That sounds like a fascinating volume. I will try to get hold of it. The introduction sounds intriguing.
Jon
Yes, it seems true to me that there is no advantage in fitting our theology to any theory of evolution. I prefer the approach of looking more deeply into biological processes, in order to discover clues to the concurrence between science and faith that I am philosophically convinced must exist. I am excited by the new evolutionary biology ideas for this reason. I recently spoke about this at an ASA local meeting, and was asked āSo, how does all this transposition and niche construction, and gene amplification relate to Christian belief?ā and I had to admit that I had no idea. All I have is an instinct (or perhaps a delusion) that the more we learn and the deeper we go, the more likely we will find evidence (but as George says, never proof) that Godās truth is one.
I think we have a long way to go to do this in biology, for a lot of reasons. But I agree that a very bad approach is to take evolutionary theory at any stage and use it to alter or reform our basic theological concepts. On the other hand, the hope is that at some point, such knowledge could inform those concepts, which is different. That still leaves open the question, how do we know when the evolutionary theory is sufficiently correct to try to do that, and the answer is, when such mutual informing becomes so easy, that its truth is obvious. Clearly we are not close to that at the moment.
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Using the term āTheory of Evolutionā means little without also providing more context. One could say, Darwinās ToE, neo-Darwinian ToE, post-Darwinian ToE, Lamarkian ToE, Rogerās ToE & etc.
The use of the term āevolutionā to describe species transformation preceded Darwin. Erasmus Darwin (Charlesā grandfather) and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck had ideas about species descent and transformation. The term āevolutionā was commonly used to describe this prior to Darwinās voyage on the Beagle.
Darwin merged evolution (common descent with acquired variations), with selection as a sorting mechanism behind the retention of particular variations over time. I mentioned earlier that synthesis is presented in the title of his book: Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Apparently, Darwin didnāt use the term āevolutionā in the first edition though he wrote āevolvingā in the sense of āunfoldingā in the final paragraph.
Thus I agree with Swamidassā use:
Evolution: Common descent or species transformation, irrespective of mechanisms.
Darwinian Evolution: Darwinās specific notion of common descent and species transformation by means of natural selection. Darwinās ToE would also be a reasonable shorthand. No need to reference Malthus.
I have a feeling that there will be ānothing new under the Sunā in the quest for the synthesis you mention. Until Enlightenment times, there was something of an accord between theology, philosophy and science, and I suspect we may in future find things that force us back to the point at which that breach occurred, rather than to some entirely new place.
As one possibility, if it became irrefutable that some kind of purposive teleology were involved in biological organisms, and in their evolution, it would of course be no proof of God whatsoever. Yet as far as the thinking of Aquinas goes, thereās already plenty enough teleology, in the mere fact that natural laws exist, to require a lawgiver logically.
But empirically, a āstrongā teleology in life would make the absence of God that much more implausible. Itās not a strong proof, but its a persuasive indicator against purposelessness (the athesist loses his intellectual respectability once more!), and that was well known back in the days when such teleology was believed to be part of nature.
But as you say, itās doubtful that either of us will live long enough to see a day like that, so my speculation is probably safe!
I find the question of why this should be so hard to distinguish to be a very interesting theological question.
Walter ReMine wrote a book arguing that the nested pattern of species relationships was necessarily made to carry the Biotic Message that life was authored by a sole designer. Further, he said the message was specifically designed to thwart other explanations like evolution or multiple designers. Another person commented, āThen why did the designer use a pattern so easily confused with common descent?ā
Sorry Argon - Iām not quite sure what point youāre making in relation to mine or Syās.
But picking up your subject it certainly seems to me that nested heirarchies, in phenotypes, at least, are only corroborative evidence for common descent, and there are indeed alternative explanations.
Iām not familiar with ReMine, and his argument isnāt clear to me from your post - but itās certain that the original major work on nested heirarchies was by Linnaeus, who saw them as overwhelming evidence for the principle of plenitude, ie that God would necessarily create every variation possible. What you couldnāt find would be discovered in some distant land, or on other worlds (he was unaware of deep time and evolution, of course).
