DogmaHunter
Code Monkey
- Jan 26, 2014
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indeed, like this one about the retina:
Here’s Why Your Eyes Seem to Be Wired 'Backward' | Smart News | Smithsonian
Evolution gave flawed eye better vision
"IT LOOKS wrong, but the strange, “backwards” structure of the vertebrate retina actually improves vision."
Whatever you need to tell yourself to keep your outdated views...... But you didn't bother to read what your fellow evolutionists say.....
Your Appendix Might Serve an Important Biological Function After All
"They found that the organ has evolved at least 29 times - possibly as many as 41 times - throughout mammalian evolution, and has only been lost a maximum of 12 times.
"This statistically strong evidence that the appearance of the appendix is significantly more probable than its loss suggests a selective value for this structure," the team reports.
"Thus, we can confidently reject the hypothesis that the appendix is a vestigial structure with little adaptive value or function among mammals."
Living beings were created perfectly. There were no mutations,
no sickness or disease before sin.
He was prepared for every problem before creation began.
See, now THAT is question begging.No, just question asking.
Living beings were created perfectly.
Please present your evidence for these wild assertions.There were no mutations,
no sickness or disease before sin.
Assertion.But our fall didn't surprise God.
He was prepared for every problem before creation began.
I think that people are attracted to ID because they have fallen into the metaphysical error that a natural process, especially a natural process with a randomizing element like evolution, cannot be the vehicle of divine telos.I agree with this entirely, but I'm wondering what your theological solution to this problem is. I assume you're a theistic evolutionist also, but how precisely do you conceive of that working? Is God absent from the picture entirely, and if so, why?
There is some really good theology on the evolutionary side--I'm interested in John Haught's work--and I think when attacking ID on theological grounds (which is what calling it unintelligent is), we do have to present an alternative account that works theologically. You can't really reconcile Christianity in particular with an absent deistic God.
I think that people are attracted to ID because they have fallen into the metaphysical error that a natural process, especially a natural process with a randomizing element like evolution, cannot be the vehicle of divine telos.
The notion that theistic evolution requires an absent, deistic God is a sophistical creationist rhetorical strategy, not a theological reality.
LOL! Of course. Theologians like Thomas Aquinas have worded it a little differentlyI've also always wondered....
If all this "god" stuff is "metaphysics" and "abstract" and "transcending" etc....
Then why can't the "divine human" part of homo sapiens be the same?
Why can't they just say that when the bible says "made in his image", it just means that homo sapiens shares those same, or similar, "metaphysical / abstract / transcending" properties. And that the stuff we actually observe (our physical bodies and the stuff it contains) just be part of the natural order of things?
Why wouldn't an all powerful god be able to create a system of "self assembling biological machines" that evolve over time, in such a way that at some point a species arrives that is capable of higher learning, which then gets "chosen" to receive such properties? Or that the system is set up in such a way that such a species inevitably arises at some point?
Like all properly crafted theological propositions, it is unfalsifiable.Not that I think any of that is convincing off course... to me, it all sounds much like the undetectable pink graviton pixies that somehow make gravity work. But at least, such an approach doesn't require you to ignore and downright deny solid scientific inquiry and conclusions.....
Kind-of... the telling quote in the New Scientist article is from Kenneth Miller, a biologist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, who says that this doesn’t mean that the backwards retina itself helps us to see. Rather, it emphasises the extent to which evolution has coped with the flawed layout. “The shape, orientation and structure of the Müller cells help the retina to overcome one of the principal shortcomings of its inside-out wiring,” says Miller.indeed, like this one about the retina:
Here’s Why Your Eyes Seem to Be Wired 'Backward' | Smart News | Smithsonian
Evolution gave flawed eye better vision
"IT LOOKS wrong, but the strange, “backwards” structure of the vertebrate retina actually improves vision."
I think that people are attracted to ID because they have fallen into the metaphysical error that a natural process, especially a natural process with a randomizing element like evolution, cannot be the vehicle of divine telos.
The notion that theistic evolution requires an absent, deistic God is a sophistical creationist rhetorical strategy, not a theological reality.
How do you know those anomalies are not by or are a part of the design we just do not fully understand yet...?
God Bless!
IDK...?Great question! We don't really know, do we? So... how do we test it to see which is true?
