BioLogos is pseudoscience?

Faith & Science Conversation
21

I notice that this Media bias site has a feature to allow for corrections via email to the editor. I have just sent the following email.

Dear Editor

I am writing with respect to Media Bias Fact Check’s assignment of “mild pseudoscience” to the Biologos.org organization. The language used includes " Overall, we rate the Biologos Foundation a mild pseudoscience website based on ascribing evolution to the hand and workings of God, which is not known or provable".

I am not connected to Biologos in any official way, although I have written articles and made comments on their web site. I am a doctoral level biochemist with a strong scientific reputation, and also a Christian, who affirms (as does Biologos) the truth of evolution by natural selection. I happen to know that Biologos as an organization, as well as all the current and past officers and staff of Biologos do not accept any doctrine that could be identified as pseudoscience by any reasonable criteria (see below). The organization was founded by Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health for the past 12 years, an acknowledged leader in genetics research, as well as one of the strongest voices in the nation for scientific integrity and research. Dr. Collins and a host of other high level scientists continue to support the work of Biologos in countering the real pseudoscience that is so prevalent among certain sectors of American Christianity.

The problem with your assessment is that the reason given is not actually scientific and itself falls under the rubric of pseudoscience. No statement related to God is subject to scientific knowledge nor can any such be provable. The only premise by which your final words make any sense would be under an assumption of scientism, a philosophical view rejected by the majority of scientists and one which itself betrays a non-scientific, religious bias, namely that knowledge of all things, including the existence of God must be subject to scientific verification. If your organization holds this view, then your own bias must be recognized and labeled as pseudoscience.

The Biologos organization, and all Christians (such as myself) who consider themselves to be evolutionary creationists, accept no concepts or ideas that run counter to any aspect of mainstream scientific consensus. The fact that we also believe in God as the creator of all things, including the laws of science (which includes evolution) has no bearing on our scientific work, thought or activity.

Thank you for reconsidering your assessment of the Biologos organization as a “mild pseudoscience” promoting body, and I look forward to your correction of this error.

Seymour Garte Ph.D.

I will keep the forum informed of any answer I might get.

15 Likes
22

Do ‘we’? Are ‘we’ theistic evolutionists? I’m certainly not. Any more. I lost ID about 15 years ago, but 50 ago I was a full blown have-it-all-ways fundamentalist creationist. NOT 7 Day YEC. No Sir. 7 Day after Satanic Rebellion tohued and bohued the 4.543 ga Earth.

See, there is hope.

There is no I and no D in creation. Even if God is the ground of eternal infinite being. Order does not imply or require meaning.

23

That’s like saying that rainbows do not require color. Any time you find objective patterns (i.e. order), you have found rational meaning that can be translated into another rational pattern, such as English, Chinese, etc.

In fact, speaking of definitions for science (as opposed to pseudoscience), a very simple, effective way to define science is to say that it is the study of patterns in nature and society. Chemists study patterns among the elements, leading to the development of tools such as periodic tables. Biologists study patterns among organisms, resulting in charts such as the one for taxonomic rank: domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species. Astronomers study patterns among stars. Economists study patterns in the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Psychologists study patterns in human behavior. Physicists study patterns in matter and energy, discovering such sentences as “Force equals mass times acceleration” and “Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared”. We use the verb equal to indicate the presence of order, where one side matches the other.

Everywhere we look in nature we find similar such rational, creative patterns that we can translate into English, etc. Some of the patterns are simple, such as the curve of a seashell or the branching of a tree, both of which follow the pattern that we call the golden ratio, 1.618…, which is an irrational number, like pi. Other patterns, such as the changes in a quantum wave function, are so complex that they use imaginary numbers, as discovered by physicist Erwin Schrödinger. Such equations describe and reveal the profoundly rational order within nature. As Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees, Royal Society Research Professor at Cambridge University, put it, “Science advances by discerning patterns and regularities in nature, so that more and more phenomena can be subsumed into general categories and laws.” There is are no laws or categories which cannot be found in a dictionary–i.e. which don’t have meaningful definitions.

There may be more to science than the study of rational patterns, but there is not less. Now calling patterns rational is a redundant repetition that I use for the sake of clarity: it is impossible to rationally, objectively declare that nature is not a medium for rational meaning–just like it is impossible to rationally declare that this pattern of black symbols that you’re staring at is not a medium for rational (or irrational!) meaning.

As to whether rational meaning can exist without rational authors…well I suppose that we ourselves cannot rationally author the answer to that question :grin:!

24

That’s what we bring to the party. Stories - meaning, especially imputing purpose, teleology - we make up.

25

Like Maggie, Rich Stearns, Nate and Steve Saint, George Muller and I. We all just made up meaning that God did not intend in his providence. Right. ← That is irony, in case you missed it.

26

I suppose it would help to flesh out what we mean by “meaning”.

I just watched something on Pluto last night in which it was noted there were hexagonal and pentagonal patches in a white area unmarred by impact craters. This was a surprise because no one thought that small of a body that far from the sun could still sustain any kind of dynamic activity fueled from within. But how to explain the lack of impact craters and the honeycombed surface. It was theorized that radioactive decay from below could be heating water below the layer of methane ice and that convection could account for a kind doming in the center of each ‘cell’.

Here meaning refers to explaining what accounts for a surprising regularity. Most regularity does seem to arise from underlying natural properties. So it is perfectly reasonable to inquire as to the meaning of the observed regularity, with or without reference to a deity.

