The importance of being wise Christians
 Regular Network Norwich and Norfolk columnist James Knight dispels the perception that there must be conflict between science and theology in part two of his series on Bringing Christianity and Science Together.
Science has taught us one of the most astounding discoveries we have ever made; that everything at a quantum level has the same elemental composition. The atoms in our bodies come from stars - in fact, almost every element on earth originated in the fiery centre of one of many cosmic explosions that happened millions of years ago; our whole solar system is the result of a supernova that spilled materials out into our galaxy which later formed our sun and planets. Our knowledge of science has allowed us to cognitively colonise existence itself, as we discover relations between all sorts of disparate phenomena. As a Christian, the intimate isomorphic interrelations between the very big and the very small, between biology and cosmology, and between mind and cosmos, compounds my view that the universe was specially created for us, and that our principal purpose in life is to have a relationship with the Creator - our God, who made Himself known in Jesus Christ.
In my view, the discovery that we are all made of the same elemental material is one of the greatest discoveries of all time – it is a discovery that is able to change our perception about so much. It is the perfect avenue for greater and more innovative exploration, and it is one of the primary facts that can push us on to broaden our horizons and embrace learning with an enthusiasm and majestic awe not previously seen. This knowledge more than any other encourages us to reconstitute the epistemological boundaries - it widens the net and allows us to view phenomena like 'abiogenesis', 'natural selection' and 'common ancestry' in an entirely different and more illuminating light.
It is true young earth creationists and anti-evolutionists think that an immense allegiance to God also brings with it the insistence that they stick to their guns, but they have perhaps overlooked the fact that the narrow parameters in which they do their thinking are a relatively recent insistence on the mind, largely arising as a resistant force to human innovation in the last 150 years. Most pre-Enlightenment scholars were not sullied or influenced by this irrational view of the world.
Christ says that we are the light of the world, but it is imperative that in shining our light we keep ourselves open to the bright light of good and reliable knowledge when it arrives. Fresh investigations have plenty to teach us - we should not live in the past - for in doing so we do a disservice to God’s grand plan for the progression of the world. Science has already shown that we all evolved from one initial organism (this process may have happened more than once), and that as far back as we can observe in the book of life, scouring our evolution shows that we are all ancestrally linked.
I am writing this set of articles on‘Christianity and science’ to show that as Christians we should be the first to discern sound knowledge and contentions when they arrive, for we have the soundest wisdom of all regarding ultimate truths - the Word was with God and the Word was God. Our keenness to receive fresh and exciting discoveries should not be halted by an intransigent fear of human progression.
If the universe is a simulacrum of the Divine realm - the result of a providential impartation - then it stands to reason that the things which we try to explain are merely self-references within that realm, just as when we try to describe what the human mind is we are analysing something that is contained within itself. The big bang, the black holes, the stellar collisions, the galaxies, planets, earth, life, every cellular activity on earth - all of these things are explained by the providential impartation, and if one believes in the Creator God, it is in my view justifiable to say that they are all part of a cosmic consciousness. That which we perceive as chance and that which we try to decipher with probability are only so because we are inside the cosmic consciousness - for outside of it they are not subservient to probability at all. Linear time could simply give the illusion of unguided evolution when in fact God could be involved every step of the way. Even the wastefulness of evolution, the perceived copying errors in DNA and RNA could easily be part of the cosmic mindset.
The fruits of science
It is certainly true that DNA sequencing has confirmed beyond any reasonable doubt that all living creatures share a common origin. The explosion of genomic research has revealed that all living creatures work in essentially the same way; they store and translate information using the same genetic code, with only a few minor variations in the most primitive organisms. Christians believe that organisms have been created to be part of nature and to adapt within nature’s system - thus we see that organisms of all kinds evolve when their environment and external surroundings are altered. As far as Darwinian evolution goes, biological studies show categorical branching points that demonstrably reveal the history of evolutionary progression and new species arriving throughout many various stages of evolution.
We know a lot more now than when Darwin first published his 'Origin of Species'; we know enough to be much more certain about evolution and the fine details of how creatures evolved. Moreover, those that deny evolution miss out on a fundamental part of epistemology, in particular, the great things that we have achieved because of our knowledge of the intricate structures of living organisms. Let me offer you an example of our benefiting from evolutionary knowledge and our knowledge of intricate biological structures. This is taken from Kenneth Miller’s brilliant book 'Finding Darwin’s God':
In 1994, William Stremmer of the biotech firm Affymax sought to ‘evolve’ a new strain of bacterium resistant to an antibiotic known as cefotaxime. He started with a copy of the gene for B-lactamase, an enzyme that breaks down some antibiotics but is not much use against cefotaxime. He mutated the gene (randomly), selected for resistance against cefotaxime in bacteria carrying the mutated genes (there was a little), and then did something very clever. He chopped a copy of the moderately successful mutant gene into small pieces, then allowed them to combine randomly into new sequences that were reinserted into new cells. This randomised swapping of bits and pieces of genes is remarkably close to the kind of gene shuffling that takes place during reproduction, and it was just as effective. In just three rounds of shuffling and selection, he produced mutant proteins that were 32,000 times as effective against cefotaxime as the original protein had been. The key to Stremmer’s dramatic success, as he noted, was his ability to mimic an underappreciated part of the evolutionary mechanism - its ability to shuffle and recombine genes and gene sequences during reproduction. The mechanism of mutation is far more dynamic that is generally believed, and his dramatic demonstration of rapid evolution gave a hint of just how creative mutation can be.
This is one simple example of how God uses our studies of biology to our advantage. Biologically there is little difference between humans and animals. Our genetic instructions are encoded in the same language of DNA and we know that when human genes are transplanted into other animals, bacteria, and even plants, function perfectly. There is no reason to claim that physiologically we are very much different form other living things, just as, if the truth be known, we are at a sub-atomic level not much different from the empty space that makes up our universe – we are all made up of matter. Moreover, it is not always realised that if young earth creationists or anti-evolutionists are right, we should not be able to find any examples of long progressive evolutionary changes in the fossil record at all - but, of course, we have found many(anyone who has seen the long history of elephant evolution from basic proto-elephants to elephants as we know them or, for that matter, the transformation from fish to tetrapod amphibian will see what I mean)
Many great physicists have shown us in the last 150 years that both the universe and matter itself are far more complex than we ever realised - and time has also shown (to those that needed it) that we must embrace fresh knowledge if it is shown to be sound. The same is true, of course, in biology. And as I said at the beginning of this article, at one point every atom in your body was once at an astronomical temperature in the nuclear furnace of a long distant supernova. Joni Mitchell’s song 'Woodstock' in which claims we are ’stardust’ really is more true than any of us could have realised. It is this fact perhaps more than any other that opens us new epistemological vistas - a panoramic potential for some of the greatest discoveries that man has ever achieved. And as long as the search does not encroach upon our relationship with Christ - through whom all things were made, and in whom all life that is the light of men (John 1:3-4), we can embrace nature with passion and try to learn as much as we can about her and about creation itself.
