Theist, Agnostic, Atheist: Will the Real Charles Darwin Please Stand Up?
| November 11, 2009 | Posted by Flannery under Atheism, Darwinism, Religion |
When history imitates game show . . .
Somtimes history imitates game show and no more so than when we try to guess at Charles Darwin’s religious beliefs, for surely there are more ideas on Darwin’s convictions (or lack thereof) in this regard than perhaps any figure of the modern era. Darwin, in his various comments on religion and God, could have been a one-man “To Tell the Truth” stumper on the question of his own beliefs. A brief review of the many conclusions offered in this regard will serve to make the point.
Some , like Alberto Kornblihtt, rather naively claim, “Darwin believed in God and his body is buried in Westminster Abbey.”1 The standard rendering of Charles Darwin’s faith, however, is that it was a slow imperceptible slide into unbelief. On that we have Darwin’s own word. On religious matters he said, “I found it more and more difficult, with free scope given to my imagination, to invent evidence which would suffice to convinced me. Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress.”2 And so it has come down to us to this very day. The standard view of Darwin is that he slowly, reluctantly abandoned Christianity first and later–much later–all belief.
This received canon notwithstanding, others are less convinced. Stanley Jaki has noted: “The publication in full of Darwin’s Early Notebooks forces one to conclude that in writing his Autobiography Darwin consciously lied when he claimed that he slowly, unconsciously slipped into agnosticism. He tried to protect his own family as well as the Victorian public from the shock of discovering that his Notebooks resounded with militant materialism. The chief target of the Notebooks is man’s mind, the ‘citadel,’ in Darwin’s words, which was to be conquered by his evolutionary theory if its materialism were to be victorious.”3
The radical deism of his grandfather Erasmus matured to a quiet atheism in his father Robert, and as a boy the Unitarian instruction of young Charles devolved to his sisters. Introduced to radical freethinkers as a teenager in the Plinian Society during his abortive attempt at pursuing a medical career at the University of Edinburgh, we find him taking almost naturally to the skepticism of David Hume (1711-1776) and the positivism of Auguste Comte (1798-1857).4 No wonder Janet Browne admits that “Darwin was profoundly conditioned to become the author of a doctrine inimical to religion.”5 Darwin claims to have started out as a theist when writing Origin of Species, but then asks rhetorically, “can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animals, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions?” and concludes, “I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic.”6
But can we really leave it at that? In the end, can we conclude that Darwin, in a hopeless theological muddle, simply settled on uncertainty in this question? Some who read his Origin would have accepted perhaps a different designation. Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873) blasted Darwin’s theory. Accepting Darwin’s evolutionary ideas threatened, according to Sedgwick, to “sink the human race into a lower grade of degradation than any into which it has fallen since its written records tell us of its history.”7 Charles Hodge (1797-1878) agreed. Whatever Darwin’s personal religious faith may or may not be, he insisted, Darwinism is Atheism.8 So what are we to make of Darwin? Theist, Atheist, Agnostic: Will the real Charles Darwin please stand up?
On balance, the historical evidence suggests that Darwin’s religious views always tended toward some form of theistic nihilism. Darwin was always careful to keep any teleological implications out of his theory even when couched in befuddlement:
With respect to the theological question. This is always painful to me. I am bewildered. I had no intention to write atheistically. But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I wish to do so, evidence of design and benificence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. . . . I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance. 9
Again he wrote:
The old argument from design in Nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. . . . There seems to be no more design in the variablity of organic beings, and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.10
And he was emphatic not to be misunderstood on the teleological question:
For brevity sake I sometimes speak of natural selection as an intelligent power; in the same way as astronomers speak of the attraction of gravity as ruling the movements of the planets, or as agriculturalists speak of man making domestic races by his power of selection. In the one case, as in the other, selection does nothing without variability, and this depends in some manner on the action of the surrounding circumstances on the organism. I have, also, often personified the word Nature; but I mean by nature only the aggregate action and product of many natural laws–and by laws only the acertained sequence of events.11
It is clear that when Darwin viewed nature God was not there. In fact, for Darwin man was mere animal, different in degree certainly but not in kind. As for the complex emotions often associated with reverence for God, Darwin saw parallels in the “deep love of a dog for his master” and “of a monkey to his beloved keeper.”12 “The idea of a universal and beneficent Creator,” he insisted, “does not seem to arise in the mind of man until he has been elevated by long-continued culture.” In short, God is the invention of man not man the creation of God. All this tends toward atheism. But to view Darwin simply as an atheist and leave it at that seems too simplistic. After all, he claimed to be an agnostic. Why not take his word for it?
