Every major scientific society has affirmed that all our knowledge of biological science convincingly supports evolution by natural selection and cannot be understood without it. At the same time, these societies have carefully avoided offending religious groups by assuring that evolution does not conflict with religious beliefs. (See, for example, National Academy of Sciences. Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1998, p. 58).
In fact, this attempt by scientists to convince the American public that evolution poses no threat to faith has largely fallen on deaf ears, perhaps because it is simply untrue, and believers can see this clearly enough.
A 2010 Gallup Poll found that only 16 percent of Americans believe in "Naturalist Evolution," defined as the view that "Man has developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life [and] God had no part in the process." This is exactly the same percentage of Americans who declare themselves unaffiliated with any religion. It may be that the only Americans who accept naturalist evolution are those who do not participate in any organized religion.
Of 34 developed nations surveyed for their acceptance of evolution, defined as humans and apes sharing the same ancestor, only Turkey was lower than the U.S.
So, what is it that the Americans who do participate in organized religion believe? The Gallup Poll found that 30 percent of all Americans agree with "Theistic Evolution" defined as "Man has developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process, including man's creation." And, an amazing 40 percent adopt the "Creationist View" in which "God created man pretty much in his present form at one time within the last 10,000 years." This is despite the fact that only 26.3 percent of all Americans belong to Evangelical churches where the Bible is taken literally. This suggests that almost half of the churchgoers who reject evolution do so not because it disagrees with the Bible, but because it disagrees with their personal view of humanity's place in the scheme of things -- that humans are special.
Darwin is remembered as a great thinker because he saw that pure random variation was enough to allow natural selection to work. If he had said that supernaturally guided variation created the biological world, nobody would know his name today because that theory has no explanatory power. It just pushes the puzzle off into the never-never-land of the supernatural.
The evidence that Darwin began to marshal and that other scientists have accumulated over the nearly 150 years since he published The Descent of Man not only shows how humans descended from ape-like ancestors by a combination of random variation and natural selection. It also implies that the specific outcome of the human species, or any species for that matter, came about by chance. Humans evolved due to luck, not divine purpose. This fact is fundamentally destructive to what every religion teaches about humanity.
In his 2003 book Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe, paleontologist Simon Conway Morris claimed that evolution converges on certain solutions. However, it's a huge jump from simple convergence, which is the most the data imply, to the inevitably of humans that Conway Morris claims in his title. Convergence is fully consistent with basic Darwinism (See Jerry Coyne, Why Evolution is True).
Several prominent biologists are devout believers as well as articulate defenders of evolution, although they are part of a small minority. In 2005, a federal court in Dover, PA, ruled that the teaching of intelligent design in the Dover public schools was unconstitutional. One of the star witnesses for the plaintiffs was biologist and Catholic Kenneth Miller. In his 1999 book, Finding Darwin's God, Miller argued that God could still be behind the randomness in evolution. As I point out in Quantum Gods, however, Miller's god is a "God who plays dice" that bears no resemblance to the Abrahamic God who plays a very active role in the universe and in human lives.
Likewise, the current director of the National Institutes of Health and previous administrator of the Human Genome Project, Francis Collins, also sees God as the author of evolution. In his 2006 bestseller The Language of God, in a section on "Theistic Evolution," Collins writes:
God, who is not limited in space or time, created the universe and established natural laws that govern it. Seeking to populate this otherwise sterile universe with living creatures, God chose the elegant mechanics, of evolution to create microbes, plants, and animals of all sorts. Most remarkably, God intentionally chose the same mechanism to give rise to special creatures who would have intelligence, a knowledge of right and wrong, free will, and a desire to seek fellowship with Him (pp. 200-201, first edition).
He doesn't tell us how he knows all this.
Most scientists and science organizations in America wish to stay on good terms with the believing majority, and so the fundamental incompatibility between random evolution -- which is what science says happened -- and divinely-guided evolution -- for which no evidence exists -- is kept under wraps. However, the time has come for scientists and their societies to face up to the fundamental incompatibility between naturalist and theistic evolution.
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The dictionary has more than one definition for most words. This means that the correct meaning must be selected for a word based on context. The use of theory by laymen really only means hypothesis. When the word theory is used by scientists it means facts based on observable evidence. Hence the theory of evolution really means the facts of evolution.
Our resolve to deny the facts of evolution means that since Charles Darwin we dismiss the hard work of many scientists from different fields of science who accumulated mountains of evidence. Let us also not overlook the fact that medical science applies the facts of evolution all the time to arrive at effective treatments and immunizations for many different diseases. This is especially true of the influenza and HIV viruses which persist in evolving before our very eyes.
By following the doctrines of the Islamic, Judaic, or Christian faiths, we all rely on the very same authors for our moral and spiritual guidance who also advocated rape, pedophilia, misogyny, barbaric torture, murder, racism, war, genocide, and enslavement. We also entrust such authors to reveal the origins of the universe, life, and everything else with fantasies and myths. Every single detail that it attempts to explain about the cosmos has been proven to be wrong by science or is impossible to prove because of the rules of logic — all of it. The entire thing is false. How much more evidence do we need?
