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Monday, April 12, 2010

Waltke on theistic evolution

Since Waltke's position on theistic evolution has become a matter of public debate, it's helpful to document what, exactly, his position really is. Here are some statements of his:

Waltke cautions, “if the data is overwhelmingly in favor of evolution, to deny that reality will make us a cult…some odd group that is not really interacting with the world. And rightly so, because we are not using our gifts and trusting God’s Providence that brought us to this point of our awareness.”

We are at a unique moment in history where “everything is coming together,” says Waltke, and conversations—like those initiated by BioLogos—are positive developments. “I see this as part of the growth of the church,” he says. “We are much more mature by this dialogue that we are having. This is how we come to the unity of the faith—by wrestling with these issues.”


http://biologos.org/blog/why-must-the-church-come-to-accept-evolution/

“I had not seen the video before it was distributed. Having seen it, I realize its deficiency and wish to put my comments in a fuller theological context:

Adam and Eve are historical figures from whom all humans are descended; they are uniquely created in the image of God and as such are not in continuum with animals.

Adam is the federal and historical head of the fallen human race just as Jesus Christ is the federal and historical head of the Church.

I am not a scientist, but I have familiarized myself with attempts to harmonize Genesis 1-3 with science, and I believe that creation by the process of evolution is a tenable Biblical position, and, as represented by BioLogos, the best Christian apologetic to defend Genesis 1-3 against its critics.

I apologize for giving the impression that others who seek to harmonize the two differently are not credible. I honor all who contend for the Christian faith.

Evolution as a process must be clearly distinguished from evolutionism as a philosophy. The latter is incompatible with orthodox Christian theology.

Science is fallible and subject to revision. As a human and social enterprise, science will always be in flux. My first commitment is to the infallibility (as to its authority) and inerrancy (as to its Source) of Scripture.

God could have created the Garden of Eden with apparent age or miraculously, even as Christ instantly turned water into wine, but the statement that God “caused the trees to grow” argues against these notions.

I believe that the Triune God is Maker and Sustainer of heaven and earth and that biblical Adam is the historical head of the human race.

Theological comments made here are mostly a digest of my chapters on Genesis 1-3 in An Old Testament Theology (Zondervan, 2007).”


http://biologos.org/blog/why-must-the-church-come-to-accept-evolution-an-update/

Ancient Near Eastern cosmogonies are a very different literary genre from the genre of scientific writings. These ancient cosmogonies–including that of Genesis 1–do not ask or attempt to answer scientific questions of origins: the material, manner, or date of the origin of the world and of its species. The biblical account represents God as creating the cosmological spheres that house and preserve life in six days, each presumably consisting of twenty-four hours. But how closely this cosmology coincides with the material reality cannot be known from the genre of an ancient Near Eastern cosmology, which does not attempt to answer that question [footnote 80]. Recall that biblical narrators creatively and rhetorically represent raw historical data to teach theology, An Old Testament Theology, 202.

The best harmonious synthesis of the special revelation of the Bible, of the general revelation of human nature that distinguishes between right and wrong and consciously or unconsciously craves God, and of science is the theory of theistic evolution [footnote 81]. By “theory,” I mean here “a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for the origin of species, especially adam,” not “a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural.” By “theistic evolution” I mean that the God of Israel, to bring glory to himself, (1) created all the things that are out of nothing and sustains them; (2) incredibly, against the laws of probability, finely tuned the essential properties of the universe to produce adam, who is capable of reflecting upon their origins; (3) within his providence allowed the process of natural selection and of cataclysmic interventions–such as the meteor that extinguished the dinosaurs, enabling mammals to dominate the earth–to produce awe-inspiring creatures, especially adam; (4) by direct creation made adam a spiritual being, an image of divine beings, for fellowship with himself by faith; (5) allowed adam to freely choose to follow their primitive animal nature and to usurp the rule of God instead of living by faith in God, losing fellowship with their physical and spiritual Creator… (202-03).

