Christianity and Intelligent Design theory

From: John E. Rylander (rylander@prolexia.com)
Date: Tue Jul 25 2000 - 14:48:10 EDT

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    I thought some, esp. if they're new to the issues of Christianity and
    evolution, might find this note I recently sent to a friend interesting. (I
    was responding to an article whose URL he sent to me -- see the end.)
    Apologies to those who end up with two copies.

    John

    =================================

    I think that's a good article in many respects -- Gould's proposal of
    "science=facts, religion=values" is not very promising -- but Christians
    will be led astray philosophically and scientifically if they follow Johnson
    (or his followers) too closely.

    Take, e.g., an extremely popular, superficially compelling, and yet clearly
    fallacious argument for "Intelligent Design" (by which they mean more
    precisely -something- like "Intelligent Intervention", not design broadly
    construed [e.g., they do NOT mean God's implementing designs -via-, rather
    than -versus-, natural laws]): the argument from Irreducible Complexity.

    The IC proof that Philip Johnson, Michael Behe (who's much better than
    Johnson at the science, BTW), et al push goes like this:
            Take some biochemical system consisting of components A, B, C, and D. If
    any of the components were removed, the resulting system would not function.
    Therefore, by defn the system ABCD is not merely complex, but -irreducibly-
    complex. So far so good.
            Then they add: IC systems clearly could not evolve. Evolution requires a
    simple stepwise path the system functioning every step of the way, to get
    from A to ABCD. But because ABCD is irreducibly complex, there IS no simple
    stepwise path. ABC doesn't function; nor does ACD; etc. So getting to ABCD
    requires Intelligent Design (i.e., extra-natural -intervention-), or an
    amount of luck even evolutionists won't countenance.
            But this is false. Suppose we accept that ABCD is IC, and let's further
    stipulate that -every- subsytem of ABCD (ABC, etc.) would be 100%
    dysfunctional in every way (i.e., not even functional in some non-ABCD-like
    way). This is STILL NO PROOF THAT ABCD COULD NOT HAVE EVOLVED, because
    while it shows that one cannot build UP to ABCD, it does NOT show that one
    cannot build DOWN or LATERALLY to ABCD, which are well-known evolutionary
    mechanisms. (So one might be able to build up gradually to EFGH, then to
    AFGH -> AFCH -> AFCD -> ABCD.)
            An old example: a rock arch. An arch is irreducibly complex. It cannot be
    built in the simplest step-wise way, and if one removes any stone, the whole
    thing collapses. But it'd be relatively easy to build a (crude) arch by
    having a pile of more-or-less interlocking stones and then knocking out the
    ones in the middle. But one has to build down to an arch, not up. (Please
    note: my example is not meant to show this is easy, esp. not in one or two
    tries, but simply that it's clearly possible; and I'd add that it seems very
    likely given enough tries.)

    So the ID folks may be completely right that God intervened to create life,
    rather than designing life into the fabric of the universe itself. But
    while they're convinced they've proven it, they haven't -at all-. And if
    lay Christians become convinced they've proven it -- well, another reason
    for smart folks to look down on Christianity, no? (Believe me: militant
    atheists gravitate to outspokenly dumb Christians with understandable
    delight.)

    There are other problems with arguments for ID (not
    recognizing/understanding a distinction between methodological and
    metaphysical naturalism [and so sometimes bizarrely buying into a sort of
    Christianized Scientism]; the idea that apparently random processes simply
    cannot, no matter what -- even in a designed universe -- produce
    information), but I've not time today for those critiques. Or this one, for
    that matter. :^/

    John

    > -----Original Message-----
    > Sent: Tuesday, July 25, 2000 12:52 PM
    > To: John E. Rylander
    > Subject: Oh, yeah?
    >
    >
    >
    http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCommentary.asp?Page=\Commentary\archive\COM200007
    24e.html
    >



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