The problem with simply calling Darwin an agnostic is that agnosticism means many things. Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895), in fact, coined the word to distance himself from charges of materialism and even atheism. But it became a failed strategy as agnosticism soon came to have a wide range of connotations in public discourse and common parlance. Even Lenin noticed the miscarriage stating that “in Huxley agnosticism serves as a fig leaf for [his] materialism.” Indeed by the end of the 19th century agnosticism had come to mean different things to different people. Many simply regarded agnosticism as a kind of uncertainty about God’s existence; hypothetically any agnostic might be swayed into belief by reason and argument. At first blush one is inclined to associate Darwin with this brand of agnosticism. Darwin, after all, was always a minimalist in his negation of God. However, he never felt a direct attack was necessary because he, like Huxley, believed that all talk of God and deity was beyond human understanding. Darwin adhered not to a weak form of agnosticism that says merely, “I don’t know if there’s a God because I’ve not seen sufficient evidence for Him,” his was a much stronger form of agnosticism that argued God was unknowable–all God-talk was ultimately, for Darwin, nonsense. It is this epistemological certainty that makes this a strong version of agnosticism. So here’s the problem: simply calling Darwin an agnostic is not specific enough because it leaves the two forms (the strong and the weak) ambiguous.
Well known historian of science Maurice Mandelbaum (1908-1987) understood this. In an interesting analysis of Darwin’s religious views, he noted, “In the end his Agnosticism was not one brought about by an equal balance of arguments too abstruse for the human mind; it was an Agnosticism based on an incapacity to deny what there was no good reason for affirming. Thus, those who, at the time, regarded Agnosticism as merely an undogmatic form of atheism would, in my opinion, be correct in so characterizing Darwin’s own personal opinion.”14 Darwin as “undogmatic atheist” came as close to the truth as anyone had been able to come in the century since Origin appeared.
But perhaps another designation would be even more precise or at least equally useful in this regard. Scottish theologian Robert Flint (1838-1910) offered a term of his own that comports well with Darwin’s position. He wrote:
The atheist is not necessarily a man who says “There is no God.” What is called positive or dogmatic atheism, so far from being the only kind of atheism, is the rarest of all kinds. It has often been questioned whether there is any such thing. But every man is an atheist who does not believe that there is a God, although his want of belief may not be rested on any allegation of positive knowledge that there is no God, but simply on one of want of knowledge that there is a God. If a man have failed to find any good reason for believing that there is a God, it is perfectly natural and rational that he should not believe that there is a God; and if so, he is an atheist, although he assume no superhuman knowledge, but merely the ordinary human power of judging evidence. If he go farther, and, after an investigation into the nature and reach of human knowledge, ending in the conclusion that the existence of God is incapable of proof, cease to believe in it on the ground that he cannot know it to be true, he is an agnostic and also an atheist, an agnostic-atheist–an atheist because an agnostic. There are unquestionably many such atheists. Agnosticism is among the commonest apologies for atheism. While, then, it is erroneous to identify agnosticism and atheism, it is equally erroneous so to separate them as if the one were exclusive of the other: that they are combined is an unquestionable fact.15
Flint’s important study of Agnosticism offers an insightful and useful designation in the term agnostic atheist. Nick Spencer’s recent article in The Guardian (interestingly cited approvingly on Richard Dawkins’ blog May 21, 2009) noted a problem with the overly simplistic use of the term agnostic. “Attitudes are fine,” he suggests, “but they need to be about something. Adjectives need nouns. If Huxley was indeed an agnostic, he was an agnostic atheist, tending away from the divine but unwilling (so he claimed) to be too dogmatic about it.” And so too with Darwin.
