Wow. Well, I suppose I must appreciate your sincere effort to divine my hidden motives; you clearly seem to understand my intent and purpose far better than I do myself. 
But for what it’s worth, I would be just as quick to defend Richard Dawkins If someone had so similarly mischaracterized a position he espoused in “The God Delusion.”
Concur with all, I think you follow my core perspective, thanks for the thoughts…
I have to concur… I try to visit the “Evolution News &I Views” site occasionally, but I just can’t stomach it. I can occasionally find some interesting nuggets of facts and legitimate observations, but so much of it is just polemic (and comes across with an arrogant chip on their shoulder.). I echo what others have said, that so much of their science seems shoddy, with a heavy agenda, etc., etc.
But at core, I trust the basic philosophy they (in theory) are espousing, however badly executed. The basic BioLogos apporoach, at core, seems to be, "we assume natural forces can exclusively explain all biological phenomena, then, after examining the data, we conclude that natural forces can exclusively explained n all scientific phenomena.
What got me started in this thread was Dr. Swamidass’ very relevant and I think true observation (if I am characterizing it rightly) that, given the basic assumptions of the folks at Answers in Genesis, would we be able to trust that one of their scientists Luke be able to recognize evidence of an old earth if it were really there. Similarly, I have doubts that a scientist committed to methodological naturalism would be able to recognize evidence for design if it were in fact there.
When someone with such a priori commitments tells me that they find no evidence of design, this is categorically unconvincing to me… their very starting point assures us that they would be unable to reach any other conclusion.
[quote=“benkirk, post:43, topic:36197, full:true”]
She would be concentrating on the execution: the who, when, and where. The only mention she would make of design would be in the process of hypothesizing those parameters, no?
But you haven’t explained the desperate need to limit our focus to “detecting design” instead of execution, timing, and location.
[/quote
Sir,
All the qualifications and additional points that need being considered and claims of a lack of correspondence in the analogy only serve to confirm to me that there is something wrong with this approach.
I begin to feel like Ambassador Stephenson when trying to get an answer out of the Russian ambassador about whether there were missiles in Cuba… "Is it legitimate science to conclude intelligent agency from Hebrew sentences carved into a stone?.. And instead of a simple answer I get all these qualifications about studying execution verses design and whether or not the larger approach should also include questions of timing and location…
And I feel like retorting, "Is it legitimate science to conclude intelligent agency from Hebrew sentences carved into a stone? don’t wait for the translation, answer “yes” or “no”?
These may also be legitimate additional questions you raise… but the inability for anyone to simply give me a simple answer to what seems an obvious, self-evident question only deepens my suspicions about the overall approach.
I thought we covered this already @Daniel_Fisher. I both affirm MN and also recognize evidence of special creation. So this is really not a fair description of the “BioLogos approach”.
I did not start with the assumption about the age of the earth or evolution. That was not my approach. The evidence lead me here.
Once again, I explained that there absolutely is evidence of design. I pointed out exactly how. The point of divergence is about the discourse of science, not about the ability of a MN affirming scientist to recognize design. The rules there make it impossible to recognize evidence of divine design. Outside science though, I do make that leap from the evidence.
You can disagree with me, but what is the value in retreading this ground?
I do not think any one on this thread has said this. We all believe God created us. At the very least, we see evidence for this in Scripture. Most of us see at least some evidence for this in nature too.
It seems like you are arguing against a strawman.
“YES”
We can recognize intelligent agency in science, but we cannot recognize the agency of the Christian God. Even if God carved those tablets, science would conclude that a man somewhere did. If you believed from Scripture something different, that might be warranted. Science, however, might be wrong.
This is also a poor analogy to biology. We recognize design by modeling designers. We recognize intelligence by modeling intelligence. In this case, we recognize intelligence because the letters “look like hebrew text”, a clear model of human technology. There is no analogy in biology that works for divine design.
I already told you how this works and you agreed with me. Why rehash it?
Is this really what you think? I have given you simple clear answers. You even agreed with me in the end.
Who should be suspicious of who?