It's a question of how one characterizes causality. Science deals with the mechanistic causality of physical and chemical interactions only--what Aristotle, 2500 years ago, identified as "efficient" causality, one of four kinds of cause required for any phenomenon. If that's all you think there is to it then yes, theistic evolution collapses into deism. If, on the other hand, you take the position that efficient causality alone is not sufficient, then nothing is swept under the table. The other big issue with creationists is the randomizing element in evolutionary process. Here is a quote from St. Thomas to the point:I don't think it requires an absent, deistic God--I strongly favor the theology behind theistic evolution, but I'm curious as to how other theistic evolutionists around here approach the theological questions involved. Saying it isn't an issue isn't a response. It was certainly an issue for me moving from non-theism to theism, so I don't think it's something that ought to be swept under the table.
If we're specifically going to attack ID as unintelligent, I think we have the responsibility to explain how evolution demonstrates some sort of hidden divine intelligence. Otherwise it is not clear how deism or pantheism doesn't follow.
IDK...?
God Bless!
It's a question of how one characterizes causality. Science deals with the mechanistic causality of physical and chemical interactions only--what Aristotle, 2500 years ago, identified as "efficient" causality, one of four kinds of cause required for any phenomenon. If that's all you think there is to it then yes, theistic evolution collapses into deism. If, on the other hand, you take the position that efficient causality alone is not sufficient, then nothing is swept under the table. The other big issue with creationists is the randomizing element in evolutionary process. Here is a quote from St. Thomas to the point:
"Divine providence imposes necessity upon some things; not upon all, as some formerly believed. For to providence it belongs to order things towards an end. Now after the divine goodness, which is an extrinsic end to all things, the principal good in things themselves is the perfection of the universe; which would not be, were not all grades of being found in things. Whence it pertains to divine providence to produce every grade of being. And thus it has prepared for some things necessary causes, so that they happen of necessity; for others contingent causes, that they may happen by contingency, according to the nature of their proximate causes."
--St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae
Nothing happens in the universe without the continuous sustenance of Divine Providence, but you can't prove its presence with science.
If you think you could design anything better than
God, then put in for his job.
fair answer! Nothing wrong with not knowing the answer.
So, if we can't know either way by testing it then it seems we should lean the direction the evidence suggests. i.e. natural causation or "unintelligent design"
Until we have something pointing at "intelligent design" and/or an intelligent designer it makes more sense to go with the natural hypothesis. Yes?
LOL! A high church Anglican educated in Catholic schools--I guess you'd have to expect it.Alright, cool. I hadn't realized you were in the Thomistic camp.
What we regard as "unbenevolent" may not be seen the same way by God.That gets around the mechanistic issues associated with evolution, but there's still the Problem of Evil and why a supposedly benevolent God would make use of a process as seemingly unbenevolent as evolution. If Christianity in particular is correct, then we have the problem of evolution not always favoring traits we might consider good.
My take on it is that"The Fall" didn't change anything about the natural world, it just changed our understanding of it. So evolution is not a "fallen" process, it's just a process.How would you account for the fact that evolution as a "fallen" process far predates the Fall?
Actually, it explains quite bit from our point of view. Taken strictly as history it's not much use for anything.The evolutionist doesn't really have the traditional mythology to fall back on to explain how unpleasant the natural world is. (Again, I really like John Haught's response to this, but it's still a tricky subject.)
An interesting notion, but as a devout Nominalist I might have a different take on it than you.Slightly off topic, I've come across arguments whereby what the hard sciences actually study isn't efficient causality at all, but formal causality (structures, patterns, the relations between interacting substances). Super interesting way to look at it.
I like to be open to and consider both possibilities, that the anomalies could be design or by design, or they may not be...fair answer! Nothing wrong with not knowing the answer.
So, if we can't know either way by testing it then it seems we should lean the direction the evidence suggests. i.e. natural causation or "unintelligent design"
Until we have something pointing at "intelligent design" and/or an intelligent designer it makes more sense to go with the natural hypothesis. Yes?
fair answer! Nothing wrong with not knowing the answer.
So, if we can't know either way by testing it then it seems we should lean the direction the evidence suggests. i.e. natural causation or "unintelligent design"
Until we have something pointing at "intelligent design" and/or an intelligent designer it makes more sense to go with the natural hypothesis. Yes?
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