The above video was posted on Sandwalk, the blog of evangelical atheist Larry Moran, biochemistry prof at Toronto university. In it James Downard defines evolution simply as this:
Natural Branching Common Descent
Compare that with the definition preferred by Larry Moran which in shortened form goes:
Change in allele frequency over time.
There are several points to make here
1. The reference to "Branching Common Descent" by Downard is an explicit reference to evolution as a history of change. The second definition, on the other, hand stresses evolution as a present tense continuous process: Defined in this differential way the implications for natural history in terms of a branching tree of life may or may not follow. I suppose this is probably Downard's niggle with the definition preferred by Moran; it's too open about natural history.
2. Both definitions make no commitment to the mechanisms of evolution and for good reason I believe: According to Larry Moran the exact range mechanisms are debatable and theoretical. This sounds like good news for those who might want to include intelligent activity in the mechanism!
3. What is unsaid here is important: Seldom do evangelical atheists make an admission about the burden of up front information needed to make conventional evolution work. See here, here and here.
4. There is nothing philosophically untoward in either definition of evolution, except that I suspect that for Downard the word "natural" comes with a huge amount of implicit philosophical baggage connected with the old dualist "God did it vs natural forces did it " contention. Going on what Larry Moran has said (and I can quite believe him), the exact mechanisms for evolution are the subject of on going study, so its no surprise that questions over the gaps in this area are likely to be subject to speculation and implicit world views. For example in Downard's case it is almost certainly true that by "natural" he's ultimately thinking of law and disorder mechanisms.
4. There is nothing philosophically untoward in either definition of evolution, except that I suspect that for Downard the word "natural" comes with a huge amount of implicit philosophical baggage connected with the old dualist "God did it vs natural forces did it " contention. Going on what Larry Moran has said (and I can quite believe him), the exact mechanisms for evolution are the subject of on going study, so its no surprise that questions over the gaps in this area are likely to be subject to speculation and implicit world views. For example in Downard's case it is almost certainly true that by "natural" he's ultimately thinking of law and disorder mechanisms.
5. The "science" of BYL & LISLE: In someways Downard has hit the nail on the head as far as challenging the young earthists is concerned: They would likely be very uncomfortable with his explicit reference to a branching history. Young earthists hate science's treatment of natural history and are willing to patch-in bogus histories if needs be. See for example fundamentalists BYL & LISLE. In fact John BYL is very explicit about the need for fundamentalists to have a vision of a God who is prepared to patch-in deceptive bogus cosmic histories, but I don't think Jason LISLE would want to put it like that! Between them BYL and LISLE reveal much about just what Christian fundamentalism does to one's grasp of science.
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