What do we care?

A couple of posts ago, I ended with the question "and what do we care?" This was in regard to whether and how much God has (supernaturally) intervened in the history of the universe to get the events to unfold according to His plan. For example, why in the end should we care whether God had to override the laws of physics to get the solar system to form where it is (ie, in the just-right location in the just-right galaxy) with the composition it has (ie, made of the just-right abundances of elements), etc, or whether the unfolding of the universe under the natural laws He set up at the beginning conspired to make this unlikely place form "naturally"?

I think this is certainly a good point to discuss. It isn't likely that we'll ever know how God did it. Although if we could show that the laws of physics were violated over and over, it would be a good apologetic. But philosophically, who can tell the difference between these two types of miraculous events? The formation of the moon was a miracle, in that it was highly unlikely. The advent of man was a miracle, in that it was an even less likely event. Do either violate the laws of physics? Even that's a difficult question to answer, as statistical thermodynamics, and even more so quantum mechanics, imply that anything can happen, even the most unlikely thing. It is within the laws of physics for all the air in the room you're sitting in to suddenly move to the other side of the room, instantly suffocating you. Its likelihood is on the order of 10^{-25} (or probably less), but it's not impossible. (I'll try to discuss this in a later post, because I'm not doing this justice here.)

Instead, I argue that the question we should be asking is therefore not whether the laws of physics are broken, but instead whether the unfolding of the history of the universe, including the history of life on planet earth, seems to bespeak the supernatural superintent of a creator, i.e., a mind. This is not just a question about probabilities. Rather, it is a question regarding whether the universe's history reflects the expressly-stated purposes of a creator. Sure, regarding evolution, we can try to go and test whether God specially intervened at points, but these would again be based on probability arguments. (For example, the likelihood that whales would evolve from a land mammal given their large body size, low fecundity, and long generation time, is extremely small.)

No, what I am arguing here is that the unfolding of history is following a divine plan. We live in a just right location at the just right time. The history of life on earth followed a just-right trajectory such that we could be here today. The evolution of stars and galaxies prior to the formation of our solar system occurred in a just-right way. In essence, these are all fine-tuning arguments, but they're subtly more than that, I think. It appears that the fine-tuning is no coincidence. It appears that it is following a plan.

And I think this argument demands to be developed further. For now, it's only in its infancy.

Why would God violate His own laws of physics (part 2)?

In my previous post, I introduced this topic and gave a very simple example why He would violate the laws of physics. In addition to that, we know that God did intervene in certain circumstances. For example, He intervened at the beginning of time. He intervened at the incarnation. Jesus (and the old testament prophets before Him) performed many miracles. I don't find this to be a good answer to Ken Miller's question, however, as God had specific purposes in history to perform miracles, and these acts of divine intervention were well-documented in the Bible. Thus, it does not answer generally about the history of the universe.

My next comment is that, in a way, I sympathize with Ken Miller and Francis Collins and other theistic evolutionists on on this point. When creationists argue that God must have intervened in specially creating life, including humans on the sixth day of creation, I wonder how that would be different from a special creation of the moon. We think we know in pretty good detail how the moon was formed, from a mechanistic, laws-of-physics standpoint. However, the fact that it happened is essentially a miracle. If the moon didn't exist in a very finely-tuned fashion, neither would we. In other words, if the moon hadn't formed in just the right way from just the right materials at just the right time in just the right place with just the right mass, advanced life would not have been possible on this planet. (I can't go into the details, as I do not know them. However, take my word for it that the formation of the moon is generally accepted to be a finely-tuned event, even among atheistic scientists. Also, I found a cool movie here about this, narrated by Captain Jean Luc Picard.) The chance that the moon would form in just this way is so small as to be essentially zero. But it can be explained in a very simple way: a Mars-sized body revolving around the sun about 4.4 billion years ago at the same revolution radius as the earth was suddenly kicked out of its stable orbit. It slowly got closer and closer to the earth until the two bodies collided at a low relative velocity and at a highly oblique angle. The laws of physics can completely explain it. But they do not explain why such an event, which must have been so finely-tuned, would have happened.