There is a synergetic modus vivendi in recognizing that both science and theology have a contribution to make to our understanding of the origins of the creation. A scientific cosmogony contributes to answering the questions of how and when, and the rhetorical biblical cosmogony answers the more important questions of who and why (203).

The renowned theologian B. B. Warfield supported the concept of biological evolution (202n80).

I have been helped in reaching this conclusion by Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. Collins was director of the Humane Genome Project and is a devout Christian (202n81).


By way of comment:

i) Why theistic evolution was a permissible option for Presbyterian theologians like Warfield and A. A. Hodge poses an interesting sociological question regarding the intellectual ethos of 19C Presbyterianism. A question which some church historians have explored.

However, while that sociological question may be of keen historical interest, it is quite irrelevant to the normative question of what policy the 21C Church ought to put in place. It is not the duty of the Church to reproduce the intellectual ethos, or coping strategies, of a particular era in church history. For example, the fact that many Colonial Americans turned to Unitarianism is hardly a normative precedent for contemporary Christians.

ii) Walkte appeals to comparative mythology. However, other scholars in the field handle these materials quite differently.

iii) Waltke equivocates over the nature of ANE cosmogonies. It’s trivially true that prescientific cosmogonies were not designed to answer scientific questions. That, however, doesn’t mean that ANE cosmogonies were never meant to make factual claims about the real world, as the author and audience understood it.

iv) Waltke only cites one side of the argument. He doesn’t engage the scientific critics of macroevolution. And he also ignores the realist/antirealist debate in philosophy of science.

v) Waltke’s position on Adam and Eve seems to be that God took a male and female protohuman hominid and made them “spiritual beings.”

vi) Waltke calls his position a “synthesis” of science and Scripture. However, his position is really a stopgap. It isn’t scientific, and it isn’t Scriptural.

It’s not something he derives from science alone, or Scripture alone, and it’s not something that he can properly derive from combining science and Scripture. For both Gen 1-2 and macroevolution present self-contained narratives regarding the origin of life on earth. One can’t properly graft Gen 1-2 onto the trunk of macroevolution. These are independent explanations. And they tug in different directions.

vii) Waltke redefines original sin in terms of Adam and Eve reverting to their bestial ancestry. That is completely at odds with the narrative. It introduces an extraneous dynamic while it also disregards the narrative factors.

29 comments:

  1. "I have been helped in reaching this conclusion by Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. Collins was director of the Humane Genome Project and is a devout Christian (202n81)."

    Is there a Triablogue critique of Francis S. Collins' theistic evolution position?

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  2. For a good resource on macroevolution, which interacts with the type of "evidence" educed by Collins:

    http://tinyurl.com/y4rlbb4

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  3. Several of the guys at Uncommon Descent and Evolution News and Views have reviewed Collins' book.

    The major problems with Collins' arguments are:

    1) He presents a straw-man of ID. He obviously has never read any ID works.

    2) He constantly assumes methodological naturalism to attack ID but does not apply MN to his own arguments for God's existence (such as the physical constants of the universe). [Also, MN has been dealt with in philosophical literature, and he completely ignores that as well.]

    3) His Darwinism undercuts his argument for God's existence from aesthetics. According to Darwinism, the only reason why he believes in God is because natural selection has caused him to for survival purposes, not necessarily because it is true.

    4) His belief in methodological naturalism undercuts his Christianity entirely as it would eliminate the Resurrection of Jesus as a possibility in favor of naturalistic options (no matter how implausible).

    5) He uses the argument from 'Junk' DNA when, in reality, that argument has been debunked for a long time. 'Junk' DNA is fully functional. Other arguments are dealt with in Dembski and Wells' book mentioned by Steve above.

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  4. Saint and Sinner,

    Where you err is in recognizing the distinct domains of science and philosophy. For science, one must adhere to methodological naturalism. To allow a methodological supernaturalism would be the end of science. Science does not have the tools to recognize supernatural activity.

    In philosophy on the other hand, one is justified to infer metaphysical naturalism or supernaturalism from the evidence.

