My last piece was on the Pope and what I believe is his insensitivity to the threat posed to Christian beliefs by modern evolutionary thinking. I don't think I was saying anything very much that I haven't said before, but I was especially struck by his Easter message about the inevitability of human existence, and I suggested that he was not taking seriously the contingency of existence (including human existence) that is apparently entailed by the evolutionary process.
I confess that I was not writing with the New Atheists in mind -- certainly not to curry favor from them -- but, if asked, I suppose I would have said that for once I and they should find ourselves in agreement. And it is indeed true that there has been some favorable response in the New Atheist blogs, although some commentators seem to think that this represents a radical, if unacknowledged, retreat by me from earlier sympathy with Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It does not, mainly because there was not much space for retreat. I have long acknowledged my non-belief and I have also long been a critic of many social aspects of Christianity. I believe that science and religion are compatible but that is a different thing from saying that religion is true or good. (Actually, I think that, like most human institutions, there are both good and bad things that can be said about organized religion, but taken as a whole I am not much in favor of anything that is based on what I take to be a falsehood.)
However, I am somewhat surprised to find that I am being strongly criticized for my characterization of evolutionary thinking about the contingency or otherwise of human existence. My point is that I did not think that there was anything in modern evolutionary theory to make us think that humans must have evolved, a claim that I maintain is central to Christians who accept evolution. I mentioned three attempts to show that it is very likely that human-like forms would have evolved, but I argued also that none of these attempts was strong enough to give the guarantee that Christians need.
Specifically, I mentioned the thinking of Richard Dawkins, of paleontologist Simon Conway Morris and of the late Stephen Jay Gould. I should say that (with the possible exception of Conway Morris) I don't think these evolutionists would claim that they are giving absolute guarantees of human emergence, but rather that such emergence is more likely than not. Dawkins thinks that evolution is characterized by "arms races," where adaptations improve through competition between lines and that intelligence might be expected to emerge from such a process. Conway Morris thinks that there are preexisting ecological niches, one such niche is for intelligent beings, and even had humans not occupied it, some species at some time might be expected to find its way there.
There seems to be agreement that I got Dawkins and Conway Morris right. But what about Gould? Famously, he was against evolutionary progress -- a steady, upwards development through time toward humankind -- and in fact I quoted him to this effect.
Since dinosaurs were not moving toward markedly larger brains, and since such a prospect may lie outside the capabilities of reptilian design, we must assume that consciousness would not have evolved on our planet if a cosmic catastrophe had not claimed the dinosaurs as victims. In an entirely literal sense, we owe our existence, as large and reasoning mammals, to our lucky stars.
Yet, and it is here that I got into hot water, I claimed that he too thought that humans might be expected to evolve.
The New Atheists, including Richard Dawkins, are up in arms about this claim. Let me therefore dig a little more deeply into this matter, starting with a full understanding of what I was claiming. When I wrote of Gould thinking that humans would have evolved, I had made it very clear that by "humans" I was not referring to Homo sapiens, but to human-like beings, meaning especially beings with intelligence. I wrote:
As a Christian, humans cannot be just a chance occurrence. Perhaps we could have blue skin and twelve fingers. Possibly we might be hermaphrodites. But we had to exist and we had to have thinking and moral capacities. We had to have brains big enough to do this.
But in light of the passage from "Wonderful Life," quoted just above, could Gould allow even this? I think he could and would and did! In an essay on the search for extraterrestrial life, first published in Natural History and then reprinted in the collection, "The Flamingo's Smile," he wrote: "I can present a good argument from "evolutionary theory" against the repetition of anything like a human body elsewhere; I cannot extend it to the general proposition that intelligence in some form might pervade the universe."
He then went on to quote the leading 20th-century evolutionist Theodosius Dobzhansky, writing in a textbook with other major evolutionists: "Granting that the possibility of obtaining a man-like creature is vanishingly small even given an astronomical number of attempts ... there is still some small possibility that another intelligent species has arisen, one that is capable of achieving a technological civilization."
About this passage, Gould commented: "I am not convinced that the possibility is so small."
He then went on to give an argument that looks remarkably like the argument that is given and endorsed by Simon Conway Morris, namely that evolutionary convergence (where two different lines evolve essentially similar adaptations to survive and reproduce) suggests that even though major intelligence has arisen but once on this earth, it is quite possible that elsewhere in the universe it has arisen quite independently.
Conscious intelligence has evolved only once on earth, and presents no real prospect for reemergence should we choose to use our gift for destruction. But does intelligence lie within the class of phenomena too complex and historically conditioned for repetition? I do not think that its uniqueness on earth specifies such a conclusion. Perhaps, in another form on another world, intelligence would be as easy to evolve as flight on ours.