Applying this to life's history, Darwinian evolution is certainly a plausible mechanism to explain life's history, given the concession that life evolving this way (i.e., in just the right way to produce us) is extremely unlikely. However, I don't see anything in direct contradiction of the laws of physics, barring a second law of thermodynamics hand-waving argument. In other words, it isn't absurd to imagine that God supernaturally superintended each of life's events such that evolution according to the natural laws would occur just as He would have it. In the same way that it isn't absurd to imagine that God supernaturally superintended the formation of the moon just as He would have it such that we could later exist. He guided an extremely unlikely set of events to get us in the end. Did He do this by setting it up from the beginning and forgetting it (like a roticerie chicken machine)? Or did He have to perform "midcourse corrections'" such as NASA ground control often must do? And what do we care?

So, this discussion leads us logically to a point that I have discussed many times, about how all theistic evolutionists should also be proponents of intelligent design, and I won't repeat them here.

Why would God violate His own laws of physics?

I was listening to a lecture by Francis Collins recently. The specifics of his beliefs on God's direct creative intervention in history, whether it be in respect to the anthropic principle or the origin/evolution of life, were not that clear. (Perhaps this is a good thing; why be too dogmatic about an unimportant issue. Indeed, the answers to these questions may be something we never know until we ask Him ourselves.)

A few of the things he said, however, reminded me of something Ken Miller once said when I had the great opportunity to have a lunchtime discussion with him. He asked, "Why would God need to violate His own laws of physics to make things happen?" Meaning, if God is the author of the laws of physics, and the creator of the universe, certainly He had the ability to fine-tune the initial conditions of the universe (presumably at the moment of creation) in order to get everything to turn out as He wanted. Ken used this as an argument that evolution and theism are not in conflict; indeed, evolution makes even more sense than special creation in his opinion.

I have several comments about that. I'll talk about the first one here.

I can certainly imagine a hypothetical scenario in which God would need to violate the laws of physics and intervene in a very special way to make things happen. Imagine God wishes to fire a cannon and have the cannonball fly through a ring suspended in the air. (No, the ring being suspended is not the violation of the laws of physics; it could be hanging by a string or sitting on a post.) Simple. All He has to do is aim the cannon correctly, pack the right amount of gunpowder, and He can achieve His objective. (This is, of course, assuming the ring is not so high or so far away as to violate the physical constraints of the cannon. Assume, for this example, that it is an "infinitely powerful" cannon that can be aimed in any direction.)

Now imagine He also wishes to have the cannonball fly through another ring. No problem; it just constrains the parameters further. (In the case of only one ring, there are multiple ways to achieve this goal.)

Now, finally, there is a third ring He wants the cannonball to go through. Now we have a problem. What if the third ring doesn't lie along the parabolic path defined by the first two rings? (Actually, you can also think of a case in which He cannot even shoot the cannon through two rings. However, the illustration with three rings is easier to envision, and also helps lead the reader to the result, which is always the better teaching strategy.) For example, if the second ring is lower than the first ring, but the third ring is higher than the second, we are stuck. With God, however, nothing is impossible. He can simply "perform a miracle," i.e., break the laws of physics, to achieve His objectives.

OK, the illustration was silly and simplistic, but it shows that it is plausible, if not necessary, for God to have intervened in history to ensure the unfolding of events up until this point. This includes the formation of the galaxy, solar system, earth, moon, continents, etc., as well as the origin and history of life on this planet. It isn't entirely clear to me that any of this could have happened solely according to the laws of physics operating on the initial conditions of the universe at the singular cosmic creation event. Note that I have not proved that God intervened specially, I have only answered Ken Miller's question of "why." In other words, his asking that question and leaving it at that, as if that philosophically proves the case for the "fully-gifted creation" viewpoint, is not sufficient.

