Evolution conflict and division

[Job 33:6]

@o_mlly
A theory cannot be both scientific and grounded in supernatural or immaterial causation, because science explains phenomena by natural mechanisms, while supernatural causes belong to metaphysics or theology, not scientific explanation.

That is not to say that God cannot use natural mechanisms. Rather it is simply to say that when you argue for supernatural or immaterial causes, you're not doing science, you're doing theology.

When the ID movement makes it's arguments, they're arguing for supernatural causes, typically.

For example, one of their most popular arguments against evolution is the argument for irreducible complexity. But that argument is against mechanisms of evolution (things like mutations or modes of speciation), it does not propose its own mechanisms in contrast, because it involves supernatural concepts that by their nature do not have natural mechanisms. Ie, the argument is not proposing it's own scientific mechanism to counter evolution.

It's like if you have a football team. And someone said "Team A (evolution) is bad, it can't do X,Y,and Z". But at no point is the critic actually talking about what other teams exist or how to measure whether or not other teams are better. They're not offering mechanisms to contrast against the theory. Because their position is not scientific in nature, it is supernatural or metaphorical/philosophical etc.

And once we acknowledge that these are separate categories of thought. We can then begin to understand why every time they go head to head, such as in the ID-Evolution Dover Trials, we see that on scientific grounds, evolution wins 100% of the time. Not because ID is a theologically bad idea, but rather on the simple basis that it inherently isn't science nor scientific.

 

[o_mlly]

Well, let's restore the part you edited out to change the meaning...

Your repeated efforts to look for affirmation of a macroevolution theory in the Catholic Church are in vain. The Catholic church has no Catholic theory to explain the diversity of life (below the level of human life). It has dogma and doctrines. You should spend some time to learn them. Further, she teaches that materialism just does not have the cards to arrive at the full truth.

The sciences of observation describe and measure the multiple manifestations of life with increasing precision and correlate them with the time line. The moment of transition to the spiritual cannot be the object of this kind of observation, which nevertheless can discover at the experimental level a series of very valuable signs indicating what is specific to the human being. But the experience of metaphysical knowledge, of self-awareness and self-reflection, of moral conscience, freedom, or again of aesthetic and religious experience, falls within the competence of philosophical analysis and reflection, while theology brings out its ultimate meaning according to the Creator's plans. (CATHOLIC LIBRARY: Truth Cannot Contradict Truth (1996)}​

Like most creationists, you've confused the origin of life with evolution. The "widely accepted scientific account" is about how life began.

You really need to consider taking a remedial course in reading comprehension. There is no "widely accepted scientific account" of abiogenesis.

I though you claimed that there was no such things as random change. And here you've cited the Church saying that there is. What you seem to balk at, is the idea that God can use contingency to effect His will. Why not just let it be His way?

Nope. See above. If a change is guided then it is by definition not random.

... we now know why random variation occurs ...

Nonsense. If one knows why a variation occurs then it is not random.

 

[o_mlly]

When reading the Bible and in doubt about its meaning, hermeneutics requires nothing more that to read something by St. Augustine?

No.

 

[o_mlly]

A theory cannot be both scientific and grounded in supernatural or immaterial causation, because science explains phenomena by natural mechanisms, while supernatural causes belong to metaphysics or theology, not scientific explanation.

That's a good point. If an inquiry as to causation removes the true causal agent(s) from its inquiry then only un-truth can and will proceed from such a handicapped inquiry, e.g., the Tree of Life.

Intelligence, as noted above, is not only supernatural.

 

[Job 33:6]

That's a good point. If an inquiry as to causation removes the true causal agent(s) from its inquiry then only un-truth can and will proceed from such a handicapped inquiry, e.g., the Tree of Life.

Intelligence, as noted above, is not only supernatural.

Well, to be clear, the theory of evolution doesn’t exclude God or real causal agents. It simply isn’t addressing those questions. A good analogy is something like a plumbing manual: we don’t expect it to discuss theology, not because plumbing excludes God, but because they are different categories of inquiry.

There’s nothing inherently wrong or incomplete about plumbing for that reason, it’s just operating at a different explanatory level. The same is true of evolutionary theory. It explains biological mechanisms within nature, and it doesn’t become deficient simply because it doesn’t make claims about ultimate causes.

 

[o_mlly]

And what scientific journal do you know of that publishes on immaterial causes to begin with?

Don't take this the wrong way. What Atheistic Journals publish theories on the goodness of God?

... but science requires specifying causal mechanisms ...

The Law of Gravity does not explain gravity. What mechanism causes gravity?

 

[Job 33:6]

Well, to be clear, the theory of evolution doesn’t exclude God or real causal agents. It simply isn’t addressing those questions. A good analogy is something like a plumbing manual: we don’t expect it to discuss theology, not because plumbing excludes God, but because they are different categories of inquiry.