Sir, thank you for this clarification. I hope I did not come across as implying that yours was a position embraced without a serious and genuine endeavor of understanding and following the evidence. But I think this helps me clarifiy my core difficulty. Permit me to clarify, and please correct me if I have misconstrued or misunderstood your position. I hope I am not pestering you, but I do seriously want to better understand your position.
I understand that you came, at some point, to embrace the larger Evolutionary perspective, and its attndent methodological naturalism, from your examination of various evidences. I imagine that, examining certain evidences, your prior perspective may have proven inadequate at explaining various phenomena, while the evolutionary perspective was for various reasons a more satisfactory theory in explaining the evidence.
For what it is worth, I have followed that pattern to embrace an evolutionary understanding of many, but not all, biological phenomena. I grew up influenced to some extent by stereotypical creationist narrative, and rejected their explanation of various phenomena as less adequate than a recognition of natural forces at work in the world.
3). But, if I understand rightly, when you came to appreciate the evolutionary model, it seems as though you accepted it (or natural forces in general) as an adequate explanation for all biological phenomena (at least after abiogenesis?) - both those you specifically examined, and those whose actual development are unexplained. If so, this is my core difficulty… one can scientifically conclude that evolution is the best explanation for a particular biological phenomenon… but it is a philosophical conclusion that it must therefore be an adequate explanation for all biological phenomena.
A. I appreciate that some like Francis Collins see abiogenesis as likely territory where natural forces are inadequate as an explanation, and where God’s direct involvement may well be the cause. Granted, he avoids making this a scientific claim and holds it tentatively… he does not craft it into an argument or try to examine the evidence to reach design as a scientific conclusion. All of that I appreciate.
But what I cannot help but observe is that Collins reached that basic position through scientific considerations. that is, from my reading of him, he has embraced this position on abiogenesis not due (primarily) to faith commitments, nor biblical interpretation or the like… but through his professional, scientificly informed perspective, where he perceives the difficulties of abiogenesis as so insurmountable that he does not see natural forces as an adequate cause.
Granted, he has not developed this into a rigorous scientific argument as Meyer has attempted. But I cannot help but observe he has taken this (however tentative) position due to scientific, not philosophical, reasons. that is, if tomorrow evidence were presented that life could be generated unguided and de novo in a test tube just by adding certain ingredients, I assume that Collins would not maintain his skepticism about abiogenesis from natural causes. His skepticism here stems ultimately from scientific, rather than philosophical or theological, reasons, no?
Not what happened at all.
First, MN is not attendent to evolution. It is misnamed, but was most clearly seen by me in Christian theology from Bacon and Pascal. These were early scientists that certainly did not affirm evolution. MN is better understood as an important type of methodological revelation-driven-theism.
Second, God explains everything. That was never the problem when I was a YEC. The bigger problem was that I was willfully misreading Scripture and looking to human effort instead of Jesus. I had to turn from that idolatry to see the world clearly.
Third, scientifically what changed my mind was learning science actually taught about evolution, and seeing the evidence for itself. All of this is “explained by God”, but I had been lied to about evolution. Evolution explained the data as well as gravity explained the motion of the planets. It was not the whole story, but it was very very close.
Okay, but I think God works through evolution. Even if science gets it right here, it does not have the whole picture. Even when its right, I do no think any scientific explanation is adequate.
No I do not think this. Evolution and natural processes is not a complete explanation of biology. That is an entirely unscientific claim that directly contradicts MN. I do not claim in any way that science gives complete explanations.
That is not what I am saying. Rather, I am saying there is overwhelming evidence pointing to the descent of life to common ancestors. The evidence I know best is in the form of quantitatively verified predictions made by neutral theory about genomes. God could have made us with genomes that proved evolution false. He did not. Why not? Finding no contradiction between evolution and Scripture, I posit that evolution is how God created us. That is why.
This isn’t your call. ID is not scientific conclusion. It violates the rules of science to even ask the question. It deviates wildly from the way how science works. Neither you or I or Meyer or Behe can change this.
