Teaching Evolution to Evolutionists

[Mallon]

In case you missed it, God is the primary first cause and end to which all things are directed in the universe.

I agree. So when you say that natural selection is "an a prioi (without prior)rejection of all divine causation in natural history", what do you mean? In one breath you appear to say that natural selection is anti-theistic because it posits that biodiversity is a result of natural (rather than supernatural) processes, but then you admit that even natural processes are governed by God.

Good luck convincing Montalban that natural selection is real.

 

[Montalban]

Good luck convincing Montalban that natural selection is real.

That's not the subject of this thread.

It's for teaching you about tautology, bad analogy, etc. that you rely on as the foundation stone for your beliefs

 

[Mallon]

That's not the subject of this thread.

Yes, you apparently want to strongly avoid talking about something verifiable like the mechanisms of natural selection that you reject, but would rather lecture evolutionists about semantics for 21 pages.

It's for teaching you about tautology, bad analogy, etc. that you rely on as the foundation stone for your beliefs

Given that natural selection is an observable and verifiable fact, I don't need to "believe" in it any more than I need to "believe" in the existence of rocks. And the phrase "survival of the fittest" doesn't form the basis of my understanding of natural selection, thanks.

With respect, I have to wonder whether someone who clearly doesn't have a basic understanding of evolution himself is in a position to teach anyone anything about the subject. I also have to wonder whether we can learn anything about bad analogies from someone who thinks that belief in an ideal like Communism is akin to accepting a verifiable fact like natural selection.

 

[mark kennedy]

I agree. So when you say that natural selection is "an a prioi (without prior)rejection of all divine causation in natural history", what do you mean?

Charles Darwin in the preface to ‘On the Origin of Species’ credits Jean-Baptiste Lamarck with being the first man to propose that ‘the doctrine that species, including man, are descended from other species.’ This, Darwin argues, ‘being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition.’

Now it's also the death of the less fit but essentially it is a rejection of God as a cause or end to which things are directed. Evolution takes on the duplicity of meaning as well, invariably there are two meanings. Science the same exact problem.

That's why I am forever asking evolutionists for a definition of terms and they are continuously ambiguous.

In one breath you appear to say that natural selection is anti-theistic because it posits that biodiversity is a result of natural (rather than supernatural) processes, but then you admit that even natural processes are governed by God.

Thus the duplicity. The meaning is not something I attach to an existing definition, it's how the word is used by those like yourself.

Good luck convincing Montalban that natural selection is real.

I gave up 'convincing' people of anything regarding Origins. They always bring their predetermined inference. I'm just curious how they figure. Bottom line, natural selection has more then one meaning being used at the same time.

 

[mark kennedy]

That's not the subject of this thread.

It's for teaching you about tautology, bad analogy, etc. that you rely on as the foundation stone for your beliefs

It's really not a bad analogy, Darwin compares selective breeding to adaptive evolution in nature, thus natural selection. The thing is, unless you assume universal common ancestry, you are assumed to be incredulous (a nice way of saying ignorant). That's because it's a self evident, a priori fact.

The challenge is not teaching them fundamental meaning of words used but exposing their fallacious logic. It is surprisingly easy to do.

 

[Mallon]

Charles Darwin in the preface to ‘On the Origin of Species’ credits Jean-Baptiste Lamarck with being the first man to propose that ‘the doctrine that species, including man, are descended from other species.’ This, Darwin argues, ‘being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition.’

I still don't see how the quotes you provided preclude the action of God in a natural process like evolution, unless you want to espouse a deistic and non-biblical theology of nature by arguing that God's actions are limited to the occasional miraculous intervention.

If you're going to argue that evolution is atheistic on that basis, I wonder if you also think the astronomical findings of Laplace (e.g., Laplace's equation, existence of black holes, notion of gravitational collapse) are atheistic, for when he was asked by Napoleon why his description of how the universe works made no mention of God, Laplace said "I have no need for that hypothesis."

 

[Montalban]

I still don't see how the quotes you provided preclude the action of God in a natural process like evolution, unless you want to espouse a deistic and non-biblical theology of nature by arguing that God's actions are limited to the occasional miraculous intervention.

If you're going to argue that evolution is atheistic on that basis, I wonder if you also think the astronomical findings of Laplace (e.g., Laplace's equation, existence of black holes, notion of gravitational collapse) are atheistic, for when he was asked by Napoleon why his description of how the universe works made no mention of God, Laplace said "I have no need for that hypothesis."

Show me the scientific paper that allows room for God in evolution.

 

[Montalban]

It's really not a bad analogy, Darwin compares selective breeding to adaptive evolution in nature, thus natural selection. The thing is, unless you assume universal common ancestry, you are assumed to be incredulous (a nice way of saying ignorant). That's because it's a self evident, a priori fact.

The challenge is not teaching them fundamental meaning of words used but exposing their fallacious logic. It is surprisingly easy to do.

I recall having a conversation on this some many years ago on another thread where evolutionists argued that ANY actions of people (including breeder's purposefully choosing) are 'natural' and therefore akin to 'natural' selection.