Those who feel threatened by science are missing out on something truly wonderful; the joy of discovery far supersedes the joy of safe complacency. I suppose in one sense science is a little like music in that it has beauty beyond its intrinsic benefits and pleasures. The scientists would tell you under analysis music is sound vibrations pervading the air, stimulating neural activity in the brain. Yet all of us know that music speaks to us in a way that transcends mere scientific analysis. The ineffable feelings of awe and of the numinous are prominent in the glorious sound of music, in fact, that is why we use music to express our worship for God, music can take us where words fail to take us. I think this applies to science too - those who see it as a negative interference foolishly look past its real beauty. Science will not tell us everything, but if we allow it to it will reveal much about the glorious wonders of God’s creation.
It is true that many staunch atheists have hijacked Darwin for their own purposes, but I think Charles Darwin and the many great subsequent evolutionists have brought us a lot closer to understanding much of how God works in biology, certainly in studies of earthly activity and the biological interworkings of creatures on this planet. The Hand of God is written into every living thing. Perhaps a puerile approach to Christianity will insist that we dispense with trying to understanding the finer details, but clear thinking and determination leads us to remarkable discoveries.
When it comes to evolutionary theory, we have to admit that ‘I don’t know’ often means ‘I don’t want to know’. What one might call voluntary sightlessness - a prevalent attitude to which people are drawn by shutting themselves off from learning things which they feel might assail their sensibilities. Those that are open to embracing fresh knowledge and discovery are naturally those who are likely to embrace the free exchange of ideas, including those in political domains as well as scientific; for the embracing of freedom of expression and a free exchange of ideas is the very opposite of the backward, oppressive (and in the worst cases) autocratic, oligarchic and totalitarian states across the world that stultify educational growth, reject knowledge and technology, and circumscribe the development and well-being of others. Education and diligence opens the door to scientific innovations, economic growth, better health, better governments and more fruitful creativity and life satisfaction. It is incredible that it should be some Christians that would encourage the very opposite of all those things - stagnancy, stultification and futility by continuing to preach their nonsense. Unless we sensible, realistic Christians start ringing the alarm bells louder, exposing this nonsense and making it more conspicuous in public circles by proudly propagating the sensible and pro-science factual alternatives, I’m afraid this chasm between atheism and Christianity will remain wider than it need be.
It is true that there has been a mass influx of unholiness in this country - atheism has become the most prevalent position. It is very hard for any of us to get back ground that has been lost. Yet I believe that humankind shares the same eternal longing; the holiness that has been lost still echoes in our hearts, and most of us spend our lives trying to recreate that sound again. Despite all the cacophony of everyday life and the stillness of time, the motionless moments still reveal to us God’s voice among the calm.
We have spent all our lives either calling God back into our hearts or making gods of thing that aren’t Him. Whatever you see and whatever you hear, you will be no more that one faint step or one still voice away from Him. In that sense there is no distinction between a church and a science laboratory, or a holy shrine and a supermarket - you can find God equally in either; both are calling out His name – for He lives in our hearts. Nature is harsh, that much is true. But would you blame the trees for the badness of the cuckoo, would you blame the grass for the lion attacking the deer? Would you blame Beethoven if you saw a young child trying to play one of his piano concertos and mess it up? And in answering ‘No’ it is here we see the kernel of reality as we gaze into the eyes of nature; she is the child and we are children too. Don’t be afraid of the discoveries we make about her.
The importance of being wise Christians
 In my experiences of reading lots of theology and lots of science, one of the most significant observations I have made is, I’m sorry to say, that the perceived conflict between science and theology is a misperception created exclusively by those who approach this subject with vested interests and unwillingness to consider contra opinions. I know quite a few Christians who think that the earth is only six thousand years old because that is what they think the first chapter of Genesis and the later genealogies tell them. Now the real danger of such misinformation is this. If a man can be in error on this matter how can he be sure that he is not in error when it comes to other parts of Christianity? Many of the greatest intellectuals have affirmed their belief in the veracity of the Christian faith, therefore it astounds me sometimes that there are lazy-thinking Christians who seem content to be embarrassed by their lack of understanding of the deeper parts of sound analysis - the paradox of which is that the most obvious things are often mysterious to those who cannot understand simple propositions. On the one hand they feel that they are right about their Christian belief yet in the next breath you will find them reluctant to open up the discussion into wider territories (many of which complement Christian truths and supplement our understanding of science and philosophy).
Some would object by saying the following; where is the harm in a man settling for the most simplest of positions when it comes to his faith? For himself, there is little harm at all - but for those on whom he might have a chance of making an impacting, there is every danger that they will see him for a fool and thus see his belief system as foolish. It might be easier to read the Bible and live life as though that is the only way that God communicates with His creation; it might be simpler to turn a deaf ear to science and philosophy; it might be easier to steer clear of debates; and it might be less stressful to avoid witnessing to the lost souls. But to act this way is to forget the diligent commitment that Christ talked about when He talked about our following Him. The easy option is not always the best option.
No doubt it would have been easier for the Good Samaritan to walk on by, but much harder later on. School life would be easier if we did not have to learn anything, but much harder later on. Good grades and a solid future depend on such achievements; thus it is going to be an easier ride in school to evade learning but a much harder ride in our adult years. The same is true in a sense when it comes to Christianity. Of course a Christian man’s salvation would not be affected by his belief in macroevolution nor by his belief in young earth creationism; for the Christian necessities are not conditioned by these interpretations. But it is going to matter a lot when he meets people who might have had a genuine interest in the life of Christ but couldn’t get beyond the fact that their interlocutor was so irrational that he was prepared to dismiss theories which are seen by most sensible folk as sound.
Thankfully this is not as common as one might fear (although one instance of it is one too many). I suppose it is a fact that if a man is hasty and a non-Christian, he will very likely be a hasty Christian (at least for a while). But it seems to me that to think this way is to miss the real potential of God’s blessings. If we seek wisdom He will give it to us in abundance - the hasty man will become wiser every time he wishes to leave hastiness behind; although all this depends upon two things.
In the first place he must want to grow in wisdom; and in the second place he must make the effort to grow in a way which is conducive to wisdom. Having established that it is a bad thing to be a hasty practitioner of Christianity, one might be wise in asking why this happens at all. Why do some Christians have so much trouble swimming from the shallow end to the deep end when God is supporting them at every point of the journey? I think I know the answer. To explain this we must look closely at what is happening when our thinking is accorded with many external things.
The complex dialectic of fact, myth, emotion and perception
It is important to remember first off that what is real and what is constituted are not necessarily the same things, in fact both can be elements of the same thing yet unable to overlap. You will find profitable reasoning in multiplication and indeed in laws themselves (although the exactitude might sometimes be unknowable) - but when you move into other areas of thought you find that it is never a closed cognitive system. To our mind a bookcase is very different to a jealous feeling, but both are seemingly real events. We can describe a bookcase in less abstract ways than we can a jealous feeling, for we find on close inspection that such feelings require external objects in order to make the feeling explicable. The same is true of goodness. The moment one tries to explain what goodness is, he immediately comes up against an image of a good act or he comes up against an inner sensation - a ‘feeling’ of goodness. But notice that the two things do not overlap very clearly. If he is thinking about an action he is no longer feeling the inner-sensation in the same way. If he is feeling the inner-sensation he is no longer thinking about a good action in the same way.