From this, a simple principle arises. Inaccessism is a new principle that stipulates that no one and no religion, has ever communicated with god (any god) and therefore, by complete lack of access to divinities, no one knows who, what or where, a god might be and what He/She/It could possibly want. This principle nullifies, Ipso Facto, any authenticity, authority or validity of any and all scriptures (From a new E-book called “Religion Proof” [August 2011], available on Amazon kindle, with a free sample).
So what is this about design?
Does nature know how to design
A grape that will make a good wine?
Did God design a Chardonnay,
Or just send Chemistry our way?
Or is it just that they ferment,
Is this process intelligent?
What ever form God’s purpose took,
The fossil record is His book.
Why then would God design a bird
Made with a tail and teeth, my word,
Only a mad man would invent,
If flying was his sole intent,
Do you find this intelligent?
The fossils teach us that this God
Is neither mischievous or fraud.
All rocks are piled from old to young.
In these you’ll find a fish with lung.
Why would a God benevolent
Design a fish so indigent?
Would you call this intelligent?
Of God one day Einstein had said
God did not fall down on His head.
If God, the world, He really made
No mischief has He ever played.
The fossils are His monument
We should rejoice and be content.
This is what is intelligent.
Fossils do not embellish rocks,
They serve geologists as clocks.
There is in this some harmony;
In order of complexity,
They show the course of life’s event;
Evolution is how things went;
This is what is intelligent.
The Universe was not designed.
We should leave this concept behind.
Though complex is the universe,
No man can say he can converse,
With any force benevolent,
Or even one malevolent.
This does not seem intelligent?
Complexity is not purpose.
Intelligence is willingness
To see the world as rational,
Excluding supernatural.
Striving to make all men content,
Serving justice without relent,
This is what is intelligent.
Sister giraffe, you are so strange.
I know that you underwent change.
Sister giraffe, could we be kin?
Where did our ancestors begin?
That we are kin some would deny.
They say relations are a lie.
Nothing of you is there in us.
For wrong reasons they make a fuss.
When I look at our vertebrae,
I look and see the same array.
Though longer ones you have to par,
Identical numbers there are.
The same about our ribs is true.
There is in this fact nothing new.
Each human has the same twelve pairs:
Trait with many mammals he shares.
If Adam gave one up for Eve,
Myth that some people do believe,
It’s not a transmittable trait.
It’s time we finally got this straight.
There is no abyss between us.
The fossil record’s syllabus
Shows that we all originate
From the same pool of aggregate.
We’re not made of silver or gold.
Same chemicals our bodies hold
As those of all other beings,
Making them and us all Earthlings.
Man did not drop down from above
Like some supernatural dove,
With wings and some freakish body:
Without his brain he’s nobody.
Those who deny evolution,
Because of some obscure notion,
The chemicals that are in us
Make their arguments vacuous.
Nothing of you there’s not in me.
Everything of you there’s in me.
No matter how one may begin,
Yes sister giraffe, we are kin.
As for the idea that a supernatural divinity would create the world and Man as his supreme being or final purpose of his creation makes no sense. Creationists and ID-ists point to some sort of manifest intelligence in the "Design" and some sort of Complexity that points to purpose. But, is the Universe Intelligent because it is complex, or is it complex because it is intelligent?
Either way, neither Intelligence nor Complexity are a purpose in themselves, by any stretch of the imagination.
As for the concept of an all-loving and all-powerful deity, where does Predation fall into this loving concept and why does this omnipotent deity not exterminate by a simple miracle the viruses and other disease-causing parasites that kill thousands of innocent children every day?
Does the SYSTEM for how life developed proposed by the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution look like it was designed.
Note how I phrased the question. Those random mutations in the theory of evolution or a particular element in a system - one that includes cells, DNA and a sophisticated eco-system.
As such, one needs to ask questions about the system as a whole. Will any old eco-system do, how did the first cell develop, how random can the random mutations be, etc. If it turns out that those elements have to be very exactly set in order for the system to work, then yes the theory is compatible with the notion of a Divine creator (with the Creator being the one who set up the system as a whole). In fact, it would actually indicate a Creator.
One possible test to address this question would be to create a computer model of evolution. How much design, intelligence and forethought need to go into the model.
Humans see patterns in random information all the time. We are hard-wired to ascribe "agents" to things that happen in nature, even to events that are clearly random.
Humans have a LONG track record of attributing natural events to supernatural agents. A few examples are:
The Sun - was a god, now a ball of fusing hydrogen
The Moon - was a god(dess), now a big round dusty rock
The stars - were gods or spirits, more flaming gas balls
The tides - were attributed to gods, now gravity
The seasons - attributed to gods, now Earth's tilt
Earthquakes - were caused by gods, now plate tectonics
Volcanoes - were angry gods, now moving magma
Lightning - was thrown by a god, now static electricity
Rain & drought - was God, now atmospheric moisture
Health & disease - was God, now germs & genetics
Schizophrenia - was demonic possession, now brain chemicals
Epilepsy - was divine possession, now neurology
What makes you right when so many before you have been wrong using exactly the same argument?