But what's amazing is how many people leapt in here in the first place to distance Darwin from this tautology - as if they're aware that it's embarrassing

 

[Mallon]

Show me the scientific paper that allows room for God in evolution.

God isn't a subject for scientific investigation, so you aren't likely to find an appeal to His agency in any scientific paper, be it on evolution, chemistry, geology, physics, or whatever. That isn't to say that science is inherently atheistic, though; it isn't. Science is agnostic; it is incapable of commenting one way or another about the existence of God. It's up to you, as a Christian, to decide whether the findings of science are compatible with God's providence.

 

[Montalban]

God isn't a subject for scientific investigation, so you aren't likely to find an appeal to His agency in any scientific paper, be it on evolution, chemistry, geology, physics, or whatever. That isn't to say that science is inherently atheistic, though; it isn't. Science is agnostic; it is incapable of commenting one way or another about the existence of God. It's up to you, as a Christian, to decide whether the findings of science are compatible with God's providence.

I accept that. However, science has an explanation for the entire evolutionary process, in wholly naturalistic terms.

They don't go "Oh, we don't know how this happened... perhaps something super-natural was at work".

 

[Mallon]

I accept that. However, science has an explanation for the entire evolutionary process, in wholly naturalistic terms.

Right. That's what science does -- it proposes wholly natural mechanisms for what we observe in nature. Saying that the sky is blue because of the magical whims of Loki isn't science.

They don't go "Oh, we don't know how this happened... perhaps something super-natural was at work".

You'll never see that in a science paper because, again, the supernatural isn't amenable to the scientific method. Anyways, simply saying that something in nature is a particular way because God miraculously made it like that really doesn't further our understanding in any significant way. It's just as likely that we don't know how something happens simply because we lack knowledge.

You also have to be careful that the above line of reasoning doesn't lead you down the path to god-of-the-gaps theology, whereby God's actions are limited to explaining only those things we don't understand.

 

[mark kennedy]

I still don't see how the quotes you provided preclude the action of God in a natural process like evolution, unless you want to espouse a deistic and non-biblical theology of nature by arguing that God's actions are limited to the occasional miraculous intervention.

I never said they were 'limited to occasional miraculous intervention', I am saying that reality includes God acting in time and space. So you just don't see how, ‘being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition.’ precludes the action of God?

I think you do...

If you're going to argue that evolution is atheistic on that basis, I wonder if you also think the astronomical findings of Laplace (e.g., Laplace's equation, existence of black holes, notion of gravitational collapse) are atheistic, for when he was asked by Napoleon why his description of how the universe works made no mention of God, Laplace said "I have no need for that hypothesis."

You seem like a well read, educated and philosophically adept person Mallon. Let's talk about what an hypothesis is and why an inference of God as the source of a phenomenon is sound epistemology, it should just not be mistaken for empirical science. Bear in mind, that does not make it untrue.

I have not as yet been able to discover the reason for these properties of gravity from phenomena, and I do not feign hypotheses. For whatever is not deduced from the phenomena must be called a hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, or based on occult qualities, or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. In this philosophy particular propositions are inferred from the phenomena, and afterwards rendered general by induction. Hypotheses non fingo​

Laplace didn't need a metaphysical hypothesis because there was no basis for that inference. Newton is saying that he is not going to jump to any conclusions about gravity, in other words he is assuming nothing. This inductive philosophy of science was pretty much started by Bacon, Galileo and Kepler and Newton would establish it as the very definition of empirical science.

I know I'm prone to lengthy quotes but I think this one is particularly insightful?

For some years the Royal Society had advocated observation to verify ideas. However, natural philosophers of the seventeenth century had still to realize that, if a series of experiments supported a hypothesis, then a law governing a phenomenon could be established by mathematical derivation from the experimental data. To the 20th century scientist, this is how all science is conducted, it is the modern scientific methord, but Newton was the first to apply the method fully...

...If the arrival of the modern scientific age could be pinpointed to a particular moment and a particular place, it would be 27 April 1676 at the Royal Society, fro it was on that day that the results obtained in a meticulous experiment-the experimentum crucis-were found to fit with the hypothesis, so transforming a hypothesis into a demonstrable theory. ( The Last Sorcerer, Michael White)​

That is why Laplace did not need that hypothesis, it need not be inferred from the phenomenon. Creation is another kind of a phenomenon, you are inferring a naturalistic cause for a phenomenon deep in the past that may or may not have actually happened.

Newton inferred a Creator calling God the Intelligent Designer from the things that were made. Science does not get to decide what God does or did not do, when the phenomenon is unknown you don't get to assume the cause is naturalistic. it just doesn't work that way.

Laplace isn't being atheistic, he had a cause he could infer the effect. With Darwin you are leaving the confines of naturalistic and empirical science and sinking into metaphysics. It is Darwinism that is committing the error Newton warned against.

 

[Mallon]

I never said they were 'limited to occasional miraculous intervention', I am saying that reality includes God acting in time and space. So you just don't see how, ‘being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition.’ precludes the action of God?

I think you do...