There’s nothing inherently wrong or incomplete about plumbing for that reason, it’s just operating at a different explanatory level. The same is true of evolutionary theory. It explains biological mechanisms within nature, and it doesn’t become deficient simply because it doesn’t make claims about ultimate causes.

And someone could say, yea but if the science can't explain X, Y, and Z, then it must be ID.

Well, again, ID isn't scientific, so it loses by default in terms of scientific debate. No matter how many unanswered questions exist with a theory, any theory it doesn't even have to be about evolution, no matter how many unanswered questions exist within a scientific theory, ID will never be a better scientific theory because it ultimately is not science at all.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

No.

If only St. Augustine lived today. He might be tempted to change his tune from having said, "...not to depart from the literal and obvious sense, except only where reason makes it untenable or necessity requires.” I think that if he lived today, he'd realize even more poignantly that where the Bible is concerned, things are not so "clear" as they once were thought to be.

The thing is, we've escaped Aristotle and Ptolemy and no longer live strictly under the hegemony of their ancient "logical" structures.

So, what this means for me is that epistemologically and ontologically speaking, I'm free of the impositions of the Catholic Church (or of St. Augustine), the Orthodox Church, as well as any passer-bys who decide to drop in on me from the various Protestant denominations.

And while everyone else is involved in a kerfuffle between Christians over whether or not we should be siding with evolution or creationism, I'll be continuing to sit nicely on my sofa and enjoying the benefits and convenience of something like Stephen J. Gould's NOMA, with no pangs of a guilty conscience or any remaining, residual cognitive dissonance.

 

[The Barbarian]

ID does posit an immaterial cause for some of those observations that are not explained by materialistic means.

Once you add magic or miracles or whatever to science, then any story becomes equally plausible. That's why real scientists like Newton and Darwin never put any of that into their work. Even Kepler, who suspected that astrology might be true, refused to use it in his work.

Do you not use human intelligence to arrive at your material claims for the diversity of life?

Human intelligence, such as it is, is detectable and measurable. And that makes all the difference.

("Evolution Conflict and Division") any further, may I suggest you do some research on ID and start a new thread to rationally dispute ID claims.

The Discovery Institute was exposed when someone in the institute accidentally included the "Wedge Document" in some papers sent out to a copy shop. The leaked paper clearly showed ID to be an odd sort of religious belief. Most damaging was the statement of "Governing Goals" set out by the IDers:

GOALS
Governing Goals
* To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies.
* To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and hurnan beings are created by God.

That pretty much ended ID as an alternative for scientists.

 

[o_mlly]

There’s nothing inherently wrong or incomplete about plumbing for that reason, it’s just operating at a different explanatory level. The same is true of evolutionary theory. It explains biological mechanisms within nature, and it doesn’t become deficient simply because it doesn’t make claims about ultimate causes.

Using your analogy, the plumber cannot repair the problem. Do we tell him to keep trying in vain or do we call an electrician?

 

[The Barbarian]

Also, ID is well known as a movement that opposes the theory of evolution.

That was the original design. But some IDers, like Michael Behe and Michael Denton, accept the reality of evolution. Behe just thinks God has to step in from time to tiime to make it work, and Denton assumed that whatever designer there is, just 'front-loaded" nature to produce evolution.

 

[o_mlly]

Wow, my "quoted your post" notifications runneth over. As I have a life, I cannot spend any more time replying this morning. Please indulge me if I do not reply to those posts which merely try to regurgitate what has already been debated.

 

[The Barbarian]

Using your analogy, the plumber cannot repair the problem. Do we tell him to keep trying in vain or do we call an electrician?

That's the beauty of it. If the plumber finds that it's an electrical problem, he consults an electrician. If you ask a biologist who made the universe and the rules by which it works, he refers you to philosophers and theologians.

 

[The Barbarian]

Wow, my "quoted your post" notifications runneth over. As I have a life, I cannot spend any more time replying this morning. Please indulge me if I do not reply to those posts which merely try to regurgitate what has already been debated.

Don't you hate it when people do that?

 

[Job 33:6]

Don't take this the wrong way. What Atheistic Journals publish theories on the goodness of God?


The Law of Gravity does not explain gravity. What mechanism causes gravity?

But we aren't atheists.

Using your analogy, the plumber cannot repair the problem. Do we tell him to keep trying in vain or do we call an electrician?

You allow both to operate in their own independent fields of work. It's not an either-or situation, it is a both-and. But one thing is for sure, the electrician in this circumstance will never be as good as the plumber at plumbing, no matter how bad that plumber may seem to you.