Perhaps more importantly Darwinism is suffused with agnostic atheism. Edward Larson is right in concluding that, “For Darwin, differential death rates caused by purely natural factors created new species. God was superfluous to the process.”16 Darwin never argued against God in any of his works, including Descent of Man, only against the necessity of God. This minimalist formulation is powerful in its dismissiveness of deity and thus forms an essential (though not necessarily sufficient) foundational premise for secularism. It was–and is–atheism but always of a distinctly undogmatic stripe. When the liberal Victorian clergy rushed to support Origin, Darwin was quick to respond. The Reverend Charles Kingsley (1819-1875) approved of a theistic brand of Darwinism, and sure enough it soon found its way into the very next edition of Origin in January of 1860 (and every subsequent edition thereafter) as having the approbation of a “celebrated author and divine.” When Harvard botanist Asa Gray (1810-1888) supported his own theistic version of Origin Darwin compiled his warmly supportive reviews and published them as Natural Selection Not Inconsistent with Natural Theology. A Free Examination of Darwin’s Treatise on the Origin of Species, and of Its American Reviewers in 1861. Publication expenses were completely borne by Darwin. As Benjamin Wiker points out in his incisive The Darwin Myth, it’s not that Darwin actually agreed with Gray; his private correspondence is replete with his polite objections to Gray’s theistic additions. Nevertheless, “he had no qualms about using Gray’s argument if it would smooth the way for acceptance of his theory. Once the theory was accepted,” Wiker adds, “the theistic patina would be ground away by the hard, anti-theistic core of the argument.”17 The point is it would be wrong to interpret Darwin’s willing inclusion of Kingsley’s religious support in Origin or his eager approval of Gray’s theistic reviews of his work as evidence of his matching belief; Darwin was always more than willing to set his hard agnosticism aside in the interest of promoting his pet theory.
So what are we to make of Darwin’s religious beliefs? There are five possibilities:
- Darwin was a religious believer. This is hardly supportable by any historical evidence whatsoever.
- Darwin was an agnostic. This is true as far as it goes, but the term itself is too vague and diverse in meaning to be of much use and, in fact, may leave seriously misleading impressions.
- Darwin was an atheist. This is also true insofar as his theory tended to support atheism but probably goes too far in relation to Darwin himself for it implies a dogmatism ill-suited to his subtler and more pragmatic nature. For all of Richard Dawkins’ effusions on behalf of the Down House patriarch, Darwin would likely have found Dawkins’ approach crude and unappealing if not downright appalling.
- Darwin was an undogmatic atheist. This apt phrase suggested by Mandelbaum is descriptive of Darwin’s belief and approach but must be reconciled with his own claims to being “an Agnostic.”
- Darwin was an agnostic atheist. This comes closest to encompassing the range and character of his beliefs and it comports to his theory as well.
So, in the end, I’m willing to accept either Darwin as undogmatic atheist or agnostic atheist. The dual attribution of “atheism” shows the common ties that bind. But please let’s not wallow in codswallop about Darwin as a “sincere religious believer” whose eventual conversion to a more hardened agnosticism was late in life and reluctant.18 The notebooks demonstrate quite clearly Darwin’s religious skepticism and materialistic propensities as early as age 28, ideas he had been introduced to as early as age 17 as a Plinian. The Plinian Society was telling for Darwin. Despite his casual dismissal of them in his Autobiography, Darwin was exposed some of the most radical freethinking of day at those meetings. Darwin was always careful to conceal this fact because its revelation would have made plain the philosophical template through which he would make all his observations while voyaging on The Beagle. In short, the metaphysic preceded the science.
Is Darwinian evolution compatible with theism? It surley was never intended to be and certainly never intended to be compatible with Christianity, though Darwin was more than willing to enlist religious allies on its behalf. Darwin’s materialism would sharpen into the undogmatic atheism or agnostic atheism described earlier but materialism was the template upon which he developed his evolutionary theory to be sure. Whether Darwin was a full-blown materialist or, as Neal Gillespie believes, a positivist influenced by the ideas of Comte is for another posting at another time, but Darwin was most surely not a weak or soft agnostic who abandoned his faith slowly and reluctantly.
So Darwin’s cagey religious minimalism would almost surely have stumped everyone on “To Tell the Truth.” Depending on the question he could appear weakly agnostic or even theistic at times. It is only after looking carefully at his private notebooks and matching his early experiences with his later writings that a coherent pattern emerges. Once identified as an undogmatic atheist or an agnostic atheist the real Charles Darwin can then stand up.
References
1Alberto R. Kornblihtt, “On Intelligent Design, Cognitive Realism, Vitalism and the Mystery of the Reald World,” Life 4/5 (April-May 2007): 235-237.
