My ID Challenge

[quote=“deliberateresult, post:890, topic:4944”]
It would be progress to agree that evidence does indeed exist for the necessity of a Creator.[/quote]

I agree that such evidence exists. But I’m not sure that convincing empirical evidence exists.

I think the reason that some (and to some extent, me) shy away from empirical evidence is because of decades of claims that were proven bankrupt–the diminishing of the “gaps,” for example. I started recognizing the fallacies of some of these foolproof evidences when I was a barely-educated young adult. So when someone introduces “necessary” empirical evidences for a Creator (or, probably more precisely, empirical evidences that demand the necessity of a Creator), my first response is skepticism.

How long before that evidence is “explained away”?

If the explanation is legitimate, we have banked on something illegitimate. If the explanation is illegitimate but people buy it anyway, of what use is it?

And yet, there is all kinds of evidence that points to the center of Christianity (Jesus himself) that is far more convincing. The evidence for the necessity of a Creator is secondary at best!

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If every theistic evolutionist were like Behe, there would be virtually no problem. If every theistic evolutionist understood, acknowledged, and celebrated (and was in no way embarassed by) the clear evidence from life that life requires a Creator, I would have no need at all to appeal to my BioLogos brothers and sisters who steadfastly resist, and/or deny this strong and obvious evidence.

By the way, I note that while Behe may be a TE, he does not in any way that I am aware of identify himself with BioLogos

This clarifies a great deal. You have no problem with theistic evolution at all.

Rather, you do not like us because we (many of us) reject ID and embrace BioLogos. You love ID and hate BioLogos. That makes sense of everything you have written.

To be clear, I do see evidence for God in our world. However, ID I reject because rests on bad science, and it is a dangerous place to place our trust. It is too bad that my emphasis on Jesus brings me into conflict with you.

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Be of good cheer! Advanced data processing and technologically advanced engineering that far exceed levels attained by 20th century civilization will always be a solid, reliable signature of intelligent agency.

We know a lot about what natural processes are and are not capable of and a lot about what intelligent agents are capable of. We have a vast and ever growing reservoir of empirical data that gives us, in many cases, great confidence in identifying the signature of design Moreover, the creation of functional, prescriptive information is an immaterial process governed by fundamentally different laws than those which govern the material world. Many of these laws are mutually exclusive of one another so that any sort of hope of some future rescue for a non intelligent cause is simply not possible.

As far as we know, billions of years of natural processes have not produced so much as a single paper clip.

I also want to say something about the god-of-the-gaps argument. This argument is fallacious and absurd. No Christian should buy into it. God does not, nor has He ever existed in gaps of our understanding.

I realize that both points I have raised here are deep points, but I would be happy to flesh out either or both with you.

I agree. But a great many arguments for the necessity of a Creator in the past relied on it.

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And I think this is the crux of your entire dispute.

You think the observation of nature is sufficient to provide OBVIOUS EVIDENCE of God’s creation.

I don’t see how you can ever find or demonstrate this proof sufficiently to anyone other than people who already think that this is so.

When you are able to PROVIDE this kind of “obvious natural evidence” then I think most BioLogos supporters WOULD no longer argue with you …

@Jon_Garvey

Hi Jon, sorry for writing such a delayed response.

I just read the first half of that article, and unless I’ve misunderstood it I think that you’ve overstated your case. The future can’t be determined in chaotic systems since it we would need to violate Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle to know the initial conditions in enough detail, but of course it would be easy for God to know such conditions. Again, we try to be God and understand everything.[quote=“Jon_Garvey, post:860, topic:4944”]
It simply appears to be a last-ditch attempt to save a vestige of the Enlightenment’s deistic God who, in Leibniz’s phrase, sets it up by “a perpetual motion”.
[/quote]

I know Eddie thinks this, but this is not my inspiration. To respond to your response to myself andothers in which you essentially ask (as Eddie has), “Why would it be attractive to hold to a front-loaded evolution without local action.” I would say attractiveness is in the eyes of the beholder. For some if not many of us it is more attractive for God to have set up the universe to evolve to man with no, “interventions” from him.

