Bob Dehaan wrote:
>I have stated elsewhere that this view of the purposelessness of
natural
>selection is has both a scientific basis and a philosophical one.
The
>scientific one is that natural selection does not work for the
distant good
>of an animal or plant. How can it? It only works only for its
immediate
>adaptation to its present environment. Moreover, environments do not
change
>in a directional manner with respect to a future goal. So neither
the
>randomness of mutations nor environment can be counted on to lead
toward a
>given distant, prefixed goal. Thus Darwinian evolution is
purposeless. This
>is what I have called the "necessary inference", not an opinion, from
the
>inherent character of natural selection.
You wrote a similar note to me - sorry I hadn't replied yet but I have
been swamped with work. But I wanted to give a quick reply: You seem
to be open-minded about understanding how Darwinian evolution might
operate to create complex structures (like the trilobite eye) in
organisms, but not able to grasp how something like random mutations
that only increase an organisms adaptation to the present environment.
Do I have your position right?
My answer (if that is indeed your position) is (1) The main way I meld
the two ideas of both Darwinian selection, and God's involvement in
creation is that God's hand must be involved in each mutation. I don't
believe this is something that will ever be able to be detected by
scientific means, nor should it. But if I believe God is intimately
involved in the creative process of evolution, as He is intimately
involved in my personal life, then it seems to me that He would be
involved in mutations that lead to variation that would result in new
structures or whatnot. If God is behind mutations, even if they don't
seem to have a long-range purpose, the God behind the scenes does have
a long-range purpose. My understanding of things is not an idea that
needs to stand up to scientific scrutiny, because it is not a
scientific hypothesis but more a spiritual way of understanding the
world in the light of my faith in God's truth.
(2) On a mechanistic level, there is a huge deal of genetic code that
is not used by organisms but is nonethless in their DNA. It is called
Junk DNA (I'm not sure if this is the official scientific term but it
was called this in one scientific documentary I saw). Mutations in the
Junk DNA can happen without having any adverse impact on the organism
(as a mutation in a gene that coded for some critical function would).
Therefore a lot of beneficial or even neutral mutations may have
occurred in this junk DNA and then, later acted upon in a changing
environment. A mutation can be present for many generations and be
neutral in the Junk DNA and then during an environmental change may
suddenly be selected for because all of a sudden it is beneficial (or
detrimental and selected against). Apparently this is how ruminants
evolved. One critical (digestive?) gene was duplicated, and the 2nd
version was then "free" to be acted upon by the environment. I can't
remember the exact details but the film is up at my college's library!
(where I teach)
>It is hard to say how widespread this view of evolution is held,
because it
>is hard to find out who speaks for the theory of evolution, and how
>forthright they are in the face of some parts of the American
religious
>community. For almost every expert opinion on the subject, an equal
and
>opposite one can be found.
There are many Christians who purport to speak for Christianity who
are white supremacists, militant abortion-clininc bombers, and such.
Do you listen to them for wisdom about Christianity? Likewise, do you
throw out the message of Christ because of these extremists behavior
or statements? I hope not. Likewise I would not throw out the ideas of
evolutionary theory because of some vocal extremists who mix their
philosophy and religion (atheism or at the opposite extreme
anti-evolutionism in the name of Christianity).
Wendee
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Jul 05 2000 - 11:07:23 EDT