So I was right after all. But, in concluding, I am less interested in running a victory lap than in bringing the discussion back to where we came in: the relationship between science and religion. There are two main reasons why it is important to get clear the thinking of evolutionists about the emergence of humankind. First, it is important to see if any shade of modern thought about the evolution of humans suggests that our appearance was inevitable. I don't think it does and I don't see the Gouldian position just sketched as altering this negative conclusion. So I think Christians have still got a problem here.
Second, if you are a non-believer, you still want to articulate a world picture that makes sense to you, about humankind and about morality and so forth. I certainly do, and have long been trying to do just this from a Darwinian perspective. Trying to understand whether humans might have been expected to emerge is an important part of this world picture. And obviously, getting right the thinking of one of the most influential evolutionists of the past half century is a key part of this task.
Jonathan Dudley: Christian Faith Requires Accepting Evolution
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Pope says evolution can't be proven - USATODAY.com
Pope: Humanity isn't random product of evolution - Yahoo! News
The Holy Spirit calls the Father “Most Highâ€, “Almightyâ€, and “Lord of Hostsâ€, so that we may learn that God truly is the Creator of Heaven and Earth. These names tell us not only that He made the whole World, but Angels and humans as well, and that He is Lord of all, who sustains all things. The one God is omnipotent and therefore He does not need Angels or other inferior deities to help Him with the Creation of the World. Creation is absolutely dependent upon God who existed before the making of the World. Creation was conducted by God out of nothing and cannot exist separated from God.
There's a problem regarding self-reference in many mental illnesses. Paranoid persons think that the whole world is conspiring against Them. Manics consider themselves to be the "greatest". Politicians think God has singled them out. People that misunderstand evolution, genuinely think that Man is the pinnacle of the process, toward which the whole thing has been aimed.
Religions contain a lot of self-reference as well: God has a Plan for Me. I am made in the image of God. Dominion over all the other creatures is given to my kind. The whole universe was made by something that looks like me, just for me, because there's a plan for Me. I can't die. That would be the end of Me.
Me. Me. Me.
Well guess what? It's not about you. It's not about what you feel, or want, or think or believe. And it's not about me either. Let's get out of the pram, and think like adults.
There have been 5 mass extinctions on our planet, and who knows how many have happened elsewhere. We are probably well on the way to the 6th extinction.
The Universe doesn't care. There is NO Plan. Unless we come up with one.
“To me all the good professor did was indicate what others said. No proof for one theory or the other.â€
My reply!
Religion for the most part has done a great job as macerating as stewards of God – where today, their wolves is sheep’s’ clothing has been have been exposed; where today most sheep’s are in “this or that spiritually†in label only.
The take away for many – the love of God and His purpose has become “unofficially†something of mythology – a far cry from the Truth of our Father in the Heavens and a savior in Jesus. Truth is watered down to today, “where all spiritual teachings leads to the One God -- and Jesus is just one of many good guys.â€
With such a void of Truth in today’s world – atheism walks into the fray and void with a voice of reasoning to a clueless world -- and to further man’s advancing peril!
Ruse here, and in his last column, seems to confuse the fact that evolution is unpredictable for human beings, with the idea that it is actually metaphysically random and so unpredictable by the Christian God.
I don't believe in God. But if one is going to argue that something is a problem for people who do believe in God, then one needs to make the argument based on the actual things that believers believe. That a Christian God could use something like evolution, which is random from our perspective, to produce a preconceived result is not a particular problem for Christianity. I think Christianity has plenty of problems conceptually, but this doesn't seem to be among them.
First, there is no reason to think that evolved intelligence is anything but a fluke, or that it will last. There is no reason to think that we are the first conscious hominid species.
Second, there is no reason to think that we are the only conscious or intelligent species. Whales and porpoises have brains much like our own. Who can say whether they are conscious? They have all that they need without opposable thumbs: communication, travel, and some degree of shared health. We, considered intelligent, are destroying their environment and food supply as well as their ability to communicate. Intelligence may be overrated.
Although intelligence is reasonably a survival tactic, one must not consider it either necessary or superior to other tactics. We are the first species on that planet that I know of that has the capability to destroy all other species. It remains to be seen whether we're as intelligent as we think we are.
I feel bad by proxy now...
Even Bibical arguments pertaining to creation in 6 days and the 7th day rested can't be proved one way or the other. Literal Bibical translation says God created in 6 days, science says it took longer than 6 days for creation. If you have faith in God and Science then what about "Worm Holes", "Folds in the Universe" "Black Holes", "different dimensions", etc. all or some of which could explain 6 days used by God. Mr. Cohen wins again.
You are comparing "God made the earth in 6 days" to "if a then b, a therefore b".
How can you not see a problem with that?
