Bill Cole's Case For Design

The way I see it… one of the things required to take this discussion forward is to find out exactly how to incorporate scientific evidence into a theological understanding without slipping into some kind of Scientism. And to be seen to do that.
The problem with Biologos is that they seem to slip into Scientism without even realising it
This is a serious concern for me.

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I hope you see something different with me.

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Yes I do… and I am sure others are noticing it too…

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See @gbrooks9? It is important. Thanks @Ashwin_s.

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Ashwin and I were both asking scientific questions in an evolutionary discussion around whether or not narrative being presented had explanatory evidence to be an accurate description of how something came to be, or if it was merely speculation. The opinion seemed to be presented as well-established truth, but it was not clear. Ashwin, who has much more knowledge than I have, clearly articulated an objection over it being presented as such (well-established truth) and suggested that it was, instead, unsupported narrative tacked on to the end of a conversation. Neither of us were discussing love notes from God, fiat acts of creation, or blindly crediting God with performing these acts. We were merely discussing whether or not a statement was supported by evidence or not.

People have the prerogative to respond or not as they see fit. In fact, topics seem to close automatically if there are no responses. Similarly, they remain open if there is more disagreement. Most every professional is willing to take on a certain amount of charity work to pay it back. If you or Joshua see Joshua’s engagement with me (the unwashed masses) as a burden, my apologies to him and to you, too.

I could be wrong, but I see Peaceful Science as a place where people who do not agree on all points can exchange information (peacefully and openly) and hopefully come to a greater mutual understanding. If I’m wrong, and it instead is a place where all who agree can pat one another on the back, then I’ve clearly misunderstood the purpose.

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You are correct.

That is not really what happened.

@T_aquaticus summarized an immense amount of scientific work in a forum post. @Ashwin_s dismissed it as a just so story. Turns out on the eye we have far more evidence here than can be explained in a single forum post. As I said we will cover some of it later. It is not an unsupported narrative at all.

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@Ashwin_s,

Indeed! Because BioLogos doesnt endorse a specific Creation scenario, it finds that disputing with Either/Or factions is a reasonable application of its mission: convince the “Only Special Creation” types that ID (belief in God’s actions being visible to Science) is wrong. This is how to promote “Only Evolution” factions.

And so to repeat the same fixation here at PeacefulScience is what we should avoid.

We can discuss it… but always as a side discussion.

Unlike at BioLogos, the Christians here should be uniformly supportive if God-Guided activity (whether detectable or not)… and ready to investigate God’s use of more than one way to create humanity.

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I think it would be interesting to try and reconcile all the protein coding DNA sequences required to create a light sensitive spot and how that originated.

Here is a key clue. There are a large number of ways of detecting light, so most of the proteins have no homology except in closely related species. In fact it is almost default for proteins to respond in some way to sun light. It is not difficult at all to find a protein with rudamentary ability to detect light.

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It is however difficult to get that protein to translate that light detection into a reliable signal to be interpreted.

Turns out it’s not nearly as hard as you might think. Have you processed the article on cancer yet? @Michael_Callen were you going to post questions one by one on that?

@swamidass,

See how easy it is for YOU to be forced into the role of explaining evolution to Creationists.

I suppose there is SOME amount of this you will always feel obligated to provide.

But conceivably, this can easily be 90% of your time… which is not that different from the 100% of BioLogos’ time.

Seems a shame that you had to separate from BioLogos … only to spend MORE of your time doing this than you were personally doing before.

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I just read it but probably need to read it again. I posted a comment on the post you generated about me. It is well documented that cancer is caused by the up regulating of developmental pathways and almost all the cascade of events can be reconciled to that action as far as I can tell.

It’s far deeper than that. They are promoting a world view where scientific understanding of things are applied to metaphysics and theology without any serious thought/examination of the validity of the science if we are willing to consider options that are outside science.
I don’t think Science has any authority to speak on what God can or cannot do. If it wants such authority, which many scientists seem to want… then they need to change their methods and be willing to incorporate God into their investigations or be upfront a out the limitations of their claims.
It’s a simple distinction. All scientists have to do to avoid ID type discussions is be honest and upfront about the limitations of their understanding.
For example,instead of using words like random/chance etc… use unknown causes (this is what it means anyway most of the time). Why confuse the issue with a language which can and will be misunderstood.
For example random mutations becomes… mutations whose cause is not known.

Only if we ignore how the functional information is generated to produce this group of proteins and their ability to interact.

Exactly

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I agree. Which is why help from @T_aquaticus, @Dan_Eastwood, @Argon, and @glipsnort is so appreciated. I never expected to have to leave.

Just do the translation in your head, and explain it outside science. This really isn’t that hard. You can’t change science, but you can help others hold it in a different way.

I just don’t get the constant complaints about this. Science is a different culture. Let it go. Embrace the work of translation.

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If scientists want to talk to the general public… they could consider doing the same.
Afterall, scientists are a small community and it should be easier for them to learn to communicate clearly as opposed to teaching everybody else a new language.
Besides, I am not entirely convinced all scientists mean “unknown reasons” when they mention “random”… Some like Richard Dawkins seem to actually think it means “blind chance”.
A very high % of the discussions on science here involve people talking across each other because they have encountered terms like random used to mean “blind chance”.
There is a lot of baggage involved in these discussions. I am just suggesting a way that will clear the air totally and bring most objections to a screeching halt. Whether to use it or not is up to you guys… :smiling_face:.

@Ashwin_s

I don’t follow your reasoning here.

Can you give an example of BioLogos using science to apply to Theology? I dont recall any example of that!