Craig on Wide Teleology

Craig on Cosmic Origins

Whether it's true, the conclusion is fallacious - whoops!

Whilst recognizing the complexity of some of the arguments a little closer to the axis of the conversation, it dawned on me tonight why I have never really cared for the qualm that Intelligent Design is merely dressed up Creationism: religious in nature.

It's called a genetic fallacy, guys. On my side of things, I don't care if Nietzsche, Sartre, Dawkins, Darwin, Satan, and Stalin travel in time to conspire to formulate an argument against the existence of God, or contra the fine tuning of the universe or the apparent design in biology. I care about the content of the argument.

The God Delusion

Archbishop of Canterbury Rejects Creationism, and By The Way I am a Darwinist Too

In my previous post, the full article from which I quoted contained a disturbing comment:

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, made a useful and unequivocal intervention rejecting creationism...

Why the intelligent design lobby thanks God for Richard Dawkins | Columnists | Guardian Unlimited

At first I thought about how sad it is that although there has been ecclesiastical continuity in Augustine's Chair, the men holding positions like the Archbishop of Canterbury have gone quite liberal in order to make Christianity palatable to the mainstream. Personally, I believe in contextualization of Christian truths and ethics. But I do not believe that true propositions ever change. If God created everything, then He did. If He didn't, then He didn't. Let's find out what's true, and believe it! Communicating that truth within different cultural and temporal contexts, and demonstrating its relevance to daily living is something that we have to be constantly reinventing. If we really believe that Christianity is true and valuable, why change it?

That said, I do want to make clear that I believe that there are in fact some details that are up for debate within Christianity. Putting aside the non-negotiables (meaning, propositions that may be debated, but if they are not believed in by person A, then A cannot be called a "Christian" in the traditional sense of the word), we find propositions that are hotly debated among Christians. These include things like whether there will be a rapture, whether Christ will return to set up a Kingdom for the duration of a literal 1,000 years, whether creation was accomplished within six literal 24-hours periods, whether Christ descended into hell while His body was in the grave, whether God's predestination is unconditional, etc.

Anyway, I decided that a half-sentence from a secondary source on a completely different topic wouldn't be enough. I resolved to seek other sources on the matter. So I Googled "archbishop of Canterbury rejects creationism", and found all kinds of articles citing this alleged concession that the man in Anselm's tradition made. Here's the mention of it in the top hit:

Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has rightly called [creationism] “a category mistake” within Christian thinking.

Government department rejects creationist infiltration of science teaching

But there are more. Lots more. Knowing what I do now, I am tempted to be upset that everyone is taking what he said out of context and blowing it out of proportion. But to be honest, I now almost find it cute. When I was young and I caught my brilliant older sister absent-mindedly placing a carton of ice cream in the fridge, I berated her for years. I still bring it up. Why? Because it was the only mistake I had ever seen her make. Finally she called me on it and said that she understood that I want to make myself feel good by reliving the one moment of silly thinking she had ever had, but it was now getting a little annoying for her.

The Archbishop's comment wasn't even as bad as absent-mindedly misplacing an ice cream carton. He was selecting his language carefully to make a point. Was he advocating a stance contra Genesis? Let's take a look at the actual transcript of the interview he had with Guardian:

"AR" is Alan Rusbridger, and "ABC" is Rowan Williams, the current Archbishop of Canterbury.

AR: Are you comfortable with teaching creationism?

ABC: Ahh, not very. Not very. I think creationism is, in a sense, a kind of category mistake, as if the Bible were a theory like other theories. Whatever the biblical account of creation is, it's not a theory alongside theories. It's not as if the writer of Genesis or whatever sat down and said well, how am I going to explain all this.... I know ' In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And for most of the history of Christianity, and I think this is fair enough, most of the history of... Christianity there's been an awareness that a belief that everything depends on the creative act of God, is quite compatible with a degree of uncertainty or latitude about how precisely that unfolds in creative time. You find someone like St. Augustine, absolutely clear God created everything, he takes Genesis fairly literally. But he then says well, what is it that provides the potentiality of change in the world? Well, hence, we have to think, he says, of - as when developing structures in the world, the seeds of potential in the world that drive processes of change. And some Christians responding to Darwin in the 19th Century said well, that sounds a bit like what St. Augustine said of the seeds of processes. So if creationism is presented as a stark alternative theory alongside other theories, I think there's - there's just been a jar of categories, it's not what it's about. And it - it reinforces the sense that...