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  5. KEN PULLIAM SAID:

    "Where you err is in recognizing the distinct domains of science and philosophy. For science, one must adhere to methodological naturalism. To allow a methodological supernaturalism would be the end of science. Science does not have the tools to recognize supernatural activity."

    i) Science is supposed to be a descriptive discipline. A description of the world. It involves an element of discovery. The scientist doesn’t know, in advance of his investigations, what the world is like. He must learn about the world through observation and inference.

    ii) By contrast, methodological naturalism is a prescriptive principle. Applied to science, it prejudges what the scientist is allowed to regard as possible or actual. It superimposes a filter on the scientific evidence, screening out any evidence which is at variance with methodological naturalism.

    Methodological naturalism dictates a foregone conclusion. Before the scientist ever peers into the telescope or microscope, methodological naturalism tells the scientist what he’s permitted to see. Methodological naturalism prescribes, in advance of the evidence, what can or cannot count as evidence.

    That isn’t a way of doing empirical science. That isn’t a way of learning about the world. Rather, that’s a way of insulating yourself from any sort of evidence which would challenge your precommitment to naturalism. It systematically begs all the factual questions.

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  6. When the scientific method is assimilated to methodological naturalism, science ceases to be a truth-seeking discipline. For, given that methodological constraint, science only permits itself to accept naturalistic answers, whether or not the naturalistic answers are the correct answers. If the right answer involved a supernatural factor, science would have to reject the right answer out of hand because the right answer is not allowed to count as scientific evidence. That's against the "rules."

    Science is thereby reduced to following an arbitrary set of man-made rules which, in principle, rule out correct answers if the correct answer happens to fall outside the parameters of what the rules permit.

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  7. Steve,

    The scientific method has to work off the assumption of methodological naturalism. Science has no way to observe or test the supernatural.

    Lets say for example that a scientist observes Jesus turning water into wine. He tests the water first and sees that it is truly water. He tests it after it has been changed and he verifies that it is wine. That is all he can do. He can't explain how the water got transformed into wine because it defies natural law. He can only say: "I can't explain it" and then he and others can draw inferences from that study but since we cannot examine supernatural processes in the laboratory, science cannot answer the question of how the water became wine. You could say its magic or its supernatural or its an anomaly but none of these would be scientific statements, they would be philosophical statements.

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  8. Ken,

    You have a very compartmentalized view of reality, as if reality is segregated into a set of airtight domains.

    But what you're doing is to superimpose your preconception of reality onto reality. That is hardly something you derive from experience.

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  9. Steve,

    I don't think so. When a scientist encouters some phenomena that he can't explain, what is he to do? Supernatural processes by definition are unexplainable. The only thing that the scientist can say is: "Based on all of our current knowledge, I can't explain the phenomena." Now people can draw two inferences from the unexplained phenomena 1)that "it must be that God did it" (but that is a theological statement or its an anomaly based on our current knowledge and we will need more information to try to explain it. Either one is a possible inference but neither one really explains the phenomena. If science were to say, "God did it," then that is the end of the investigation. That would therefore mean that anything currently unexplainable or unknown in science can be attributed to God and we can shut the enterprise down. For example, we haven't been able to figure out a cure for cancer yet. Should we just throw up our hands and say, well we will never know and lets just stop trying?

    Science does not have the tools to investigate supernatural processes if they exist.

    Actually what I am saying should come as welcome news to the Christian because science cannot prove or disprove the supernatural.

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  10. One other point relative to ID. If the scientist says that since we can't completely explain, based on our current knowledge, why the universe appears to be designed, then we must conclude that God did it and stop looking for any other explanation.

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  11. Ken Pulliam said...

    "When a scientist encouters some phenomena that he can't explain, what is he to do?"

    Of course, that's circular. You're tacitly claiming that a scientist can't explain it because it's unscientific. But that's a tautology, not an argument.

    "Supernatural processes by definition are unexplainable."