Think what you want in your heart, but science is not in your heart. It is a community of discourse in the real world. Even if I did not like them, I could not change them for you. Even if I wanted to. A better way to make sense of this is to learn how science works without trying to hard to redefine it. You do not have the authority to do this. As long as you are trying, you will remain confused.
That is not what he says. Rather, he says that science has not figured out the mechanism of abiogenesis, but he thinks it might exist. Nonetheless, it is reasonable to wonder if this is a place that God’s action was required.
This is not a claim about natural causes. it is a claim about the status of scientific knowledge of these causes. Even if a process were found, we would embrace it as “they way God made the first life.” We would see this an example of God’s wise design in the world, even as Meyer’s arguments for design crumbled. I do not point to the “inadequacy of natural processes” as evidence of design. This is too often an idol.
That is not his claim. This is Meyer’s claim.
One can use scientific data in philosophical and theological reasoning. That is not a bad thing to do at all. For example, look what I wrote in another thread…
See how I am using scientific information in a theological argument? Scientists are allowed to do this as much as we want, as long as we are clear that these reflections are not science themselves. That’s the rules. Collins plays by the rules. So do I. We do not make the rules, but we follow them.
Sir, thanks for your further thoughts. I think I can reach a conclusion where we understand each other.
I concur that, given certain methods, that in my analogy, science would come to the (erroneous) conclusion that the letters were carved by a human. The method in this thought experiment will all but guarantee that the scientist would reach an erroneous conclusion. We certainly agree thus far.
Similarly, though, I observe a similar dynamic with methodological naturalism. Hypothetically… if God did directly intervene in the formation of certain biological phenomena and created, say, echolocation, de novo, science would conclude that mutation, natural selection, and population dynamics did it.
That may be what “science” must conclude. But if so, it is inadequate to address my own, personal, core question… which is to ask whether natural selection, mutation, etc. and whatever other natural forces are themselves in fact sufficient explanation for the various amazing phenomena of life. Ultimately, I’m not interested in whether or not any particular conclusion is or is not scientific, but whether it is true,
and I completely appreciate science not being able to give us certain answers. What I am concerned about, though, is a method wherein science would be required by certain rules to give me erroneous answers.
I will try to wrap this up here, so my thanks again for the conversation. Please let me know, though, if I have significantly misunderstood you at any point.
They are only erroneous if you think science gives you a complete view of the world. They are only erroneous if you cannot think outside it. A better way of describing this is that modern science produces an incomplete view of the world. The task of theology is to complete it. The error of scientism is to insist the incomplete answer as complete.
With that view, I do not see conflict on the tablets engraved by God. If God reveals in Scripture he wrote those tablets, your theology completes your view of the science. You trust your theology here, because it is the complete view. Science is not wrong. It is just incomplete.
[quote=“Swamidass, post:94, topic:36197”]
My apologies if I have misrepresented Dr. Collins, but that is what I understood from his words. He seems to base his tentative skepticism that natural forces can explain abiogenesis on scientific observations: the likelihood required macromolecules developed in the required timeframe, the inhospitality of early earth, and his assessment of these origin of life proposals as being adequate explanations. Forgive me if I misunderstood his words, but this is certainly what I got from them:
“Another issue, however–one where I am very puzzled about what the answer will be–is the origin of life. Four billion years ago, the conditions on this planet were completely inhospitable to life as we know it; 3.85 billion years ago, life was teeming. That is a very short period–150 million years-- for the assembly of macromolecules into a self-replicating form. I think even the most bold and optimistic proposals for the origin of life fall well short of achieving any real probability for that kind of event having occurred. Is this where God entered? Is this how life got started? I am happy to accept that model, but it will not shake up my faith if somebody comes up with a model that explains how the first cells formed without divine intervention.”
Appreciated, and I concur. One last question for my clarity, and I promise I will try to wrap up this discussion:
Would you grant it as a legitimate, scientific conclusion for someone to examine a biological phenomenon, and conclude that mutation, natural selection, and population genetics are insufficient to explain that particular phenomenon… so long as they do not go on from there to try to argue to or prove God, divinity, or any other intelligent agency from that basis?
