Richard Dawkins' Blind Watchmaker - Surprisingly Faith Promoting

[supersnail]

What he does not mention is that engineers also use algorithms based on all the principles of evolution (sexual selection, random mutation, fitness function, natural selection) to design optimal antennas (http://idesign.ucsc....vo_antenna.html) and combustion engines (http://www.sciencedi...010218005001732).

Those articles demonstrate how evolutionary mechanisms can operate to produce a complex result under certain conditions and have been imitated for use in certain engineering applications, not that human evolution is inevitable or even likely, nor that a designer is needed for anything pertaining to biology.

I agree it is possible God could use evolutionary mechanisms. No scientific evolutionary theory precludes that. But those articles don't prove God's influence. The most we can do with those articles is compare God to people applying evolutionary ideas (such as animal breeders), or causing/influencing life, as part of an argument that God could use evolution or intervene without invalidating evolutionary theory. It's more of an apologetic faith-defending argument, not a faith-promoting argument.

[shalamabobbi]

Laboratory evidence of the importance of historical contingency:

http://www.pnas.org/...05/23/7899.long

This article actually focuses on the emergence of a particular trait, not speciation. If historical contingency plays a major role even at the level of one highly favorable trait, though, that does not support any strong convergence view or inevitable human evolution.

There are the facts of evolution and there are the theories to explain those facts. The facts are that many varied species are physically convergent.

So what are you trying to say in view of this fact of evolution? That this convergence was so unlikely that the existence of convergence proves the intervention of God in the outcome? Or that contingency has many parallel paths?

We exist, but that doesn't mean we have to exist, scientifically speaking. The notion that nature has been constantly selecting for H. sapiens or a human-like species as some kind of optimum tends be scientifically illiterate, whether the person holding the notion is a Christian or an atheist.

Ok let's go with this. What have you established other than the fact(if we concede your viewpoint) that human evolution was an accident? How does this necessarily throw God into the process without assuming that evolution occurring on other planets repeats the same outcome that occurred here?

[shalamabobbi]

Well, This is quite the discussion we have going on. Ill just sit back and watch the show.

Are we bored today Mola? lol

[mfbukowski]

I'll let you literalists battle this one out without my help.

[supersnail]

Dawkins on not ever using the word "inevitable"

http://whyevolutioni...#comment-126238

In defense of Dawkins, it would be an exaggeration to say he believes in inevitable human evolution. Inevitable human evolution is a crackpot idea not even accepted by Dawkins. As I have discussed, though, Dawkins has in various ways contributed to a misunderstanding of evolution as ruling out God's influence. The notion of inevitable human evolution that has spread among lay people fits with the atheist view that there is no God actively involved in his creation. Dawkins tolerates a false impression of evolution as being human-centered or -oriented because of his disagreement with Gould on historical contingency and probably also because of his anti-religion agenda.

We are talking about two sides of the same coin. The reason why atheist Dawkins and Platonic Christian Simon Conway Morris, who accepts creatio ex nihilo, are in the same boat may be that neither accepts the revelation that God organizes co-eternal matter. The concept of a God that did not produce an immaculate creation out of nothing is strange to them both.

Edited September 12, 2012 by supersnail

[shalamabobbi]

I'll let you literalists battle this one out without my help.

I'm very interested to know how you deal with this. Especially how you would bypass the constraints of physical facts (if you do) by invoking something other than what you term literalism in this example. We didn't tread this ground in the other thread.

[shalamabobbi]

Dawkins on not ever using the word "inevitable"

http://whyevolutioni...#comment-126238

In defense of Dawkins, it would be an exaggeration to say he believes in inevitable human evolution. Inevitable human evolution is a crackpot idea not even accepted by Dawkins. As I have discussed, though, Dawkins has in various ways contributed to a misunderstanding of evolution as ruling out God's influence. The notion of inevitable human evolution that has spread among lay people fits with the atheist view that there is no God actively involved in his creation. Dawkins tolerates a false impression of evolution as being human-centered or -oriented because of his disagreement with Gould on historical contingency and probably also because of his anti-religion agenda.