AR: So it shouldn't be taught?

ABC: I don't think it should, actually. No, no. And that's different from saying - different from discussing, teaching about what creation means. For that matter, it's not even the same as saying that Darwinism is - is the only thing that ought to be taught. My worry is creationism can end up reducing the doctrine of creation rather than enhancing it.

Archbishop of Canterbury | Sermons and Speeches

Wow, what a different story! We see the Archbishop saying things like creationism is not a mere "theory among other theories", that "a belief that everything depends on the creative act of God, is quite compatible with a degree of uncertainty or latitude about how precisely that unfolds in creative time", and finally, "creationism can end up reducing the doctrine of creation rather than enhancing it".

I think it is firstly very clear that the Archbishop affirms the Genesis account of Divine creation, certainly placing him well within the Intelligent Design camp, and maybe even within the Creationist camp. It is not clear whether he personally believes in literal 24-hour periods, or whether God used a system roughly resembling Darwinian natural selection to produce species or kinds. He does seem to be concerned with upholding the "doctrine of creation", and he does grant the scientific validity of Darwinism. Although he literally says "creationism is, in a sense, a kind of category mistake", he goes on to elaborate on what he means by this, which is that "[it's] not as if the writer of Genesis or whatever sat down and said well, how am I going to explain all this". Well, if the writer of Genesis didn't make the story up, Who did? Let's take a hint from 2,000 years of Christian teaching (not to mention thousands of years of Jewish teaching, for that matter) and presume that the very Archbishop of Canterbury himself might actually be crazy enough to believe in something like the Divine inspiration of the Bible! Now we are getting a much different picture of the concessions he made to the Darwinists!

Personally, I have observed that it is no longer really debated whether Darwinian natural selection is a real process that occurs in nature. In fact, it is a very important part of the Creationist's model for rapid speciation. There are also other forces that affect speciation. But most Creationists deny that it is sufficient to increase genetic information or produce different kinds. This is where they part ways with traditional Darwinists, because they then say that the separate kinds were originally created by God.

I happen to be a Christian, a Creationist, an Intelligent Design theorist - whatever. I think that the ID movement is a better way to frame scientific theistic arguments in a secular society, and I deny that the arguments require Christian premises. Nor is the movement synonymous with Creationism. But am I a Darwinist? Kind of. I don't think that humans evolved from primates, I don't think that speciation increases genetic information, and I reject current atheistic accounts for the origin of the universe. But none of that separates me in any critical way from Darwin himself! Call me what you will.

My only question is why we are alerting Dawkins to the fact that he is so helpful to Intelligent Design?

While Dembski and others celebrate the affect Dawkins is having on the Intelligent Design movement, fellow Darwinians rue the wantonly false and boisterous construels of religion that he thinks are helping to advance science. Consider this excerpt:

William Dembski (one of the leading lights of the US intelligent-design lobby) put it like this in an email to Dawkins: "I know that you personally don't believe in God, but I want to thank you for being such a wonderful foil for theism and for intelligent design more generally. In fact, I regularly tell my colleagues that you and your work are one of God's greatest gifts to the intelligent-design movement. So please, keep at it!"

But while Dembski, Dawkins and Dennett are sipping the champagne for their very different reasons, there is a party pooper. Michael Ruse, a prominent Darwinian philosopher (and an agnostic) based in the US, with a string of books on the subject, is exasperated: "Dawkins and Dennett are really dangerous, both at a moral and a legal level." The nub of Ruse's argument is that Darwinism does not lead ineluctably to atheism, and to claim that it does (as Dawkins does) provides the intelligent-design lobby with a legal loophole: "If Darwinism equals atheism then it can't be taught in US schools because of the constitutional separation of church and state. It gives the creationists a legal case. Dawkins and Dennett are handing these people a major tool."