Francisco Ayala wins the Templeton Prize

A recent article in the LA Times reports on a local (UC Irvine) professor of biology, Francisco Ayala, winning the Templeton Prize. I think it's great that such a big prize in spirituality is being awarded to a scientist.

Although, I must say I don't agree very much with his philosophical views -- at least, with those espoused in this article. And of course who am I to address these things? Ayala is apparently an ordained priest. He's also a professor of biology, which is more than I can say about myself. (And between the two of us, who has won a Templeton Prize?)

So, he carries more clout than I do. But you can judge his points of view against mine regardless of our backgrounds (so that you avoid the ad hominem argument). For example, the article says, at one point:

Evolution "is consistent with a religious belief in God, whereas creationism and intelligent design are not." This, [Ayala] said, is because intelligent design suggests that the deformities of the world are God's design, whereas science shows them to be "a consequence of the clumsy ways of the evolutionary process."

I don't understand this. Even if evolution were clumsy, doesn't that also reflect in God, just as if He were the creator/designer? I guess this goes along "recent" posts of mine describing how even theistic evolutionists should, at some level, be proponents of intelligent design (note the lowercase letters).

The article then goes on to say:

"The Bible is a book about religious truths; it is not how the Earth was made," [Ayala] said. He added that he rejects the idea that one can read the Bible "as if it were an elementary textbook of biology or physics."

This is a common straw man against reading the bible literally and consistently with science. It doesn't have to be "as if it were an elementary textbook of [science]" in order to have some truths about the world and the way it was made. Indeed, if "the bible is a book about religious truths" (emphasis mine), then wouldn't it necessarily be about truths regarding origins? Because the origins of the universe, of the earth, of life, and yes, even of man, all have religious content.

For example, loooong before any of this became a scientific controversy, there was this little doctrine called creation ex nihilo (for an incomplete list of bible verses, see Gen 1:1, Heb 11:3, and 2 Tim 1:9 ). The earliest Christians believed that God created the universe out of nothing. That is, He did not use existing starting materials. That directly addresses the origins question, and is definitively from a religious point of view. So if the bible is about religious truth, and thus what is says about the origin of the universe is true, then at the very least it is consistent with our current understanding of the beginning of the universe (ie, the Big Bang). You can get all of this from the bible without treating it as an elementary science text. It comes directly out of theological commentaries.

Theistic evolution and intelligent design (part 5): Are we bold enough to test it?

In my last post, I drove home the point that intelligent design and theistic evolution, in the most generic sense of the two, should be welcome bedfellows. This is not to say that intelligent design of the kind that says "the bacterial flagellum is too complex and thus evolution cannot be true" should be wedded to theistic evolution; instead I am saying that evolution or no, God is sovereign, and He designed this universe and all life at some level.

However, if we accept that, we are denying what many people (in academia and elsewhere) equate with the theory of biological evolution: a naturalistic worldview. We should have no problem with the idea that all life on earth is related, but we should have a problem with the idea that, since we descended from an ape-like ancestor that also gave rise to chimpanzees (in common vernacular: we came from monkeys), we do not have inherent moral value. Or that we have the same moral value as chimpanzees. Or that we are different in degree only, not in kind. Folks, we were made in the image of God! Tarnished now, but that is true for no other creature (including the angels). And none other has the chance for redemption that we do.

What's more, as Christians we are in a unique position. We can affirm evolution, but we deny the naturalistic worldview. However, the proponent of naturalism (i.e., the atheist) must affirm evolution, because he/she denies the theistic worldview. (I hope I am not simplifying too much here, but I feel I am more or less correct.) And thus, the veracity of biological evolution carries too much weight; the atheist's worldview depends on it. And perhaps this is why evolution is considered sacred to biologists (as I mentioned in an earlier post).

