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Post by sandwiches on Jan 24, 2009 22:06:14 GMT
Anyone interested in this? I thought the comments about the evolution of humans were interesting. www.tnr.com/booksarts/story.html?id=1e3851a3-bdf7-438a-ac2a-a5e381a70472&p=1The New Republic Seeing and Believing by Jerry A. Coyne The never-ending attempt to reconcile science and religion, and why it is doomed to fail. Post Date Wednesday, February 04, 2009 Saving Darwin: How to be a Christian and Believe in Evolution By Karl W. Giberson Only A Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul By Kenneth R. Miller Miller and Giberson are forced to this view [that humanoid evolution was inevitable] for a simple reason. If we cannot prove that humanoid evolution was inevitable, then the reconciliation of evolution and Christianity collapses. For if we really were the special object of God's creation, our evolution could not have been left to chance. (It may not be irrelevant that although the Catholic Church accepts most of Darwinism, it makes an official exception for the evolution of Homo sapiens, whose soul is said to have been created by God and inserted at some point into the human lineage.)
In the end, the question of whether human-like creatures were inevitable can be answered only by admitting that we do not know--and adding that most scientific evidence suggests that they were not. Any other answer involves either wishful thinking or theology.So are evolution and religion not reconcilable? |
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Post by krkey1 on Jan 24, 2009 23:01:25 GMT
If you mean by is evolution compatible with a belief in God, then yes of course it. Is evolution compatible with Biblical Inerrancy. No it isn't. But many, many things in science are incompatible with this belief. Strictly speaking if one wants to be a true Biblical Inerrancist they have to believe in a young earth, that is flat, rest on pillars, has it's rain, snow etc stored in storehouses in the sky and a huge etc. That is what the ancients believed after all.
It doesn't matter if the evolution of human like creatures was inevitable or not. If they were then the universe was specially designed to create us. If we weren't clearly God stepped in and made us. That is of course if you accept Theistic Evolution.
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Post by Al Moritz on Jan 25, 2009 9:14:10 GMT
A good answer to the objections of Coyne is found in Francis Collins' The Language of God, p. 205 (Francis Collins is one of the foremost biologists, he was head of the Human Genome Project):
...evolutionists claim that the process is full of chance and random outcomes. If you rewound the clock several hundred million years, and then allowed evolution to proceed forward again, you might end up with a very different outcome. For example, if the now well-documented collision of a large asteroid with the earth 65 million years ago had not happened, it might well be that the emergence of higher intelligence would not have come in the form of a carnivorous mammal (Homo sapiens), but in a reptile.
How is this consistent with the theological concept that humans are created "in the image of God" (Genesis I :27)? Well, perhaps one shouldn't get too hung up on the notion that this scripture is referring to physical anatomy-the image of God seems a lot more about mind than body. Does God have toenails? A belly button?
But how could God take such chances? If evolution is random, how could He really be in charge, and how could He be certain of an outcome that included intelligent beings at all? The solution is actually readily at hand, once one ceases to apply human limitations to God. If God is outside of nature, then He is outside of space and time. In that context, God could in the moment of creation of the universe also know every detail of the future. That could include the formation of the stars, planets, and galaxies, all of the chemistry, physics, geology, and biology that led to the formation of life on earth, and the evolution of humans, right to the moment of your reading this book--and beyond. In that context, evolution could appear to us to be driven by chance, but from God's perspective the outcome would be entirely specified. Thus, God could be completely and intimately involved in the creation of all species, while from our perspective, limited as it is by the tyranny of linear time, this would appear a random and undirected process.
***
Coyne's article is relatively thoughtful overall, but not afraid of setting up the occasional strawman:
Finally, it is abundantly clear that the evolution of human intelligence was a contingent event: contingent on the drying out of the African forest and the development of grasslands, which enabled apes to leave the trees and walk on two legs. Indeed, to maintain that the evolution of humans was inevitable, you must also maintain that the evolution of apes was inevitable, that the evolution of primates was inevitable, that the rise of mammals was inevitable, and so on back through dozens of ancestors, all of whose appearances must be seen as inevitable. This produces a regress of increasing unlikelihood. In the end, the question of whether human-like creatures were inevitable can be answered only by admitting that we do not know--and adding that most scientific evidence suggests that they were not. Any other answer involves either wishful thinking or theology.
