Theological Notebook: The Intelligent Design Court Ruling

[novak]

It's a shame that the reporting on the Intelligent Design court decision that was just handed down--and the case itself, based in the move by Dover, Pennsylvania's school board to set up ID as an alternative to "evolution"--has muddied the waters of the ID conversation by jamming it into the old, tired and misleading category of "science versus

Comments

[lunaedraconis]

but--given that a fundamental aspect of evolutionary theory is the idea that evolution isn't "goal-directed," and is, in fact, completely unpredictable (in the sense that the characteristics that make a given species successful in a given environment aren't predictable), and that part of religion (i know very little about religion, but i think this is an okay assumption) is that god is omnipotent/omniscient/has infinite control over everything, supposing a plan--aren't the two diametrically opposed? i can certainly see that intelligent design/creationism/whatever could accept every aspect of microevolution, but not accepting randomness, to me, signifies that religion cannot accept evolution in its correct form.

[lunaedraconis]

*cannot accept macroevolutionary processes, and therefore cannot accept evolution--sorry--i was tired.

[kesil]

A computer program isn't goal-driven either; it simply executes...the code behind LJ isn't attempting to create a text-based web update medium, let alone a metacommunity of millions of writers and thinkers, but that's the ultimate effect, and of course, the ultimate intent.

That's a less than perfect example as LJ code isn't strictly random (though coding has a lot in common with natural selection), but you can think of at least as many examples as I can in which scientists achieve very specific aims by taking advantage of random processes, with full knowledge of the basic nature of what will be produced. How much more could an omnipotent being do with the same.

Next, if you were an omnipotent being, would you constrict your omnipotence into a linear cause-and-effect-I-say-and-this-is-done mode of creation such is easily grasped by the simple minds of your creations? I wouldn't. Omnipotence, contrary to what so many people intuit, allows for more unpredictability and variation, rather than less

[lunaedraconis]

"A computer program isn't goal-driven either

[nimoloth]

Good point. There's always someone around to twist things to their agenda. I agree with you on this one - evolution does not disprove God, and the existence of God (or otherwise) does not preclude evolution. Unless of course you prescribe to the theory that the world is only about 6000 years old (was that the numeber according to counting ages in the bible?) and was in fact created in 7 days flat. There's a cosmologist in Tenessee that wholeheartedly believes this (at least, that's what he says, but we don't know if it's only because his wife does and he had to convert to marry her...).

[freder1ck]

This opinion piece on NPR was very striking.

some not quite random quotes from the story:
"...even criticized intelligent design theory as nothing less than the `progeny of creationism.' Not so fast. We've heard declarations like that before. Back in the 1920s,..."

"...be called the big bang. At the time, however, many scientists believed the universe had no beginning point; that it was static, neither expanding nor contracting. And..."

and the clincher: "...dogma can be held as easily by the scientist as by the priest."

Social Darwinism has also had a devestating effect on culture.

To say that evolution has no goal is to go beyond the data. Science enables us to discover what happens, but it can't say what the meaning, purpose, or end is.

[lunaedraconis]

You're right that science shouldn't really trespass into the realms of ethics or philosophy. But I think that the idea that evolution has no end goal is something science can and does say (very blatantly, and at the beginning of every into bio course I've taken or heard of.) I tried to explain why this is true in my answer to rightwinger up above, but it was probably rather bungled.

[novak]

Hey Jen. Yeah, that kind of American fundamentalism flows from a Calvinist theology or theory of Scripture where they see the Scriptures as "inerrant"--that is, incapable of containing error--in all aspects. Thus Genesis 1 must be read as a scientific account in our contemporary sense. The problem thus is, if the Scriptures--with this theory of reading them--could be shown to be wrong in any way, the whole of Christianity comes crashing down: it's all "disproven." In other words, they've intellectually painted themselves into a horrible corner.

While certainly more traditional Christianity reads the Scriptures as containing revealed truths, that's all very much tempered by other factors, and one must read the Scriptures with allowances for their literary forms, historical/cultural contexts, and so forth. So even in antiquity in their separately-composed books "On the Six Days of Creation," both Augustine of Hippo in the Latin West, and Basil the Great in the Greek East both wrote that it was obvious to anyone who studied the

[amea]

We win over Dover, however, for stupid incivilities! Have you been reading up on the (local-for-me) KU controversy? It has physical violence in it!

Uh, I just wrote a post on it at another location and then five minutes later read yours on my friends' page - and linked to it because I thought it was better. I assume that's okay. :D

[rightwinger]

I'm going to have to get an update from the inside there... one of my close friends from SLU (and a devout Catholic) is a graduate student in their science department.

[novak]

Absolutely it's okay: I've done the same without permission, since I presume it's "fair-use" of LJ public posting to do such. I'm glad it was useful: I was pretty sleepy when I wrote it, and was mostly hoping just to see what kind of discussion it might provoke from people who knew more than me about some of this. So to just log in and find 14 responses was pretty gratifying. :-)

[novak]

And no, I'm not too up on the KU material: doing my doctoral exams let me sink into a deeper academic hole than usual. I'll try to keep my eyes open now. I've heard about it, but I've just not been paying a whole lot of attention. I figured that if it was "more of the same" of Creationists in Court, even if it was invoking ID discussions or something new, the results would be more or less the same....

[simeonjawn]

Thanks for posting the Barr article.

[novak]

My pleasure.

[efhayward]

For a more detailed and nuanced account of the trial, I highly recommend an article in the New Yorker I read a couple of weeks ago. I can't remember the author or the exact date of publication, but it ran between the conclusion of the proceedings and the issuance of the judge's order.

The article, and the judge in the latter pages of his decision, do a very good job of portraying just how hysterical -- and politically and financially motivated -- those who tried to "awkwardly force" the issue in this case were. The Board members who tried to impose the curriculum did so in virtual defiance of their constituents and their teachers and at the behest and encouragement of political and legal operatives, although they may have done so unwittingly.

I know it seems brutish and lazy to reduce the debate to the buzzwords heard in TV reports, but in this instance, the debate was initiated in that exact way.

[novak]

I know it seems brutish and lazy to reduce the debate to the buzzwords heard in TV reports, but in this instance, the debate was initiated in that exact way.

Granted. I just wish that the ideas themselves could be more responsibly reported than making them "guilty-by-association" with a group who would use them so poorly. Domestic terrorists invoking the Constitution, for instance, wouldn't be allowed to get away with such in public discourse....