Please forgive my intrusion, Daniel, but I’d like to give this a shot. I have spoken on these forums about the “too tight” relationship between methodological and philosophical naturalism. I find the scientific community is quite frequently philosophically shallow, and unaware of how often and deeply they blur those two.
I think you will find a spectrum on the Biologos forums, those who think natural causes did it all and those who do not, and there are many opinions about what the latter looks like. Some sorta don’t care how it happened, but just want to stop seeing our faith dragged into these discussions.
Yet I would still say that it is not a “scientific” conclusion that there is no natural explanation for some phenomena. Science itself only looks for natural causes.
On the other hand, for a scientist to assert that they will find a natural cause would be a statement from philosophical naturalism. They should look for natural causes, yes, and a scientist that understands philosophy would know when they cross that boundary. Many (maybe most?) don’t. It’s just not their concern.
Unfortunately the science press knows no such boundary! It typically drips philosophical naturalism in every article on things like Origins of Life.
A scientific conclusion would be that “we haven’t found an explanation of these phenomena.” Then beyond science alone (that is, returning to full humanity), someone could say, “And yes, the information we know at this time seems to me to indicate that there is more going on than just natural causes.” I can accept from your quote above that as a scientist and public figure, Dr. Collins has hedged appropriately on this. Others like Dr Tour of Rice U are more a forceful in their critique of contemporary sloppy origins science, but he avoids non-natural considerations, leaving the listener to decide what to think.
People here especially don’t want anyone putting their hope in the failure of science so far to find natural causes for every phenomena. I respect that, but I personally don’t think we need to worry about science finding that everything happened on its own. I think (as perhaps you do) that the data we have now is sufficient for other conclusions. But that discussion, while involving and often about the science, is not itself scientific.
Appreciate the observation. Two quick thoughts, if I may, regarding the following thought:
Then back to my perennial question: would you then classify SETI, forensics, and archaeology as “unscientific”, since they are prepared to conclude, given the right evidence, that there is no natural explanation for various phenomena within their purview? why or why not?
My more specific question, though, is whether or not science can specifically rule out natural selection & mutation as a sufficient explanation for certain complex biological phenomena. My impression is that ID is criticized by some not simply because of its willingness to conclude intelligent agency, but because of its willingness to doubt the basic evolutionary framework whatsoever.
I know I myself have been criticized as an unscientific troglodyte simply for doubting the power of mutation and natural selection to accomplish the various technological marvels that our own best scientists can’t get close to developing.
That’s a great question, and the differentiation here turns rather subtle. These still are considered scientific, I think, because the full explanation is within this universe, and may be further investigated by science because they are subject to further natural laws. There is some assumption among us all that intentional intelligence is a “given” phenomenon which occurs in our past (archeology), present (forensics), and may be “out there” (SETI). Even if intentionality can’t be understood only in terms of natural law, and intelligence is hard to pin down, our experience of them allows them to skate by as “givens” within this universe.
Careful philosophy can certainly argue, as you and I have, that ultimately these are no different from ID arguments. But some want to draw a firm boundary within this universe.
I don’t think science can rule out natural explanations for life. It’s job is to describe it and find the natural causes.
However I would agree that since science has shown us so much, the data sure doesn’t look right, if mutation and NS are the only method. And some people seem to have remarkable faith, certainly way beyond mine, that mindless molecules can solve outrageously complex problems.
I think ID is criticized for both legitimate and illegitimate reasons. Even sometimes for the issues you raise, ID proponents can make the arguments in a lousy way. Yet if they made them perfectly, they would still be criticized from some quarters.
Yeah, me too. Then again, people accused Jesus of having a demon.
But as Teddy Roosevelt said, “It is not the critic who counts…” I love that you are in forums with people who don’t agree with you, trying to ferret out their perspective, keeping prodding, keeping your cool! That’s what I’m trying to do and why I’m here. And I really have learned a lot!
