According to some IDists you’re either an IDist or a blaspheming heretic in league with satanic
atheists.
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| Here's the general idea of a false dichotomy |
Below I have reproduced an article which was recently posted on the de
facto Intelligent Design Web site “Uncommon
Descent”. It epitomises some of the dichotomised logic of the de-facto
ID community who habitually work within a “natural processes” vs God “intelligence”
paradigm. They do not accept that there are Christian scientists out there who
have, in clear conscience, intelligently reconciled evolution with their faith.
The pratfall of the kind of IDism we see below is embodied in the attempt to
define evolution (which they wrongly refer to as “Darwinism”) using such a corrupt
straw man version of it that it is impossible for Christian evolutionists and
even atheists to accept. They keep trying to pass off a mangled version of
“Darwinism”, laden with their own deep misconceptions, as the genuine article and then use it to impune Christian evolutionists. In the light
of this kind of polarised thinking I suspect that latterly UD is
lurching in a fundamentalist direction; as a general rule fundamentalist also
have a love of strawman shibboleths which they foist on outsiders and serve as black and white category markers separating the sheep from the goats.
Before I go any further I must flag my usual disclaimer: I’m not a conventional
evolutionist myself; I am, in fact, an Intelligent
Construction Creationist who is exploring the concept of “backloading" - see here. Let me emphasize here that I'm exploring, not asserting IC in order to use it as a platform from which to slag-off everyone else. For there are many Christians of good conscience who are standard evolutionists and who
are certainly not obliged to accept the corrupt travesty of evolution peddled
by StephenB below (I shall call him just “B”). In the following quotes from B all emphases are mine:
(See:http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/god-and-darwin-why-they-simply-cannot-co-exist/)
God and Darwin: Why they simply
cannot co-exist
February 11, 2016 Posted by StephenB under Intelligent
Design
17 Comments
As UD readers know, Charles
Darwin changed history when he argued that naturalistic
processes, acting alone, can drive the macro-evolutionary process from
beginning to end. His earth-shattering message was that nature’s
pseudo-creative mechanism can mimic the work of a designing Creator. That he could not support his claim with
empirical evidence did not seem to bother him very much.
My Comment: Implicit in B’s “naturalistic processes acting alone” is the Nature vs. God dichotomy. As in all science evolution can only
ultimately make claim to being a description of nature, but not its inner theological
driving engine. Theological issues apart (and, true, there are several such
issues) a Christian evolutionist should envisage God as the immanent power that reifies the platonic patterns of the process. After all, the posited
“randomness” of evolution is just another behaviour pattern of a particular
mathematical type; the mathematical description of the pattern of randomness is not in-and-of-itself
an explanation of the underlying power which reifies that pattern.
As far as I’m aware Darwin was,
repeat, was very bothered by
the paucity of evidence. However, evolutionary theory posits what is a huge structure
with a large time dimension and which is probably computationally irreducible to boot.
To assemble enough evidence to constitute a logically watertight case for
evolution is likely impossible. I
suspect B doesn’t have a very firm grasp of the nature of evidence: See my
posts on epistemology on this subject: See the links posted here
for example:
From then until now, the texture
of the argument has not changed. Neo-Darwinists, without a shred of evidence, and in the name of disinterested
science, declare that nature can produce
biodiversity all by itself, which
means, without God’s help. Incredibly, some well-meaning Christians try to
argue the God “used” this aimless mechanism to achieve his specific goal of
creating man.
“What’s the problem,” they ask?
“Evolutionary scientists are the ‘experts,’ aren’t they? They have no special
axe to grind even if most of them are partisan atheists. Besides, God can use
purely naturalistic processes to produce the outcome He wants.”
My Comment: Bunk! Evolution has plenty of evidence
although I personally would want to qualify that by suggesting that it may not
amount to obliging evidence; perhaps the available evidential “dots” can be joined
by other explanatory structures. B’s over-the-top “without a shred of evidence” will ensure he gets approving noises
from the ID gallery! Once again this guy’s comment suggests to me he doesn’t
really grasp what “evidence” means.
If God is immanent, it is very difficult to conceive what B means when
he says: nature can produce biodiversity
all by itself, which means, without God’s help. Even if the universe
displayed completely random patterns (a form of pattern which is in fact a highly
sophisticated mathematical object) then theologically God would still have to be the
reifying power behind it.
Now at this point B could raise difficult theological issues about how death
and disease are intrinsic to conventional evolution, but no, he continues to
manifest his complete ignorance of what evolution is really all about:
This is bad logic on parade. [Look who’s talking! – ed] Let’s examine that last claim from a rational perspective. A
(Neo)Darwinian process, as described, is open-ended. By virtue of its randomness (purposelessness), it is
free to produce many possible outcomes, most of which will not reflect the
Creator’s intentions. To guarantee the desired outcome, the Creator must front
load or tweak the process (mechanism) so that unwanted outcomes are closed off.
But if the process is constrained from
the outside, then it is no longer “acting alone,” and is no longer “free”
to produce unwanted outcomes. In other words, it is no longer a Darwinian
process as defined by the evolutionary scientists. Thus, God cannot use a
Darwinian mechanism to achieve a specific goal. If God did use evolution to
create man, he would have had to either design or supervise the process.
My Comment: B appears to identify randomness with
purposelessness on the basis of his gut feeling, rather than see randomness as a
pattern of a particular mathematical type. It is this spurious intuitive
connotation which I suggest is getting B into intellectual trouble: For
whenever a Christian evolutionist might refer to randomness, B will
automatically read that as “purposelessness” thus giving him an opportunity to read "heresy" behind the lines. However, if randomness if defined in terms of a class of
mathematical pattern this does not necessarily connote purposelessness (See here
for my own work on randomness)
B equates “constrained from
outside” with “no longer acting alone”.