Although we miss the connection now, that kind of thought was very much still in Darwinās mind in his repeated use of the phrase Natura non facit saltus to establish gradualism: it was a dictum deeply rooted in said principle of plenitude, not simply a necessary condition for his particular theory to work.
Note that Linnaeus wasnāt, as ReMine seems to be, using heirarchies as evidence for God, but as a scientific outworking of a philosophical theological principle; it was important to classify all Godās work, to show as much of his glory as possible. That was the theistic shape of science 240 years ago!
The question I was asking, and it only peripherally contacts your discussion with Sy, is related to why āstrongā or āpurposefulā teleology in biology or any other natural system may or may not be readily discernible (now, two millennia years after Christianity began, or in the future). This is a query about why God chooses to work in one way or another. I wonder whether the observation that these cases tend to remain largely ambiguous in nature is Godās intent and what that suggests about His overall plan.
My comments about ReMine are secondary. If youāre not familiar, youāre not missing much.
Yes, some of it hinges on expectation vs. fascination. To be fair, ReMine was trying to create a specific testable hypothesis about how a designer created.
Linnaeus is also interesting because he was one of the earliest naturalists to reject immutability of species. Iāve read that in his early years, he had assumption that all the species found today were the same that were created by God at the beginning but over time couldnāt maintain that. Hybridization was one mechanism of change he thought produced new species. So he too went beyond cataloging nature and into the realm of how these organisms are related. He caused a theological stir by classifying humans among the apes.
Reading Francis Collins, I gather Collins is also inspired by the same awe as Linnaeus. As is Dennis Venema, Joshua Swamidass and many other scientists. I doubt they consider their day jobs to be ātheistic scienceā, but just science.
Probably a lengthy treatment is needed here, on the various types and aspects of teleology (I had in mind above only the single one of organisms acting purposefully) - but I wonāt go there.
Instead, Iāll just suggest that for most of human history, not just since Christ, purposefulness in the āultimateā sense of Godās moving nature towards his purposes, has been recognised naturally and automatically. We still see faint echoes of that in the exclusion, until recently, of āActs of Godā from insurance policies. But read any writing from before the 18th century and Godās government of events is axiomatic.
That makes the āambiguityā of nature regarding purpose quite a recent phenomenon, only really seen in the Enlightenment and those cultures influenced by it. And even then, those in these cultures not educated into that ambiguity often take purpose (either Godās or Fateās) for granted. Listen out for casual but serious phrases from ordinary folks (even in the irreligious UK), āIām sure X happened for a reasonā , āIt was meant to be.ā
Since our ānormalā seems to be an historical aberation, I suggest we should look for the answer in the nature of our culture, not in the nature of God or of Nature.
I have no problem with most of what you say. In fact most of the time I do refer to Darwinian evolution as Darwinian evolution. The only issue here is that others do not see the need to specify Darwinian, while I do to differentiate it from ecological evolution.
The other problem is that everyone else concentrates on Variation, while my problem is Natural Selection. Sometimes I feel that Evolution is like a magician, who causes the audience to look at his right hand, Variation, while he is really performing his trick using the left hand, Natural Selection.
It is very strange that Darwinian Natural Selection has never been scientifically verified.
I largely do agree with this. In fact my first instinct is to strongly focus on special revelation (through Jesus) over nature as a path to understanding God. Iām very much a revelationist and a ressurectionist.
At the same time, there two things Iāve been meditating on where evolution might actually underscore and affirm orthodox theology in a deep and beautiful way.
Evolution undercuts many arguments for Godās existence. It seems clear, at least to me, that how ever God made us, disproving evolution (and proving His existence) does not appear to be in His design goals. Of course, this immediately undercuts any Christian effort in the sciences to make their personal purpose to oppose evolution, because clearly (at least to me) this wasnāt Godās purpose. Of course, this makes sense in Christian theology, because God makes Himself known through Jesus. In this way, evolution affirms Jesus as a uniquely powerful testimony of Godās existence and goodness.
