It is only when we look at the finished product, that we stand back and say—how amazingly creative those brush strokes turned out to be.

An interesting choice for an analogy . Thought provoking.

So I would have to say that in the absence of a finished product we lack any reason to believe that natural selection is creative or has any creative power whatsoever. And yet, isn’t the idea of a finished product inherently teleological? In evolutionary theory there is no such thing as a finished product, it’s all a work-in-progress.

Does the fact that we can look at something and see it as a finished product speak at all to the failure of evolutionary theory to conform with reality?

It seems to me that the view that Darrel has regarding natural selection is that it is teleological. That God uses natural selection to bring about finished products. It is purposeful, and not blind. Mutations are not random and unguided. If I am wrong, Darrel, please adjust my thinking.

To return to the analogy which Darrel offered, let’s say our aspiring artist is blind. We provide her with a number of canvasses upon which she places a brush stroke. So now then, what can we do that is analogous to natural selection? CAn we have another blind person select out some of these canvases and discarding others, and then use the selected canvasses to repeat the process? Return them to our artist, have our blind artist place another brush stroke, repeat, etc. (Isn’t each one, in reality, a finished product?)

I wonder what our expectation would be that we would ever actually see anything that we would think was designed. Could we distinguish paintings made by an artist who was not blind, which were not selected by a blind man, from the paintings that were the result of this blind, chance process? Could we, perhaps, detect design? If so, HOW?

My guess is that we could and that it would have something to do with complexity and specification.

IOW, our brush strokes by different artists and different forms of selecting the survivors is a revealing analogy for how random mutation and natural selection can be shown to be powerless and how design detection is empirically possible.

I’m wondering if you could please tell me what you think the extent of our ability to detect design in nature is. That is to say, do you think that there is any aspect of nature that could be best explained as the result of intelligence? Furthermore, do you think that we are even capable of inferring design in nature, or are you a strict epistemic materialist (at least insofar as ID is concerned)? If this is the case, then why do you think it is so? I apologize if you’ve already answered these questions; just refer me to your answers if you have. Thank you for chatting with us here.

You’ve asked how I could say that natural selection was creative, and you’ve said (in another thread) that since it involves such tiny steps, doesn’t this mean that there is nothing creative about it at all.

Actually, I have had a little difficulty understanding your point, since you made it in the other discussion thread. Here’s why: when an artist makes a stroke with the paint brush, we would be able to analyze it and say “Nothing creative about that….looks like a streak of paint to me.” It is only when we look at the finished product, that we stand back and say—how amazingly creative those brush strokes turned out to be.

Natural selection is just “brush-strokes.” Almost all biologists believe that the magnificent “painting” that is this planet’s 30,000,000 species is a result of individual strokes carried out by natural selection. Many of us who are Christian biologists believe that God was intricately involved in this “natural” process and we wish that non-believers would come to see that it happened because of God’s guidance and Presence. But still there is no denying that it is the most magnificent “painting” imaginable. That’s also why I think the word “tremendous” is a great word to use for the power of natural selection. Whether materialists are right about absence of God’s supervision of this process, or people like me are right, the point is still the same, the result is tremendous.

You have asked how God could be involved in a process that is supposedly random. My answer simply is that it is not random. Having said that, you know what I need to add next: the non-randomness may not be measurable and may not even be scientifically detectable (sorry you must be getting tired of me saying that) as a supernatural presence influencing the course of natural selection. Key mutations might occur, for example, because of God’s supernatural presence. Key events (a meteorite, perhaps) might occur under the influence of God’s supernatural intervention. (Is that why the dinosaurs went extinct allowing the mammalian line to flourish???) Despite what you read on this blog the data in support of natural selection giving rise to macro-evolution is over-powering (I’ve recommended key books previously.) However, it is occurring in the context of God’s Presence.

The best analogy for me to explain what I mean is the Holy Spirit working in your own life as a believer. Can you measure that? Can you prove, for example, that a Christian relationship which matures into marriage does so because of God’s Presence in the life of each person? To the outside observer, it might well be consistent with random events…each “just happened” to attend the same function…and each just happened to sit next to each other…etc. Some would look at the events and describe them as pure chance…but to the Christian it occurred under the guidance of the ever-present Holy Spirit.