Our physical regime is clearly constrained (presumably by the divine sovereign
will) to behave according to narrow probabilistic envelopes. Therefore from B’s
logic it follows that the physical regime is not acting alone! Therefore on his own logic B ought not to be
surprised if our physical regime generates life!
Let us leave on one side the huge theological problems entailed by a world
of suffering and evil; this is a major theological paradox, where to use B’s
expression, outcomes might “not reflect
the Creator’s intentions”, and this paradox is a superset of the theological
problems with evolution: If conventional evolution holds sway then it is just part
of a much bigger theological issue that Christians try to cope with. Christians
have to live with this paradox in any case and so evolution introduces just more of the
same theological conundrum where good can, paradoxically, emanate from bad.
B’s reference to front loading and even “tweaking” are, in fact,
entirely correct. But then those who understand evolution best, like say
atheist Joe Felsenstein, are perfectly aware of this and accept that information
frontloading is a necessary condition of a working model of evolution (See my blog post here). And yet someone like Felsenstein is a fully paid up atheist and evolutionist. B thrusts his highly distorted depiction of evolution
as an unconstrained process into the mouths of others, Christian and atheist
alike. This behaviour of stuffing blasphemies into the mouths of others is very
reminiscent of fundamentalist
Jason Lisle. B’s perverse view of evolution is a strawman through and
through. In short, contrary to what B claims, evolution is entirely consistent
with frontloading.
For more on this subject see the following posts. Of particular interest
are the comments by mathematician Mark Chu-Carroll who is a theist of Jewish faith.
The nub of B’s theological cock-up is that he is thinking in naive
anthropomorphic terms about the nature of design: He sees the Almighty
preparing His blueprints in advance and then imposing them on matter with His
iron will. This is in fact all too typical of the authoritarian and forceful slant of
fundo-evangelical Christianity. But as a
model of design it’s not even true of the human design process. B doesn’t
realise that the act of building, experimenting, and designing are inextricably
mixed. The act of construction is itself an intelligent process involving
searching and problem solving; what I refer to as intelligent construction rather than intelligent design. However, I’ve got to hand it to Granville
Sewell; he’s the first (and last) IDist I’ve seen who seems to have some inkling about intelligent construction as opposed to intelligent design! See here.
To understand more fully why
Christian Theism is on a totally different pathway than Darwinian evolution, we
can subject the two models to a sequential analysis:
In the case of Teleological
Theism, the design precedes and shapes
the process. In the case of Darwinian Evolution–the process precedes and shapes the design (appearance of). Notice that there can be no reconciliation.
To affirm one perspective is to negate the other. Either God’s real design
precedes and shapes the process (Teleological Theism) or, the evolutionary
process precedes and shapes the appearance of design (Neo-Darwinism). It must
be one or the other. It cannot be both.
The attempt to reconcile God with
Darwin may be likened to a misguided carpenter who tries to plug a square peg
into a round hole. In the absence of a natural fit, he may press, twist or
re-position the square peg in a futile attempt to make it “compatible” with the
circle. Or, he may even hammer the peg until it breaks the wood and penetrates
the hole—or what is left of it. At that point, it may seem to fit the hole,
insofar as it occupies the same space, but of course, it doesn’t. The damaged
hole is compromised; it is no longer the same hole.
Christian Darwinists may try to
twist words, distort meanings, and mix messages in a futile effort to blend the
Darwinian model with the Christian model, but it will not work. Insofar as the
attempt is made, the Christian world
view will be damaged and its teachings compromised. It will no longer be the same religion. The part will not blend
with the whole. Does this mean that science is incompatible with faith? No. It
means that Neo-Darwinist ideology is incompatible with science. I sincerely
wish that flexible Christians who are inflexible Darwinists would try to make
that distinction.
My Comment: No! As I’ve already said, in any real cognitive design process searching, problem solving and construction are inextricably
mixed. Therefore we cannot claim as B does that design unambiguously precedes
the process. Therefore reconciliation between process and design is possible; they are not thesis and antithesis. B has created a false dichotomy
in his mind; he then foolishly thinks others Christians are stupid enough to swallow
it; for in his polarised world he forces on the debate what he wrongly sees as
a straight choice between truth (his views of course) and heresy. To see the debate through this kind of false dichotomy is the hallmark
of blueprint fundo-evangelicalism which all too typically envisages an eminent authoritarian
hyper-masculinised God imposing his highly focused will upon a submissive
nature from on high. This theology is flawed. B then tries to impose the black
vs. white choices entailed by his corrupt, brittle and inflexible categories on
other Christians who on the basis of his straw man shibboleth may well find
themselves being accused of heresy and perhaps even blasphemy and apostasy. To
re-quote B:
It must be one or the other. It cannot be
both…. the Christian world view will be
damaged and its teachings compromised. It
will no longer be the same religion. The part will not blend with the whole
Let me end by repeating the following: I am myself an Intelligent Construction creationist;
that is I see the very process of construction as part and parcel with
intelligence. I disassociate myself from
the stultifying categories of the blueprint fundo-evangelicalism seen above. I
make no bones about the fact that many an atheist would think of me as a
complete nincompoop for taking seriously the idea that some of them understand as “the magic man in sky”. But there
is little to be gained from reasonable atheists not only having to put up with what to them is nincompoopery, but also the domineering nastiness we
get from some of the right-wing fundo-evangelical representatives of the faith.
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| The de facto IDiots have set themselves up for this kind of lampooning. |
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