. They are the truly destitute.
Divide into four line stanzas:
The Persian princess told the king of Babylon
I miss the mountains and the mountain trees,
The fruit trees and the nut trees and the meadows,
The rowans with the grass up to their knees
I would not have you pining with nostalgia,
The king said to the princess from his throne,
I will give you heart's ease said the monarch
When they were in chamber, all alone
He ordered all his builders and his wise men
His overseers, scribes, his engineers
To build a paradise composed of bricks,
Anything to stop the lady's tears
Mud there was in plenty and bitumen,
Skill and wit and knowledge to erect
A mountain like the mountains in the highlands
Where the streamlets run and intersect
So they built an artificial hillside
Supported by its pillars and its tunnels,
Watered by the power of machines -
Archimedes screws supplied the channels
Orchards flowered, proffered dainty almonds,
Blossoms burgeoned, spent their sweet perfume,
Shade there was to wander in her comfort
The Persian lady, but she sought her room
Why, my dear, are you not satisfied?
Said the king who saw she was distraught,
The garden is a wonder, said the princess
And yet is not the garden that I sought
Some other place there is that I remember
And even that was never what I craved,
And though I am a princess I have less
Than if I were the Lord of Heaven's slave
November 6, 2013
There must be very few cultures in the world, now or in the past, that do or did not have a faith system of some sort.
Your question made me remember some indigenous people described by someone I knew decades ago. They lived in the Peruvian Amazon, close to nature indeed, and she was with them for about two years as part of her research for her doctorate in Anthropology.
In one way, life was fairly easy. The women grew and harvested most of the food they needed in gardens, and the guys would hunt to bring back some animal protein. They had been devastated by a small pox epidemic a few hears before, and they spent a lot of time in relaxing in their hammocks, telling stories and jokes, and making lots of babies, as they built their numbers back up. But of course, there were tensions, problems, conflicts.
One man told the anthropologist: Before we had shotguns we used these pig spears, and if I wanted that man's wife I would take a spear like this and: he mimed a powerful thrust to a rival's stomach.
All the guys took a powerful hallucinogen some nights a week - women did not - and when they did they would see their deities - the snake woman and tapir man who lived at the bottom of the lake were two of those.
When they had good trips they would see beautiful women and children dancing up to the village, and when they had bad ones they would see Peruvians coming up river with shotguns to kill them all.
I think people will always be drawn to religion because it answers a universal need for the transcendent, for a truth that is stronger than the transitory truths of nature, no matter how majestic and mysteriously powerful. The world of nature is a world of beauty and mystery, but also a world that is imperfect, unsteady, sometimes indifferent and treacherous. And there is the mystery of death.
I think we not only yearn for, we remember what it was that was greater than nature and greater than ourselves.
@Craig Roberts: It is a great question and I am not speaking as a theologian for the church. But for me there are things that seem obvious about the natural law, like we shouldn't hurt each other, but yet doesn't seem to come through because it is clouded by sin, pride, selfishness. But the "knowledge of God" in our Catholic faith is a personal God. We learn about heaven and eternal life and how we can get to heaven. It explains a lot and I am hardly an expert. So my hope lies with Christ and her Church to lead me to what is right even though we are surrounded by sin. This isn't always so evident in the natural law even if the natural law changes how we see the world as having meaning and purpose.
Good question, Craig. Gotta think it over.
Another great article Mark. Thanks. But what would you say to the argument that 'natural revelation' is cheap grace. It promises something it can't deliver (knowledge of God). It leads people astray (why go to Church when you can go admire God in the forest or at the beach). And contradicts our Lord who says, "...No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6) If one of these atheists grows a brain they might ask me, "So if I can know God through 'natural revelation' why be Christian?" What should I say?
Sorry, that last post should have been addressed to "Jerry".
That why we say "you're god." It's because it's your god.
Actually, it seems it's because you have not mastered English grammar.
+ + +
Even among Christians, there are myriads of gods.
No. You seem unclear on the notion of what makes one thing different from another. See the fable of the Blind Men and the Elephant for further details.
+ + +
What makes your god the real one and others false?
Your post is filled with misconceptions about Christianity, filled with misconceptions about religion, and is semi-literate.
It's a mess. I don't know where to begin, except perhaps with a high-pressure hose. Look up the myth of the Augean Stables.
Best wishes,
That's why we say "you're god."