Any analysis of human thinking provides us with a multitude of examples. An itch that we desperately want to scratch is different to the feelings which exemplify an urge. When you have one you immediately make an abstraction of the other. An itch is a particularly good example because the alternate sensation of scratching and needing to scratch can be repetitive every minute or so. This is the true reality of our cognitive make-up. Either we scratch and that which we ’know’ temporarily disappears or we know and make the sensation of ‘scratching’ an abstraction. A woman can enjoy a thrilling crime novel; but the feelings of tense enjoyment during reading are very different to ‘thinking’ about those sensations afterwards. A man can love his wife dearly, but the moments when he is ‘feeling’ love the most are not the moments when he is ‘thinking’ about love. The deeper our thinking goes, the further we move away from the realities of the experience.
Having seen this it is easy to understand how lazy thinking can get a man in trouble when it comes to his thoughts about something as illuminating as the Christian faith. His dismissal of, say, evolution is very often the result of the reality of being caught in experience. And if he is really inattentive you might even find him thinking that giraffes always had long necks and that most of the many varying breeds of dogs were all initially created on the same day. Here the error is actually an opposite of normal thinking - for he is, in fact, (in his own mind) turning abstractions into facts and facts into abstractions.
The human mind will attach meaning to everything - whether it is filtered into ‘nonsense’ or ‘doubt’ or ‘elation’ or any such feeling. And of course to feel that something is nonsense is very different to feeling elated about something. And here we are beginning to touch upon some of deep mysteries of inner-psychology. If by the sheerest coincidence or the strongest bias the feelings attached to ‘myth’ are stronger that the feelings attached to ‘fact’ - we can end up thinking all sorts of nonsense is true.
A good example is found with my reference a moment ago, regarding feelings of elation and knowledge of nonsense. Finding out from your doctor that you have cancer but not knowing that he was mistakenly looking at someone else’s papers would no doubt cause the worst inner-sensations (while you were unaware of the error). But the feelings themselves are not linked to the truth in the same way that the truth is linked to the medical records. In the same way, if the sensations and feelings elicited from myths, fallacies, apocryphal tales and misinterpretations are not pressed against the glass, removing every smear when one is found, then a man can never be safe in his knowledge – the barrier impeding a man and the truth will remain.
What passes through from misinterpretation is not fact but some other constituent of reality (facts categorise something or explain something, but constituents of reality are the things which facts are about). If the feeling about a constituent of reality is well received by the emotions it can colonise truth but only on the abstract (and often misinformed) level. To miss this point is to be guilty of thinking that falsehoods are not reality. The situation is more concrete - they are real (at the very least at a conceptual level) because they are false. To relegate them to the position of non-entity is to remove the truthful corollaries from the picture as well; just as ‘amorality’ knows no such thing as ‘morality’.
It might not matter much to you on the devotional level whether evolution is true or whether the six days of creation were literal twenty four hour periods. But the consequences are more serious than you think. If a man does not know whether his simple propositions are trustworthy, how is he to know whether the devotion he is giving is being given to the right source? For as we see in other belief systems that are based on falsehood - a man is able to be devotional without knowing the whole truth. No, the practical importance of knowing that your beliefs are sound cannot be overstated - for we all know how easy it is to get spurious information propagated.
Everyday life furnishes us with so many opportunities to see spurious information being propagated. People spend their days believing things they are told even when there is no evidence for such beliefs. People who spend their lives receiving information without questioning it owe it to themselves to think these things through, for the truth is so much more rewarding when this happens. Truth is the strong oak on which the rain of mythology falls. It might soak in sometimes, but truth is able to suck out of myths all it needs to make itself stronger and more affirmed
Lazy thinking will get you every time if you make abstractions of truth and make particulars of experience, for the real lucidity comes when both are taken for the existent realities to which they belong. If evolution is a myth it is a myth only in the sense that it has not been observed in totality (which is, of course, an impossibility). But the same can be said of, say, the parting of the sea (in the book of Exodus). In fact, if one were following the laws of reason in the strictest sense, there is more evidence for evolution than there is for the parting of the sea (although knowledge of this depends on knowing about evolution). But that does not make the parting of the sea a myth, just on those ground alone.
The important thing to remember is that we are not being asked to isolate the parting of the sea as one separate event and base our whole faith on it - we are being asked to look at the collective evidence. There are myths in the sense that they cannot be proved as concrete realities but they do not cease to be facts because of this. This is, in one sense, the problem that young earth creationists and anti-evolutionists have - they have not observed the miraculous through the abstract, they have tried to observe it through concrete realities and missed the collective. To claim that the vast majority of science is wrong because it happens to conflict with your interpretation of texts which were never intended to be postulated as facts about science is a nonsensical position to take. You can be sure that if such a conflict occurs it is most likely true that it is your interpretation which needs correcting.
The only people who claim that science is an untrustworthy edifice are those who know virtually nothing about science. The same is true of Christianity - usually the only people who truly object are those who know virtually nothing about it - those who have pierced no deeper than the surface. This is why it is important to guard against double standards - for unfortunately some Christians are happy to stridently assert that one needs to explore further the Christian faith in order to absorb it, understand it, and embrace it (a claim which is certainly true), yet you will find them in the next breath failing to repeat this process when it comes to understanding science.
In a science based world there are many people who are resistant to the Christian claims because they perceive a dichotomy between science and theology. They think that they are forced to choose one or the other, and naturally, if they hear Christians speaking nonsense about science, it is not surprising that they choose science over Christianity. But the time has come for many Christians to be awakened from their intransigent slumber. One of the biggest failings is non-percolation - it has elicited stultification in every century since the Hellenists. To be truly Christian we must assent to the historical fact but also to the wondrous innovations which science and philosophy and psychology can teach us. Only then will we help people to realise that all of these things gloriously complement each other.
More next week!
The views carried here are those of the author, not of Network Norwich and Norfolk, and are intended to stimulate constructive debate between website users. We welcome your thoughts and comments, posted below, upon the ideas expressed here. You can also contact the author direct at james.knight@norfolk.gov.uk
James is a Norwich local government officer, author and Proclaimers church member in Norwich. You can access his current collections of columns here
Meanwhile, if you want to find out more about Christianity, visit: www.rejesus.co.uk
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| | | James Knight | 21/05/2009 15:05 | Hi again Andrew,
I only have a little time today, and regarding where I think you’re going wrong, what I’m now going to say isn’t the principal area I wish to address. As I’ve been writng this, I’ve just noticed your latest entry above, for which I thank you. As they are issues on scripture I’ll save them until I address that area in this debate.
For now, let me just address some of your biological issues, by reminding you that evolution has left a massive trail of evidence in its wake, which you seem to have overlooked.
1) Vestigial traits – there are huge amounts of relics of ancient ancestry that, frankly, make those who deny our evolutionary past seem quite desperate. Moreover, if the earth is over four billion years old (a fact which is beyond doubt) – using an argument on your lines, there is absolutely no reason to suppose that God left it uninhabited for all those tens of millions of years before the Genesis account. Don’t forget, Andrew, the life that has been evolving for millions of years is hardly ‘left to its own natural causes’ – God is involved every step of the way; nothing happens if it isn’t in His original blueprint.
2) Embryology - not only are human embryos indistinguishable (except chemically) from those of a fish or lizard in the early stages of development, consistent with the idea that each generation is a slight modification of the previous, but the course of development is telling too. The whale foetus grows legs and then absorbs them, a testament to its legged ancestry. A cow foetus has upper teeth which are also absorbed, leaving no upper teeth in the adult - an advantage to their rudiment feeding habits which rely on back teeth for chewing (you may not have noticed, Andrew, but superfluous teeth do little more than collect bacteria and cause disease. There are many books written on this subject.
