The Atheist’s Built-In AssumptionKwon Mega inquires,
Wondering if you saw Is The Christian Evolutionist An Oxymoron?, by Bruce Charlton, and your thoughts on the matter.
We recently touched on this at Dangerous Idea. The answer depends on what one means by “evolution.”
Digital HomologyI’ve always thought of the “evolution / creation” thing in programming terms. When I write a program, then desire to write another program, I often invoke code from the first to create the second. It’s an efficient process, and I would expect God to operate efficiently. If you view the source code of the websites I’ve created over the years, you’ll notice recurring code snippets, a sort of “digital homology” if you will. Does the fact of code re-usage—analogous to Darwin’s homologous resemblance—necessarily entail the conclusion that one website “randomly mutated” into the others? Of course not. Rather, the fact of re-usage is precisely what we would expect from a supra-intelligent Creator creating with respect for efficiency. Though there is a fact of the matter one way or the other, what we believe WRT evolution is all in the color of our lenses. Evolutionists typically view the evidence through atheist-colored glasses, then attempt to usurp the evidence as supportive exclusively of their preferred metaphysical conclusion. But that’s not right. In the words of that great character, Sherlock Holmes:
Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing… It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different… There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.
Question #6: Why Do You Believe In Evolution?First allow me to clarify: I’m not asking why you believe that ill-suited organisms tend to die off, leaving better-suited organisms to survive. I’m not asking why you believe in homologous resemblance across species or kingdom. I’m not asking why you believe in variations of alleles. I’m asking—well, I’m asking three questions, actually—and the first one is: in your own words, why do you believe that all of biology is the result of unguided anagesis and/or cladogenesis operating over billions of years? The latter is what I refer to when I use the phrase, “conventional evolutionary narrative.” The second question is: in your own words, what are the strongest challenges to the conventional evolutionary narrative? The third question is: what would it take to make you lose faith in the conventional evolutionary narrative?
Why Was Man Such A Rare Creature?I came across a copy of Jim Marrs’ Rule By Secrecy the other day. Towards the end of the book, the author makes passing reference to an interesting question that may or may not have implications for the conventional evolutionary narrative. Since I’m neither an “evolutionist” or “YEC”, don’t interpret this as an attack on the former or an endorsement of the latter. When it comes to the evolution vs. creation debate, the only thing I hold to is that God created. I don’t know how, or how long it took—and unlike the staunch supporters on either side, I won’t pretend to know. That said, Marrs writes:
“Junk” DNA: Same Fallacious Reasoning, Different DayI haven’t been inspired to write much lately but today I caught wind of the whole ENCODE thing. I don’t know what (a)theists are saying about this, but I can imagine. My bet is that it’s business as usual: snarl, hype, misinformation and a noticeable absence of statements even remotely construable as conciliatory. As the “junk DNA” thing is old news, I don’t have much to say about it, other than to warn atheists against disbelief bolstered by illogic.
Pareidolia & The Darwinian NarrativeOne source defines pareidolia as, “the imagined perception of a pattern or meaning where it does not actually exist.” Of course, the atheist / materialist crowd loves to cite pareidolia as an explanation for belief in things “supernatural,” but I find that ironic. After all, we’ve got no shortage of confirmed pareidolia in the “science” of the Darwinian narrative. Quite literally, some of these “scientists” see grandiose patterns from nothing more than a few teeth or part of a skull.
And Your Point?This morning I was a little disappointed by this article (because I thought it would be about something else). Do we really need “objective data” to tell us that the overwhelming majority of scientists accept the contemporary evolutionary narrative? What does establishing this fact prove? How does it advance the debate? Pre-Einstein, things weren’t much different: the overwhelming majority of physicists accepted the then-contemporary narrative for physics. So what? Did that make them correct? There’s always a consensus, and many a consensus is often overturned. It’s happened with the evolutionary narrative several times before (fossil records falsified Darwinian gradualism, shorebirds are not a basal evolutionary group, homology often fails at the embryonic level).
I guess I just get annoyed when consensus is invoked or implied as direct evidence of truth.
On Evidence & Proof, Pt. III: Questions From Ubiquitous CheI have an open mind (I think) so I am willing to be convinced. I’ll even say that if you show me good evidence, I’ll bow down and worship your god, whoever he may be. But I want evidence. -SI, The Existence of God
MiracleQuest is alive and well again, this time at SI's. So far, it's went more or less exactly as every other discussion of this nature I've seen: hundreds of comments, plenty of insults and not much to mention in terms of reasonable resolution.
SI asks believers to present their "good evidence" for God. Sounds innocent enough, right?
False Arguments #23 & #24: The Sufficiency Of Microevolution TropesThere are two equal but opposite errors I see again and again in ostensibly educated discussions about evolution, and both of them involve ignorance about what scientists mean when they use the words macroevolution and microevolution, (hereafter Ma and Mi, respectively).
The creationist or believer who maintains that Ma is impossible or unproven shows an ignorance of science paralleled only by the atheist or skeptic who maintains that such is untrue because Ma is just cumulative Mi. These are what I call the sufficiency of microevolution tropes, and both of them distort scientific accuracy concerning the facts of evolution.
As genuine thinkers, we need to know what to look out for here, so first let's discuss the terms.
Dawkins, 9/11, Special Pleading & ConflationSo, A Huge And Hitherto Undiscovered Cretacious Beast, Part I turned into a total thread derailment. I'm really upset at Arthur and John Evo, and although I'm not going to ban them, I'm limiting the amount of comments they can make on TWIM. I don't usually punish atheists just for being atheists, but this has become intolerable…