    Really? Where's the argument?

    What this means, ultimately, is that you're trying to win the argument "by definition."

    "The only thing that the scientist can say is: 'Based on all of our current knowledge, I can't explain the phenomena.'"

    Which begs the question of whether "all our current knowledge" excludes knowledge of the supernatural.

    "Now people can draw two inferences from the unexplained phenomena 1)that 'it must be that God did it' (but that is a theological statement or its an anomaly based on our current knowledge and we will need more information to try to explain it. Either one is a possible inference but neither one really explains the phenomena."

    But if God really did it, then that really explains the phenomenon.

    "If science were to say, 'God did it,' then that is the end of the investigation."

    But if God really did it, then that's where this particular investigation ought to end.

    "That would therefore mean that anything currently unexplainable or unknown in science can be attributed to God and we can shut the enterprise down."

    Of course, that's a straw man argument.

    For example, you can usually attribute a card sequence to random shuffling.

    But it's also possible to infer a stacked deck if the card sequence reflects personal intervention.

    "For example, we haven't been able to figure out a cure for cancer yet. Should we just throw up our hands and say, well we will never know and lets just stop trying?"

    Again, that's a silly example. A better example would be the difference between a medical cure for cancer and a miraculous cure.

    There are instances in which the evidence points to a medical cure. There are other instances in which the evidence points to a miraculous cure.

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  12. KEN PULLIAM SAID:

    "One other point relative to ID. If the scientist says that since we can't completely explain, based on our current knowledge, why the universe appears to be designed, then we must conclude that God did it and stop looking for any other explanation."

    That's a caricature of ID. ID doesn't say we default to intelligent design because we lack sufficient evidence for second causes. Rather, ID claims that we have positive evidence for intelligent design.

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  13. Steve,

    You said: Of course, that's circular. You're tacitly claiming that a scientist can't explain it because it's unscientific. But that's a tautology, not an argument. No, I am saying that there is nothing in the scientist's current knowledge to explain it. Appeal to the supernatural is not an explanation, its an admission that we currently have no natural explanation but its not a guarantee that there never will be or could be a natural explanation.

    There are lots of things that previously were thought to be the result of a supernatural agent--volcano eruptions, epilepsy, thunder, and so on. We now have natural explanations for these.
    So, the appeal to a supernatural explanation was premature.

    I said that supernatural processes are by definition unexplainable and you objected. What is a supernatural act but an act outside of natural laws? How could one possibly explain how Jesus turned water into wine? They couldn't. They would have to just accept that he did it somehow outside of natural processes or at least natural processes that we don't fully understand yet.

    You say: But if God really did it, then that really explains the phenomenon. But how would science be able to determine that God did it?

    Regarding cancer, you say: There are instances in which the evidence points to a medical cure. There are other instances in which the evidence points to a miraculous cure.

    There are cases where cancer goes into spontanteous remission but we don't understand how that happens. There are various naturalistic theories. Surely you wouldn't say that each case is a miraculous cure simply because we can't explain it.

    ID claims that because the universe appears to be designed, then it must be designed. That is again a premature conclusion. It may be designed, yes, but we don't understand enough about all of these matters to conclude that yet.
    One would have to be omniscient to say there are no possible natural explanations for the apparent design.

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  14. Macro-evolution is evolution above the species level?

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  15. Ken,

    "ID claims that because the universe appears to be designed, then it must be designed."

    No it doesn't. Slandering positions you don't agree with isn't an epistemic virtue; besides that, it's lame.

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  16. Paul,

    Perhaps you could tell me what it does teach then?

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  17. Um, Ken, I don't need to tell you "what ID does teach" to take issue with your claim of what it teaches. It is sufficient to point out that it doesn't teach that. In fact, perhaps you could quote from scholarly ID proponents who argue that:

    A = Appears to be designed

    D = Is in fact designed

    (x) (Ax -> Dx)

    This seems ridiculous.

