From: Howard J. Van Till (hvantill@chartermi.net)
Date: Tue Aug 12 2003 - 08:56:39 EDT
From: "Jim Armstrong" <jarmstro@qwest.net>
> Regarding the latter two paragraphs, perhaps you have a point. But I think
> that the fundamental Christian backlash against his ideas is probably
> responsible as much as anything for defining "Darwinism" and then equating
> evolution with Darwinism. ....
> It's particularly ironic that his observations and
> conceptualizing, proceeding out of a context of some regard for a "Creator",
> became almost synonymous in the eyes of many with a complete disregard for
God.
Valid point, I believe. It would indeed be ironic (a harsh irony at that) if
Christians were responsible for misrepresenting Darwin. There is, after all,
something in the Book about "Thou shalt not bear false witness."
Following is another excerpt from my review essay of Dembski's No Free
Lunch., specifically from a section whose point is that in most ID
literature, the term "Darwinism" functions as shorthand for "the scientific
concept of evolution wedded to the anti-theistic metaphysics of maximal
naturalism."
> What all advocates of ID do seem to be agreed on is their judgment that
> Darwinism is impossible because the Darwinian mechanism is inadequate to
> accomplish the large-scale transformations envisioned by nearly every
> professional biologist today. But a reader of ID literature must pay
> careful attention to the varied operative meanings that these key terms
> convey. At minimum, Darwinism denotes the concepts of large-scale
> biological evolution and common descent as consequences of unguided natural
> processes. But there is usually far more meaning packed into the term as it
> is employed rhetorically in ID literature. "Darwinism" is commonly employed
> to characterize biological evolution as a way of accounting for the
> formational history of life that is both "thoroughly naturalistic" and
> "nonteleological." But which form of naturalism does "thoroughly
> naturalistic" entail? If only minimal or methodological naturalism, then a
> number of theistic worldviews could accommodate it. But if the term
> Darwinism is presumed to entail maximal naturalism ..., then Darwinism
effectively becomes a
> member of the family of atheistic worldviews. This is, I believe, the
> rhetorical impact most commonly intended in the literature of the ID
> movement, especially when the reader is offered the binary choice‹either
> Darwinism or design.
>
> Similar concerns must be raised when Darwinism is referred to as a
> "nonteleological" theory‹a concept that excludes reference to goals,
> purposes or intentions. If this exclusion refers only to individual events
> or to low level natural processes in isolation from the larger context,
> that would be consistent with minimal naturalism and open to various forms
> of theism. But if the characterization of "nonteleological" entails the
> rejection of purpose or intention at all levels of consideration, then
> "Darwinism" is once again functioning effectively as a substitute label for
> "maximal naturalism."
Howard Van Till
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