Now you and I can have natural underlying properties as our operating hypotheses, but it would exceed any justification to assume that only natural properties could be in play. I assume it too but I remember that it is an assumption, not a fact. So reasonable people can operate under other assumptions without necessarily being obtuse or confused. Now someone who insisted that everything was supernatural and natural properties were never in play would obviously have to be ignorant. But the scientists on this site who look for natural causes but wonder about underlying divine causes are not ignorant or confused. It really is a possible human outlook which ‘works’ fine, just as well as an outlook which looks for natural causes and does not expect or wonder about underling divine causes. The only positions you need to worry about are those which fail to take into account their actual epistemic limitations.

1 Like
27

I see no reason to believe that this is correct.

2 Likes
28

Well, the alternative is to declare that science is purely subjective–that scientists do not discover rational explanations and then translate them into English (or Arabic, etc.), but instead they actually author the explanations. In practice, the former is the only tenable position regardless of what might be declared in philosophy class or at the pub.

Thus, for example, Isaac Newton discovered the laws of motion and translated them into English. Although he did an excellent translation that is still quite useful today, Albert Einstein came along and improved on the translation (first into German and then English) considerably. Regardless, the rational explanations existed long before either scientist discovered them and translated them.

So also existed the explanation for photosynthesis, quantum entanglement, DNA replication, etc. etc. etc. All these abundantly rational explanations existed long before scientists discovered them and translated them from patterns of chemicals (or particles or atoms, etc.) into patterns of black symbols.

And just as semicolons and definite articles are linguistic, so also is every single bit of order in the cosmos. If science has taught us anything over the past 2000 years, it has taught us to have faith that this is true. If we study mysteries in nature long enough and listen carefully enough, we will eventually discover rational explanations that we can translate into English so that students can enjoy reading them in their classrooms.

29

It’s not disinterested that’s for sure. God intends nothing at all in His providence, whatever that is. Apart from the complete autonomy that we have in our glacially evolving consciousness. He intends that. The evolution of increased possibility, complexity. If that. It seems that He cannot create directly in the transcendent. There have to be seeds from here that germinate there. He showed that He loves us in His son. And a minority of us realise that to some small degree. And a lesser minority that we should pass that on.

31

That’s very fair MarkD. The only meaning behind repeatably observed phenomena is as you illustrate from Pluto. Purposeless, unpurposed meaning. I suggest, unfairly I’m sure, in my colossal, wee-wee end of the pool ignorant arrogance, that such scientists are ignorant and confused. No matter how brilliant. God is fair. I too wonder about divine cause, but there is no connection. Divine cause can only be invoked by faith. As you agree, it is not, at all, necessary. As long as scientists here don’t try and justify faith from their day job, fine.

34

Wikipedia: In theology, divine providence, or just providence, is God’s intervention in the Universe. The term Divine Providence (usually capitalized) is also used as a title of God. A distinction is usually made between “general providence”, which refers to God’s continuous upholding of the existence and natural order of the Universe, and “special providence”, which refers to God’s extraordinary intervention in the life of people. Miracles generally fall in the latter category. Tell your friends, Dale, that anyone who has consciously dedicated himself to living in a relationship of joy, obedience and fellowship with Jesus Christ, can expect God’s “special providence” daily. I do. God did this one today: I was without car insurance for a while after my car was totalled. The price of insurance sky-rockets if you are uninsured for a month. Planning on replacing my car, I asked God to please take care of the situation and avoid the huge increase for me. A few hours ago a friend asked me if she could make me a covered driver on her car. She had broken her wrist, and would I be willing to drive her wherever she needs to go. By God’s Providence she has the same insurance carrier I did, and will use when I buy my car, by God’s Providence I will be locked into the lower rate of the already-insured. If I had not specifically prayed that God cover this, I do not believe it would have happened. Why is it that people who do not want to believe in God and his Son Jesus, cannot grasp that the thousands of co-incidents which happen in my life invariably occur only when I couple my specific need, with prayer that God will meet it?

1 Like
36

Did you read my testimony? I don’t recall what the title was. Ask Dale. We can know the truth that God is real, because he wants us to receive the benefits of his benevolence. We cannot receive from God unless we come to him however, and those who come to him, must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. This in not my epistemology; this is what God says about himself Hebrews 11: 16 " without faith it is impossible to please him, and he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him"

1 Like
37

It was How I Discovered, as a Scientist, that God is Real

38

Fret not maggie. I’m happy for you. God bless you. It’s your truth and it’s true for you. It has nothing to do with science of course, but you are living proof that we cannot know God but we can love him from wherever we are; whatever story we have He can be part of it. He zens right back.

39

I read it maggie and it’s easy to see how you ended up where you are and in your position I’d have done the same I’m sure. For most of my life I have been there to some degree. I still have one jaw dropping coincidence that won’t go away, I’d love it to be more, but it would actually create more problems if it were. Again maggie, good luck and God bless and may your faith carry you to your rest.

41

Give me an absolute.

Indeed it does. I know that nobody encompasses God or has a relationship with Him as He is or knows Him in any way as He is apart from in Christ and ineffably by the Spirit.

Like time and chance?

42

God is.
 

Or not.
 

No one said anything about encompassing, comprehnding him. But we can certainly apprehend him, which is still true knowledge.
 

There is no such thing over which God is not sovereign.

My times are in your hands

The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.

43

Yep, that’s an absolute. Doesn’t make it so.

Indeed not.

Ah good, you only claim to understand or perceive God but not grasp mentally or… understand Him.

Why did you proof those ancient texts?

44

It would be helpful and considerate if in your replies you would cite each particular that you were referring to so that the reader doesn’t have to scroll up and down to find it each time. Your reply also might not be contiguous to the one you are replying to.

1 Like
47

This topic was automatically closed 6 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.