    Rather, from what I've read, it appears to me that ID argues that certain things, events, artifacts, organisms, show evidence of design while also arguing that it is more rational to accept a design hypothesis than a non-design hypothesisand so they reason that it design is the best explanation for the putative x under consideration.

    Las Vegas, for one, depends upon the above type of reasoning. For example, if a guy comes in and hits the jackpot on one pull of the slot machine, Vegas officials will gladly pay him and set him up with a suit, hoping he'll stay and gamble back a lot of his money. However, if he wins 50 pulls in a row, he's going to get questions, and probably the only luck he'll have is if he doesn't get his arms and legs broken.

    This type of reasoning is used all the time. Say that 10 expert marksmen stand 5 feet in front of a criminal and all miss when they shoot. Say that the criminal was promised that if the snipers miss him then he will go free. What is more rational to conclude? That weird things happen in a chance universe or that someone has paid off the guards?

    Homicide detectives use similar reasoning when called to a scene. They can rule out accidental death by looking for signs of intelligence.

    Now, it is important to note what is and what is not being argued by me. I am not arguing that the ID proponents have made their case. I am arguing that they case they say they can make is similar to the above type of reasoning and not the (x) (Ax -> Dx) type reasoning.

    So, any response that tries to argue the merits of the ID case will be an insufficient response to me, refuting an irrelevant conclusion. I trust you will now repent in sackcloth and ash for your slander :-)

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  18. KEN PULLIAM SAID:

    “No, I am saying that there is nothing in the scientist's current knowledge to explain it. Appeal to the supernatural is not an explanation, its an admission that we currently have no natural explanation…”

    What you’re doing, which is what proponents of methodological naturalism always end up doing, is to tacitly smuggle in naturalistic metaphysical assumptions.

    A supernatural explanation would only be a nonexplanation on the metaphysical assumption that there really isn’t a supernatural cause behind the supernatural explanation. Or, to say the same thing in reverse, a supernatural explanation would only be a nonexplanation in case the only real causes are natural causes. So you’re really operating with metaphysical naturalism under the deceptive guise of methodological natural. That’s cheating.

    “…but its not a guarantee that there never will be or could be a natural explanation.”

    Whether or not an explanation is “guaranteed” to be the correct explanation is irrelevant. Indeed, we could turn your objection around: a natural explanation is no a guarantee that there will never be or could be a supernatural explanation.

    So your objection is special pleading.

    “There are lots of things that previously were thought to be the result of a supernatural agent--volcano eruptions, epilepsy, thunder, and so on. We now have natural explanations for these.”

    i) That’s another ignorant caricature of the opposing position. Christian theism, for one, has always had a doctrine of providential second causes. Appeal to divine agency was never an all-purpose substitute for secondary causes. As a seminary grad, you ought to know that.

    ii) Also, I don’t assume that every case of epilepsy has a natural cause.

    iii) For that matter, I don’t attribute all natural disasters to merely natural causes (e.g. the plagues of Egypt, God’s judgment on Sodom & Gomorrah). So you’re begging the question.

    “So, the appeal to a supernatural explanation was premature.”

    Once again, your objection is reversible: appeal to a natural explanation can also be premature.

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  19. Cont. “I said that supernatural processes are by definition unexplainable and you objected. What is a supernatural act but an act outside of natural laws?”

    i) So what?

    ii) Keep in mind that I don’t regard natural causes as ultimate causes. Every natural cause has a supernatural cause (God’s primary causality).

    “How could one possibly explain how Jesus turned water into wine?”

    i) By divine agency.

    ii) You’re also confounding two different issues. For example, I can know that a magician is the agent responsible for a magic trick even though I may not know how he did it.

    “They would have to just accept that he did it somehow outside of natural processes…”

    And the problem with that is what?

    “But how would science be able to determine that God did it?”

    Read Del Ratzsch’s analysis of counterflow in Nature, Design, and Science.

    “There are cases where cancer goes into spontanteous remission but we don't understand how that happens.”

    Of course, if you summarily rule out things like answered prayer, then you may never know how that happens (in at least some such cases).