We are talking about two sides of the same coin. The reason why atheist Dawkins and Platonic Christian Simon Conway Morris, who accepts creatio ex nihilo, are in the same boat may be that neither accepts the revelation that God organizes co-eternal matter. The concept of a God that did not produce an immaculate creation out of nothing is strange to them both.

I'm still not following your argument.

Even in chaos theory there are attractors where the diverging behavior converges though following different pathways to get there.

Did God intervene with the bacteria in your referenced article to cause an adaptation for citrate?

How does the position you espouse necessitate including God in the ToE? I'm not arguing against God in the ToE and the idea that there is likely much involved in the process that is hidden. I am simply asking how you can arrive at that conclusion based upon what facts are available to us.

[Lament]

shalamabobbi says:

"There are the facts of evolution and there are the theories to explain those facts. The facts are that many varied species are physically convergent."

There are "facts" or at leasat observations of patterns. They are not necessarily facts of "evolution". That is, to define a fact as evolutionary (or some other hypothetical construct) and then offer the existence of the fact as evidence of the concept is circular. Thus, the ID alternative is also a possible explanation -- would it not be an efficient approach to design to use a similar solution or pattern in a variety of situations? That is, the "fact" of similar function (or trait) does not differentiate between Darwinian evolution and ID.

Allen

[mfbukowski]

I'm very interested to know how you deal with this. Especially how you would bypass the constraints of physical facts (if you do) by invoking something other than what you term literalism in this example. We didn't tread this ground in the other thread.

Well first, I haven't read Dawkins book so it really would not be fair for me to comment on it.

Second of all, I think that the entire idea of Darwinian evolution is almost true a priori to the point of being pretty uninteresting.

Clearly what survives, survives, and environments change, and if you are a polar bear in the Sahara you are not going to do too well. If you are a moth with white wings and all the trees turn black you are not going to do well.

But that says absolutely nothing about God. I think God has a purpose but he is not going to make it scientifically discoverable - that is not to say that he is deliberately HIDING anything- just that science has nothing to do with God or linguistic discourse about God.

It's like talking about if General Motors cars are better transportation than wormholes. It sound maybe like you could drive a car through a wormhole and indeed you might see that in a cartoon or something but they really have nothing to do with one another.

So I think I just really don't have that much to say about it I guess. I don't take science literally, nor do I take religion literally. They are both metaphorical models that deal with different subjects and the theory of evolution is another metaphorical model that intersects with science but doesn't, in my opinion, intersect with religion very well.

I don't believe in ID- because to me that confuses science with religion. Metaphysically we might talk about God having a purpose in using evolution, but really that is more poetry than anything. It isn't science and religion doesn't talk about evolution- so here we are with all these non-intersecting universes pretending to interact but, as all the confusion shows, not interacting at all.

So you asked, and that is my answer

[mfbukowski]

Oh and I don't know what you mean by "physical facts".

Facts are interpretations of experience and are not "physical". Words are not things.

[thesometimesaint]

Intelligent Design is a misnomer it is more stupid design.

[shalamabobbi]

shalamabobbi says:

"There are the facts of evolution and there are the theories to explain those facts. The facts are that many varied species are physically convergent."

There are "facts" or at leasat observations of patterns. They are not necessarily facts of "evolution". That is, to define a fact as evolutionary (or some other hypothetical construct) and then offer the existence of the fact as evidence of the concept is circular. Thus, the ID alternative is also a possible explanation -- would it not be an efficient approach to design to use a similar solution or pattern in a variety of situations? That is, the "fact" of similar function (or trait) does not differentiate between Darwinian evolution and ID.

Allen

Allen,

Let's take one particular set of facts. ERVs in the human genome. Go look that up, find the number that exist in the human genome and read about how that process occurs to get them there in the first place and then get back to me with a model of design that incorporates that data.