I understand that most biologists would say that evolution has such high regard in biology because the entire field hinges upon it; it is the foundation for all biological research. I say hogwash to that. The field only hinges upon it if you have a naturalistic worldview.

Anyway, back to my main point. The naturalist's worldview hinges on the veracity of evolution. In contrast, the Christian worldview hinges on the veracity of the resurrection, and not on any "intelligent design" argument. We can go into the evidence for the resurrection later, but my point is that as Christians and as scientists (ok, some of us are scientists), we can take or leave biological evolution.

And so my question is: are we bold enough to test it?

Theistic evolution and intelligent design (part 4): "Will you marry me?"

Hearkening back to my original post in this series, I mentioned that I thought neither the "Theistic evolutionists" nor the proponents of the Intelligent Design Movement (IDM) have it right. I pointed out in part two that theistic evolutionists should, at their very heart, be proponents of intelligent design. In parts 3a and 3b, I spent most of the time talking about the IDM, but did mention that all Christians should be intelligent design (notice the lowercase letters) proponents of some sort.

Why can't then these two positions (theistic evolution and intelligent design) be married together in some way?

Sure, the natural mechanisms of biological evolution (that is, descent with modification, natural selection operating on variations caused by mutations) can promote diversification and speciation. But how does that detract from the fact that this universe and everything in it was part of the Designer's grand plan? Isaiah 45:18 says that God "did not create it [the earth] to be empty, / but formed it to be inhabited." It was God's plan in the beginning that earth should be filled with life. And if I may be so bold: human life was part of His plan as well. In other words, things may have evolved, but life was still designed.

Look at it this way. There are a lot of quotes from famous scientists that tread the edge of intelligent design, while at the same time vehemently denying it. For example, Francis Crick (in his book "What Mad Pursuit") says the following: "Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved." Uhm, excuse me, but why not both? No, seriously, one would correctly infer from this quote that biological entities, at the very least, appear designed. They do. The common evolutionist answer to that is the appearance of design is what we would expect given the mechanisms of evolution.

I have two things to say to that. First, how do we know? I think that's coming pretty close to putting the cart before the horse. Although I would tend to agree with that statement, I am still disgruntled that we take that at face value and don't test it.

Second, that statement (as well as the quote by Dr. Crick) relies on a false dichotomy. It's either designed, or it evolved. Theistic evolutionists and IDM proponents (and most people in general) play into that game, perhaps unknowningly. Most theistic evolutionists I know are uncomfortable with the idea that life is designed, even though I believe that's a natural consequence of their philosophical position. But we don't have to fall into that trap! Even though God may work through the natural laws and processes that He created, there is no reason to believe that life didn't evolve with a purpose, with a design!

In other words, I'm saying that if you're a Christian, and you believe that evolution correctly describes the history of life on earth and the diveristy of life we see today, you should still believe that it has been designed for the benefit of humanity. And that's just based on a philosophical/theological position. It doesn't even take into account the scientific evidence in favor of that position. (Perhaps I'll describe that evidence at a later date.)

Theistic evolution and intelligent design (part 3b): what is Intelligent Design?

Last time, I introduced the generic idea of intelligent design, contrasting it with the higly political Intelligent Design Movement (IDM). To be perfectly up front, I have problems with the IDM, mostly because they offer no testable/falsifiable hypotheses, yet they want their "theories" taught in high school biology courses. This is a no-no.

But what should the IDM do differently if it wants to get into the classroom? (As I said in my previous post, I personally have no problem with ideas of intelligent design being taught at the high-school level, but only if these ideas have been shown worthy of scientific merit.)

First, stop focusing so much negative evidence. At this point, you cannot overturn naturalistic evolution as an explanatory hypothesis by saying that it can't do something. I'm not saying that negative evidence never overturns hypotheses, but it won't overturn evolution. Evolution is not quantitative enough, and itself isn't testable/falsifiable enough to be challenged in this way. If the IDM wants to go up against evolution, it needs to show that it has more testable/falsifiable explanatory power than evolution does.

