JLT
Posts: 740
Joined: Jan. 2008
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It's so sad. Thomas Cudworth puts up a (at least) three part jeremiad about how Venema of BioLogos evades the question of someone named Crude, who wants to know how exactly in Venema's view God guided evolution.
From what I've read from BioLogos, their view is something along these lines: Everything is sustained by God, so there isn't really anything "natural". He could've made the whole universe in a way that the evolution of humans was somehow inevitable. But there isn't any way to determine God's influence scientifically.
Not surprisingly, that doesn't satisfy IDer. That is, of course, because they want to believe that a god was personally involved in their making and had to interfer continuously to bring about something as marvellous as them. They can't accept anything less.
So, now Gregory wants to know
| Quote | | how an IDer would answer Crude’s question, i.e. how does ID speak to the ‘how’ of guided evolution? |
He clarifies
| Quote | | ID posits ‘design’ as a ‘teleological’ term, but it says next to nothing about the supposed process of ‘designing’ the biosphere, iow, it also leaves the guiding/designing/intervening process silent from a natural scientific viewpoint. So, though I am not defending Venema’s vacuousness in philosophy of science, I still don’t see what Meyer, Behe or Dembski have offered or currently could offer that BioLogos did not. |
Behold nullasalus:
| Quote | Easy answer: ID can’t respond to the question posed, because the relationship between Biologos and ID is disjunct. And this is by design. (Cue canned laughter.)
BL is an explicitly Christian organization which claims a Christian mission.
ID is a concept and set of (in the view of its advocates) scientific claims which, in and of itself, is detached from religion.
Thus, someone can ask Venema what role, if any, God plays in evolution or if God guides evolution in any way, and when Venema squirms and refuses to answer, it’s trouble. (Saying, ‘Well he probably believes God guides it all but he can’t say that because he doesn’t have tenure perhaps’ is not guaranteed, since there’s another option: Venema doesn’t believe God has anything to do with evolution.) Venema’s part of an organization supposedly dedicated to showing that there’s no conflict between God/God’s acts and evolution. If Venema deals with any apparent conflict by eradicating God from the evolutionary picture, Ruse style, that doesn’t reflect well on BL.
In contrast, ID isn’t committed to the idea that the designer of anything for which design is inferred is the Christian God. Now, one can conceivably believe that if the Christian God exists, then we should expect ID to find something – just as someone may believe that if the Christian God exists, science should point to the universe having a beginning. The existence of such a hypothetical person doesn’t make Big Bang theory, considered as a scientific hypothesis, say anything about God – nor would it make ID, considered the same way, say anything about God. |
Isn't it cute how they are obsessed with BioLogos obviously theological position on evolution, just to immediately claim that they aren't interested AT ALL in these questions because ID is not (I repeat, IS NOT) a theological position? While simultaneously evading the actually asked question.
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"Random mutations, if they are truly random, will affect, and potentially damage, any aspect of the organism, [...]
Thus, a realistic [computer] simulation [of evolution] would allow the program, OS, and hardware to be affected in a random fashion." GilDodgen, Frilly shirt owner
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