[supersnail]

There are the facts of evolution and there are the theories to explain those facts. The facts are that many varied species are physically convergent.

So what are you trying to say in view of this fact of evolution? That this convergence was so unlikely that the existence of convergence proves the intervention of God in the outcome? Or that contingency has many parallel paths?

Ok let's go with this. What have you established other than the fact(if we concede your viewpoint) that human evolution was an accident? How does this necessarily throw God into the process without assuming that evolution occurring on other planets repeats the same outcome that occurred here?

The strong convergence views of Dawkins and Simon Conway Morris are held by few biologists. By Dawkins' own admission. I stress historical contingency not because Gould's own views are indisputable, but as a stop on the way to considering a viewpoint that is neither 1) the atheist viewpoint that there is no God to intervene in the first place nor 2) the Platonic viewpoint that God's creation has unfolded, since creation out of nothing, without intervention. Alternative faith-based views don't require acceptance of any particular scientific theory, however.

Others perpetuate a view of evolution in which minority views about human evolution have more backing that they actually do. In informal scientific discourse or science enthusiast discourse, that's fine, and I don't see much need to get into a debate about convergence that most won't understand on a non-science board. Even if it turned out that the theory scientifically most likely to be true means that human evolution was inevitable and would have happened regardless of mass extinctions, for example, that does not preclude intervention or rule out an admittedly faith-based belief in creation.

I am not trying to prove any faith-based belief using any scientific theory or alleged scientific theory. I think I have made that clear. That's what others are doing or have tried to do and ended up in a stupor of atheistic scientism. Partly, it's because some don't understand that evolution does not preclude interventions by agents. Some assume that evolution leads to humans. Others don't understand the sense in which humans are an accident: an accident like many others that arise through the sometimes-random evolutionary process -- an improbability, but one that occurred and is lawful and scientifically explainable *without proving or precluding intervention by a powerful agent*.

Those misunderstandings can be corrected without pretending that faith can be justified on a scientific basis. I see no reason why Christians should be encouraged to think that humans are either a "complete accident" or an inevitability.

[shalamabobbi]

Well first, I haven't read Dawkins book so it really would not be fair for me to comment on it.

Second of all, I think that the entire idea of Darwinian evolution is almost true a priori to the point of being pretty uninteresting.

Clearly what survives, survives, and environments change, and if you are a polar bear in the Sahara you are not going to do too well. If you are a moth with white wings and all the trees turn black you are not going to do well.

But that says absolutely nothing about God. I think God has a purpose but he is not going to make it scientifically discoverable - that is not to say that he is deliberately HIDING anything- just that science has nothing to do with God or linguistic discourse about God.

It's like talking about if General Motors cars are better transportation than wormholes. It sound maybe like you could drive a car through a wormhole and indeed you might see that in a cartoon or something but they really have nothing to do with one another.

So I think I just really don't have that much to say about it I guess.

This all seems clear.

I don't take science literally, nor do I take religion literally.

I think I understand this with respect to religion but I don't know exactly what this means with respect to science.

With religion Lehi's tree of life can be a metaphor and not be a literal tree. What is an example from science? I would think that either you must assume a scientific fact to be insignificant and uninterpretable altogether or you posit an alternate understanding of the fact.

They are both metaphorical models that deal with different subjects and the theory of evolution is another metaphorical model that intersects with science but doesn't, in my opinion, intersect with religion very well.

I don't believe in ID- because to me that confuses science with religion. Metaphysically we might talk about God having a purpose in using evolution, but really that is more poetry than anything. It isn't science and religion doesn't talk about evolution- so here we are with all these non-intersecting universes pretending to interact but, as all the confusion shows, not interacting at all.

So you asked, and that is my answer

OK no problem understanding you here.

Oh and I don't know what you mean by "physical facts".

Facts are interpretations of experience and are not "physical". Words are not things.