See Collins' thoughts above about the appearance of humans vs. any higher intelligence; thoughts also shared by Ken Miller whose book(s) Coyne criticizes. The last line of Coyne's essay is a thick strawman as well:
Now Darwin Year is upon us, and we can expect more books like those by Kenneth Miller and Karl Giberson. Attempts to reconcile God and evolution keep rolling off the intellectual assembly line. It never stops, because the reconciliation never works.
Right. This could easily be rewritten into: "Attempts to convince the public of God-less naturalism keep rolling off the intellectual assembly line. It never stops, because these attempts never work; after all, naturalism is full of intellectual holes."
(Naturalism is full of intellectual holes as also evident in Coyne's attempts to explain away the fine-tuning of the universe. All his suggestions about doing this in a naturalistic way have been refuted in earlier discusssions here.)
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Post by humphreyclarke on Jan 26, 2009 10:55:56 GMT
This could have been an interesting article. Unfortunately Jerry Coyne is an insufferable bore who is more interested in promoting atheism than science. Accordingly the piece ended up being about nine tenths waffle and gave a poor sketch of some interesting issues. Over the last two decades, biologists and palaeontologists have assembled a vast array of data which shows a stunning degree of convergence across biological systems. One of the most interesting examples is the so called triangle of cognition between Primates, Cetaceans, and Corvids. Primate levels of intelligence appear to have evolved independently, most strikingly in the new Caledonian crows, but also in Whales and Dolphins. Organisms which have passed the mirror test now include elephants, Orcas and European Magpies. We now know that certain organisms are vastly more intelligent than once thought. For instance plants can communicate with one other via internal networks to warn against predators. Scientists can now produce computerised maps of ‘biological adaptive space’. It is clear from looking at these that, out of the space of adaptive possibility, almost nothing works. In other words, the convergence of biological systems can be explained by environmental and physical constraints which act on all life. These restrict the boundless creativity of life to a series of ‘optimal solutions’. This raises the intriguing possibility of creating a periodic table of life. If you played the tape of life again, contingency would make things different in many respects but the same overall scheme would be followed. Evolution acts like a kind of ‘search engine’ to create more complex ecosystems in which different niches are enabled and filled by new species. The fact that complexity isn’t always favoured is irrelevant (anecdotes about pet skunks notwithstanding). The main thrust of Coyne’s argument is that because Australia hasn’t followed an inevitable evolutionary pattern (in a lot of respects it has with the convergent evolution of the marsupials) Miller is wrong to stress the determinate nature of evolution. It is an enormous assumption to maintain that the remaining niches would not have been filled had humans not emerged. The earth’s climate changes over millennia to force evolutionary change and create the kind of contingent situations (the drying out of the African forest and the development of grasslands) which led to the emergence of human intelligence. The cognitive triangle shows that we need not even look in a similar context to the development of human intelligence to find other potential inhabitants of the ‘humanoid niche’. For example, a New Caledonian crow has a similar theory of mind to a chimpanzee despite a vastly different brain structure, research into sperm whales shows that diverse social group can combine to produce a form of culture, this is remarkable similar to elephant societies which have similar practices, despite being in very different ecosystems. Like us, Elephants have an awareness of death and grieve for other members of their groups, they have developed advanced methods of communicating with one another via seismic waves. