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“Darwin’s Divisions”

William Dembski
May 30, 2006
Intelligent Design
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Darwin’s Divisions
BY FR. MARTIN HILBERT

Philosopher of science and Catholic priest Martin Hilbert explores the church’s role in discussing science and Darwinism using the recent comments of Popes, Cardinal Schönborn of Austria, and the head of the Vatican Observatory, Father George Coyne, S. J.

The church would do a great disservice to believers and to humanity as a whole were it to remain silent when science tried to pass off as fact an unsubstantiated theory. To criticize Darwinism, as the three popes and the cardinal have done, is not meddling in a neutral science. It is preserving intact the deposit of faith, which says some very definite things about the origin and fall of man, by rejecting theological claims made in the name of science that science itself cannot sustain.

To read all of Darwin’s Divisions, click on the link below:
http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=19-05-028-f

Comments
"Are we not about objectively detecting design, rather than protecting modern or ancient edicts?" These are not necessarily mutually exclusive persuits. Authenticity experts make a living at detecting the origin of a work by finding telltale signatures that confirm or reject the orginator. Information Theory could provide new lexical authentication detectors. A good control group would be authors and their books. If we could authenticate books by categorizing their information signatures to their authors, then we would have a very, very, very good (not perfect) means of authenticating the originator of life. For example, Ancient hebrew (and greek) and the genetic code both have alphabets of 22 characters. This provides a baseline at least for doing comparative analyses. If we were to detect identical signatures (information conservation patterns?) within both texts, would this be akin to "knowing his voice?" If we believe that life is designed, and even futher believe that life originated by spoken word, why shouldn't we be listening for the voice of the creator in genomic data? Is this another possible reason such extreme care has been taken in preserving biblical texts? Could we call such a project the Search for Intelligent Design Information (SIDI@Home?)Am I advocating some sort of SIDS@Home screensaver? If we claim that genomic data and the Word of God are of the same origin, then authenticating one to the other would be akin to "knowing his voice". Jhn 10:4 And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice.Collin DuCrâne
May 31, 2006
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Why is it that natural selection discourages inefficiency, but when one needs to argue against an intelligent designer one has no problem finding many examples of inefficiency in nature?Mung
May 31, 2006
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When intelligent and engaging people grapple with ID, we ratchet down the rhetoric. And we need more grappling with the claims science makes against faith that science itself can't sustain. It seems Darwinsists are claiming ID presupposes God exists, while Darwinsism claims it doesn't presuppose anything about God. If you look at Darwinist claims, however, they presuppose God as the ultimate Straw Man--misrepresented so he can be handily refuted.kathy
May 31, 2006
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this is the part i really liked: "Coyne may not explicitly deny that religion has objective truth claims. But his insistence that the church give biology the sole right to determine whether man’s spiritual nature can arise out of secondary causes is tantamount to relegating theology to the status of an emotional reflection on the world as it really is. That is, among other things, to deny that Christianity offers man a revelation of truths he cannot know on his own." says a lot very nicely. this article is important in that it clarifies how much at odds Fr. Coyne is with orthodoxy. Just say "No" to NOMA.jacktone
May 31, 2006
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“Are we not about objectively detecting design, rather than protecting modern or ancient edicts?” Absolutely! But those of us who don’t demure to ecclesiastical authority past or present should still be glad when we see those same authorities confront and grapple with ID. It means we’re making an impact. And it seems to me that it’s good to have everyone in on the debate. If the churches remain silent then the public is lulled into complacency. An outsider can be forgiven for judging Christendom as deeply sick, and here Hilbert is helpful: “Many people who do not see any problems with reconciling Darwinism and Christianity have endorsed the common tendency to view science as rational and religion as emotional.”Rude
May 31, 2006
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re: comment #4 "I must admit I found this article rather verbose, and wholly unsuitable for the lay press. It sounded like it supported ID, but in fact it was supporting Church doctrine, not the science of ID. I do not feel that this is the way to go. Are we not about objectively detecting design, rather than protecting modern or ancient edicts?" I only read about 2/3 of the article. But I don't think the author is "supporting ancient edicts". Rather, he's addressing faulty logic and reasoning by those who claim that whatever scientists say about human origins will always be in harmony with religion.russ
May 31, 2006
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I must admit I found this article rather verbose, and wholly unsuitable for the lay press. It sounded like it supported ID, but in fact it was supporting Church doctrine, not the science of ID. I do not feel that this is the way to go. Are we not about objectively detecting design, rather than protecting modern or ancient edicts? I think that FR. MARTIN HILBERT would do well to read Dr Dembski's essay on Christian Theodicy at http://www.designinference.com/documents/2006.05.christian_theodicy.pdf .idnet.com.au
May 31, 2006
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For those who are not already aware of him, I really enjoy the writings of Stanley L. Jaki.Mung
May 30, 2006
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Amen to that, Gil. I really enjoyed the article. I wonder if the New York Times would ever publish it. *g*Mats
May 30, 2006
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Martin Hilbert is an extraordinarily bright, articulate, insightful and wise man.GilDodgen
May 30, 2006
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