Just as God works in our lives, just as God worked in the nation of Israel during Old Testament days, so also I believe that God works in the natural history of life on earth. Today, all these years later we can’t prove scientifically that Israel survived as it did because of God’s Presence and leadership. But now as we look at the finished product and, by faith, accept the biblical account, we shake our head in amazement at the way God worked things out for those descendents of Abraham and Sarah. So it is with life’s history. Biology makes it very clear (see Ernest Mayr’s, “One Long Argument,”) that natural selection occurred. What Mayr wasn’t able to see was that God was influencing the process whenever and however God chose to do so…just like God did for Israel and just like God does in your life as a believer.

Thanks for giving me one more chance to try to clarify my view.

I don’t mean to pile on. But I have raised this before, so I think it’s fair to raise it again. If you don’t want to respond that’s fine. But please at least think about the issues raised.

I believe that God uses natural selection to accomplish God’s creative purposes.

You keep saying this and I keep questioning it . In what way is natural selection a creative force? I keep trying to get the point across that natural selection is not a creative force, but it doesn’t appear to have registered yet. Natural selection, as we all know, acts as a sieve. It merely leads to greater or fewer numbers of already existing varieties. It doesn’t create anything new at all. In fact, many would argue that natural selection is not a cause, but an effect.

Natural selection is a tremendous environmental cue…

Please explain. How so, and wht do you mean by tremendous? What I mean is, it seems to me that selection must be very slight, and not “tremendous.” What are some average selective values? What happens in the face of tremendous selective values?

p.s. I had posted an apology to you over in the other thread. It was not my intent to call into question your faith.

Is this belief based on any evidence?

Imagine a (hypothetical) computer/program that can open-endedly generate ever-changing, and generally ever more complex “apparent designs” starting from “completely simple” initial conditions, with only a (pseudo)random number generator and a few rules of interaction of virtual “particles” controlling the evolution of the internal state of the program. All that one must do is press “Start” and wait a few minutes, and this automatically starts to happen. Each time the program is run, something different happens, and the programmer/user has no idea what will occur.

At the start:
* No goal, either explicitly or implicitly included in the code.
* No intentional setting up of replicators, either explicitly or implicitly (by rigging the initial conditons, i.e., front-loading). Because of the particular settings of the key constants, they just “happen” occasionally (or at least once) by chance, given the right state of the program.
* No endowing of the replicators with particular faculties, either explicitly or implicitly. They gain all faculties by random variation (mutation/recombination/etc.) and natural selection.

Now this is the essence of Evolutionâ„¢. (Acknowledging that the universe is obviously vastly more powerful than any possible man-made computer.) There’s never been a working demonstration of it — all proposed demonstrations of “Darwinian evolution” violate one of the three bulleted items — but there it is.

In what way would the creative purposes of the maker/programmer/user of the computer/program be considered accomplished through it, when he had no idea what would result? How can any of the entities that result be considered to be “in his image”?

–”What reason do you have to conclude that if the universe and life were designed that it must be the same designer?”

No, I don’t say that they do, but you stated that you are comfortable with the idea of naturalistic evolution, but simply think there was intervention in our case, and you would like that to be kept separate from fine-tuning of the universe. In fact, I find the idea of intervention by other planetary beings very intriguing; I think there’s a fair amount of evidence for it. However, it does nothing to solve the problems with origin of life and diversification of species.

–”Arguments about the origin of the universe by design do not “muck up” my views. I see naturalist and supernaturalist explanations for the origin of the universe to be mostly religious in nature, but not scientific because they cannot be tested. Since multiverses and gods are supposed to be outside our universe, we can’t do research on them.”

The problem for me is, most people write in this vein, and I find it hard to respond. I don’t consider God to be outside the universe or supernatural. The concept of supernatural just can’t find a place in my mind, except perhaps for recognizing that nature-as-matter cannot cause itself.

–”I never said anything about aliens. It seemed that Bill Dembski was able to separate the two and not let his religious beliefs make him assume that they must be the same entity:”

Sure, he seemed to have angels or something like that in mind. Thanks for the link. But what do you have in mind? Why do you think there was intervention in our case?