3) The fossil record - there is a clear picture which arises from the fossil record, which is consistent with geology and physics. We can date these fossils, and we can see from our studies of dinosaurs that 200 million years ago, when pangaea broke up, that this one species started to diversify differently on different continents. Take another example - the formation of the ear. We can see the multi-boned reptilian lower jaw in fossils. We know that this structure could feel vibrations. Sound IS vibrations Andrew. We can see the bones rising upward as we look at more recent, but similar fossils. We can trace this all the way until we get to the modern mammalian ear - with three tiny bones in the middle ear which are essential for precision hearing. There are so many transitional fossils, such as those of wolf-like animals evolving into horses. We have fossils of ambulocetus, an intermediate between land mammals and whales. We have fossils of acanthostega and icthyostega, intermediates between fish and land vertebrates, etc, etc, etc - there are so many Andrew. Just do some research and see as an example the amount of proto-elephants – there are loads of them – and you will see what I mean.
4) Comparative biology. All our closest closet ancestors closely mirror human traits and characteristics and behavioural patterns. Have you ever seen the things that humans and apes do that no other animal does?
Also, consider this. Imagine that you have three butterflies and look at their appearance. One purple with big antennas, one purple with small antennas and blue spots and one purple with small antennas and yellow spots. The simplest 'family tree' for this would be:
(1 group) Big antennas Small antennas -> Spots (2 groups)
Yes, it’s possible that spots evolved first, then antennas got small, then the spots were lost and then the antennas grew big - but the simplest tree has the fewest connections. Now - imagine you look at other features - feeding habits, eye structure, bio-molecular signalling pathways, flower preference and so on. Nine times out of ten, you will end up with the same family tree. Now - make the tree bigger and include moths and dragonflies and other flying insects. It is possible, by comparing these creatures, to lay out a family tree to see the order in which species diverged. You can use common features to define common ancestors. Of course, you can do this with all creatures and the way different features co-localise on the same tree is astounding. Take lactation - it only happens in mammals. No bird or reptile or insect or fish lactates - not a single one. Lactation appears on one branch of the tree, the mammal branch. Take another feature - the placenta. This too appears on the mammal branch, but evolved later on. We know this because there is a branch off the mammal branch that doesn't have a placenta - these lactating, non-placental mammals are known as marsupials and are very common on the Australasian continent. If you actually did some proper research Andrew, you would find countless other examples; one-way breathing system of birds, molecules for the immune system, bone lengths, heart structure, blood types, shell composition, ear shape, lengths of intestines, fur thickness, intelligence and so on, and so on. Nature provides so many features that encyclopaedias could be written on the subject of comparative biology and it ALL fits into an evolutionary framework - not only that but biological characteristics fall into the same family tree as seen in the fossil record.
5) Atavisms - atavisms occur when ancient genetic pathways are expressed by accident. Every so often a child is born with a tail. I'm not kidding, Google it. This is a relic of our tail-bearing past that has been accidentally switched on during foetal development. Similar things happen in nature - Chickens with teeth and horses with feet instead of hooves. In fact, they say Julius Caesar would only ride atavistic horses that had feet instead of hooves. One remarkable observation is that according to the evolutionary tree, horses have footed ancestors, chickens have teethed ancestors and humans have tailed ancestors. Everything fits into place perfectly from an evolutionary perspective. I’ve told you this before, Andrew, but just like many of my other comprehensive points, these are the ones you chose to overlook, or ignore and hoped I wouldn’t notice. If I thought it would be in the least bit worthwhile I would carefully go through all of the things to which you failed to provide a satisfactory answer, but I doubt your mind is open enough to consider the evidence properly. I hope I’m wrong about that, because I think you’re missing out on so much. Did you find the time to read my ‘Miracle of Evolution article? Its’ hardly the circumscribing viewpoint that you seem to suggest.
| | | | James Knight | 21/05/2009 15:07 | 6) Molecular biology and genetics - these is SO much evidence in this field that even if there were no evidence from any of the above, the theory of evolution would have more than enough proof from genetics. Would you even listen if I elaborated? The gene sequences can be compared to one another in all manner of different species. The difference between them can be categorised and used to work out exactly which species are related to which other species. You scoffed at the Africa ancestry, but it is in fact possible to trace the spread of human populations out of Africa, by looking at where certain mutations appear, and drawing lines on a map between the indigenous populations that have those mutations. We know the first wave of exploration went on to colonise Australia. In fact, it is so accurate that we can even tell the difference between the upper and lower members of the Indian caste system. There are many surprises to be had with genetics. One startling observation I already told you about is the appearance of a new gene which eventually became the genes for forming the placenta. This gene is common in retroviruses, but not in animals. Surprisingly, a virus put its DNA into one of our ancient ancestors, but failed to replicate. This retroviral DNA spread to out ancestors descendents, which eventually became crucial to the development of the placenta! Not only are we descended from apes, but we are more than a little bit virus too!!!!
7) The state evolution has left us in - our senses are terribly flawed. Our brain filters what we see, removing much detail and giving only a vague outline of the external world to our conscious mind. Scotoma patients, who have damaged retinas, fill in so much visual detail that it impacts their lives, but it is just an exaggeration of what occurs naturally in a normal human brain. Similarly, our eyes detect only three colours of the infinite number conceivable, the mixing of which form the palette of our visual experience. Our hearing is restricted in frequency and our taste buds, which come in but five varieties, are severely limited in chemical scope. Whatever external reality is, it is very different to how we perceive it.
There are some things we can only infer the existence of by their effects, such as most planets outside of the solar system. Modern physics seems to be like peeling back layers of an onion. It started in ancient Greece, with Democritus's proposition of the atom. Bohr showed that the atom was a strange thing, made mostly of nothing, but with a solid nucleus. Then came the notion of subatomic particles, and Schrödinger's wave-equation, which explained the behaviour of all atoms and subatomic particles with a single formula. Einstein added to the complexity by showing that intuitive notions of space and time were ill-conceived; just approximations to reality, but approximations which are valid to the range of all human experiences on this earth.
I have only just touched the surface of what’s out there on evolution. My simple examples are nothing compared to specific cases of evolution - cases we can investigate with the full repertoire of modern scientific methods.
Darwin’s theory simply explains adaptation with a model of mutation and natural selection. The mutations need not be determined. Conceptually, the source of mutation is irrelevant - as long as there is genetic variation of some sort, then natural selection will choose the variant that survives - the survivor, on average, being the one that is better genetically equipped for their environment. In effect - the mutations can be random, not determined. It matters not if the mutation is caused by soot from a volcano or the permanent background radiation, nor does it depend on which mutations occur, as long as there are beneficial mutations and the harmful mutations happen at a rate that isn't so high as to destroy all previously naturally selected advantages. In other words, Darwin’s theory is general and robust. Robust enough to deal with the many changes in environment, including those changes which are thrown up by unpredictable or chaotic systems such as the weather. Evolution HAS to be this robust in order to explain the fact that life that has adapted in the diverse environments found on earth in the last 4 billion years.