Here's an example. The bacterial flagellum (a whip-like structure attached to bacteria that allows them to swim) is an "icon" of intelligent design. The basic IDM argument is that the flagellum is so complex, there's no way that evolution can produce that. It's beyond the limits of what evolution can do. Evolutionists respond with, "no, that's not true, and we can imagine ways in which evolution can do this." Notice that neither of those assertions are actually testing anything; in essence they are just hand-waving arguments. It is extremely difficult to overthrow a scientific paradigm using hand-waving arguments, even if that's all that the other side is doing.

Second, the IDM really should try to move to another field (ie, besides biology/biochemistry). I don't know why, but for whatever reason, biological evolution is different from other scientific theories. Most disciplines (such as astronomy, physics, geology, chemistry, etc) tolerate or even welcome challenges to long-standing scientific theories. This is not true in biology; challenging the veracity of naturalistic evolution meets you with ridicule and disdain. Evolution is somewhat sacred to biologists, and to go up against it is sort of like going up against the premise that the bible can be trusted. Weird, but true. Perhaps this is a direct outgrowth from the whole "Scopes monkey trial" fiasco...and now anyone who disbelieves evolution is perceived as being either ignorant or brainwashed.

The other motivation IDM proponents should have in focusing on other scientific disciplines is that almost all other theories are infinitely more quantitative than biological evolution, and thus are also more testable/falsifiable. One problem with the theory of evolution is that we have no idea what the limits are to its explanatory power (if any). Because of this, we can attribute almost anything to evolution. (By the way, this is an interesting twist on the God-of-the-gaps fallacy, which I have written about several times.) In addition, using negative evidence to demonstrate that God created (ie, showing that naturalistic forces could not account for some phenomenon) is actually possible in a quantitative field, such as cosmology. In that case, the classical arguments coming from the IDM camp become less like hand-waving arguments and more like testable hypotheses.

Finally, the IDM should drop the facade about being religiously neutral. They see the past failures to get religious ideas taught in science classrooms (such as young-earth creation) as stemming from the religious content. So, IDM proponents make the claim that the movement is completely secular. They refuse to identify the intelligent Designer, and thus say that they have no religious affiliation. Note that this tactic is not working. No one in the scientific community buys that; most have linked the IDM to conservative Christianity, and rightly so in my opinion. After all, where else has the opposition to biological evolution come from? This has the unintended consequence of galvanizing the opposition to Christianity and has given intelligent design (note the lowercase letters) a bad name. At the beginning of my last post, I said that affirming "intelligent design" in the most generic sense should not subject one to ridicule. I didn't say does not. Now nearly any discussion about any kind of intelligent design links you to the IDM, which links you to a political agenda of anti-science and ignorance, which brings you ridicule. Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but the IDM has given Christianity an uphill battle.

At any rate, the proponents of the IDM have had a fallacy in their political thinking. It wasn't actually the religious content of creationist ideas that blocked their introduction into science classrooms, it was the scientific merit. The rulings of the courts in the mid-to-late 20th century regarding the teaching of young earth creationism rested on academic merit, not religious content. Furthermore, if the IDM were following the "proper route" into classrooms, rather than try to force their way in via court rulings, there wouldn't be any issue anyway. Secularists and atheists might be upset about the fact that scientific theories promote a Designer, but what we would prefer shouldn't matter anyway. In summary, instead of trying to be fake and subversive in their agenda, why doesn't the IDM simply come clean? At this point, the IDM gives most people an untrustworthy vibe.

But there are some good things about the IDM. Some of their arguments, such as regarding the bacterial flagellum, I find to be intellectually compelling, just not scientifically defensible. (Notice a trend? I'm saying that a lot these days.) What Christians need are good scientific minds developing Christian apologetic arguments (or even better: research plans) that are both compelling and testable/falsifiable.