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/03/010312071729.htmstorybank.stanford.edu/stories/caller-id-wild-african-elephants-communicate-ground-vibrationwww.newscientist.com/article/dn13860-six-uniquely-human-traits-now-found-in-animals.htmlOverall we can predict that the diversification of the warm blooded groups promotes the emergence of complex organisations including vocalisation tool making, social play and co-operative hunting; all these have emerged separately in the mammals and the birds. Even the high priest of contingency Stephen Jay Gould maintained that something like human intelligence was inevitable, he used the analogy of a drunk man stumbling along a path and bouncing off walls (I have also seen Dawkins make similar arguments). Natural selection has no foresight or planning but it has to work within certain parameters. Of course all these arguments about contingency vs determinism only really apply to a deistic scenario, in a theistic scenario Coyne's arguments are worthless as the cosmic architect can presumably do whatever he wants to mould the structure of life. Contingency is not something to look back on in dismay, as if this somehow devalued our existence. The role of chance is a necessary factor in any universe which allows creative freedom and directional progress, without undetermined causality there would be no space for this and it would be a very dull Cosmos. The section on the fine-tuning argument is very poor indeed. I don’t know which two elements of Smolin’s theory have been confirmed (perhaps that a) we observe black holes and b) it looks like a good way of getting rid of God). The same problems remain. Firstly the formational properties of the universes which are capable of evolving need to be roughly the same; we need to assume ingenious components such as general relativity and quantum theory as givens. The laws of nature from one universe to the next need to be capable of changing in highly convenient ways without halting the evolutionary process (e.g not producing more black holes). The biggest irony is that black holes now looks like an enormous fine tuning fix. Recent research is suggesting that they play a massive part in galaxy formation and regulation. In order to explain this and other examples of fine tuning the multi-verse needs to be so vast it would in effect create Gods and teleological laws of nature, not to mention multiple clones of Jerry Coyne. The bottom line is that the universe we observe is monotheistic, it is not the Epicurean void with its mindless and orderless recombinations of atoms, it is a complex and beautiful mathematical structure which has to have precise properties if it is to give rise to any life at all. Best of all was the comment: Attempts to reconcile God and evolution keep rolling off the intellectual assembly line. It never stops, because the reconciliation never works.This is pretty rich when he has just spent the past few years writing a book called ‘Why Evolution is True’; why is he still having to write books like this 200 years after the birth of Darwin?. It never stops because people don’t believe humanity emerged as some kind of accident and religious belief is a fundamental part of the human psyche. Coyne and his colleagues just don’t get it, and that's why they will be wasting their time writing anti-creationist treatises till doomsday. In short, Science and religion are perfectly compatible and to maintain otherwise is to be a fat-head. |
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Post by merkavah12 on Jan 26, 2009 17:43:17 GMT
Well said as always, Humphrey.
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Post by Al Moritz on Jan 27, 2009 3:27:24 GMT
Yes, thanks for that post, Humphrey.
I would be grateful if you could provide some references on these items:
1.
Over the last two decades, biologists and palaeontologists have assembled a vast array of data which shows a stunning degree of convergence across biological systems. One of the most interesting examples is the so called triangle of cognition between Primates, Cetaceans, and Corvids.
2.
Even the high priest of contingency Stephen Jay Gould maintained that something like human intelligence was inevitable, he used the analogy of a drunk man stumbling along a path and bouncing off walls.
***
You said:
"Contingency is not something to look back on in dismay, as if this somehow devalued our existence."
There is a lot of randomness in how each of us as human indivuals came into being. Our parents met by chance and were attracted to one another for various, not always necessary, reasons. Upon conception, our genes became, as in all sexual reproduction, a random mix of our mother’s and our father’s genes. Does anyone really, seriously, believe that God himself necessarily and inevitably steered our parents towards each other, and that He mixed our parent’s genes upon conception in exactly the way He wanted, genetic diseases included? Such thinking would be “puppets-on-a-string theology”, indirectly questioning also the concept of free will. So I don’t think it can hold up.
Thus, if God evidently allows randomness in defining each human individual, why would He then not have allowed randomness in the emergence of humankind as such? There hardly can be a good reason for not doing so, given what we just considered.
