This is a follow-up to an earlier post on theistic evolution:
After the original post sank into the archives, a commenter weighed in. Patrick Chan responded.
I'm reposting my own replies:
Kaffikjelen
"When a beneficial mutation occurs, it tends to be distributed among the population. When a harmful mutation occurs, it tends to be rooted out. Hence, the effects of a single beneficial mutation tends to be greater than the effects of a single harmful one."
i) Don't harmful mutations greatly outnumber beneficial mutations?
ii) What if, say, a harmful mutation compromises the immune system, so that a population loses resistance to a deadly disease? Take hereditary degenerative diseases.
"Of course, we have evidence to go on, so we can ascertain whether evolution actually occurred."
What lines of evidence are you alluding to?
"I am inclined to believe that biological evolution (which excludes stellar evolution, abiogenesis, &c.) is improbable, but possibly not implausible."
That's equivocal. Are you saying biological evolution in general is improbable, or theistic biological evolution in particular?
"Because there is evidence to support it."
Once again, that's equivocal. Evidence for what? Evolution in general, or theistic evolution in particular?
"We simply lack the information to comment on how God guided the process of evolution. Nonetheless, we can say that God oversaw the process, so that there is teleology in nature, and man has a purpose."
What's your evidence that God guided the evolutionary process? What's your evidence that evolution is goal-oriented? What if God took a hands-off approach. What if God is shortsighted (a la open theism)?
"Then again, there are instances where evolution 'seems' more guided, e.g. the near-extinction of humans only 70,000 years ago."
i) Are you saying the survival of species is evidence of divine guidance? If so, does mass extinction indicate lack of divine guidance?
ii) You seem to be using Cro-Magnon as your frame of reference. I doubt Homo erectus or Neanderthal would share your sanguine view of natural teleology.
"However, I confess that I do not know God's purpose behind every event of evolutionary history. This is no more a weakness than not knowing God's purpose behind human history, e.g. the Holocaust. That, too, appears unguided and meaningless, but the knowledge that everything happens according to God's purpose assures us that it is not in fact unguided."
You seem to be taking evolution on faith, as if that's revealed truth.
"I wonder: Why do you think evolution is such an accepted scientific theory, having been exposed to so much confirmation…"
What confirmation do you have in mind?
"…and peer-review?"
That's a circular appeal.
"Is it all a conspiracy?"
Some Darwinians are quite upfront about their antipathy to Christian theism. In addition, scientists can suffer from tunnel vision.
"When a beneficial mutation occurs, it tends to be distributed among the population. When a harmful mutation occurs, it tends to be rooted out. Hence, the effects of a single beneficial mutation tends to be greater than the effects of a single harmful one."
My original statement wasn't limited to mutations. When I said, "For every lucky break, how many times does natural selection deal itself a losing hand? How can evolution stay in the game?"–that applies to natural history in general. All the haphazard threats to the survival of species.
Kaffikjelen
"I wonder: Why do you think evolution is such an accepted scientific theory, having been exposed to so much confirmation and peer-review? Is it all a conspiracy?"
The life sciences are fiendishly complex. It's easy to lose your way in the labyrinth. Evolution supplies a unifying principle. Evolution puts the life sciences into a story. Gives it a plot. Drama. Characters. Linearity.
Never underestimate the power of storytelling. The perennial appeal of a good yarn. Consider the insatiable appetite for new movies.
The evolutionary narrative is more attractive at a distance. Heartless up close.
Theistic evolution softens some of the rough edges. Tries to convert the Darwinian dystopia into a utopia. Alls well that ends well.
Kaffikjelen
"I'd haphazard a guess that beneficial mutations are sufficiently plentiful so as to ensure that evolution is possible."
Sounds like a faith-claim rather than a fact.
"Mutations also power micro-evolution, so if beneficial mutations are scarce, then we shouldn't be observing that either."
i) Aren't there ongoing debates about what mechanisms drive evolution?
ii) Also, opponents of evolution think organisms have some degree of built-in adaptability to new environments.
"If the entire population were affected by such a destructive mutation, then I guess they would be destined to hell in a handbasket. But I don't think that's very likely to happen in every case, as the affected individual(s) would be less likely to reach reproductive opportunities, and so the mutation would be rooted out of the gene pool."
People with hereditary degenerative disorders often live long enough to reach reproductive opportunities, for some these diseases only manifest in adulthood.
Also, within an evolutionary narrative, hominids mate as soon as they reach sexual maturity (i.e. adolescence). Generations are short.
"Genetic evidence, paleontological evidence, biogeographical evidence, and the like. Evolution simply is the best explanation for all the biological data."
Well, I've often stated my own views on that subject–including recently.
"It explains why we have non-functional genes in the same location as the functional counterparts in other mammals, it explains the existence of endogenous retro-viruses."
We need to guard against the temptation of jumping on the bandwagon of fast-moving, highly technical field. Even within the past few years I've seen significant retractions about previous confident claims.
