On Theistic Evolution
November 7, 2014
MIKE writes:
Maybe it’s a sign of a deep spiritual deficit, but I’ve never understood the point of view that the idea of a universe created by God is mutually exclusive to the idea of biological evolution. For the people who strictly put their belief in evolution, the theory isn’t and never will be broad enough to rule out a divinely created world or a personally interested God. The people that strictly put their belief in creationism overlook the fact that evolutionary theory has been accurate enough to make useful predictions about the world we live in. I’d be interested to read your thoughts on how and if it’s possible to reconcile the two opposing points of view.
Laura writes:
“Evolution” is a term with a popular definition and meaning. It is tempting to use it loosely and consider it broad enough to encompass a form of creationism, but in doing this one either confuses the issue or ends up embracing Darwinism. As Alan Roebuck wrote at View from the Right in 2007:
“Evolution” is a slippery term that can refer to any kind of change over time. But that’s not the “evolution” that is being disputed. What we’re talking about here is Darwinism, which by definition is a theory of change that was not caused by any intelligent agent, not even in a mysterious way detectable only by religion.
To use the term “evolution” for modifications within species through natural selection is to associate this idea of gradual development of species with a full-blown naturalistic theory as to the origin of life.
Darwinism evolution is not unique to the modern era. Classical philosophers were familiar with the concept and medieval theologians grappled with it. As Richard Dawkins, the popular Darwin apologist, put it: “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.” This is referred to as the “blind watchmaker thesis.” Natural selection is the blind watchmaker.
In his book Darwin on Trial, Phillip E. Johnson explains why theistic evolution does not make sense:
Metaphysics and science are inseparably entangled in the blind watchmaker thesis. I think that most theistic evolutionists accept as scientific the claim that natural selection performed the creating, but would like to reject the accompanying metaphysical doctrine that the scientific understanding of evolution excludes design and purpose. The problem with this way of dividing things is that the metaphysical statement is no mere embellishment but the essential foundation for the scientific claim. This is because the creative power of mutation and selection is never demonstrated directly; rather it is thought to exist by necessity, because of the absence of a more satisfactory alternative. If God exists, on the other hand, and has the power to create, there is no need for a blind watchmaker mechanism to exist — and the lack of evidence that one does exist becomes worthy of notice.
Lawrence Auster wrote in 2006:
This “stochastic” idea is apparently that God could plant all the apparently random mutations in the mix which would still lead to fish and spiders and birds and chimpanzees. And I repeat, if the “randomness” was created by an intelligence to have certain results, then the process is not random, even if it appears random to us.
This idea is exceptionally hard for people to get, for two reasons: one, because it is so simple; and two, because they want so strongly to believe both in God and in Darwinism, and this idea precludes that. If the mutations occur randomly, then there’s no intelligent purpose behind them. If there is an intelligent purpose behind the mutations, then they are not random. Any definition of randomness that is used to get around this fundamental logical contradicton is not honest in my opinion.
Mr. Auster refutes theistic evolution elsewhere in his many posts on Darwinism.
— Comments —
Roland D. writes:
I strongly recommend Darwinian Fairytales: Selfish Genes, Errors of Heredity and Other Fables of Evolution, by David Stove.
Nov. 23, 2014
Mike writes:
Thanks for your recent post in response to my mail. I’m still digesting the bulk of what you linked, and I’m sure that I will be for some time to come. In the interest of a timely response, there is at least one issue that I’ll comment on immediately.
One of the common objections to evolution relates to the idea that objects of greater complexity can arise naturally from objects of lesser complexity. This is contrary to intuition, and seemingly contrary to established science like the second law of thermodynamics. One of Mr. Auster’s commenters, Rose, asks the question: “Has there ever been a scientific test in which randomness results in improvement? ” –[1]
Fully outside the domain of evolution, the answer to Rose’s question is that there are indeed scientific and mathematical approaches that rely on randomness to produce better results. The technique of simulated annealing is one such example. Given an initial state, simulated annealing uses a random process to guide the movement of a system from one state to the next, an evaluation function guiding the random walk through the state space. Done properly, this produces a better result at the end of the annealing process than at the beginning, and it can achieve this with less effort than more direct approaches.
This idea that systems can have inherent self organizing properties with emergent complexities has also been demonstrated in other domains. Another mathematical model that demonstrates this is John Conway’s ‘Game of Life’. [3] Without getting into too many details, the game of life is simple enough to contain the rules on an index card and be played by hand, but powerful enough to be a universal computer and exhibit self-replication. A huge amount of complexity followed from a “trival” set of of initial rules. It’s notable that John Conway designed his game to be a universal computer, but a proof of this fact didn’t follow until 10 years later and self-replicating structures in the game took 40.
The reason I mention both of these examples is to observe that there are many non-obvious aspects to randomness, organization, and complexity. Randomness can be used to find order, and rules that seem simple can behave in quite complex fashion. As a result, I tend to be cautious of arguments that something is too complex to be possible, including arguments against evolution. The biological world is far more complex than any human creation, but any evolutionary process has had far more resources with which to have done its work.
That said, Mr. Auster argues that Darwinism and God are mutually exclusive.
“By definition if something occurs randomly, then it is not being directed by any mind or intelligence. In relation to any given phenomenon, random causation and teleological causation are mutually exclusive.”
In short, randomness cannot have a role in the creative process, because randomness excludes direction by a mind or intelligence. I find this argument questionable. The use of techniques like the simulated annealing I mention above are good examples of an intelligent creator using randomness to achieve a specific, planned outcome. The path to the outcome is random and there are random elements within the outcome, but the fundamental nature of the outcome is set at the beginning by the creator. Randomness is a tool that can be used creatively, and if it’s available to humanity I hesitate to say that it’s not available to God.