Evolution exposes an infinitely artistic component of Godās character (endless forms), and brings us into contact with the entirely contingent nature of creation. As Terry Eagleton puts it, āod the Creator is not a celestial engineer at work on a superbly rational design that will impress his research grant body no end, but an artist, and an aesthete to boot, who made the world with no functional end in view but simply for the love and delight of it.ā This, of course, seems like very trinitarian orthodox theology to me. God make us out of joy an love, not because He needs us.
Now, taking this further, Eagleton also writes, āIn fact, for Christian theology there is no necessity to the world at all . . . . He created it out of love, not need. There was nothing in it for him. The Creation is the original āacte gratuit.āā He writes all this from theology, mind you, not from evolution.
In particular, I find his decision to use acte gratuit mind blowing. It is french for gratuitous act: an impulsive and motiveless act. This is a really interesting statement to make of course. I wonder how that fits with the assumption of teleology in Christian approaches to nature. Is it possible that God created everything as a grand artistic gesture, without clear purpose, but then later gave it purpose in us? If creation was acte gratuit, did it initially have purpose beyond the grand expression of Godās creative poetry? Maybe not?
To be clear, these thoughts arise from within orthodox theology proper, independent of evolution. For example, a theologian posted on my blog today on exactly these points. Remarkably (and this bears emphasizing), this theologian does not believe in evolution, and he is part of a denomination that rejects evolution, but his theology seems so consistent with what evolution might indicate and underscore about our conception of God.
If find this concordance remarkableā¦what do you think?
I think youāre misunderstanding. Weāre distinguishing between the phenomenon of evolution and the theories pertaining to the mechanisms that cause it.
So Swamidass is defining the PHENOMENON of evolution as common descent (a strong conclusion from mountains of evidence), while I am pointing out that the only directly observable phenomenon is changes in allele frequencies in populations over time.
āThe word āalleleā is a short form of allelomorph (āother formā, a word coined by William Bateson[3]), which was used in the early days of genetics to describe variant forms of a gene detected as different phenotypes. It derives from the Greek prefix į¼Ī»Ī»Ī®Ī», allel, meaning āreciprocalā or āeach otherā, which itself is related to the Greek adjective į¼Ī»Ī»ĪæĻ (allos; cognate with Latin āaliusā), meaning āotherā.ā
āAn allele, or allel, is one of a number of alternative forms of the same gene or same genetic locus. Sometimes, different alleles can result in different observable phenotypic traits, such as different pigmentation. However, most genetic variations result in little or no observable variation.ā
What happens when there is a mutation that is either ON or OFF? Letās say a mutation appears that turns OFF the expression of a set of alleles for feather pigmentation. Itās a one of a kind mutation ā¦ if it hadnāt appeared, feather pigmentation would be normally expressed.
Shouldnāt we be using a more generic term than āalleleā ?
There is much more directly observable phenomina supporting evolution than this. Evolution has very very strong direct experimental support in addition to the indirect evidence.
It would be impossible for me to be comprehensive here. Letās start with:
The most important is genomes and all the precise patterns we see within them
De novo mutation rates and distributions in genomes
The variation in populations of genomes
The fossil record and geology
A very very large list of mechanisms for modifying genomes (crossing over, point-mutation, transposons and transposases, horizontal gene transfer, introngenesis, DNA repair and repair defects, noisy replication, mutagens, etc. etc. etc.).
The genetics and neofunctionalization of cancer (quite underappreciated for unfortunate reasons).
The mammalian immune system.
Evolution of novel function in proteins by mutation and selection in the laboratory (e.g. phage display).
Comparative physiology.
All these things are directly observable. Most (but not all, e.g. the fossil record) can be replicated and studied in laboratory settings. To be clear, for evolution to work, biological systems today need to behave in specific and precise ways. We have gobs of evidence that they do in fact work in just the way we expect.
To be clear, Iām speaking as a computational biologist with nearly two decades experience in science. There are certainly bad ways to apply and think about evolution and what implies about how biological systems work today. However, there is an immense body of work showing that, when applied the right way, evolution is the only thing that makes sense of the current day function of biological systems.
One might add the changes in surface proteins on flu viruses, and the epidemological studies leading to development of which strains to include in an effective flu vaccine, as well as changes affecting the infectivity and allowing crossover of infections between species.