Evolution v Creationism (Part II Responses) (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, September 16, 2014, 12:52 (3503 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

TONY: Yes, but in science, when the facts don't fit the hypothesis, you are supposed to alter the hypothesis in order to explain the facts, discarding the old hypothesis, or at least the parts that don't fit.-An excellent summary of how the theory of evolution keeps getting modified. And also of why the Church discards those parts of its hypothesis that don't fit the facts (or what we now think are the facts). The sun does not go round the Earth, the Earth is not 6000 years old, and oops, evolution is a more logical explanation of life's history than separate creation.
 
TONY: Far be it for me to require evidence for a scientific hypothesis to be accepted as fact! I don't know what I was thinking. -You're right to complain if the evolutionary hypothesis is described as fact. I was reprimanded for doing so early on in the life of this website, and have avoided doing so ever since. What is the evidence supporting the hypothesis of separate creation? Nothing definitive, or it would be called fact. We believe in the theories we find convincing, or we remain open-minded. I find the theory that all organisms, except the very first, descended from earlier organisms irresistibly logical, but remain open-minded as to how its mechanisms came into being and how they work. However, I can easily resist the logic behind your non-response to my question whether God controls the environment or notHW: If he does, and his purpose was to create humans to be “stewards of the earth”, why didn't he just fiddle around with the environment and with those creatures he deemed necessary for humans? If, however, he has no control, and had to wait for the environment to be right, then clearly this would put his plans at the mercy of Gouldian chance.
TONY: You are falling back into the Houdinni Djinn line of reasoning. Physical matter obeys physical laws. What would happen to the Earth if we instantaneously raised the temperature 20°? What if we instantaneously changed the atmospheric composition to .01% Oxygen?... [etc.]-You won't find this line of reasoning in any of my posts. On 12 September I wrote: “Wearing my theist's hat, I would object very strongly to the finger-snapping image. I would see God as a scientist, not a magician.” For God to create a mechanism (David prefers a programme or a system) enabling organisms to evolve requires science, not magic. We agree that the environment (local and universal) is a crucial factor in what forms of life can be supported. So does God control that environment? We're not talking about instantaneous this and that. If you believe he created the natural laws that govern matter, do you believe he was incapable of manipulating that matter scientifically for his “purpose” without first creating and killing off billions of species? You seem to think his purpose was to make way for humans. (“When they had fulfilled their purpose they were allowed to die off and the creatures needed for the next stage of development were created”). So could he not have prepared the planet for human habitation without separately creating the masses of species now extinct? At least an evolutionist can argue that without earlier forms of life, there could not have been humans, but according to you, God made us separately anyway, so we didn't need all those billions of antecedents. (None of this is a criticism of God, by the way. I'm questioning your interpretation of your God's actions.)-You say, with characteristic honesty, “One of the key points of being a theist is trusting that God knows what he is doing”, but then you gear the rest of your argument to what you think he was doing. So tell me straight, why do you think it was impossible for God to produce humans without first specially creating and killing off, let's say, the trilobites?
 
Here's a different theistic explanation: God scientifically created the mechanisms for life and evolution to see what they would lead to, and he also created various unpredictable environmental factors that would result in an unpredictable variety of life forms. The trilobites and dinosaurs were unlucky, but there you go, guys, that's life. No magic. Just a different interpretation of God's motives.
 
As I see it, some theists regard evolution as a threat, not to their belief in God, but to their anthropocentric interpretation of life's history and to their particular image of God. That is perhaps why David, who believes evolution did happen, is forced to invent a 3.7-billion-year computer programme for every innovation and wonder, hiding somewhere in the genome.
 
Your master chef analogy is ingenious and is fun, but your master chef did not create the ingredients. His actions are dictated by all the restrictions and properties already present in them. And so if God is your master chef, he has to fit his recipes to what is already available, as opposed to creating the ingredients for what he wants to cook. To put it more bluntly: in your analogy God is not master of the universe, and so the arrival of man depended on chance to provide the environmental ingredients. Hence the higgledy-piggledy bush of evolution.