"Its hypotheses are frequently confirmed (pace the frequent creationist claim that evolution is untestable), as in the case of the discovery of Tiktaalik, an ancient intermediate fossil, whose location was predicted by evolution."
Evolution "predicts" intermediates. But creationism doesn't deny ecological intermediates. And Tiktaalik has been analyzed in the creationist/ID literature.
"I rule out a shortsighted God by e.g. ontological arguments about a greatest possible being."
i) Even assuming the ontological argument is broadly sound (Which version? Anselmian? Leibnizian? Gödelian? Plantingian?), that requires subsidiary arguments to prove what makes certain attributes great-making attributes.
ii) Moreover, the evidence of guided evolution must be counterbalanced against evidence to the contrary. You can't treat the alleged evidence for evolution as the standard of comparison, then automatically dismiss counterevidence. For the evidence itself doesn't furnish a standard of comparison. You could just as well take the counterevidence as your standard of comparison.
"No, it was intended to show that evolutionary history doesn't solely appear unguided, but that there are also cases where species got surprisingly lucky. However, I reject that we can deduce design and guidance from either lucky breaks or unfortunes in history. It depends on what is God's goal, and I think you'd agree that God didn't intend to create a utopia."
ii) Likewise, why assume evolution is guided in the face of such an apparently haphazard and slipshod process?
"Indeed, not everyone's fate is as happy as ours, but I wasn't meaning to establish teleology from solely one happening."
You're talking about entire hominid species or races becoming extinct–just to further the goal? Aside from the inefficiency, isn't that pretty ruthless? Is that just a business expense, like the high mortality rate of serfs conscripted to build St. Petersburg?
"If misfortunes in evolutionary history reveal a divine absence, then misfortunes in human history should likewise."
Evolution isn't revealed dogma. It doesn't merit the same appeal to divine inscrutability. If you say evolution is a guided process, but you automatically discount empirical evidence to the contrary, then your position is arbitrary and fideistic.
"If hostility to Christianity explains the prevail of evolutionism, then why are most scientists willing to accept that there currently is no theory of the origin of life?"
Not for lack of trying.
"Also, many evolutionists are Christian."
They've been given an interpretive framework. They see the evidence filtered through the grid.
"Why do you think evolution is such an accepted scientific theory, having been exposed to so much confirmation and peer-review?...Tunnel vision is corrected by the sheer number of scientist, all of whom have different views and are in different situations, thus furthering their sole unifying cause, namely scientific knowledge. Of course, it probably isn't perfect, but surely it sufficiently safeguards the objectivity of the scientific enterprise."
You have a backwards notion of peer review. In the nature of the case, peer review enforces ideological and institutional conformity. Those who buck the system are banished to Siberia. Look at how entrenched global warming became.
"I'd add that the occurence of evolution therefore is evidence of some sort of intentional agent behind it."
Do you assume that if an airplane crashes, that must be due to intentional agency rather than mechanical error? You seem to begin with outcomes, then simply assume intentional agency must lie behind the outcome.
"but I don't see how it would actually get off the ground as a serious scientific theory unless there were something to back it up."
That assumes evolution is a serious scientific theory, which begs the question. It's certainly taken seriously by many. But, then, so is ufology.
steve9/19/2013 6:59 PMKaffikjelen
"My evidence that God guided the evolutionary process is: 1. evolution is true, and 2. Christianity is true. If Christianity is true, man isn't an accident."
That's illogical. God could be deistic. Or God could make nature an adaptive, stochastic system that takes on a life of its own.
"I rule out a shortsighted God by e.g. ontological arguments about a greatest possible being."
Assuming evolution is true, why should we only infer God's character from a priori arguments rather than a posterior effects like natural history?
"No, it was intended to show that evolutionary history doesn't solely appear unguided, but that there are also cases where species got surprisingly lucky. However, I reject that we can deduce design and guidance from either lucky breaks or unfortunes in history. It depends on what is God's goal, and I think you'd agree that God didn't intend to create a utopia."
You have a schizophrenic position. You think we should both judge and not judge the natural record by appearances. On the one hand, you think we should judge the nature record by appearances insofar as it (allegedly) bears witness to universal common descent by macroevolution. On the other hand, you don't think we should judge the nature record by appearances insofar as it bears witness to dysteleology, lack of foresight, lack of planning. On the face of it, natural history (a la evolution) bears witness to a God who's improvising on the fly. If evolution is goal-oriented, then then God is a poor marksman. To all appearances, he must be using nature for target practice to improve his aim. He keeps missing the target. Learning by trial and error. And a slow learner at that.
"If misfortunes in evolutionary history reveal a divine absence, then misfortunes in human history should likewise. God didn't share with us his reasons for permitting the Holocaust, and similarly, I don't need him to tell me what his purposes behind every seemingly non-ideal occurrence of evolution were."
If God used the process of evolution to eventuate man, then why were his means so ill-adapted to his ends? Why so many blind alleys, dead-ends, washed-out bridges, and cul-de-sacs?
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