You stated previously that you would not argue against the use of forensic data in a trial. I will call that evidence physical facts for the purposes of communication. If we are able to deprecate the significance of physical facts with the use of this metaphorical viewpoint, how do we not simultaneously deprecate the significance of spiritual facts as well? If there is no accepted base of experience that we are allowed to draw conclusions from how do we claim to know anything at all?

[Lament]

shalamabobbi replies to me thusly:

"Let's take one particular set of facts. ERVs in the human genome. Go look that up, find the number that exist in the human genome and read about how that process occurs to get them there in the first place and then get back to me with a model of design that incorporates that data."

I fail to see how the existence of endogenous retroviruses undermines any statement I made. Please explain how that responds to any of my argument, claim, or critique. Among other things, I did not offer a "model of design". Nor have I suggested that no Darwinian evolution occurs. The process by which they came about is hypothesized, not proven. Theories about historical origins cannot be proven (and often not even refuted). In other words, the existence of ERVs may be an observable fact, but the how is not. Finally, I (or anyone) do not have to provide an alternative theory or model to engage in valid critique, error reduction, or refutation.

Allen Lambert

[shalamabobbi]

Those misunderstandings can be corrected without pretending that faith can be justified on a scientific basis. I see no reason why Christians should be encouraged to think that humans are either a "complete accident" or an inevitability.

OK I understand this. But..

I stress historical contingency not because Gould's own views are indisputable, but as a stop on the way to considering a viewpoint that is neither 1) the atheist viewpoint that there is no God to intervene in the first place nor 2) the Platonic viewpoint that God's creation has unfolded, since creation out of nothing, without intervention.

I don't see how contingency eliminates item number 1. You have to assume God and the desired outcome of humans in the first place to get there. Absent these assumptions/assertions contingency doesn't prove anything. It's just the argument from incredulity in another form. It is only incredible given it was the goal of evolution.

[shalamabobbi]

shalamabobbi replies to me thusly:

"Let's take one particular set of facts. ERVs in the human genome. Go look that up, find the number that exist in the human genome and read about how that process occurs to get them there in the first place and then get back to me with a model of design that incorporates that data."

I fail to see how the existence of endogenous retroviruses undermines any statement I made. Please explain how that responds to any of my argument, claim, or critique. Among other things, I did not offer a "model of design". Nor have I suggested that no Darwinian evolution occurs. The process by which they came about is hypothesized, not proven. Theories about historical origins cannot be proven (and often not even refuted). In other words, the existence of ERVs may be an observable fact, but the how is not. Finally, I (or anyone) do not have to provide an alternative theory or model to engage in valid critique, error reduction, or refutation.

Allen Lambert

How shall I answer this? Thusly:

Hovind offered this remark in a debate that is comparable to what you are suggesting here. He had the audience consider the fact of a fossil and proceeded to state that there is no proof that the creature from which this fossil originated reproduced and left progeny. So fossils don't prove anything at all. You see how that goes?

[Lament]

Again shalamabobbi fails to address directly any claim I actually made. His latest (in reply to my comment on ERVs):

"Hovind offered this remark in a debate that is comparable to what you are suggesting here. He had the audience consider the fact of a fossil and proceeded to state that there is no proof that the creature from which this fossil originated reproduced and left progeny. So fossils don't prove anything at all. You see how that goes?"

* Just what, specifically, is it that you think I have suggested that Hovind's remark supposedly undermines?

* The real issue is not whether the fossil "proves anything" but whether it proves a specific claim about neo-Darwinian evolution. It does not. It may be consistent therewith, but it does not differentiate DE from some alternatives, including some versions of II or ID. Unless a theory or hypothesis can be formulated in a way which differentiates itself in a measurement or experiment from alternative explanations, it is not really scientific and the data adduced as evidence for that theory does not provide powerful support -- it can provide plausibility but not proof.

Allen

[mfbukowski]

This all seems clear.

I think I understand this with respect to religion but I don't know exactly what this means with respect to science.

With religion Lehi's tree of life can be a metaphor and not be a literal tree. What is an example from science? I would think that either you must assume a scientific fact to be insignificant and uninterpretable altogether or you posit an alternate understanding of the fact.