Moreover, the physical properties of the materials, from which machines and life are built, are those we would expect from the average behaviour of their atomic constituents. I'll give an example - a cosmic ray hits a tumbling molecule and passes energy to it. Quantum mechanics shows us that we cannot predict when the energy is re-released, only the probability that the energy will be released within a finite time, and so we cannot know what orientation the molecule will be in when it emits radiation, nor where that radiation will go - it may end up causing a beneficial mutation. If it doesn't, then something else would.
| | | | James Knight | 21/05/2009 15:10 | Moving on to your comments about the tree of life – you’ve twisted that one a little. Contrary to your assertions, the tree of life is still pretty much correct, at least for us metazoans. It's a bit like pointing to a Pepsi can and saying 'Look, it isn't blue because there is a red bit'. There are a few of examples when branches on the tree fuse - such as the mitochondial merger and subsequent endosymbiosis which resulted in the evolution of eukaryotes, or the later merger which resulted in chloroplasts. Other symbioses may have resulted in gene transfer in some species, such as starfish, where the two genomes can be completely merged, forming one species from two, where the genes for the two parent species are expressed sequentially – for example, a larval stage then a reproductive stage.
Whilst the benefits of such merges are clear (some species are better at eating, others better at reproducing - together they can have the best of both worlds), the mechanism isn't. I will explain a paradigm in the next paragraph, but first I will describe why the tree fails when studying the 'trunk'. Horizontal gene transfer is quite common in bacteria, but there is still a core set of genes for each species which can be used to define the species and place it on the tree of life. However, to place a branch on the tree requires a lineage from which it can branch. This is fine for all recent life - following back it gives three clear lineages from which all modern life arose: prokaryotes (bacteria), archaea and eukaryotes. The meeting point of these three lineages is where the problem arises, and that was the bit that needed addressing – it wasn’t that Darwin was wrong, it was more that the tree has a web fused with it. Putting it simply, so I don’t ‘drown you in the sheer flood of the narrative’ - we can't say that archaea split from bacteria and eukaryotes then split from archaea, because there are some eukaryotic 'core' genes which are also present in bacteria, but not archaea. We can't say that eukaryotes split from bacteria then archaea split from eukaryotes because there are genes shared with bacteria and archaea but not eukaryotes. Eukaryotes and archaea couldn't have split from bacteria separately because they share core genes which aren't in bacteria. The only reconciliation is to assume that all three lineages (or at least two of them) were rapidly exchanging genetic material. Genes were not transferred predominantly by inheritance, but horizontal gene transfer also played a major role in shaping these three lineages from which all life is derived. Not all scientists agree on the specifics*, but they agree on the general principles and observations – and the thing is, Andrew, we don’t go jumping around saying the whole thing is bunk.
* Check out Chris Ponting (you can see him here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MH8XgQzjEE discussing the platypus genome). With his latest methods of making phylogenetic trees (he is top of his game), he predicts that he CAN get all the way to the root of the tree. I eagerly await his next publication in my non-crusading way.
OK, so now we know why the root of the tree seems more like an intertwined network rather than a hierarchical tree, I will discuss two ways that genes can transfer from one species to another - one way which creates a new hybrid species, the other resulting in translocation of individual genes. Both are understood, and I will speculate on how for example, snake genes found their way into cows (have you read about that?).
1) Symbiosis. Some species adapt to live so closely together that they cannot survive without one another. We, for example, cannot live without bacteria in our guts, however we are still two distinct species. Lichen, which seems to be one species, is not. It is a fungus and another species (often algae) which live so closely together that their genes can flow from one to the other - which probably makes lichen taxonomy a nightmare, ho hum! However, they are still two distinct species, even if the boundary is fuzzier and taxonomists use the fungal part to place them on the tree of life (although this fungal part of the tree merges with another part, in a sense). Finally, we get species where two species have merged and the genome of one has been almost totally transferred into the other. Often bacterial consortia are found. A consortium is a group of different bacteria where the waste product of one, be it ammonia or oxygen or hydrogen sulphite or whatever, is the food of another. The material coming into the consortium is recycled, often leaving a very efficient colony. The transfer of materials between consortia members is limited by the surface area that they can share. If only one member could get INSIDE another, then the whole process would be even more efficient. This has happened at least twice in the history of life (probably much more often), including in our lineage. Once one species is inside the other, a strange situation occurs. Both have separate genomes that compete with one another, yet they still rely on one another. There is a battle between friends. If the genes of one can be transferred into the other, then having two genomes is no longer a biological imperative. One eventually wins over the other and two species merge into one species (Nick Lane has written a few excellent books on this).
2) Retroviruses. Retroviruses insert their own genetic code into the host organism, which is then read by the host’s replicative machinery in order to make more copies of the virus. When the virus attacks germ cells (sperm, eggs, ones that have DNA that is inherited), sometimes the virus fails to replicate and the viral DNA is passed on from parent to child. Our genome contains vast amounts of retroviral DNA. We know these genes come from viruses because they, and their relatives, are not found in other lineages and because they are found in viruses. In fact, I’ve already told you about three times, genes for the development of the placenta were derived this way - they started as viral genes which were then adopted for novel biological function. Now, it is completely plausible (although not likely, I admit) that some RNA of a snake entered the genome of a retrovirus, which then successfully reproduced in the host and went on to infect another species - a cow. If this happened, then we would expect to see the snake gene in the cow genome to be located right next to retroviral genes on the chromosome. Admittedly this is just one of the strange goings-on, but the point remains.
| | | | James Knight | 21/05/2009 15:11 | Also, Andrew, remember there was not a light switch from non-life to life, it was a long process, and the best working hypothesis at the moment is that RNA dominated in the early/pre-life stage. This RNA was free floating, not in cells, so be careful with your distinction of ‘an organism’ and what would constitute ‘horizontal transfer’. RNA molecules interacted with each other, and in some way or another teamed up, or just got bundled up into cell membranes. Once there were entities which could rightly be called individual life forms the tree analogy starts to work pretty well.
Imagine throwing a bucketful of pebbles onto the floor and throwing away the ones you don't find attractive. You are effectively saying that the act of throwing away pebbles cannot produce nice pebbles. You completely miss the point - reproduction and genetic recombination produces new 'pebbles' all the time. Natural selection throws out the bad ones most of the time.
| | | | James Knight | 27/05/2009 12:29 | Continuing my response to Andrew...
Hi Andrew,
Re- crackpots. You don’t know me very well, in fact, in person, not at all, so you could be forgiven for not realising that I’m only trying to lighten the tone; thus when I talk about ‘crackpot-ism’ and refer to your highly questionable sources, I have a twofold aspiration; 1) that you will stop quoting people who you do not understand very well (and who are mostly wrong) and start thinking about these things for yourself and formulating more of your own viewpoints (it’s YOU that we want to hear from Andrew –we already know what most of the people you mention think), and 2) that you will engage your mind in the realities of the damage limitation in which I am participating – largely, to help win back some of the ground that has been lost by the anti-science fideists who have sullied the name of the Christian faith so badly in so many circles I and many other reasonably minded Christians frequent.