I’ll read the rest of the article today and I’m open to new evidence certainly but I don’t think this one article settles everything.

If God “front-loads” the Universe … he is in LAWFUL intervention with everything that is naturally lawful … with the POSSIBILITY of further interventions with anything that is NOT naturally lawful.

It’s fundamental to what is meant by “front-loaded”.

This discussion might explain why people aren’t sure that Behe is sure where he stands:

" 3. BEHE’S EVIDENCE FOR COMMON DESCENT

“Let’s acknowledge that genetics has yielded yet more terrific (and totally unanticipated) evidence of common descent.”. Behe presents 3 proofs for Common Descent:

1. vitamin C pseudogene: “Both humans and chimps have a broken copy of a gene that in other mammals helps make vitamin C.” (71); “It’s hard to imagine how there could be stronger evidence for common ancestry of chimps and humans.” (72)

2. hemoglobine pseudogene: “More compelling evidence for the shared ancestry of humans and other primates comes from (…) a broken hemoglobin gene.” (71)

3. yeast whole-genome-duplication: “Although duplicated genes can be used to trace common ancestry” (74)

This is the good news: Behe accepts a most important pillar of evolution and he presents evidence for it. But is it really new? No. Behe accepted Common Descent of life already in Darwin’s Black Box (DBB) back in 1996. Or did he? Did he present evidence at the time? The hemoglobin pseudogenes are present in his DBB, but amazingly, instead of presenting them as evidence for Common Descent, he attacks them:

“This argument is unconvincing for three reasons. First, because we have not yet discovered a use for a structure does not mean that no use exists.” (page 226, DBB).

Here Behe argues against Ken Miller. Miller claimed that Intelligent Design cannot explain pseudogenes of hemoglobin in humans, because it would mean that “the designer made serious errors, wasting millions of bases of DNA on a blueprint full of junk. Evolution can explain them as nothing more than failed experiments”.

Indeed, it is true that in general one cannot conclude from structures with unknown function to no function at all, but the pseudogene is not an unknown structure, but a copy of a known functional gene with mutations which make it non-functional.

So Behe’s critique fails. Behe’s second argument against pseudogenes as evidence for Common Descent is that “even if pseudogenes have no function, evolution has “explained” nothing about how pseudogenes arose” (DBB,226) and his third is that “these chance events do not mean that the initial biochemical systems were not designed.” (DBB,228).

My point is not to refute Behe’s arguments, but simply point out the amazing and extraordinary fact that Behe in Darwin’s Black Box dismissed exactly the same evidence that he now accepts without any explanation. In The Edge he simply states “a broken hemoglobin gene” and forgets that he stated 10 years ago that “this argument is unconvincing for three reasons”. What was exactly wrong with his arguments in DBB?

He has obviously changed his mind, but he owes his readers an explanation for the change and he owes Miller an apology (7).

Can we really trust Behe’s claim that he accepts Common Descent if he did not explain what was wrong with his own arguments in DBB? This is one of the many dilemmas the reader of The Edge has to resolve.

If Behe truly believes in Common Descent and unbroken natural law, then there is no place for design (whether as set-up or as interrupting events).

If he truly believes in design, then there is no place for Common Descent and unbroken natural law. I concluded above in section 2 that Behe’s explicitly designed vertebrate class conflicted with the fundamental genetic continuity underlying Common Descent.

Now we have two reasons to doubt Michael Behe’s assertion that he accepts Common Descent. We should end our review at this point, but there is still a question unanswered and that is: Why did he split up the world in two partitions in the first place? What is this mysterious Edge of Random Evolution?"
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From this website of many years ago …

When Behe is no longer a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute . . . .

maybe he will be taken more seriously …

@Eddie,

You are a master of the most tedious of forensic intercourse … I find no pleasure in attempting to find truth in the most closely ground workings of words and thoughts, when it seems your agenda is even more obvious than the value of the conclusions that you attempt to construe.