OK no problem understanding you here.

You stated previously that you would not argue against the use of forensic data in a trial. I will call that evidence physical facts for the purposes of communication. If we are able to deprecate the significance of physical facts with the use of this metaphorical viewpoint, how do we not simultaneously deprecate the significance of spiritual facts as well? If there is no accepted base of experience that we are allowed to draw conclusions from how do we claim to know anything at all?

I think that you are somehow missing that words themselves are symbols and models and are not "real" in the sense of being things nor do they "correspond" to anything that we can know about

You cannot get outside of experience to see if it "corresponds" to anything because all you will see is experience.

Science doesn't "correspond" to reality any better than religion or poetry "corresponds" to reality. Yes we have cliffs and walls to fall off of and bump into. But what we bump into is our EXPERIENCE of a wall- some "thing" which hinders our progress- but it is defined precisely by the fact that it hinders our progress.

I don't deprecate evidence- but all we have is evidence. Evolution itself is a theoretical construct- it is a symbolic verbal linguistic abstraction, an explanation of how life came to be. It is theory, poetry, an abstract conglomeration of a bunch of stuff abstracted into what we call "data" because we say it is.

A bone is not "data"- it is a bone. We make it into data or "evidence" by classifying it as a particular KIND of bone. It is a human hip bone or a chicken wing bone. Culturally we have made up those distinctions- we think we are not chickens and we decide this is an "us" bone and not a "chicken" bone. We decide that the "us" bone is old because it is deep down in a hole. We throw away the chicken bone from last nights dinner and look for the "thigh bone" from what we classify as a "human" who allegedly "lived" what we abstractly think of as "ten million years ago".

Because of the shape of what we call the "thigh bone" of a "homo sapiens" (all culturally created concepts) we can now abstract it all and show how, with the help of the idea thought up by Darwin that this particular bone constitutes "evidence" for something else we culturally have called "bipedal locomotion".

Good. That is what we wanted it to do- to fit into Darwin's creative explanation and model/myth of how humans came to be.

We have just "discovered" (or actually created) what we now call "evidence" for our "theory". It all fits together. Just like fitting rocks together to make a fireplace- but now instead of a construction which will keep us warm and safe, we have a mental model which will make us comfortable to think that we now understand "reality" better.

We select that bone as opposed to the other bone because it makes our abstract theory work a little bit better in our abstract attempt to give some made-up explanation that a guy named Darwin came up with 150 years ago.

THAT is what "evidence" is- something experienced which we fit into a conceptual model which model is created verbally to accomplish a specific purpose. Now we have Darwinian Evolution. We can explain all the bones lying around without God.

But that only works for literalists who actually think that they are talking about the "way the world is" and not a way we have come up with to explain how we THINK the world might be.

I see it differently. I see it as a way to put together what we experience into a nice neat myth which is useful for a while and then when it no longer is useful, it is discarded, and some other myth becomes necessary.

In my lifetime I have seen ideas which were seen as incontrovertible suddenly become absurd. I have seen the "Iron Curtain" come and go. I had a personal PC in 1980 when no one else had one and now we cannot live without these silly machines.

I have changed religions 3 or 4 times depending on how you count. I was a communist student radical yippie and a conservative business man. I was a Catholic a Buddhist an atheist and a Mormon, and I have found the path that I know works for me.

And I have studied philosophy and the philosophy behind all the changes I have experienced.

I have seen a lot of explanations of a lot of things and none of them ever get it exactly right and the sooner people understand that the less dogmatic and confused they will be.

All we can know is what we have experienced and what we hear and read and learn others have experienced though our use of language. The problems start to arise when we think that we can know more than that. It's all words- it's all constructed by culture to explain how things work and why, and it works very well most of the time.

But he who thinks it's about some objective reality beyond words has a lot to learn.

Edited September 12, 2012 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

And I may be wrong, but I think that what Dawkins misses is that it's all words.