The harmony between Christianity and science progresses on the basis that when we discover new information about our world and our universe we embrace it and alter our perception of God’s cosmic blueprint to accord with fresh knowledge and innovation – a bit like completing a jigsaw piece by piece. It is when the opposite happens that problems begin; that is, when Christians (like many who you seem to be following) think they already know the blueprint and reject new innovations and fresh knowledge, willfully keeping themselves fixed in the dark ages. Equally many atheists take a very myopic view of what the Christian faith is, and resort to straw man caricatures as they attempt to justify their unbelief
The wider framework is so important, for it contains all the subsystems and informational nexus for everything that we see in nature; therefore one must not zoom in on things within nature and expect that your interpretation of God’s created hand is going to be perceptively concomitant with the actual created dimensional reality, just as on the other side an absence of palpable intentionality is an unsatisfactory reason for supporting a naturalistic viewpoint.
Nature seems to show that God used a stochastic process; that is, a system which consists of unpredictable random fluctuations, but which generates order and clearly has behind it a blueprint (generator) that consists of all the intentions God had for creation. Just as a house has a blueprint, so too does the created nature* - a blueprint designed by God, containing many things that you and I and Phillip Johnson in the created order would only sparsely sample - just as, in lesser terms, when I jump off a step onto the ground I am only sampling a small part of the earth’s (much greater) gravitational laws.
* What I call the Simulacrum; a created simulation of the Divine realm (see my Theory of Everything for a greater explanation).
Bearing all this in mind, I, as a creature in the Simulacrum, expect to see things that seem disordered and unpredictable, things that seem uncreated, things that (in your interpretation of Darwinism) give the appearance of being wasteful and clumsy, and equally importantly, things that seem to have arrived solely from human endeavour. I may know that God had all those things planned in His Simulacrum blueprint, but I don’t expect to see them from within the Simulacrum itself. And I think one ought to be mindful of this, particularly in debates that lead to issues about whether this world gives the appearance of a Divine Creator or not, or whether one can identify creation, as much of it is bound up in knowledge (or, in some cases, a lack of it).
This led on to your assertion that your view was more ‘probable’ than mine, based on ideas related to the above. I hope by now you’ve realised that given the ‘cosmic blueprint’ model which, epistemologically speaking, provides us with the foundation for knowledge and increased knowledge on a linear system of improvement and discovery, probability is of no use to you. As probability is about knowledge, and our sampling is related to the whole, the probabilistic factors only really apply to smaller subsystems of reality – and we must enforce a compulsory limitation on human endeavour regarding probability here.
Now obviously when it comes to things within the Simulacrum, we are not going to be able to see everything that is behind those things; therefore there will certainly be seemingly random patterns that are non-probabilistic to the Creator but probabilistic to humans zooming in at Simulacrum level. Now obviously if you go back a few thousand years there will be laws, regulations, events and circumstances that we were totally ignorant about, that now we know the ordinances behind - that is to say, with greater knowledge laws, regulations, events and circumstance become less probabilistic as we develop the technology to zoom in on them or frame them in their wider context.
But with evolution and the blueprint (drawn up exogenously) we have an insurmountable problem, for it is not a fact or law or regulation or event or circumstance on which we can zoom in or frame in a wider empirical context with the hope of demonstrating the blueprint itself, therefore it is always best to go with what we do actually learn about the world as science progresses, not what we think we should ideally construct in our minds, because that is confirmational bias, and it helps no one. Haven’t you noticed yet that those who think they have to believe the earth is only is only a few thousand years old if they want to be accepted as non-heretical Christians, always construct for themselves (or they happily let others do it for them) theories that they can use to make the world seem like it is only a few thousand years old? They make the fatal error - they change the facts to accord with their beliefs, rather than changing their beliefs to accord with the facts.
| | | | James Knight | 27/05/2009 12:32 | I think we find evidence of this problem here in quote number 1 when you say…
1) Students first learn to recite that "evolution is a fact," and then they gradually learn more and more about what that "fact" means. It means that all living things are the product of mindless material forces such as chemical laws, natural selection, and random variation. That means that God is out of the picture, and humans (like everything else) are the accidental product of a purposeless universe.
No it doesn’t mean that! As you will see in one of my replies in a moment, your assessment that evolution means “…..that all living things are the product of mindless material forces such as chemical laws, natural selection, and random variation” fails to take into account the clearest picture of reality – that MIND (God’s mind) is behind it all, therefore nothing in creation, even at the zoomed in level is ultimately ‘mindless’. Why do you persistently fail to realise the obvious fact that even the things that appear (stress, APPEAR) mindless to you are, as any Christians knows, the carefully laid out plans of the Divine mind, and that there are systems of intentionality way beyond our cognitive capacity?
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts”. Isaiah 55:9
1b) It is futile for Christians to try to reconcile their faith with Darwinist claims by imagining that natural selection is God’s means of creating, because the claim that natural selection has creative power is derived not from impartial testing of evidence, but from a materialist philosophy that excludes God by definition.
Wrong again! This is a crass distortion of natural selection and a failure to see the bigger picture (which I will come to in a moment)
1c) That such complexity can be explained by evolution is effectively lampooned by David Berlinski: - 'The Nobel Prize-winning chemist Jacques Monod once wrote, "is at the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, is at the very root of the stupendous edifice of creation."
You badly need to define chance here; that is, chance as YOU understand it, because pure chance is not what evolutionary theory is all about, much less the belief that I hold – that God is behind the process. That’s hardly chance now, is it Andrew?! Besides, even the Darwinian model is not chance – it’s not as though we are asking for a Hoylean junkyard sweep into a Boeing 747.
Think of it like this, if I asked you to find the combination on a (0-9) 20 digit lock and you had to use the chance shuffling method with no clue about how far off you were, you probably would never find the right combination. But if you had an indicator telling you whether you were getting warmer or colder after each move, you could make incremental steps of improvement towards your goal. Now natural selection doesn’t have a goal (unless you include God’s overall plan) but (save for non-beneficial mutations) it works on the basis of selection and improvement - therefore your definition of chance is misjudged.
2) Phillip Johnson describes naturalism, or materialism, like this: "This philosophy insists that nature is all there is, and nature is made up of particles. It follows that matter had to do its own creating, and that the means of creation must not have included a role for anything outside of nature, such as God. Scientists guided by this second definition are not permitted to approach materialism with open minds or skeptical questions, but must believe it on faith and consider no objections. If materialism is true, then something at least roughly like Darwinism must also be true as a matter of logic, because materialist science has no viable alternative. Scientific inquiry is limited to the details, because the fundamental points are all decided by defining “science” as applied materialist philosophy.
This is a mixture of half-truth and falsehood. Your methodology might be improved if you can see God’s creation as it actually is, as opposed to your rather ingenuous and overly simplistic perception, rather like a maker and His plastecine figures. Do you realise that everything at a quantum level has the same elemental composition? The atoms in our bodies come from stars - in fact, almost every element on earth originated in the fiery centre of one of many cosmic explosions that happened millions of years ago; our whole solar system is the result of a supernova that spilled materials out into our galaxy which later formed our sun and planets. Our knowledge of science has allowed us to cognitively colonise existence itself, as we discover relations between all sorts of disparate phenomena.
