RE: [asa] Behe on TE vs. Darwinism....

"Darwinism says nothing about if there was a designer or not"

I think this is an important distinction. I think the disconnect here is
that Behe and most of IDM would probably not consider the above to be
intuitive. In fact, I think they would argue that the randomness component
in random mutation of Darwinism would be mutually exclusive with design.

Curiously, from the closing paragraph of "Origin", Darwin hints at least a
first cause if not a designer by his comment of life being "breathed" into
existence. "By the Creator" was added in the second edition (see below). But
surely Behe is aware of this as well.

But if Darwinism doesn't rule out a designer, and if the designer
front-loaded life like one of Behe's life-supporting universe orbs, then
there really isn't a conflict. I think Behe is assuming that Darwinism and
TE are at odds with design, which although this may not have been Darwin's
view, many Darwinists do hold to this non-design view of Darwinism. So
possibly the use of "Darwinism" needs to be qualified with either being
compatible with design or totally random.

And it is this latter view of Darwinism that I think he is lumping TE with
and arguing against. Even accepting life "breathed" into existence by a
designer, he claims random mutation and natural selection is still not
sufficient to explain the complexity of life. He insists that there had to
be either a front-loaded algorithm or intervention along the way.

John

"The Origin was first published on 24 November 1859, price fifteen
shillings. The book was offered to booksellers at Murray's autumn sale on 22
November, and all available copies were taken up immediately. In total 1250
copies were printed, but after deducting presentation and review copies, and
five for Stationers' Hall copyright, around 1,170 copies were available for
sale.[9] The second edition of 3,000 copies was quickly brought out on 7
January 1860,[10] and added 'by the Creator' into the closing sentence, so
that from then on it read 'There is grandeur in this view of life, with its
several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few
forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone circling on
according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless
forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.'"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Species

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of PvM
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 12:33 PM
To: John Walley
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] Behe on TE vs. Darwinism....

Behe's position is one of contradiction. Darwinism says nothing about
if there was a designer or not and if one accepts that front loading
is compatible with purposeful design then so is Darwinism. That
Darwinism proposes natural processes that do not require guidance or
planning is not different from the universe unfolded exclsively by the
intended playing out of natural laws.

What ID has to show is that the initial conditions require a designer,
of course when shown to be wrong, ID can easily move its goalposts
once again.
So what does ID contribute to our knowledge? Not much I'd say.

On 7/24/07, John Walley <john@walley-world.org> wrote:
>
>
> 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 Wed Jul 25 18:53:34 2007