With that said, here is a more detailed response to your comment which discusses the issue indpendent of the question of compatibility:
YOU WROTE:Epic logic failure. Because it takes intelligent thought to model a system does not mean the system was intelligently designed.
MY RESPONSE:I think you are confusing whether or not it means that it was intelligently designed and whether or not it implies or indicates that it was intelligently designed. One can speculate on non-intelligent alternatives, but one needs to give a reason to take that speculative alternatives seriously. The reason to consider a Designer as the ultimate source is because the system in and of itself implies it.
YOU WROTE:It takes intelligent thought to model the interaction of two molecules. Does that prove the molecules were intelligently designed? No.
MY RESPONSE:The question is what do you mean by the word prove. If you mean a mathematical proof, then you may be right. If, on the other hand, the question is whether or not molecules imply (ultimately speaking) some sort of intelligent creator, I would say the answer is clearly yes. The interactions of molecules and the laws of nature which govern atoms are rather sophisticated systems.
YOU WROTE:Humans see patterns in random information all the time. We are hard-wired to ascribe "agents" to things that happen in nature,
Where are you from, Timbuktu? You write English pretty well for someone observing 'from afar' (hint: New Jersey is considered part of the US).
If you believe that pure chance is the scientific explanation of evolution, then I would have to start talking about cloud-cuckoo land. Stenger might want to look back on what he learned when he was doing physics. There, chance, among other things, is what drives systems into higher level states otherwise inaccessible. Those higher level states, not surprisingly, have to obey the laws of the universe, just as chance does.
So, Stenger might want to reconsider his explanation for evolution - either that or give up claiming to be a physicist. (Maybe I should remind him that physicists emphasis physical law as to why things come into being, not chance.)
Reminds me of that great quote: "The devil made me do it!" I hope Stenger doesn't mind if I put words in his mouth: "Chance made me do it!"
But every physicist, biophysicist, environmental scientist, biologist, economist, and engineer knows that chance is an essential part of any real world phenomena. So yes, "specific" outcomes will have chance components.
Consider two examples. My Prius might have a bad battery - that's chance variation. When designing my Prius, Toyota's engineers might have tried a wide variety of different recipes. That's like duplicating the process of natural selection - i.e., the role of chance. But, the underlying mechanism is - to use an evolutionary concept - goodness of fit.
Darwin's picturing of evolution came in large part from his knowledge of how breeders purposely work to develop plants and animals. Instead of purpose-driven guidance from intellect, he substituted the so-called "invisible hand" from Adam Smith via economics and Malthus via scarcity arguments. That's the chance-like component.
But the underlying explanations - as for my Prius - are the mechanisms and capabilities built into organic molecules, cell and multiple cell structures, DNA, self-sustaining biological system capable of harvesting energy, etc. Chance is just a means to access and try out different solutions and see which has the best fit.
thanks SF..your ego has been noted.
Can you state your ideas in a - errh - slightly more muscular (i.e., non-content free) - way.
Don't worry - just try to say what you are thinking about the subject at hand (not the author).
But the problem lies on the religious side here. Evolution is a factual reality, so the burden falls upon the religions, to deal with this reality, or eventually to face a decline.
The Catholics seem to be doing a decent job of this accommodation, and the Dalai Lama also. Some others are making quite silly choices. Such is life. Perhaps "Natural Selection" also applies to churches. Now there is a thought.
Meanwhile, I am still reacting to the discovery of that planet made of diamond. Wow!
"Provided the cause in the appearance is distinguished from the cause of the appearance (so far as it can be thought as a thing in itself), both propositions are perfectly reconcilable: the one, that there is nowhere in the sensuous world a cause (according to similar laws of causality), whose existence is absolutely necessary; the other, that this world is nevertheless connected with a Necessary Being as its cause (but of another kind and according to another law). The incompatibility of these propositions entirely rests upon the mistake of extending what is valid merely of appearances to things in themselves, and in general confusing both in one concept."
http://www.thefourprecepts.com/propublish/art.php?artid=134
The brilliant insights of the scientists rendered the speculations of the philosopher, somewhat moot. If we can account for natural forms without magical intervention, as evolution does so well, then by the simpler actions of Occam's Razor, that magical intervention becomes irrelevant.
Kant may well have agreed with this, had he the chance.
http://www.thefourprecepts.com/propublish/art.php?artid=72
Are science and mythology compatible?
Or does mythology just make things up to claim absolute knowledge of things until science can come up with a reality-based answer?
I think I know.
Apparently, at least 40% of Americans are in complete denial, however.
That's neither smart nor healthy.
:-)
The Primacy of Consciousness - Peter Russell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d4ugppcRUE
"The knower and the known are one. Simple people imagine that they should see God as if he stood there and they here. This is not so. God and I, we are one in knowledge." ~ Meister Eckhart
[Slip up!]