There's no room for complacency, urged Ruse over lunch in London last week. Last December's court ruling against the teaching of intelligent design in some Pennsylvania schools may have been a blow, but now the strategy of the creationist/intelligent-design lobby is to "chisel away at school-board level" across the US. The National Centre for Science Education believes that as many as 20% of US schools are teaching creationism in some form. Evolution is losing the battle, says Ruse, and it's the fault of Dawkins and Dennett with their aggressive atheism: they are the creationists' best recruiting sergeants.

Ruse has got to a reckless stage of his career. He prefaced the essay he submitted for Dawkins' festschrift with the above quote from Dembski and went on to declare that he "felt intensely irritated with Dawkins ... It's bad enough having to fight the enemy without having to watch my back because of my friends." The editors were horrified and ordered a more deferential rewrite - which Ruse duly provided.

Even more reckless, Ruse put on the net an email exchange between himself and Dennett in which he accused his adversary of being an "absolute disaster" and of refusing to study Christianity seriously: "It is just plain silly and grotesquely immoral to claim that Christianity is simply a force for evil." Dennett's reply was an opaque one line: "I doubt you mean all the things you say."

But Ruse has got a point. Across the US, the battle over evolution in science teaching goes on. Just in the past month there have been bills in state legislatures in New York, Mississippi, Nevada and Arkansas promoting intelligent design. Last November the Kansas education board promulgated a new definition of science that allowed for supernatural explanations of natural phenomena. A school district in Kansas rebelled last month, accusing their board of "an utterly false belief that evolutionary science and the scientific method is based on atheistic philosophy. Promoting this false conflict between science and faith erects unnecessary barriers." At the heart of many of these local controversies is the firmly held belief that Darwinism leads to atheism, indeed that it is atheism. Across the US, a crude and erroneous conflict is being created between science as atheism and religion.

Why the intelligent design lobby thanks God for Richard Dawkins | Columnists | Guardian Unlimited

What Atheists Say About Intelligent Design

1. Some atheists say that Intelligent Design is dead. If this is so, then why can't they shut up about it? This is especially ironic, as they turn right around to harp on the fact that they are in the minority, presumably to gain sympathy and pretend that they are so unique and lonely in their genius. Humans have this tendency to want to make themselves out to be victims; it's like, the thinking man's opium.

2. Some atheists say that Intelligent Design is just religiously motivated, dressed-up Creationism. This is not very precise, as Creationism, (along with it's critiques of ID), is the view that everything was brought into existence by a special act of divine creation. Intelligent Design differs from this, as it does not necessarily posit any deity. Rather, ID posits that design by an intelligent entity is a better explanation for the origin of life than untintelligent processes. The difference is significant, because the Creation Science movement never got far, while the Intelligent Design movement has been advanced, even advocated by some atheists and agnostics, with the help of other atheists. In fact, there are even some atheists using the term to describe their message, that humans were intelligently designed by other humans. The fact that many religious people have latched onto it for obvious reasons, or the claim that it has religious implications, has nothing to do with whether the theory is scientifically credible. Intelligent atheists say, 'let's hash it out, not censor it it'.

It seems to me that we all need to put history, statistics, and even implications aside and just find some common epistemological ground, some common goals, and some love, then set out to do good science and good philosophy in the areas of the origin of the universe, the origin of life, and the origin of species. I don't care what the effects or implications of believing in certain propositions are, I care about whether they are true--pragmatism be damned!

Intelligent Design in Peer-Reviewed Publications Despite the Fits of Dogmatic Darwinists

Despite outright denial and dogmatic censoring of legitimate scientific qualms with Darwinism, works supporting the theory of Intelligent Design have in fact been published in many respected, peer-reviewed publications. As to the supposed concessions on this point Behe made in court, examine the manuscript for yourself, or read Dembski's quotes. How did the judge make up his mind? By cutting and pasting an error-filled document from the ACLU, a practice frowned upon by courts. What was that trial about, anyway? Only whether teachers should read the following memo encouraging students to think critically:

The Pennsylvania Academic Standards require students to learn about Darwin's Theory of Evolution and eventually to take a standardized test of which evolution is a part.