    “Surely you wouldn't say that each case is a miraculous cure simply because we can't explain it.”

    It can be far more specific. A terminal cancer patient lying on his deathbed. You pray for him, and the next day he’s cancer free.

    Maybe there’s a natural explanation, but given the state of the evidence, that’s hardly the best available explanation.

    “One would have to be omniscient to say there are no possible natural explanations for the apparent design.”

    You keep raising reversible objections. One would have to be omniscient to say there are only natural explanations for the apparent design.

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  20. Paul,

    You say: it appears to me that ID argues that certain things, events, artifacts, organisms, show evidence of design while also arguing that it is more rational to accept a design hypothesis than a non-design hypothesis and so they reason that it design is the best explanation for the putative x under consideration.

    That is fine but its a philosophical or metaphysical inference. Its not science because it can't be tested. How would you ever test scientifically that something was supernaturally designed? You can't.

    I have no problem with drawing theological conclusions from scientific evidence but what I have a problem with is confusing theology with science.

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  21. Steve,

    I don't understand how you think science can operate under a methodological supernaturalism. What would it look like? What are the laws of the supernatural that can be tested and verified in the science lab?

    You are confusing science and theology. Science does not have the tools to identify and test supernatural causes. It can only test what it knows.

    If you had Jesus turn water into wine in a science lab and you could test everything, how would you explain it? The only thing you could say is that there is no known natural cause. That is all science can say. Now the theologian can step in and talk about miracles but this is philosophy not science. That doesn't mean the theologian might not have good grounds to claim a miracle but its just not science.

    All I am arguing for is to realize what science can and cannot say.

    To give another example, if you could go back in a time machine to the first century and take two walkie talkies with you. The ancients would not be able to understand it. They would immediately conclude that its supernatural because based on their existing knowledge, a walkie talkie is impossible.

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  22. Questions:

    1.) KP:How would you ever test scientifically that something was supernaturally designed? You can't.

    What scientific test demonstrates methodological or philosophical naturalism?

    2.) Doesn't Francis S. Collins' theistic evolution deny that natural selection acts as a providential second causes, contra Warfield?

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  23. KEN PULLIAM SAID:

    "I don't understand how you think science can operate under a methodological supernaturalism. What would it look like? What are the laws of the supernatural that can be tested and verified in the science lab?"

    Wrong question. A better question to ask is how science can operate under methodological naturalism. Take medical science. Since methodological naturalism disallows teleological explanations, it also disallows functional explanations. Hence, becomes illicit to teach a doctor what the cardiovascular system is *for*. Given methodological naturalism, the heart doesn't exist to pump blood.

    And if vital organs have no function, then it's nonsensical to repair a malfunctioning organ.

    "You are confusing science and theology. Science does not have the tools to identify and test supernatural causes."

    You keep repeating yourself. That's not an argument.

    "If you had Jesus turn water into wine in a science lab and you could test everything, how would you explain it? The only thing you could say is that there is no known natural cause. That is all science can say."

    To the contrary, science could then identify a personal cause: Jesus.

    "Now the theologian can step in and talk about miracles but this is philosophy not science. That doesn't mean the theologian might not have good grounds to claim a miracle but its just not science."

    You have a bad habit of starting with labels and definitions. But you need to justify your labels and definitions in the first place.

    "To give another example, if you could go back in a time machine to the first century and take two walkie talkies with you. The ancients would not be able to understand it. They would immediately conclude that its supernatural because based on their existing knowledge, a walkie talkie is impossible."

    Well, suppose we discovered 1C walkie-talkies. Wouldn't we have to invoke intelligent design, not only for the walkie-talkies, but for how they got there–given the inadequacy of 1C technology to produce them?

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  24. Ken,

    Hmmmmmm, odd response.

    Let's see,

    you said: "ID claims that because the universe appears to be designed, then it must be designed."

    I replied No it doesn't. Slandering positions you don't agree with isn't an epistemic virtue; besides that, it's lame.

    you replied: "Perhaps you could tell me what it does teach then?"