I continue to be puzzled at your insistence that BioLogos owes some special attention to someone who is highly placed in a rival organization that seems dedicated to mangling scientific information in general and BioLogos presentations specifically.

Here you offer some of your OWN answers to why Prof. Behe is disqualified from any special attention by BioLogos:

And lastly, you offer this complaint:

@Eddie, as always, I just have to skim past the agonizing grind of rhetoric and analysis that flood your postings. I take no offense if you do not respond to my comments… Every once in a while we get on the same wavelength … but I have no illusion regarding how often that will occur.

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Well said. If ID was actually proper science, I would take it seriously.

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That is a good request. I have done this in the past. It keeps on coming up. I’ll try and write a post on my blog in the coming weeks about this. Sorry I have to punt for now…though I have already answered this in several places.

I know a lot of people (and know of many more) who lost their faith - some temporarily, some, it would appear, for good - over this conundrum. No one had to “convince” us. We saw it as obvious.

If there is one thing and only one thing that I can accomplish here, it is to urge some among you to get their heads out of the sand. Darwinian evolution is a necessary pillar of atheism. It should not be any surprise then, that some Christians who come to embrace Darwinian evolution will also embrace atheism. If you discard everything else I have put on the table, please at least believe this. It is true. If it isn’t logically obvious, I and many others are living proof.

Think about what you are saying, Joe.

First, atheists existed before Darwin. In the first century, Paul talked about men who “suppressed the truth” about God. Centuries before Paul, the psalmist spoke of the fool who said in his heart “there is no God.” Evolution is not a necessary pillar of atheism; Darwin did not invent atheism. The human heart is deceitful and desperately sick. It does not need a scientific theory to provide an excuse to rebel against God. Rebellion is our natural condition. Any excuse will do.

Second, you seem to be advocating that we, as Christians, should “suppress the truth” about common descent in order to shield young believers from a loss of faith. I want to respond indirectly, at first, by saying that Christians should never hide or shy away from the truth. When we adopt these methods, we are no longer serving the truth, and thus no longer serving God. Your zeal to shield young believers from atheism is commendable, but misguided. Regardless of how many people join your crusade against evolution, you might as well be the Wizard of Oz telling Dorothy to “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.” You cannot create a big enough curtain to prevent young Christians from noticing the mountains of evidence in favor of evolution and starting to ask questions of their own. In important respects, your position reminds me of the decision facing all Christian parents: when do we stop shielding our kids from “the world” and start preparing them for it? Some parents shield their children from so much that they are totally unprepared for the world when they finally encounter it as adults. It is hard to let go and watch them make mistakes, but it is necessary for their growth. We need to prepare Christian youth, not hide the truth from them.

Third, if you really want to help young Christians, you should sharpen your own understandings of the Scripture first. There is a reason why James advised that not many of us should seek to become teachers, and everyone here (myself included) who spouts off publicly about God and his word should be reminded that we will have to account for every word we say. I urge you, for your own good, to seek a better understanding of God’s word. You need to expose yourself to teachers outside of the small circle of Bible interpreters you apparently have been reading. I’m not talking about liberal theologians here, but conservative scholars and exegetes who could help you out of your difficulties, as well as show you how to prepare the next generation to reconcile their faith in God with modern science. I hope that you are willing to take the difficult path of study and reflection; it would make you a much more effective worker in God’s fields.

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@deliberateresult

SOME Christians? Yes, I suppose this seems inevitable. Just as SOME Christians will come to embrace White Supremacy and Atheism… or that SOME Christians will come to embrace hatred of Islam and Atheism. As long as there are different kinds of people in the world, there will always be people who embrace combinations they don’t have to necessarily embrace.

And SECONDLY, your use of the term “Darwinian Evoluton” seems quite calculated.

Since Darwin did not put God in the equation for God-guided Evolution … it seems pretty obvious that BioLogos supporters who believe that God DID guide evolution are not, by your own definition, adopting Darwinian Evolution, and are presumably not in danger of becoming Atheists.

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It seems maybe their faith was misplaced.

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