Be careful out there, people! Bad punctuation divinizes!
Ironically, what you really meant to say is "We're God" since that, in the end, is what your pride asserts.
As to the rest, your fallacy boils down to this extremely silly syllogism found on the invaluable "Hundreds of Proofs of God's Non-Existence" site:
(1) Christians disagree on some things.
(2) Concepts are not valid unless people agree on every detail.
(3) Therefore, God does not exist.
For hundreds of more stupid arguments actually put forward by people who seriously believe they Brights who are smarter than the common herd, go here: http://www.thomism.org/atheism/atheist_logic.html
Meanwhile, for a discussion of the hilarious discomfort atheists have with the only two good argument for atheism there are, and their constant need to pad the case with these sorts of stupid fallacies, see "Padding the Case for the New Atheism" (www.mark-shea.com/pad.html) In my experience, atheists who worship but do not use the intellect are singularly resistant to learning from this piece. But if you are theist who is interested in thinking about atheist "arguments", it helps to be aware of the way in which atheists habitually pad their arguments with repetition and fallacy.
Peter Northcott, to us Atheists, there is no "watchmaker."
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Pavel, too bad if you're offended that we Atheists don't capitalize the word god. We don't believe in gods, including yours. That why we say "you're god." It's because it's your god. Other people believe in other gods. What makes your god the real one and others false? Be honest. Even among Christians, there are myriads of gods. That's why there are thousands of various and competing Chritisn sects. None believe in the same god. If they did, there would be only one Christian religion. The Methodist god is different from the Catholic god that's different from the Lutheran and Catholic god that's different from the Presbyterian god that's different from the Methodist, Lutheran, Catholic and on and on. You Christians can't even believe in the same god.
As far as I can tell, it's of scientific interest but does not necessarily bear on philosophical or theological topics. Still, it would mean that something besides natural selection acting on random mutation is driving evolution, whatever it might be.
@Pavel: interesting if true, but I have no idea about that.
@sarah mac: thank you.
Thomas Tucker,
From what I have read there are serious problems with the mathematics of random point mutation. You don't have to be a believer to recognize these problems.
So far as I can understand, if the changes to the codons necessary to form new proteins depended on random point mutations acted upon by selective pressures, it would take an inordinate amount of time for proteins to change and result in new species - so much time that there hasn't been enough time to generate the evolution we observe, or to cause great leaps like the Cambrian explosion of phyla.
Similarly, saying that the universe has rules and so there must be a designer could be construed just as well, as having a God of the gaps, in that you just don't have an acceptable alternative explanation yet.
In all fairness, I don't think that is what ID proponents are saying. They are notsaying that the compexity of the eyeball is an exception to the rules, they are saying that the multiple steps needed for the complex structure cannot be explained by evolutionary process without a designer.
PLEASE PLEASE read today's first reading - Wisdom 13:1-9
It's perfect for this topic! The response and gospel are good too. :)
Four line stanzas:
Morna worked with the bears at the zoo,
Once she was hosing the polar bear's cage
Smelled something bearish, strong and rank
And she noticed an inner door not locked
A form loomed up in the hungry space;
As fast as Morna had ever moved
Out of the cage, the outer door
She sped and slammed the bars behind her
This is how God appears in some lives,
The door left open, the looming form
Or the scent of something strong and fierce
Dangerous and yet it waits
And yet it waits, it will not follow
It does not seize the soul or grip,
But somehow in a wordless way
The form in the cage invites you back
November 15, 2013
I think you are right. We are here to love. Not all of us are on this blogsite to love.
As Bl John Henry Newman frames the argument, "But, it may be urged, if a thing happens once, it must happen always; for what is to hinder it? Nay, on the contrary, why, because one particle of matter has a certain property, should all particles have the same? Why, because particles have instanced the property a thousand times, should the thousand and first instance it also? It is primâ facie unaccountable that an accident should happen twice, not to speak of its happening always."
@Pavel: How do you know who God is and is not because you can't just run an experiment to discover God? He lies outside our created world. "Why are you here?" Why are we here? A great question! To love.
God is not an entity. God is the ground of being and of Creation.
Literate people capitalize God. The illiterate and the juvenile do not.
Why are you here?
@TomS: I didn't say anything about life, just there is order and design in life with amaaaazing properties that didn't just pop into existence.