    I replied: See comment at 4/12/2010 1:28 PM

    To this, you replied "That is fine but its a philosophical or metaphysical inference. Its not science because it can't be tested. How would you ever test scientifically that something was supernaturally designed? You can't."

    I reply to this: Wha??!! I see that instead of repenting for your slander you opted to ignore the refutation and offer another argument against ID that has nothing to do with the answer I gave you. So add to your epistemic vices a cultural faux pas, i.e., rudeness. Here I am thinking you were an honest interlocutor, come to find out you're a disingenuous sophist.

    i. What kind of response is that given the dialectical context of dialog we were in??

    ii. What work does "it's a metaphysical or philosophical inference" do in teeling us whether it is more reasonable to accept or reject a design inference in, say, the cases I gave? I can see it now: "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client is innocent. The lines of evidence the prosecution adduced are merely metaphsyical and philosophical inferences!"

    iii. You then make another slanderous remark about ID. ID does not claim, straight away, that the designer is a "supernatural inference." That takes other arguments, arguments of a more philosophical and metaphysical nature. So, the design argument goes through whether or not one can also prove who the designer is. One can prove that a deathis the result of an intelligently designed murder while also not being able to tell us everything about the murderer. The two are consistent, and thus your objection falls flat. Now, we know some things about the designer. Some murder scenes tell us whether the murderer was an intruder, in a rage, calm, sane, etc. With the design argument, we can at least know that the designer is super smart and super powerful, more powerful than anything we know about. But, as I said, other arguments should be employed. With theism, we have a strong cumulative case.

    iv. It should be obvious how design inferences can be falsified--show it wasn't design, for one!

    v. Lastly, can you enlighten me on why you made a claim, I refuted it, and then you acted as if my response wasn't apropos your initial statement and follow up question to my initial response to your statement.

    Again, the topic of the debate, which we all see you are furiously trying to avoid, is whether your claim that ID argues:

    A = Appears to be designed

    D = Is in fact designed

    (x) (Ax -> Dx)

    is slanderously false or not. Perhaps as an "atheist/agnostic" (as your "about you" states), you've thrown morals out of the window along with God? Perhaps since your world view doesn't allow for irreducible norms of any kind, you've written yourself a free ticket to not follow any epistemic or ethical norms? You can always come clean, it's not too late to admit you haven't bothered studying those you run around the internet "refuting," and vow that you will become an intellectually honest and respectable "atheist/agnostic."

    Sorry for the rant, guess you should have just admitted the error of your ways from the beginning. See what you made me do :-)

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  25. Steve, Paul, and Publius have responded to Ken more than adequately, but I would add that Ken's misrepresentations are explicitly and frequently corrected by proponents of intelligent design. You don't have to go far in their literature to find them explaining that they're arguing for probable design rather than certain design or to find them explaining that a designer wouldn't have to be supernatural. I find it remarkable how much critics of intelligent design either don't understand or knowingly misrepresent the position, even on issues that are easy to understand and are explicitly and frequently discussed.

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  26. Is belief in theistic evolution considered outside the pale of orthodoxy?

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  27. Jason, Steve, any of you Triabloggers: have you ever, in all the tens of thousands of words of endlessly patient and detailed responses you've offered, had a Ken Pulliam or any of the others admit he was dead flat wrong, and do the required paradigm-shift?

    Or is it always just like this?
    Erroneous statement
    Refutation
    Reworded erroneous statement
    Refutation
    Reworded erroneous statement
    Repeat until meta plays out
    Recommence in next related meta

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  28. DJP,

    That's a great question! I'd love to hear that the answer to your question is a resounding "Yes!" At least just once.

    How about on your blog, BibChr? Have you ever had had "a Ken Pulliam or any of the others admit he was dead flat wrong, and do the required paradigm-shift?"

    If you have, can you link to it? I'd like to read the comment from the one(s) making the required paradigm shift.

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