As a Christian, like yourself Andrew, the intimate isomorphic interrelations between the very big and the very small, between and evolution and cosmology, and between mind and cosmos, compounds my view that the universe was specially created for us, and that our principal purpose in life is to have a relationship with the Creator - our God, who made Himself known in Jesus Christ. But given that we now know that we are all made of the same elemental material, and that this is one of the greatest and most exciting discoveries of all time – we can now change our perception about so much of the world in which we live. You may not have realised this but when it comes to anything from cosmology to neuroscience to medicine, this has been the ideal avenue for greater and more innovative exploration, and it is the one fact that can push us on to broaden our horizons and embrace learning with an enthusiasm and majestic awe not previously seen. It saddens me that you put God, His creation, and the means by which He communicates through the stupendous nature of creation, in an overly-simplistic box, and you miss out on so much as you attempt to gravely circumscribe the fantastic realities of His creation. This knowledge, more than any other, encourages us to reconstitute the epistemological boundaries - it widens the net and allows us to view phenomena like abiogenesis, natural selection and common ancestry in an entirely different, and more illuminating, light. Do you see now how ridiculous the comments by Phillip Johnson sound, given the foregoing paragraph, and how out of touch your analyses of them are? How can you be perturbed by what ‘selection’ and ‘mutation’ does when the whole of physiology is, at the most elemental level, the same matter that makes up the entire cosmos?
| | | | James Knight | 27/05/2009 12:36 | 2b) “The reason the theory of evolution is so important to society is that it is the main scientific prop for a godless philosophy that either repudiates Christian theism or confines it to the marginal realm of subjective personal experience that has no standing as public knowledge.”
Having read the above passage, can’t you see how misjudged your statement is? I say that because the same applies to the atheist crusaders as well. This might be why you’re so heavily against it – you see it as delivering fists rather than flowers. The above is not only false but it gravely misrepresents the subjects in question. Gosh, anyone can create a false dichotomy by chipping away at the meanings and tenets of the subjects. If you become more adept at looking for harmony in two or more ideas or searching for consistencies, you will avoid this repeated error of yours - an error that can be summarised by a similar error…
This contention is X
Nothing that is X is Y
Everything that is valid is Y
Therefore this contention is not valid.
Yes it is
3) The Design of Life by Dembski and Wells describes the complexity of the human brain:
“During the first eighteen months from conception, the brain's neurons are formed, deployed, and connected in a tsunami of activity, at the rate of 250,000 per minute, until 100 billion neurons are arrayed in a powerful, organized matrix. Each neuron may have tens of thousands of finger-like appendages, or dendrites, which connect with other neurons and dendrites in a bafflingly complex circuitry. No two neurons are exactly the same, with the result that the circuitry of each brain is unique. That circuitry is more complex than all the telephone circuitry on the face of the earth. Three decades ago science-writer Isaac Asimov was so impressed with the densely organized complexity of the human brain that he wrote: ‘In Man is a three-pound brain, which, as far as we know, is the most complex and orderly arrangement of matter in the universe.’”
True, the brain is vastly complex, almost certainly the most complex arrangements of atoms in the entire universe (a point I argue as justification for the absurdities of human fecundity being too great for mere survivalistic Darwinian organisms without God behind them, and also to impute an Absolute Reason into the equation). Moreover, I have several pieces of work (some of which can be found on my Theory of Everything page) in which I make a case that the supremely complex ‘intelligence’ of the universe strongly suggests that existence IS mind. Despite the foregoing, when we take quotes like the one you cited from Mr. Dembski, one must be mindful of mistaking surface level intuitions for ultimate primacies and potentialities of deeper reality itself, and all the strange goings-on at deeper dimensional levels. Einstein heightened this concern by showing that intuitive notions of space and time are just approximations to reality; suitable as approximations that are valid to the range of all human experiences on this earth but not to be taken out of their subset context.
As for space-time not quite corresponding to our own a priori view of past, present and future - here is an example. Intuition tells us that an object cannot be both 2 metres long and 3 metres long at the same time - it seems logically impossible, particularly as Euclidean geometry forbids it. The same is true of the way we intuit ‘facts’ such as ‘a line connecting two points can only have one length’. As science has progressed we now know that Euclidean geometry is an intuitive part of our brain that does not apply at the deeper cosmological level; Einstein showed that the faster an object moves, the more compressed it becomes, and that if that object was travelling at a substantial fraction of the speed of light, then someone measuring it who was moving at the same speed could measure 3 metres in length long, whilst an outside observer would observe it as 2 metres in length.
The important thing to realise is that absolute reason imputes some reliability to existence, but that minds can impute different meanings to different subsets of reality which, although appear inviolable, must be subject to change as we learn more. Euclidean geometry is a good approximation to reality which doesn't on first inspection appear to be violated, but can be with further knowledge. But that doesn’t alter the fact that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, any more than the fact that a wall is made up of largely empty space alters the fact that if I walk into it I will be stopped in my tracks. One approximation to reality does not necessarily make it wrong if in other aspects of realty it is violated somewhere. The theory of relativity rejects the concept of an ether with respect to which there can be determinate motion, meaning that the length of a mass gaining object in uniform relative motion is less than that measured by an observer at rest with respect to the Lornetz-Fitzgerald contraction*
* That is, a material body moving through the ether with a velocity v, contracts by a factor of V(1-v2/c2) in the direction of motion, where c is the speed of light in a vacuum.
Moreover, the fact that we are not ideally equipped to get a cognitive purchase on the external world as an outer entity yet at the same time our cognitive faculties allow us to sense deeper meaning seems to be imbued with symbolic meaning, suggesting this is a world of ‘potential’ and ‘possibility’ rather than actuality - which seems to be consonant with my Simulacrum construal – as I said earlier, that existence is a simulation of a better more Heavenly realm.
Tying this in with what we were just talking about at a genetic level - if Absolute Reason is an a priori fact of existence and that Absoluteness comes from God, it seems the most sensible approach to begin analysing the world with that fact in place and working outwards from there; for in doing so, one can see clearly that with something like, say, natural selection, genomes might have evolved information that allows them to influence genetic change and affect their own survival chances, and that does not in any way transgress the Darwinian boundaries of ‘random’ genetic variation and the many other mechanisms in evolution. If genomes can learn about the world though information carrying in natural selection, one must see that intelligence is occurring at every level possible, and therefore in a world underpinned by ‘Reason’ those who are most sensible are the ones that construct their hypotheses and theories by seeing these building blocks both TO reasoning, and OF reasoning, in their proper context.
| | | | James Knight | 27/05/2009 12:41 | Moreover, considering that the Simulacrum itself seems to have ‘intelligence’ woven into its subatomic fabric, one ought to be a little more precautionary in what one ascertains holistically. Empty space is unstable, and from nothingness quark-antiquark pairs crystallise and fill space, actually lowering the energy of the vacuum in the process. But quantum uncertainty will not allow the antiquark to reside precisely next to its quark partner, and that ‘wiggle room’ between them leaves disturbance and, thus, creates energy (the same energy that endows matter with about 95% of its mass). Now we know that all matter is wrapped up in atoms and that itself is only a tiny fraction of a universe dominated by dark matter and dark energy. But effectively, this means that everything we see in space that is (holistically) a different mass to that at a quantum level (for example, as you well know Andrew, the earth does not orbit the sun like an electron orbits an atom) came from this same energy; mass such as chairs, tables buildings, etc, comes from energy crystallised out of nothing - even space and time is a condensate that similarly crystallised from nothingness in the earliest moments of the big bang singularity and, further, the tiniest most compressed singularly itself. This is another reason why you are badly in need of redefining what you see as ‘random’ and ‘natural’ – it’s all God at work, it’s just very different and much cleverer than you see it.