Theistic evolution and intelligent design (part 3a): what is Intelligent Design?

First of all, I have to apologize to everyone. I've been out of town for a week, and haven't been too frequent with my postings. Note that it took me about three weeks just to finish up a summary of our last meeting about the origin of life.

Now, where to begin when talking about Intelligent Design? First, we have to differentiate between intelligent design and the Intelligent Design Movement.

To me, the words "intelligent design" simply mean that a supernatural, causal, intelligent agent created this universe, and perhaps has a hand on the unfolding of history. This is seemingly uncontroversial, as most Christians should agree with this, and most anyone who truly believes in God likely does as well. In addition, even most atheists respect the fact that many people believe in God, and thus do not find fault with belief in an intelligent agent. In other words, believing in "intelligent design" in the most generic sense should not be a big deal, nor should it subject you to ridicule.

The "Intelligent Design Movement" (IDM) on the other hand is a completely different animal. This appears to be a group of people (mostly scientists, I suppose; the most prominent of whom is Dr. Michael Behe, professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University) that has a political agenda. Maybe that's going a bit too far, but it does explain why intelligent design has faced major opposition. Simply put, the IDM wants to force the teaching of creationism in high school biology classes.

I have no problem with that. Except for the fact that the ideas of the IDM are not scientifically defensible. At this point. A commenter from my last post asked me what I meant by "scientifically defensible". This was in response to my saying a couple times that my discussion of the origin of life was intellectually compelling but not scientifically defensible (see here and here), and I likened that to the IDM.

So here's what I meant. The hypotheses held by the IDM are mostly negative explanations regarding the veracity of biological evolution. They offer no way to test their hypotheses, and thus it boils down to "some biological features found in nature look so complex, there's no way naturalistic evolution could have resulted in that; it must have been God creating it." They offer no counter explanations that can be tested, and thus, it is quite difficult to publish in peer-reviewed, scientific journals (much less overthrow a scientific paradigm) if you have no hope of testing/falsifying your hypotheses. In summary, they don't offer an alternative model!

And here's the kicker. If you can't publish in the peer-reviewed scientific journals, then you cannot get into high school curricula. The proper way to make your way into the textbooks is to publish in the peer-reviewed journals, then get into cutting-edge graduate level classes, and then finally trickle down through the undergraduate levels to the high school level. The IDM is trying to circumnavigate this whole process and make their way straight into high school biology classrooms. That's not how science is done. They're playing at politics, and they're losing. What's worse, they're losing for the rest of us (more on this later). Scientific theories must be peer-reviewed, must be testable/falsifiable, and must stand the test of time.

This post is getting quite long, so I'll stop here. Next time, I'll go into more detail about what the IDM proponents should do to be taken seriously.

Theistic Evolution and Intelligent Design (part 1 of who knows how many)

A friend recently pointed me to a web article about the Catholic position on evolution. The article describes the unanimous agreement among scholars attending a plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (whatever that is) that the universe was ancient. The article goes on to say that the vast majority of scholars agreed that species of life today share common ancestry.

In contrast, the next paragraph of the article points out that none of the scientists attending the session were proponents of the Intelligent Design Movement (IDM), mostly because of its lack of scientific testability.

I think this is fantastic. A bunch of Christians getting together and agreeing on an ancient age of the universe, and allowing the scientific data to speak for themselves regarding cosmic and biotic evolution.

On the other hand, I am quite tired of hearing about the "debate" between theistic evolution and intelligent design. Or anything and intelligent design. Or anything and _____ evolution (be it theistic, biotic, darwinian, etc). In my opinion, neither the IDM proponents, nor the "Theistic Evolutionists" have it right. But to get into a deep discussion about that, I'll have to go into more detail about what the IDM means, and what most proponents of theistic evolution believe. Next time.