No, I don't see how describing something as a natural law precludes the action of God. The Bible tells us that God sustains all of nature -- He "sends the rain", "causes the sun to shine", and so forth. The Scriptures are clear that God's sustenance of nature is constant, even for those everyday, invariable constants that we consider "laws". This means that God is no more active when He is sustaining, say, Coulomb's law as when He is suspending it via "miraculous interposition". God's presence in nature is constant, whether it be explicitly stated in the formulation of a law (like natural selection) or not. This is also the reason why "the God hypothesis" cannot be subject to scientific verification -- no control experiment exists. Not unless you're a deist who believes that God involves Himself in the world only occasionally.

 

[mark kennedy]

No, I don't see how describing something as a natural law precludes the action of God. The Bible tells us that God sustains all of nature -- He "sends the rain", "causes the sun to shine", and so forth. The Scriptures are clear that God's sustenance of nature is constant, even for those everyday, invariable constants that we consider "laws". This means that God is no more active when He is sustaining, say, Coulomb's law as when He is suspending it via "miraculous interposition". God's presence in nature is constant, whether it be explicitly stated in the formulation of a law (like natural selection) or not. This is also the reason why "the God hypothesis" cannot be subject to scientific verification -- no control experiment exists. Not unless you're a deist who believes that God involves Himself in the world only occasionally.

God is never an hypothesis, God is a self existing and self evident fact. God as Creator does not give itself to empirical testing but the phenomenon of God creating or producing a miracle still qualifies as a cause. What is more experimental testing is not all of science anyway and universal common descent is not a testable hypothesis either. When it comes to natural history the rules are applied differently and I think you know that.

When you may not infer God as Creator or a divine purpose as an end to which things are directed as a dictate of science that I regard it as atheistic materialism. I think you do understand that natural selection is more then the survival of the fittest, it's also a naturalistic assumption.

Look, if you are satisfied that a naturalistic explanation is warranted then I have no problem with you. If, on the other hand, you want me to assume a naturalistic cause when God is clearly revealed, proclaimed and worshiped as Creator you are going to be disappointed.

Oh and by the way, natural selection is not, nor should it be considered, a 'natural law'.

 

[Montalban]

Right. That's what science does -- it proposes wholly natural mechanisms for what we observe in nature. Saying that the sky is blue because of the magical whims of Loki isn't science.

Exactly, and therefore no place for God.

You'll never see that in a science paper because, again, the supernatural isn't amenable to the scientific method. Anyways, simply saying that something in nature is a particular way because God miraculously made it like that really doesn't further our understanding in any significant way. It's just as likely that we don't know how something happens simply because we lack knowledge.

I agree

You also have to be careful that the above line of reasoning doesn't lead you down the path to god-of-the-gaps theology, whereby God's actions are limited to explaining only those things we don't understand.

I agree with this too. No place for God in evolution

 

[Mallon]

God is never an hypothesis, God is a self existing and self evident fact. God as Creator does not give itself to empirical testing but the phenomenon of God creating or producing a miracle still qualifies as a cause. What is more experimental testing is not all of science anyway and universal common descent is not a testable hypothesis either. When it comes to natural history the rules are applied differently and I think you know that.

When you may not infer God as Creator or a divine purpose as an end to which things are directed as a dictate of science that I regard it as atheistic materialism. I think you do understand that natural selection is more then the survival of the fittest, it's also a naturalistic assumption.

Look, if you are satisfied that a naturalistic explanation is warranted then I have no problem with you. If, on the other hand, you want me to assume a naturalistic cause when God is clearly revealed, proclaimed and worshiped as Creator you are going to be disappointed.

So, having said that all, can you provide an example of an empirical test where we could falsify the hypothesis that God caused something to happen? Let's take the recent earthquake in Japan. What experiment could you perform to distinguish the idea that God caused it supernaturally vs. the "atheistic" idea that natural processes like plate tectonics caused it?

Oh and by the way, natural selection is not, nor should it be considered, a 'natural law'.

Why not?

 

[Mallon]

Exactly, and therefore no place for God.

I agree

I agree with this too. No place for God in evolution

I don't see how you can possibly agree with everything I just said and then conclude that there's no place for God in evolution. What I just said merits the exact opposite conclusion; God is not precluded from actively sustaining natural processes -- again, unless you're a deist.

 

[Montalban]

I don't see how you can possibly agree with everything I just said and then conclude that there's no place for God in evolution. What I just said merits the exact opposite conclusion; God is not precluded from actively sustaining natural processes -- again, unless you're a deist.

Evolution is a scientific theory. You said it yourself that science doesn't deal with God.

If you can show me your evidence for God in evolution, you'd be on you way to making a point

 

[Mallon]

Evolution is a scientific theory. You said it yourself that science doesn't deal with God.

Right, but that doesn't mean God cannot act through evolution (remember: science is agnostic; not atheistic). There's plenty of room for God in evolution, but at that point, you're making a leap of faith from the scientific theory of evolution to a theological belief in evolutionary creation.

 

[Montalban]

Right, but that doesn't mean God cannot act through evolution (remember: science is agnostic; not atheistic). There's plenty of room for God in evolution, but at that point, you're making a leap of faith from the scientific theory of evolution to a theological belief in evolutionary creation.

Are you saying God worked through knowable laws that offer no signs that God worked through them?