2Charles Darwin, Autobiography, edited by Francis Darwin (1893; reprinted, Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2000), p. 62.
3Stanley L. Jaki, The Savior of Science (Washington, DC: Regnery Gateway, 1988), p. 126.
4For more on the these influences see William B. Huntley, “Charles Darwin and Daivd Hume,” Journal of the History of Ideas 33.3 (Jul.-Sept. 1972): 457-470; and Frank Burch Brown, “The Evolution of Darwin’s Theism,” Journal of the History of Biology 19.1 (Spring 1986): 1-45.
5Janet Browne, Charles Darwin: The Power of Place (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002) , p. 177.
6Darwin, Autobiography, p. 66.
7Quoted in Browne, Charles Darwin, p. 94.
8Charles Hodge, What is Darwinism?(1874; reprinted, New York: Bibiobazaar, 2007), p. 110.
9The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, v. 2, 105. This problem of pain and suffering is often used by the nay-sayers of theism as a telling argument. Why, they ask, would a beneficent and all-powerful god create a world with so much misery? For a thorough response and a well-grounded theodicy see William A. Dembski’s The End of Christianity: Finding a Good God in an Evil World.
10Darwin, Autobiography, p. 63.
11Charles Darwin, The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, 2 vols. (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1897), 1: 6-7.
12Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man (1871; reprinted, New York: Barnes & Noble, 2004), p. 79.
13Ibid., p. 556.
14Maurice Mandelbaum, “Darwin’s Religious Views,” Journal of the History of Ideas 19.3 (June 1958): 363-387, 376.
15Robert Flint, Agnosticism, The Croall Lecture for 1887-88 (London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1903), pp. 50-51.
16Edward J. Larson, Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory (New York: The Modern Library, 2004), p. 69.
17Benjamin Wiker, The Darwin Myth: The Life and Lies of Charles Darwin(Washignton, DC: Regnery, 2009), p. 109.
18Karl W. Gioberson, Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution (New York: HarperOne, 2008), pp.19-20.
51 Responses to Theist, Agnostic, Atheist: Will the Real Charles Darwin Please Stand Up?
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Why should Darwin’s theological opinions have any influence on this?
Cabal states in response to my request for falsification of the fitness test:
That’s been done. I am certain somebody may provide links.
And why not you? Should you not have hundreds of examples to cite since evolution is so obvious?
Then Cabal asks/sneers:
Let’s see some experimental proof of resurrection too.
How about empirical evidence that it actually occurred?
The Shroud of Turin is one of the most scientifically scrutinized artifacts in recorded history. Through a rigid process of elimination, through all materialistic possibilities, it becomes crystal clear; the way in which the photographic negative, and uniquely three dimensional, image of the man on the Shroud of Turin had to be imprinted was “supernatural” in its process.
The Turin Shroud As A Photographic Negative – video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iA2WCevbXQ
Shroud Of Turin’s Unique 3 Dimensionality – video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8RVPdHMUtc
3D Shroud Of Turin Image & Summary Of Physical Evidence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANtrtQ1j19w
Attempts to reproduce the Shroud all fail:
Experts Question Scientist’s Claim of Reproducing Shroud of Turin – Oct 6, 2009
http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/gets.....ber=98037#
Shroud Of Turin Carbon Dating Overturned By Scientific Peer Review – Robert Villarreal – Press Release video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEJPrMGksUg
etc…etc…
But of course cabal you will just scoff at whatever evidence I produce for the resurrection, but at least I have evidence that you cannot refute whereas you have nothing to falsify the fitness test.
“Darwin has been accused here and elsewhere of being an arrogant Imperialist, a racist bigot, a dishonest plagiarist and an incipient eugenicist and it has been argued that his theory is irredeemably tainted by those alleged flaws. Even if we allow that all the foregoing were true, how would it bear on whether or not his theory was an accurate description and explanation of what was observed?”
It’s a case of ideology taking over where rational thinking should prevail. People who are racist bigots and who favor eugenics promote Darwin’s theory as agreeing with their worldviews.
Science is objective; scientists, including Darwin, are not. Everyone has a bias for one thing or another; it’s when you allow those biases to cloud your research that you get into trouble.
bornagain77,
Direct experimental evidence for evolution, inside and outside of the lab, has been published thousands of times. It’s not hard to find, so I’ll give you a little time to find it for yourself. Keep me posted!