Faith in a god does not change the reality of the universe one whit, no more than believing in intelligent spaghetti makes it so. If you think that evolution is a great philosophical argument rather than proven theory, you are not qualified to comment on it. Time to read a book that isn't steeped in mythology.
//If you have faith in God and Science then what about "Worm Holes", "Folds in the Universe" "Black Holes", "different dimensionsÂ", etc.//
You missed "quantum theory" and "alchemism." The statement, 'if you have faith in God,' assumes a position of belief, not knowledge.
God does not need to fear the truth. Any belief that is "threatened" by truth is a false belief. If you evidence that evolutionary thinking is in error, offer that. Do not ask people to adhere to a lie!
I have known the other kind of Christian to whom it does not matter whether or not their beliefs are factual but base their lives on the idea that they will do their best to live the lives that they feel comfortable with. They try to do good, regardless of their beliefs.
Origins? An Anthropologist may decide mankind became mankind based on the use of certain tools. A Psychiatrist from the behavioral response to certain stimuli. A sociologists describes the origins and emergence of mankind based on defineable social structures. Each has competing definitions for the defining point where mankind became mankind.
In religion, It's Genesis 3 that defines mankind and the point of differentiation between the species better than the soft sciences.
What defines mankind? The Fortunate Fall. The congnizance to understand the Spirit, to defy God, to lust, to suffer guilt, the angush of eternal punishment, suffering the pangs of death and exile--in many ways these are the things that define mankind and the blessing and/or curse of Free Will. Passing these legends on through oral history and representations of the spiritual world and spiritual beings in cave paintings and clay-- these are the great differentiators of man and beast.
Stephen Gould's theory of non-overlapping magisteria suggests using different heuristic tools for meaningful discourse and resolution.
"The magisterium of science covers the empirical realm: what the Universe is made of (fact) and why does it work in this way (theory). The magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry "
Note what you are saying the various social sciences have to say about human origins firstly assumes what science has to say, namely that humans evolved from earlier primates, and tries to understand that evolution in terms of our adaption in terms of things like using tools, responding to stimuli, being social creatures, etc. Moreover, the social sciences are relying on evidence, ranging from the simple observations of human behavior to detailed experiments to get to the fine points and details of that behavior. Genesis isn't based on evolution or empirical data. Genesis just isn't scientific. It frankly is anti-intellectual rubbish.
Gould's NOMA is nonsense and many people both religious and atheist acknowledge this. I like Dawkin's illustration of this: if there was clear evidence that praying to the Christian God had a 90% rate of curing cancer and no prayer or praying to other gods was merely 50-50 effective, Christians would openly be declaring science proved there is a Christian God and NOMA would be ignored.
Anti-intellectual rubbish? I'm reminded of the orangutan Dr Zaius in 'Planet of the Apes' as so-called scientists are now determined to proclaim themselves the new Ministers of the Scientific Method and Defenders of the Faith of Pure Empiricism.
To badly quote Morpheus: "Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony". Or to badly quote John Sebastian: "It's like trying to tell a stranger about Rock and Roll"
I don't buy the hardened version of non-overlapping magisteria but there is a role for specialist languages, schools of thought, knowledge domains and their hueristic systems.
Gravity is more likely than not. So is the existence of the sun.
Who would deny the extraordinary progress that science has made since the 19th century? All of this progress owes to the existence of theories that explain how the universe and its components work. To a scientist a theory is as close to the truth as one can come. There is no higher level. Evolution is a theory. It's a fact. Umpteen times it has been tested and always shown to best explain the data available. To intimate that Dawkins and the others would leave wiggle room is absurd. None of them would allow for any.
my "existing paradigm of materialism"?!
my "ego finds comfort in that belief"?!
Your presumptuousness and rudeness have no place in these forums.
And im not speaking in acussing or confrontational tone, im simply pointing to a mania that many (or some? im not sure, we are not polled often in this respect) have abandoned. I dont recall if it was Dawkins or Gould who says that if we were to be elephant , the question would be if evolutionary process have a teleological tendency to long, strong and useful probóscides.
Or in the words of Carlin "Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn’t know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, “Why are we here?†Plastic…***holes."
The mania is not finding interpretation in a theory, its just selecting the interpretations that add to our sense of selfimportance, because if its not there, we are going emo.
Many in the scientific community (understand I am speaking in generalities) do not believe that God exist; however they search for the answers to immortality and the key to understanding this grand divine universal machine by scientific theories.
Let's face it... no one truly wants to die! That is an innate desire within all of us, as well as, wanting to know truth to the questions that we all have? Does God exist? If God does exist, then who or what is God? Why are we here, what is our purpose? Once again, these are innate desires that lie at the very core within each of us… to know truth. So, now we have this group in the scientific community saying, they don't "believe" God exist. Then on the other hand, you have the religious community sector, saying they have faith and therefore, "believe" God does exist.