If chairs, tables and buildings come from energy crystallised out of nothing, then so do bodies - bodies that are able to use reasoning at a supremely advanced level. At a physiological level an intelligent ‘reasoning’ human body is a colony of trillions of cells, each with their own vinculum of components, able to be observed at the quantum level of uncertainty. These cells communicate and cooperate with each other, jointly working towards goals of which the ‘reasoning’ individuals themselves are largely unaware. From the synchronised firing of neurons in the brain and the brainwaves that are testament to them, to the changes in gene expression which underscore the slow pulsation of the circadian rhythm, to the concerted firing of the heart muscle cells which produce the heartbeat necessary for growth and sustained living. The vastly complex interconnections form a vast distributed network which spontaneously takes in sensory information, processes it, forms an ordered cognition, and compels the brain to use intelligent ‘reasoning’ in apprehending fine details about the external world, itself the self same quantum mechanical system that I have just described.
Although it is a complex set of circumstances at the atomic level that makes a human body different from, say, a cloud, a tree, a chainsaw, even stardust, if one zooms in at the lowest levels we are all made up of the same stuff. Now this, it seems to me, leaves us with only two possibilities. Either there is not an Absolute Reason to underpin all of this or there is. If there isn’t then all this subatomic activity at the gritty lower levels is not emergent reasoning, it is simply inert non-intelligent matter serendipitously producing an organism that can self-replicate and (eventually) creatures like us that can use the highest form of rationale in any living thing. Remember that according to the naturalist this comes from gritty non-sentience, in fact, all this comes from energy crystallised out of nothing, and yet it goes on to produce the type of reasoning and extraordinary abilities that we have seen in human beings from our initial bipedal days right through to men and women that can understand the primary principles of nature herself. That is the real definition of naturalism – it denies the necessity of God at the beginning as the creator ex nihilo (out of nothing). I hope now you can see where you’ve been going wrong and how there are no such things as natural causes, thus there is no problem with evolution as the sensible science-embracing Christian accepts it – the problem is only with those who think that to support evolution one must adopt these nonsensical principles of ‘natural causes’.
Quite frankly Andrew, I think you could do with a better understanding of naturalism, Darwinism, and also a wider methodological framework as you couple these subjects together. If you read my Theory of Everything (you can find it on my columns page) you will see my carefully laid out exposition of such subjects and a fuller account of what I really think of naturalism. Of if you prefer a digest, have a look at an article I wrote called “The cardinal difficulty that atheists must face” (you will find it in the same place) – it’s in my ‘Crisis Within Atheism’ series (part eight) and has the sub-heading ‘The Insurmountable Problem with Naturalism’.
My main issue with your work and your interpretation of creation is that you overlook the fact that our sparse sampling of the systemic whole does not require that we internalise a model of how it interrelates with each first person selfhood - it is already internalised in selfhood. I’ll explain. I suppose it is a bit like ‘personality’ in that one cannot ever sample the whole (not even one’s own) and yet the ramifying effects on other parts of reality seem to be internalised within personality itself. In other words, it is aspectual, yet it contains its own interrelational mechanism that automatically reconfigures itself irrespective of which aspects of outer reality it interrelates with. Just as a comprehensive aspectual model of reality includes the cognitive mechanism required to model these effects, personality includes all the aspectual models of reality that cater for its own essence.
This is clearly found in intelligent organisms like human beings - even at the most basic level, geometrical and numerical knowledge would have helped with survival; and because of the stable contour lines that run through morphospace, evolutionary diversity has given us a ‘framework’ view that organisms are dynamic systems coupled to their environment via stimuli which are not processed using representations and models. That these stimuli succeed in soliciting the right responses without the use of representations and models does not mean that there is no wider model framework into which degrees of intentionality operate; for in fact, human minds have a degree of computational and informational content that suggest a representative modeling framework somewhere, particularly bearing in mind that the cosmos itself is amenable to computational and informational explanations.
| | | | James Knight | 27/05/2009 12:48 | Therefore when something appears wasteful or uncreated one must realise that that ‘wastefulness’ or ‘uncreatedness’ is the human mind perceiving at a microscopic level something that should be perceived in this sense at a macroscopic level. This is particularly pertinent given that ‘wasteful’ and ‘uncreated’ both involve the imputing of the mind’s own interpretative qualities onto something and the claim that this selfhood proprietary measuring stick is the only thing with which one must do the measuring. But I do not expect reliability or judiciousness from the minds of the men whose first instinctive anti-creation measuring stick is deployed at all times just because the intentionality happens to be embedded in a deeper mystery – it is THEIR brand of naturalism from which I depart - yours only confuses the issue because you misrepresent what naturalism really is.
To see how foolish the real atheist naturalist’s approach is, think of it like this. Using William Paley’s old ‘Watchmaker’ argument (an argument brilliantly and comprehensively refuted by Richard Dawkins in his book The Blind Watchmaker) imagine a man zooming in on the intricate details of a watch, observing the atomic motions. He would see at that componential level appearances of seemingly random and unpredictable behaviour in quantum mechanics - in fact, even with the knowledge of all the forces acting between atoms, he would be unable to compute the atoms’ orientation or the overall energy of the system. The ‘order’ of the watch, the clockwork mechanisms and the design as a whole is not observed at a microscopic level but at a holistic level - one can observe the parts at a reductionist level, but putting them together to make a working watch implies intelligent design.
Having seen how silly a man would be if he zoomed in at the random quantum mechanical level and decided that this doesn’t look designed by a watch designer at all, we must observe that the same applies to all things within the Simulacrum and that, as I have said, when we talk of ‘wasteful’ or ‘uncreated’ we are imputing the same misjudgement and injudiciousness as the man zooming in on the watch is. In actual fact, even at the deepest quantum levels, looking for God’s ultimate intentionality seems futile as the cosmos is not amenable to such analysis of ultimate intentionality. Organisation merges in systems of many interacting parts, but it does not follow in the same way for the properties of those parts; therefore if one were to understand the absolute whole - a mathematical picture of every particle in the cosmos - one would still be ill-equipped for understanding organisation at the highest cosmic level, let alone understand God’s cosmic blueprint.
What we must remember, as far as such broad subjects go, is that we are only sparsely sampling the Simulacrum, thus the Simulacrum certainly will consist of complexities that could very well support seemingly imperceptible activities through a complex process that was never intended to be fully perceived by the created minds in it. But as for evolution = ‘natural causes’? Forget about it – that’s just wrong Andrew, from beginning to end. If you are going to reject evolution, at least judge it on its own merits and demerits, for once you start to do that, you will have to concede that every bit of evidence points to it being true. We may not be sure of all the details of the mechanisms, but that life has been evolving on this planet for a few billion years is a fact, and a man gets himself into all sorts of trouble when he begins to argue against this, unless he wants to flirt with nonsense and become ensnared by fideist sentimentality.
Regards
James
| | | | Simon (Guest) | 03/11/2009 09:46 | Liked this debate, that Andrew Holloway must irk you somewhat...? He seems to be using unnecessarily big words to justify his rather simplistic and misguided point of view. "If evolution was proved wrong..." which completely overlooks your earlier point that Darwin's evolution was merely a good starting point for a host of scientists to explore the deeper theory... it has been modified, but will never be wrong. If he thinks that way he could quite legitimately claim that the earth being spherical might be proved wrong!
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