Re: [asa] Theological Naturalism - 'The Nature of God' = Naturalism

There are many things I appreciate about Behe. Not only does he
acknowledge the evidence for common ancestry, he also acknowledges that
neo-Darwinian evolution is compatible with Christian faith; he's noted
that he used to be a theistic evolutionist himself, and changed to
intelligent design for scientific rather than theological reasons. Behe
has also bothered (with Snoke) to publish a bit of his ID work as a
primary article in a peer-reviewed journal (Protein Science).

The only problem is that the science in that article and in his books
and review articles appears to be wrong, as far as I and most other
scientists can tell. His probability calculations, upon which
everything is based, employ numbers and operations that seem arbitrary
and questionable at best, appear to be off by several orders of
magnitude in some cases, and in other cases appear to be simply
irrelevant to the problem. Talk Origins and Talk Design web sites
provide much detailed critique of Behe's ID work, as do some published
articles and books referenced at those web sites.

To be fair, it's not easy to make a case for intelligent design when the
designer is unidentified and potentially supernatural. Much of the
evidence and logic used to search for instances in which humans (or even
space aliens) might have designed things is not available when the
designer is both unidentified and potentially supernatural. So ID has
set itself a challenging task indeed.

Behe seems honestly convinced that he has accomplished the task. I
don't view his efforts as toxic, just mistaken. In fact, his work has
probably prompted some worthwhile work done by others to refute him.
However, I don't understand why Behe contributed to the Pandas book, or
why he makes common cause with anti-evolution crusaders who do not share
his theological and scientific views. Indeed, some of the tactics of
some of Behe's ID colleagues could be considered rather toxic. But,
some of the tactics employed by some critics of ID are also pretty
toxic. I guess that's what happens when scientific questions get sucked
into a culture war.

Maybe the evolution wars will end when we see God as creator of species
much as we see God as creator of each human life. As George Murphy and
others have pointed out, there isn't an Intelligent Embryologist
Movement, even though the Bible says that God "knits" each of us in our
mother's womb, and even though biology is far short of completely
explaining embryological development. The pro-life (anti-abortion)
movement doesn't claim that a "divine spark" is needed to enliven
non-living matter when a human embryo is created; rather, they accept
modern biology in full. What we need is a movement that defends the
theological concept of creation while accepting modern biology as fully
as does the pro-life movement.

Charles (Chuck) F. Austerberry, Ph.D.

P.S. - I have heard some anti-abortion arguments based on denying that
humans share common ancestry with other species. I have also heard
pro-choice arguments based on denying the humanity of early human
embryos, claiming that they are more like nonhuman life at certain
embryonic stages. Both of those arguments are fallacious sideshows that
do not represent the main pro-life vs. pro-choice debate.

**************************************************
Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:17:16 -0400
From: "John Walley" <john@walley-world.org>
Subject: RE: [asa] Theological Naturalism - 'The Nature of God' =
Naturalism

In Behe's new book he makes it clear he clear he accepts common descent.

The only component of evolution he takes issue with is the supposed
power of
random mutation. Is this still toxic?

Granted most of the criticism of Dembski and Johnson before in the past
is valid, but I'm curious if ASA will allow Behe to redeem himself if he
disassociates himself with them which he seems to have done in this
book. Is
common descent sufficient enough evidence of taking evolution seriously?

I would think as TE's, most ASA members would now be on board with
Behe's new arguments excepting the fact that possibly he takes the
conclusion
too far and suggest interventionist Design instead of an embedded
natural
process of just design of unknown natural origins. He does do a good job
though in my opinion of illuminating the observed limits of random
mutation which I think is a worthy contribution.

Behe compares Darwin's randomness to Maxwell's "aether" which was widely
accepted before Michelson-Morley. Maybe like science, IDM is a growth
process where the truth becomes more clear over time and people's
presuppositions are exposed and falsified, on both sides?

John Walley (ASA lurker)

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Received on Tue Jul 24 10:03:25 2007