Sorry, I will try this again..
I found this today in the last chapter of Behe's book. It is his
distinction between TE and Darwinism that I though some may find
interesting.
John
The Edge of Evolution
By Michael J. Behe
Pages 229-232
No Interference
How was the design of life accomplished? That's a peculiarly
contentious question. Some people (officially including the National Academy
of Sciences) are willing to allow that the laws of nature may have been
purposely fine-tuned for life by an intelligent agent, but they balk at
considering further fine-tuning after the Big Bang because they fret it
would require "interference" in the operation of nature. So they permit a
designer just one shot, at the beginning - after that, hands off. For
example, in The Plausibility of Life, Marc Kirschner and John Gerhart
hopefully quote a passage from an old article on evolution in the 1909
Catholic Encyclopedia: "God is the Creator of heaven and earth. If God
produced the universe by a single creative act of His will, then its natural
development by laws implanted in it by the Creator is to the greater glory
of His Divine power and wisdom."
This line of thinking is known as "Theistic Evolution." But its
followers are kidding themselves if they think it is compatible with
Darwinism. First, to the extent that anyone - either God, Pope Mary's
physicist, or "any being.external to our universe responsible for selecting
its properties" - set nature up in any way to ensure a particular outcome,
then, to that extent, although there may be evolution, there is no
Darwinism. Darwin's main contribution to science was to posit a mechanism
for the unfolding of life that required no input from any intelligence -
random variation and natural selection. If laws were "implanted" into nature
with the express knowledge that they would lead to intelligent life, then
even if the results follow by "natural development," nonetheless,
intelligent life is not a random result (although randomness may be
responsible for other, unintended features of nature.) Even if all the pool
balls on the table followed natural laws after the cue struck the first
ball, the final result of all the balls in the side pocket was not random.
It was intended.
[.]
But the assumption that design unavoidably requires
"interference" rests mostly on a lack of imagination. There's no reason that
the extended fine-tuning view I am presenting here necessarily requires
active meddling with nature any more than the fine-tuning of theistic
evolution does. One can think the universe is finely tuned to any degree and
still conceive that "the universe [originated] by a single creative act" and
underwent "Its natural development by laws implanted in it." One simply has
to envision that the agent who caused the universe was able to specify from
the start not only laws, but much more.
Here's a cartoon example to help illustrate the point. Suppose
the laboratory of Pope Mary's physicist is next to a huge warehouse in which
is stored a colossal number of little shiny spheres. Each sphere encloses
the complete history of a separate, self-contained, possible universe,
waiting to be activated. (In other words, the warehouse can be considered a
vast multiverse of possible universes, but none of them have yet been made
real.) One enormous section of the warehouse contains all the universes
that, if activated, would fail to produce life. They would develop into
universes consisting of just one big black hole, universes without stars,
universes without atoms, or other abysmal failures. In a small wing of the
huge warehouse are stored possible universes that have the right general
laws and constants of nature for life. Almost all of them, however, fall
into the category of "close, but no cigar." For example, in one possible
universe the Mars-sized body would hit the nascent earth at the wrong angle
and life would never commence. In one small room of the small wing are those
universes that would develop life. Almost all of them, however, would not
develop intelligent life. In one small closet of the small room of the small
wing are placed possible universes that would actually develop intelligent
life.
One afternoon the uberphysicist walks from his lab to the
warehouse, passes by the huge collection of possible dead universes, strolls
into the small wing, over to the small room, opens the small closet, and
selects on the extremely rare universes that is set up to lead to
intelligent life. Then he "adds water" to activate it. In that case the
now-active universe is fine-tuned to the very great degree of detail
required, yet it is activated in a "single creative act." All that's
required for the example to work is that some possible universe could follow
the intended path without further prodding, and that the uberphysicist
select it. After the first decisive moment the carefully chosen universe
undergoes "natural development by laws implanted in it." In that universe,
life evolves by common descent and a long series of mutations, but many
aren't random. There are myriad Powerball-winning events, but they aren't
due to chance. They were foreseen, and chosen from all the possible
universes.
Certainly that implies impressive power in the uberphysicist.
But a being who can fine-tune the laws and constants of nature is immensely
powerful. If the universe is purposely set up to produce intelligent life, I
see no principled distinction between fine-tuning only its physics or, if
necessary, fine-tuning whatever else is required. In either case the
designer took all necessary steps to ensure life.
Those who worry about "interference" should relax. The
purposeful design of life to any degree is easily compatible with the idea
that, after its initiation, the universe unfolded exclusively by the
intended playing out of natural laws. The purposeful design of life is also
fully compatible with the idea of universal common descent, one important
facet of Darwin's theory. What the purposeful design of life is not
compatible with, however, is Darwin's proposed mechanism of evolution-random
variation and natural selection-which sought to explain the development of
life explicitly with out recourse to guidance or planning by anyone or
anything at any time.
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Received on Tue Jul 24 22:31:11 2007
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