Can one believe in ETs and be a member of good standing in the scientific community?
jitsak, well I have looked, but since you think that we are all IDiots anyway on UD, why don’t you just cite one single experiment? Since you probably have several experiments you can rattle off the top of your more highly evolved brain.
“Direct experimental evidence for evolution, inside and outside of the lab, has been published thousands of times. It’s not hard to find, so I’ll give you a little time to find it for yourself. Keep me posted!”
I am sure you will find that all is micro evolution and which is not under any type of dispute. These are stupid claims made by those who do not understand the debate or made in desperation by those who do understand it and know they have no evidence.
If there were anything of substance it would have been heralded by thousands before this inane assertion was made. But their silence is deafening.
Flannery,
Again, why is it even relevant that the theory of evolution was “no intended” to support intelligent design? Neither was the theory of gravity or relativity, but those fit quite nicely with an intelligent design mindset. I have no trouble reconciling these various ideas with one another.
Saying that one cannot “shoehorn” one’s philosophical viewpoint into the theory of evolution is akin to saying one cannot “shoehorn” their views in to fit with gravity or relativity. I feel some of the commentators here are making a distinction that need not be made. Given that theism is infinitely more malleable than either agnosticism or atheism, it’s striking that you would view fitting TE with evolution as a gargantuan task. Ken Miller seems to get along fine.
Bornagain77, would you mind posting scholarly articles regarding the hypothesis of Genetic Entropy? As an agnostic intelligent design advocate, I do not take seriously Youtube videos from WordOfLife and random nonsense from Answers In Genesis. Thanks in advance.
Sorry, that should read “not intended” to support Intelligent Design.
Leviathan,
I didn’t say Darwinian evolution was not intended to support ID (though that is true), I said it wasn’t intended to support theism. Ken Miller tries, but his arguments either compromise theism, Darwinism, or (sometimes) both. I heard him speak last week and the man can’t even give a decent definition of ID! Miller’s efforts at fitting Darwinian mechanisms into a theistic framework wind up being an effort at jamming the square peg into the round hole. The reason is that Darwinian evolution (unlike other forms of evolution, for example, propounded by Mivart or Wallace that are not absolutely restricted to methodological naturalism) is hidebound to a highly restricted view of science, a uniformity of natural causes in a closed system). All major scientists prior to Darwin, from Newton and Kepler to Vesalius and Harvey, believed in the uniformity of natural causes; what they did NOT believe in and would have found utterly bizarre is the notion that science exhibits a uniformity of natural causes in a closed system. This addition was the product of Darwin’s committment to positivistic approaches and materialism. His philosophy dictated how he pursued his science. The are absolutely linked, and that’s why it matters.
So the real issue isn’t evolution but DARWINIAN evolution because it is based upon flawed philosophical assumptions, which make for flawed scientific practice. For more on this read William Lane Craig’s “Naturalism and Intelligent Design,” in _Intelligent Design: William Dembski & Michael Ruse in Dialogue_, edited by Robert B. Stewart, pp. 58-71.
O’Leary @ 27
No, he was not.
The worst that can be alleged against him is that he was a child of his times, as we all are, and could not help but absorb some of the prejudices of his culture.
Against that, once again, he was a staunch opponent of slavery, for example, which is more than can be said for a substantial body of Christian thought at that time who, according to believers here, ought to have known better.
There is no evidence of plagiarism outside the impregnable prejudices of the conspiracy theorists and even his critics concede he would have been horrified by the excesses of the subsequent eugenics movement.
There has been a mass of evidence accumulated in support of the theory of evolution in the years since Darwin published it. Simply refusing to look a it does not make it go away. And, even at its weakest, it is still vastly more than exists for Intelligent Design.
As for science education, nobody is being forced by law to believe in the theory of evolution. What is required is that, if you study biology, you should learn about the theory, understand what it claims and the nature of the evidence by which it is supported. If you reject it on theological grounds, that is your choice, but it is a part of the science curriculum because it is a part of the science.
There was survey of science teachers which found that around a third did not mention evolution in science classes for fear of being bullied by students, parents and even school administrators or because they had actually been bullied.
Are you really arguing that only theologically-acceptable science should be taught in schools?
Are you familiar with the name Trofim Lysenko?