He thinks he is actually learning something about some objective world beyond experience and beyond someone's made up explanation. If he thinks that, he is wrong.

Edited September 12, 2012 by mfbukowski

[supersnail]

OK I understand this. But..

I don't see how contingency eliminates item number 1. You have to assume God and the desired outcome of humans in the first place to get there. Absent these assumptions/assertions contingency doesn't prove anything. It's just the argument from incredulity in another form. It is only incredible given it was the goal of evolution.

It doesn't eliminate #1, "the atheist viewpoint that there is no God to intervene in the first place." It just suggests the possibility of intervention without proving intervention. Gould's view is perfectly compatible with atheism.

I would agree, though, even if human evolution was inevitable, that still wouldn't preclude God's influence.

You're not saying anything that I'm not familiar with. We actually had this same conversation in another thread, and you made an analogy to a certain permutation of cards being dealt being incredible only if a bet were placed on it beforehand. Not sure if you don't remember or you think I have changed my argument. Anyway, I'm not arguing that intervention is likely because human evolution is improbable. Rather, intervention is possible, though not necessary, because human evolution is improbable (if Stephen Jay Gould is correct). The improbability of human evolution does not mean we cannot look back and see the so-called steps appearing to lead to humans. (I hesistate to say "steps leading," because such language has been misleading.) Human evolution may appear no more incredible than the evolution of the leatherback turtle and many other species. But at this time we cannot include or exclude God as the cause or a cause of one or more of many random events on which human evolution may have been contingent. Yes, in theory, Homo sapiens like any other species could have evolved without God at all. I don't deny this, and in fact I am open to accepting various theories that make no mention of God.

I don't suppose you are making an argument from design. Maybe there are good reasons to believe in views like Dawkins' and Simon Conway Morris'. Those reasons would not include a prior belief in creation out of nothing.

Edited September 12, 2012 by supersnail

[Hamilton Porter]

Dawkins on not ever using the word "inevitable"

http://whyevolutioni...#comment-126238

In defense of Dawkins, it would be an exaggeration to say he believes in inevitable human evolution. Inevitable human evolution is a crackpot idea not even accepted by Dawkins. As I have discussed, though, Dawkins has in various ways contributed to a misunderstanding of evolution as ruling out God's influence. The notion of inevitable human evolution that has spread among lay people fits with the atheist view that there is no God actively involved in his creation. Dawkins tolerates a false impression of evolution as being human-centered or -oriented because of his disagreement with Gould on historical contingency and probably also because of his anti-religion agenda.

We are talking about two sides of the same coin. The reason why atheist Dawkins and Platonic Christian Simon Conway Morris, who accepts creatio ex nihilo, are in the same boat may be that neither accepts the revelation that God organizes co-eternal matter. The concept of a God that did not produce an immaculate creation out of nothing is strange to them both.

Dawkins is wrong, he did use the word 'inevitable.'

edit: By the way, the way Dawkins explains convergent evolution is much more persuasive than the way Simon Conway Morris explains it.

I will respond to snails and lament later, but I have a few assignments due.

Edited September 12, 2012 by Hamilton Porter

[mfbukowski]

I just hope all you guys know that "Gould's view" is not Gould's view in the sense that he was the inventor of that position any more than that "Kuhn's view" was invented by Kuhn.

If you want to know who invented those views, read the Pragmatists - Peirce, William James, John Dewey, Polanyi, and even good old Richard Rorty.

Gould is not even a philosopher and really his view doesn't go very far.

Neither Dawkins nor Gould appear to have any philosophical training and it shows.

Edited September 12, 2012 by mfbukowski

[thesometimesaint]

I don't need any God to explain science, and no science can explain God.

[mfbukowski]

I don't need any God to explain science, and no science can explain God.

That about captures it for me as well. It's not that they agree or disagree with each other, just that for the moment, they are pretty irrelevant to each other. I think someday in principle, they will intersect, but for now they don't have much to do with each other.