@Tim: A problem with your argument is this: If the properties of hydrogen, oxygen, and water were such that it was physically impossible to have life, yet there was life, then that would be a miracle demonstrating the existence of God. You are saying that because it is physically possible to have life, God exists. How can we have it both says: whether life is possible or not, that means that God exists?
"If there were no consistent laws governing time, space, matter, and energy, there could be no science to discover what those laws are and make use of them to create the technology we enjoy."
One thing that amazed me and point towards God is when I took chemistry and organic chemistry was the amazing properties of matter. The properties of water are amazing that 2- hydrogen and 1- oxygen molecule gives us water with all its unique properties. Who made the atom that combines into the elements and compounds with defined properties? No one can just make up a new atomic structure which combines to make up a new world. Can the argument of order also be combined with design? I don't think my faith is at risk because somewhere in the future a scientist is going to design a new periodic table.
I just read an interesting article related to this series. The URL is:
The article is titled: "Faith Is Not A Religious Idea" by Rabbi Avraham Edelstein.
For me, the best "argument from design" is simply to realize that true design (intelligence) actually exists.
If the there is absolutely no 'design' that went into the evolution of the watchmaker, then it would be illogical to say that the watch itself is the result from 'design'. Otherwise, you would have to admit that somewhere along the way between the evolution of the watchmaker and the creation of the watch, the rules of nature fundamentally changed. But could a materialist argue that? Could new physical laws emerge once a human brain is formed? Don't know about you, but that sounds kinda mystical to me.
So if the universe isn't 'designed', then you have to conclude that a microchip fundamentally is just as 'natural' as an amoeba (and everything else in this universe). It sounds absurd, but that's the point of the argument. I'd rather not believe in such an absurd universe.
The argument from design, that is from prospective contrivance, as opposed to the argument from order, presupposes that we can know the Designer's purpose.
This argument is not much older than Paley, for whom the purpose disclosed by Nature was the preservation of the various species by the adjustment of their instincts and endowments to their environments. He formulated his argument, just in time for the palaeontologists to demolish it.
Now, as Mgr Ronald Knox remarks, "God's mercy, doubtless, is over all his works, but we are in no position to apply teleological criticism to its exercise, and to decide on what principle the wart-hog has survived while the dodo has become extinct."
The argument from order prescinds from purpose: it is enough to point to "the regularity of our physical functions, such as the beating of the pulse and the heaving of the breath; of the recurring sensations of hunger and thirst; of the alternation of waking and sleeping, and the succession of youth and age" (Newman).
This is St Thomas's argument; one that goes back to the De Incarnatione of St Athanasius in the 4th century.
You make an analogy with a hypothetical person asking about "where babies come from". I would just like to note that this is not so hypothetical. In the 18th century, there was an active, serious question about "preformation", which said that each individual living thing was created at the beginning, living inside its ancestors, and only became visible at later times. Among the arguments for preformation happened to be a version of "irreducible complexity" (although not by that name).
In other words, to the atheist, the watchmaker's blind, to the ID folks, he's not, but he's a Flying Spaghetti Monster - a 'supreme being' - to both of them.
When all you have is a hammer, Argent, every problem looks like a nail. You can't tell the difference between ID and Thomas, so you go on arguing against ID, just as you keep complaining that metaphysics is bad science when, of course, it's not science at all. You don't even know what you don't know.
"So the irony is that those who keep appealing to "science and reason" in opposition to God are, without realizing it, bearing witness to St. Thomas' point that nature is lawful—and therefore the creation of a God who not merely exists, but who is an orderly Legislator. And this is why, as we shall see next time, the best fig leaf atheist materialists have for their philosophy—evolutionary science—no more disproves the existence of God than the science of hydraulicss, nuclear power, or optics does. Of which more next time."
I see St. Thomas's point much as I see your point, Mark. He/you acknowledge the law of nature (physics) and jump to the conclusion that "god did it," and therefore there is a god. (How that god is specifically the Yehweh/Jesus god of the Catholic religion is still a question.)
Seems logical, except for the conclusion that a god created the universe because there are laws of nature. Matter is created and destroyed continually—the universe is dynamic. St. Thomas (and you) are trying to impose an absolute, unchanging entity as creator of the universe, simply because the universe exists as it is. If that entity is god, then it must have some intelligence to create the universe, love humanity, acknowledge the "fall," and forgive or damn people depending on whether they believe in him.
If the entity does not have these attributes, why call it god?