Flannery @ 31
Is it indeed? So you are saying that Darwin is lying?
If that is the case then what shall we say of the theological, philosophical and political perspectives that inform the views of historians and do they render the implied objectivity of their critiques equally fictional?
Yes, it was proposed as a scientific theory. It was intended to explain how life on Earth had diversified and spread after it had appeared. It said nothing about theology or morality because that was not its purpose.
As for whether it can be accommodated within Christian theology, that is for the Christian concerned. All that need be observed is that, if there is an all-powerful and all-knowing God, it would be presumptuous, to say the least, to tell Him what he can and cannot do.
Gruber was a psychologist studying Darwin’s notebooks as part of his research into human creativity.
As for the discrepancy between Darwin’s notebooks and his formal presentations, that is standard practice in science. Research papers and theories are written up in a carefully-organized and highly-stylized format which does not reflect the much more haphazard ways in which human beings actually do such work and is not intended to. In any event, what makes historians or psychologists any better qualified to decide good scientific practice than scientists themselves?
Indeed? May I refer you to the phrase “cdesign proponentsists”?
No one denies that research into the detection of intelligent design, regardless of the nature of the designer, could be a good scientific program. But it is disingenuous, to say the least, to pretend that the religious and political roots of the movement do not exist.
As for trying to spin Darwin’s working habits, probably quite common among scientists, into the “rather shady methodological development” of his theory, that is propaganda rather than history and unworthy.
jerry at 38:
bornagain77′s claim was that no evolution had ever been demonstrated, period. You know better than that, so take it up with born.
You make a more specific claim–that all demonstrated instances of evolution are cases of micro evolution, as opposed to macro evolution. May I ask where you draw the line between micro and macro?
jitsak, states:
bornagain77’s claim was that no evolution had ever been demonstrated, period. You know better than that, so take it up with born.
Well Jistak since we are dealing with science and you have yet to show a single example that violates the fitness test, the question that should be asked is WHY are you insisting evolution is occurring when all examples fall under the principle of Genetic Entropy. Is it unreasonable of me to call a spade a spade? All I ask is that you clearly show me an increase in functional complexity of bacteria that passes the fitness test against the parent strain. I am being fair as can be and you think me an idiot? Why do you not question the ability of evolution to generate functional complexity the same way I do? You should be absolutely giddy with excitement to honestly seek this stuff out fully so that you may know with certainty if nature created you or if God created you! Why do you bluff your evidence instead?
One word, BA^77: Nylonase
WOW Doomsday, let me think about that for a minute,,, Jeopardy theme music in background:
Some materialists also believe they have conclusive proof for evolution because bacteria can quickly adapt to detoxify new man-made materials, such as nylon, even though it is, once again, just a minor variation within kind, i.e. though the bacteria adapt they still do not demonstrate a gain in fitness over the parent strain once the nylon is consumed (Genetic Entropy). I’m not nearly as impressed with their “stunning” proof as they think I should be. In fact recent research has shown the correct explanation for the nylon-eating enzyme, produced on the plasmids, seems to be a special mechanism which recombines parts of the genes in the plasmids in a way that is non-random. This is shown by the absence of stop codons, which would be generated if the variation were truly random. The non-randomness and “clockwork” repeatability of the adaptation clearly indicates a designed mechanism that fits perfectly within the limited “variation within kind” model of Theism, and stays well within the principle of Genetic Entropy since the parent strain is still more fit for survival once the nylon is consumed from the environment. (Answers In Genesis)
Why Scientists Should NOT Dismiss Intelligent Design – William Dembski
Excerpt: “the nylonase enzyme seems “pre-designed” in the sense that the original DNA sequence was preadapted for frame-shift mutations to occur without destroying the protein-coding potential of the original gene. Indeed, this protein sequence seems designed to be specifically adaptable to novel functions.” http://www.uncommondescent.com.....nt-design/
In fact almost all “changes” in the genome, which are deemed to be “beneficial”, are now found to be “designed” changes that still stay within the overriding principle of Genetic Entropy:
Revisiting The Central Dogma (Of Evolution) In The 21st Century – James Shapiro – 2008
Excerpt: Genetic change is almost always the result of cellular action on the genome (not replication errors). (of interest – 12 methods of information transfer in the cell are noted in the paper) http://www.uncommondescent.com.....revisited/
This overriding truth of never being able to violate the Genetic Entropy of poly-constrained information by natural means applies to the “non-living realm” of viruses, such as bird flu and HIV, as well:
Ryan Lucas Kitner, Ph.D. 2006. – Bird Flu
Excerpt: influenza viruses do possess a certain degree of variability; however, the amount of genetic information which a virus can carry is vastly limited, and so are the changes which can be made to its genome before it can no longer function.