Daniel, are you aware that the power of real science is not in “explaining the evidence,” but in predicting the actual evidence we haven’t seen yet?
Are you aware that no one in the ID movement is willing to test the predictions of an ID hypothesis?
Oh, I like that turn of phrase. Thank you! Very apropo.
Ray 
I can understand your position, but all three of these areas involve hypotheses that are made by investigators and tested rigorously by scientific methods. At least with forensics and archaeology (still waiting on SETI data), scientifically-gathered facts are assembled into a big picture. Sometimes those big pictures can be wrong, just look at all the cases that have been overturned in the last several years due to DNA evidence, but the idea is that hypotheses are scientifically-generated and tested.
Now let’s apply the same requirement to ID research. From what I know (which is admittedly incomplete), ID proponents have difficulty generating new hypotheses, let alone testing them. The sole aim of the research is to cast doubt on current thought and paradigms in evolution.
Can science rule out other natural explanations for complex biological phenomena? Absolutely! Can science rule out the possibility of divine involvement in the evolution process? I would answer “no” to that - science simply doesn’t work that way. There are indeed limits to what questions can be answered by science. But at some point, just like in forensics, it is reasonable to conclude that eventually scientific evidence supports a conclusion “beyond reasonable doubt”. The evidence supporting the case for evolution is not diminishing as time passes and new discoveries are made, but it continuously growing!
Let me again clarify this point, as it seems to be missed repeatedly… I am not a fan of the current “ID movement.” As I have said above, I find their articles weak, polemic, prjuidiced, with an obvious agenda, unwilling to embrace and accept data that would challenge their core hypotheses. They appear to have a foregone conclusion in sometimes desperate search for corroborating evidence.
I occasionally visit the "Evolution News & Views website, but cannot stomach reading most of the articles… they come across arrogant, condescending to those with whom they disagree, and suspiciously selective with th data, and entirely amateurish.
And by this I don’t mean to impugn every single individual in that movement, but that is certainly the general impression I get.
Can we please all recognize and acknowledge that I am neither a fan of, nor interested in in any way defending, that group known as the “ID movement”? I am trying to understand the BioLogos position on a basic, philosophical approach and understanding of what is or isn’t “science.” And on that one, limited, particular, singular question, I find myself resonating more with the basic core philosophy that the ID approach is predicated on, regardless of how badly or inconsistently they either uphold or execute that philosophy.
Sir, thanks for this. I can expound further as I have time. But quickly, while I appreciate this, I still find it an unwarranted and arbitrary distinction. Perhaps best demonstrated as such:
This would create a rather bizarre philosophical paradigm wherein an atheist scientist could recognize design in biology so long as he was only willing to speculatively credit it to a natural (universe-bound), extraterrestrial intelligence (i.e., he thinks then"full explanation" to be within this universe), while a Christian scientist examining the same evidence could not make the near-identical scientific conclusion; this distinction exclusively on their personal beliefs about the nature of that intelligence. This strikes me, then, as an entirely arbitrary distinction, that just grates against my every philosophical instinct.
One person is justified within the scientific method in recognizing something as the result of an intelligent agent, the other is unjustified… not because of any actual approach to the evidence, but rather simply and solely because they have different metaphysical beliefs that they bring to their study?
@Daniel_Fisher, the problem with I.D. is the overwhelming number of those who support I.D., but simultaneously also reject Old Earth evidence and the logic of speciation.
Having God intercede here and there in the Creation of life is not a terrible idea, right? But if we can’t find an Old Earther who thinks God mixed miracles into the long haul evolutionary process … then all you have are zealot YECs who want to use I.D. to trash the natural component of God’s creation.
Switching gears, who are you a fan of again? Do you have some well written articles that you think are well done that myself and any others interested can take a look at?
He should though, especially if its about intelligent life elsewhere. There is a huge jump to affirming beings like us, which everybody can scientifically prove that we exist… to proposing an invisible God who nobody can at any time say how He specifically interacts with our physical world. We say that we see His hand or feel His presence but cannot quantify or specify the mechanism that He uses.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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