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Post by humphreyclarke on Jan 27, 2009 7:54:34 GMT
Yes, thanks for that post, Humphrey. Cheers Over the last two decades, biologists and palaeontologists have assembled a vast array of data which shows a stunning degree of convergence across biological systems. One of the most interesting examples is the so called triangle of cognition between Primates, Cetaceans, and Corvids. Lots of stuff online on this thanks to google books. The book I own is 'The Deep Structure of Biology' which is really a collection of essays from leading scientists, e.g Lenski, Robert A Foley, Simon Conway Morris and my distanc cousin Hal Whitehead. See here. books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&id=osKSn8jzWr8C&dq=the+deep+structure+of+biology&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=LbooDwJcY6&sig=RJ93GL6C2Uph7GYYqXkKLfa28P0&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=resultOn the cognition of birds see here: www.psychol.cam.ac.uk/ccl/www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/306/5703/1903?hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&FIRSTINDEX=0&maxtoshow=&HITS=10&fulltext=animal+cognition&searchid=1&resourcetype=HWCITSocial evoluion in the ocean, see the work of Hal Whitehead books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&id=sBdrGzpR9XcC&dq=hal+whitehead&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=jMf-R47YHl&sig=zl5FLnoWxE0ASjrOiJXYyR6CjyQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result Even the high priest of contingency Stephen Jay Gould maintained that something like human intelligence was inevitable, he used the analogy of a drunk man stumbling along a path and bouncing off walls. See also: www.darwinproject.ac.uk/content/view/93/78/www.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/faraday/resources/short%20course%207/FAR147%20Simon%20Conway%20Morris%201.mp3www.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/faraday/resources/Summer%20Course%202/FAR133%20Simon%20Conway%20Morris.mp3 |
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Post by humphreyclarke on Jan 27, 2009 17:23:29 GMT
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Post by sandwiches on Jan 27, 2009 19:08:28 GMT
In case anyone thought I was insane when I was talking about the plants communicating (I still find it hard to believe)
Plants can recognise and communicate with relatives
Prince Charles has long known this.
Seriously, I was looking at the comments in response to the article linked in my opening message ie not the comments on here which are thoughtful and informative, but the ones on the website on which the article appears. Basically they are along the lines of what a brilliant article etc but with no detail on what is quite so brilliant. It must be easy being an atheist - no need to think - just say things like "Brilliant - that's told them Prof Dawkins etc" to whatever half-baked opinions have been served up by the High Priest or his acolytes. My own opinion (I am no expert) was the same in gist as some of the replies here - (I posted as "Pause" on the website) before I saw any replies here. I would encourage people to post in response to these articles pointing out at least one or two of the more dumb assertions. (I doubt people read the longer assertions).
Incidently I am quite happy to believe plants communicate with each other though I am not sure they would listen to Prince Charles - would they see the point?
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Post by humphreyclarke on Jan 28, 2009 7:55:40 GMT
The essay by Robert A Foley is interesting because he is highly critical of any notions of 'progress'', 'design', 'purpose' etc. It is a very dry stubbornly Neo-Darwinian account of Human Evolution. Yet he concludes:
'Rather the adaptive process which is driven by selection does have some law like properties that may well - under the right circumstances - lead to more purposive behaviour as a means of increasing or coping with complex adaptive integration and greater complexity and lead to contained directional trends. These characteristics can be said to give evolution a repetitive and, hence, to some extent. inevitable pattern....The final conclusion I would draw is that evolution on other planets - or a rerun of evolution on this one - will lead to many similarities because of the law-like nature of these processes...In a distribution of intelligences in the universe, or on a sample of one, we might speculate that conscious, purpose driven intelligence represents the mode'
In Coyne's essay he says:
Giberson and Miller proclaim the inevitability of humanoids for one reason only: Christianity demands it...In the end, the question of whether human-like creatures were inevitable can be answered only by admitting that we do not know--and adding that most scientific evidence suggests that they were not. Any other answer involves either wishful thinking or theology.
What's Robert A Foley's excuse then?; after all he is a staunch atheist with far more in common with Coyne than someone like Conway Morris. The reasons for his conclusion are fundamentally Darwinian. I think the way the research is pointing is towards contingency but within certain constraints which make the evolution of concious, purpose driven intelligence an evolutionary inevitability given the right conditions.
