The prodigal Schaff has returned, and posts below on the molecular biologist/theologian Alister McGrath who has been arguing with the evangelical atheist, Richard Dawkins. Professor Schaff makes reference to my posts on Intelligent Design. Just to avoid any confusion, when I criticize ID theory I am not arguing for atheism. I am not in fact an atheist and I have no interest in trying to convince any persons to drop their belief in Biblical creation.
Bob Ellis at Dakota Voice has a thoughtful and friendly post in reply to my own on Intelligent Design and Evolution. Bob's post is a good example of what civilized discourse should look like. Bob takes issue with my endorsement of Jerry Coyne's piece in the New Republic. Specifically, Coyne produced a list of the things that ID scientist Michael Behe concedes in order to criticize evolutionary theory from a scientifically respectable position. For example,
Behe admits that most evolution is caused by natural selection, and that all species share common ancestors. He even accepts the one fact that most other IDers would rather die than admit: that humans shared a common ancestor with chimpanzees and other apes.
Bob replies:
If you allow your definition of "scientifically legitimate ground" to be defined by evolutionists, then that might be true. But evolutionists don't define what is scientifically legitimate and what is not, only what they consider "scientifically legitimate."
By this same kind of logic, the Christian must concede that there is no god but Allah, and that Mohammed is his prophet in order to challenge the truth of Islam. Now stop and think for a moment: does that make sense?
To which I reply: yes. If a Christian wants to take issue with Islam from a position that is legitimate within the confines of Islamic thought, then he would have to concede that there is no god but Allah and that Mohamed is his profit. If he wishes to criticize evolutionary theory from a position that is scientifically legitimate, then he will have to concede what ID spokesman Michael Behe concedes. Evolutionists get to define the legitimate ground in biology for the same reason that chemists get to define the ground in chemistry: in each case they have the only scientifically viable theories and research programs.
Bob objects to the "assumptions" that evolutionary biologists make, but this is how science works. If a chemist finds a new chemical, or an astronomer a new heavenly object, each will assume that the discovery fits within the established theoretical framework. One may object that the discovery does not in fact fit-creationists and IDers do a lot of that. Or one may argue that the accepted framework as a whole is unworkable, or better yet propose a new, viable framework. As Behe demonstrates, intelligent design theory gives up the former and has never attempt the latter. In order to take a position within the context of scientific biology, the IDers have no choice but to concede most of what Darwinists believe. That was my point.
Finally, Bob draws on his experience in law enforcement to make a case for the importance of witnesses in an investigation. I would make two points. First, criminal investigations move in almost the opposite direction from scientific investigations. The former apply all sorts of assumptions (everyone has a unique fingerprint) to a very specific case: the body at the table. The latter move from specific cases to general laws and descriptions.
Second, eliminating eye witness testimony was the whole point of the scientific method. Nothing is established because this scientist said he saw something happen. It is established when other scientists can reproduce the event in their own laboratories. When this is not possible (no experiments can be done on the common ancestor of chimpanzees and human beings), the question is whether each new piece of data confirms the established theory. Moreover, in many sciences, eyewitness accounts are unavailable. No one has seen a molecule, or an atom, or a proton. But the existence of such objects are not merely "assumptions." They are hypothetical objects that guide research programs and are persistently confirmed by those programs. The same is true of the evolutionary history of the species in biology.
I do not believe that Darwinian evolution contradicts the Biblical creation story. A Christian may well disagree, and choose to reject the former. He is deceiving himself if he thinks he can do so without rejecting modern science as a whole.
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