http://www.answersingenesis.or.....it-evolved
The virus is far more complex than most people have ever imagined:
Virus – Assembly Of A Nano-Machine – video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ofd_lgEymto
For materialists to conclusively prove evolution they would have to violate the principle of Genetic Entropy by clearly demonstrating a non-teleological gain of “non-trivial” functional information bits (Fits) over the parent species (Abel – Null-Hypothesis) in a fitness test. Materialists have not done so, nor will they ever. The interrelated complexity for the integrated whole of a life-form simply will not allow the generation of complex functional information to happen in its genome by chance alone. (Sanford, Genetic Entropy 2005)
“There is no known law of nature, no known process and no known sequence of events which can cause information to originate by itself in matter.” Werner Gitt, “In the Beginning was Information”, 1997, p. 106. (Dr. Gitt was the Director at the German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology) His challenge to scientifically falsify this statement has remained unanswered since first published.
etc…etc…etc..
So doomsday do you want to try two words instead of just one word?
As in claims like, “an intelligent designer/creator would never have done it this way?”
BA^77 @ 47:
No.
Seversky @ 43
Four points:
1. “If that is the case [that Darwin lied] then what shall we say of the theological, philosophical and political perspectives that inform the views of historians and do they render the implied objectivity of their critiques equally fictional?”
We shall say two things, Seversky: 1) in many (if not most) cases the theological, philosophical and political perspectives flowed from the science after the research not into it before the research. Darwin’s problem was that he attempted to craft an all-explanatory theory that would support his positivistic assumptions. In short, the “science” was a veneer to cover his metaphyical commitments (order is everything), most others, unlike Darwin, are willing to admit that their science has certain implications along these lines, some, like Wallace, take considerable time to explain precisely what aspects of their science suggest a grander metaphyic to them; and 2) the mere fact that Darwin was disingenuous in revealing the metaphyical underpinnings of his “science” should not impugn the objectivity of all inquiry as you imply, that’s simply a nonsequitur and a category mistake.
2. “Yes, it [Darwin's theory] was proposed as a scientific theory. It was intended to explain how life on Earth had diversified and spread after it had appeared. It said nothing about theology or morality because that was not its purpose.”
If you honestly think that Darwin’s Descent of Man (the second book covering his “one long argument”)has nothing to say on theology or morality, you really need to read it again!
3. Your third comment implies that Gruber, a psychologist, is not himself a scientist; a curious claim indeed. As for “the discrepancy between Darwin’s notebooks and his formal presentations, that is standard practice in science.” Well, let’s hope not! Gruber wasn’t talking about a reordering or repackaging of data; yes that is INDEED done all the time, but he was saying the methods found in the notebooks didn’t support the methodology he publicly presented to his peers. THAT’S a serious problem. That’s not spin, that’s fact suggested by many others besides me (and not all ID proponents): Gertrude Himmelfarb (1959), Howard Gruber (1974), Stanley Jaki (1988), R. F. Baum (1988), David Stove (1994), Benjaim Wiker (2009).
4. “No one denies that research into the detection of intelligent design, regardless of the nature of the designer, could be a good scientific program.”
Really!? They deny it all the time! Just last week I heard-out of Ken Miller’s own mouth-that research into the detection or detectability of ID had no merit and was programtically illegitimate.
What is quite clear to me is that no amount of evidence, no argument, nothing outlining the obvious discrepancies between Darwin as self-promoted and Darwin as evidenced in the primary resources and in his own actions will be sufficient to convince you that your emperor wears no clothes. And at that point, what more can be said?
I have come across a new book entitled “Extraterrestrial Intelligence: Amazing New Insights from Qur’an…” It quotes extensively from Qur’an to prove in an extremely amazing and convincing idiom that biological evolution isn’t at all at variance with the true teachings of the Qur’an. The book is available online at HarperCollins’ website Authonomy: http://www.authonomy.com/ViewB.....okid=11309