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Post by humphreyclarke on Jan 28, 2009 9:49:34 GMT
In case anyone thought I was insane when I was talking about the plants communicating (I still find it hard to believe)
Plants can recognise and communicate with relatives
Prince Charles has long known this. Seriously, I was looking at the comments in response to the article linked in my opening message ie not the comments on here which are thoughtful and informative, but the ones on the website on which the article appears. Basically they are along the lines of what a brilliant article etc but with no detail on what is quite so brilliant. It must be easy being an atheist - no need to think - just say things like "Brilliant - that's told them Prof Dawkins etc" to whatever half-baked opinions have been served up by the High Priest or his acolytes. My own opinion (I am no expert) was the same in gist as some of the replies here - (I posted as "Pause" on the website) before I saw any replies here. I would encourage people to post in response to these articles pointing out at least one or two of the more dumb assertions. (I doubt people read the longer assertions). Incidently I am quite happy to believe plants communicate with each other though I am not sure they would listen to Prince Charles - would they see the point? Ok, I am now posting comments on these articles as Lord Kitchener as there appears to be little in the way of dissent. As you point out, the logic of the Dawkinsia appears to be this: 1. Richard Dawkins and his prestigious friends will laugh at you if you believe P 2. Therefore P is false 3. Anyone who believes P is either a 'Sky Fairy' worshipping 'Faith head', a cowardly 'Faitheist' or a weedy Agnostic. |
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Post by humphreyclarke on Jan 28, 2009 11:48:04 GMT
Here's another of Coyne's 'contributions'.
A letter to Nature.
Nature 454, 1049. 28 Aug 2008
SIR — We were perplexed by your Editorial on the work of the Templeton Foundation ('Templeton's legacy' Nature 454, 253—254; 2008). Surely science is about finding material explanations of the world — explanations that can inspire those spooky feelings of awe, wonder and reverence in the hyper-evolved human brain. Religion, on the other hand, is about humans thinking that awe, wonder and reverence are the clue to understanding a God-built Universe. (The same is true of religion's poor cousin, 'spirituality', which you slip into your Editorial rather as a creationist uses 'intelligent design'.) There is a fundamental conflict here, one that can never be reconciled until all religions cease making claims about the nature of reality. The scientific study of religion is indeed full of big questions that need to be addressed, such as why belief in religion is negatively correlated with an acceptance of evolution. One could consider psychological studies of why humans are superstitious and believe impossible things, and comparative sociological studies of religion using materialist explanations of the rise and fall of the world's belief systems. Perhaps the Templeton Foundation is thinking of funding such research. The outcome of such work, we predict, will not bring science and religion (or 'spirituality') any closer to one another. You suggest that science may bring about "advances in theological thinking". In reality, the only contribution that science can make to the ideas of religion is atheism.
Matthew Cobb Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK e-mail: cobb@manchester.ac.uk
Jerry Coyne Department of Ecology and Evolution, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA
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Post by Al Moritz on Jan 31, 2009 23:16:51 GMT
Thanks for these and the other references. I am afraid though that you have misread Gould's opinion here. The article by David King that you cite presents Gould's opinion as: "Increased complexity in some species arises randomly, because of the statistical effect of the "drunkard's walk". Because it is impossible to get less complex than bacteria, random motion will, over time, always produce an expansion at the other end of the the complexity distribution. But we should always remember that we are produced by random motion; we are not an inevitable result of natural selection operating in favour of increased complexity. For Gould this is the completion of Darwin's revolution, the dethronement of humanity from its self-centred view of its own importance." Thus, according to Gould (if King represents him correctly), something like human intelligence was not inevitable. |
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Post by Al Moritz on Jan 31, 2009 23:18:41 GMT
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Post by Al Moritz on Jan 31, 2009 23:22:28 GMT
Humphrey, in order to avoid long URLs that stretch a topic literally to such width as here, I recommend compressing them with: www.snipurl.com/ |
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