Because Darwin's Theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is
discovered. The Theory is not a fact. Gaps in the Theory exist for which there is no
evidence. A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations.

Intelligent Design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's
view. The reference book, Of Pandas and People, is available for students who might be interested in gaining an understanding of what Intelligent Design actually involves.

With respect to any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind. The school leaves the discussion of the Origins of Life to individual students and their families. As a Standards-driven district, class instruction focuses upon preparing students to achieve proficiency on Standards-based assessments.

There is no factual error in the memo, it takes a couple seconds to read, and it promotes clear, rational thinking. Although I think it makes little difference whether students hear such a memo or not, I find it hilarious that hysterical characters in the tradition of Richard Dawkins become irately zealous to maintain their lame critiques of Intelligent Design. The irony, I suppose, is that the ruling may have actually opened more doors for the ID movement.

From "The Sound of Circular Reasoning Exploding"

Recent experiments cause a central tenet of NDE to miss the prediction. Large swaths of junk DNA (non-coding, no known fuction) were found to be highly conserved between mice and men. A central tenet of NDE is that unexpressed (unused) genomic information is subject to relatively rapid corruption from chance mutations. If it’s unused it won’t do any harm if it mutates into oblivion. If it’s unused long enough it gets peppered with mutations into random oblivion. If mice and men had a common ancestor many millions of years ago and they still have highly conserved DNA in common, the story follows that all the conserved DNA must have an important survival value.

A good experiment to figure out what unknown purpose the non-coding conserved pieces are doing would be to cut them out of the mouse genome and see what kind of damage it does to the mouse. So it was done. Big pieces of junk DNA with a thousand highly conserved regions common between mice and men was chopped out of the mouse. In amazement the mouse was as healthy as a horse (so to speak). The amazed researchers were in such a state because they were confident NDE predicted some kind of survival critical function and none was found.

Uncommon Descent: The Intelligent Design Weblog of William Dembski, Denyse O'Leary and Friends

Why is it that predictions made by Darwinian Evolutionists continue to be falsfified?

The information discussed in Dembski's blog was published at here, at NewScientist.com.

Creationism Grounds a Reasonable Environmentalism

[When] it comes to broadening the reach of the environmental movement to red state America, the real savior turns out to be the Rev. Richard Cizik of the National Assn. of Evangelicals, America's most influential Christian lobbying group, representing 45,000 churches and roughly 30 million believers across the country. According to two new documentaries, it is evangelicals like Cizik who may do more to make global warming a front-and-center issue than hundreds of white-wine fundraisers in Bel-Air and Manhattan's Upper West Side.

calendarlive.com: THE BIG PICTURE / PATRICK GOLDSTEIN - Believers preach gospel of green

Genesis 1: 27-28 says "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens nad over every living thing that moves on the earth."

I know of a lady who has dominion over her backyard. She walks out there and says "hello ladies" to her flowers, and smiles. I hear her garden is beautiful. She lovingly waters and feeds her plants, and makes sure to keep the weeds out. She spends lots of time with her backyard. Sometimes she has to cut the rose bushes way back and it almost seems cruel to completely cut off branches and the bushes look barren afterwards, but sure enough they grow back even more full and beautiful.

God pronounced His creation "good" several times. Then He gave us stewardship over it, telling us to have dominion over it, just as He has dominion over us. What a priviledge and responsibility to be faithful caretakers of the earth!

He also made man in His image, and called us "very good", as opposed to just "good". We are set apart from the rest of creation. There is a thick ontological line between man and beast, and between beast and plant, and between plant and earth. Let's not confuse ourselves with nature, but let's take really good care of it.

Anthony Flew, 81 year-old famous philosopher and former atheist on Darwin

It seems to me that Richard Dawkins constantly overlooks the fact that Darwin himself, in the fourteenth chapter of The Origin of Species, pointed out that his whole argument began with a being which already possessed reproductive powers. This is the creature the evolution of which a truly comprehensive theory of evolution must give some account. Darwin himself was well aware that he had not produced such an account. It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design.

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