And remember, just because a plumber struggles and makes mistakes from time to time, that doesn't mean he won't figure it out eventually (that's how all fields of science work, they grow and learn by trial and error). And likewise, if a plumber struggles, that doesn't, in this case, warrant calling an electrician to help. Because if the electrician doesn't operate in the category of plumbing (theology is not science), then there is nothing they would be able to do anyway.

 

[The Barbarian]

If only St. Augustine lived today. He might be tempted to change his tune from having said, "...not to depart from the literal and obvious sense, except only where reason makes it untenable or necessity requires.”

St. Augustine, for example, did not accept the idea that the "days" of Genesis were literal 24 hour days:
When we reflect upon the first establishment of creatures in the works of God from which he rested on the seventh day, we should not think either of those days as being like these ones governed by the sun, nor of that working as resembling the way God now works in time; but we should reflect rather upon the work from which times began, the work of making all things at once, simultaneously.
De Genesi ad litteram 5.5.12, in idem, 282.

Augustine was not merely the Bishop of Hippo, but one of the great Christian theologians of his time. His work was widely read, and no one thought to argue with him on it.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

St. Augustine, for example, did not accept the idea that the "days" of Genesis were literal 24 hour days:
When we reflect upon the first establishment of creatures in the works of God from which he rested on the seventh day, we should not think either of those days as being like these ones governed by the sun, nor of that working as resembling the way God now works in time; but we should reflect rather upon the work from which times began, the work of making all things at once, simultaneously.
De Genesi ad litteram 5.5.12, in idem, 282.

Augustine was not merely the Bishop of Hippo, but one of the great Christian theologians of his time. His work was widely read, and no one thought to argue with him on it.

I already know all of that, but it doesn't mean I have to kowtow to brother Augustine any more than I do to any other Christian alive today.

My point, in case, is that Augustine, despite his latitude on the meaning of biblical days STILL would have had an eye opening conversation if he had instead been able to chit-chat with those fellow Christians involved in science from the time of Copernicus & Galileo up to Georges Lemaître.

And what's more, I have to push back and say, no one's Christian faith, or its supposed definitions, need rely upon St. Augustine. Whether fortunately or unfortunately, my education has placed me way, way beyond that theological enclosure.

There's a reason my avatar is Copernicus. Not because he's the 'answer,' but he's my beginning point for my philosophical trajectory, as opposed to his many contemporaries whom every one else likes to latch onto.

 

[Job 33:6]

But we aren't atheists.

You allow both to operate in their own independent fields of work. It's not an either-or situation, it is a both-and. But one thing is for sure, the electrician in this circumstance will never be as good as the plumber at plumbing, no matter how bad that plumber may seem to you.

And remember, just because a plumber struggles and makes mistakes from time to time, that doesn't mean he won't figure it out eventually (that's how all fields of science work, they grow and learn by trial and error). And likewise, if a plumber struggles, that doesn't, in this case, warrant calling an electrician to help. Because if the electrician doesn't operate in the category of plumbing (theology is not science), then there is nothing they would be able to do anyway.

The ID vs science relationship is kind of like an electrician that criticizes a plumber for bad plumbing, but then if the plumber were to ask the electrician to do a better job, the electrician responds with a blank stare. Only 99% of professional plumbers agree that the plumber is actually doing a good job and that it's actually the electrician that simply doesn't know what he's talking about.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

J. Gould's NOMA

I had to look it up.



Stephen J. Gould's Non-Overlapping Magisteria (NOMA) is
a principle proposing that science and religion represent distinct, non-overlapping domains of teaching authority ("magisteria") that do not conflict. Science investigates empirical facts and theories, while religion addresses questions of meaning, ethics, and values. Gould argued this separation allows both to coexist without conflict.

Then slso found

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14746700.2024.2351648?__cf_chl_tk=RtD8midWPGXOvlTrEkjcX_n6daa50BC6c8LQL2qFWDU-1769266240-1.0.1.1-.utbKUal4mgJ_eDysUGhIfjlHogGNhkFhe3Su8dAt08#d1e269

 

[The Barbarian]

My point, in case, is that Augustine, despite his latitude on the meaning of biblical days STILL would have had an eye opening conversation if he had instead been able to chit-chat with those fellow Christians involved in science from the time of Copernicus & Galileo up to Georges Lemaître.

Well, Augustine did say that whenever new evidence came up that indicated an error in understanding scripture that was not absolutely clear, we should be willing to revise our understanding. So I think he'd have been O.K. with Copernicus. Copernicus' claim, after all, was not heliocentrism. He merely claimed that if one assumed heliocentrism, that it greatly simplified and improved the accuracy of astronomical calculations. I suspect that he knew that the Earth orbited the sun, but was cautious about saying so.

It was not a new idea. Around 250 BC, Aristarchus of Samos, from observations and calculation, concluded that the Sun was much larger than the Earth, and that the Earth moved around the Sun. Copernicus was aware that Aristarchus advocated an Earth in motion.