Comments on McLatchie and Swamidass

@jordan,

In order to avoid some confusion, let me return to the thought experiment of God eating breakfast:

if he uses one hand to feed Himself… and then the other hand to feed Himself… they are both examples of God feeding Himself. Yes?

But they are not the same thing. And even if He should use both hands simultaneously, to put some bacon in his mouth with his left, and to put some sausage in his mouth with his right, they are still separate things, even if they happen at the same time.

So … YES… I am treating them as two separate ways for God to create.

@Jordan,

I would want us to keep track of what is “detectable”, and what can be “interpreted” or “understood”.

The Resurrection of Jesus would be detectable by science:
i. pulse? Check!
ii. heart beat? Check!
iii. Brain waves? Check!

But that is not the same thing as “natural”. And just because something is not currently natural, doesn’t mean it might not eventually be categorized as “natural”.

One category of “supernatural” that we can use that would be slam-dunk would be:

“Any initial cause performed by a deity or immortal being, but not extending to the natural processes that the initial cause might trigger.”

Using this approach, Behe’s “set up” of the Billiard Balls by God would be super-natural, but not the resulting natural processes the set up triggers.

And lastly, HOW OFTEN does God perform such “super-natural” events (sometimes referred to as Miracles) is a matter of denominational preference, or personal preference.

The Dino-Killing Asteroid could have been created (post-Big-Bang), but sent on its terminal trajectory by being hit by another asteroid (as programmed before the Big Bang).

Or the Dino-Killing asteroid may have been programmed for creation prior to the Big Bang.

Either way, at some point the results of the collision certainly seem amendable to analysis by science.

We have common ground here that everything is designed by God.

The question is not if an artifact is designed it is if there are aspects of the artifact the lends itself to design detection. Again, simply evidence of design.

@colewd,

Then why does Behe argue that Polar Bears (and, thus, by implication, most of the animal kingdom) have DEVOLVED?

Adaption is more likely a result of breaking or blunting genes. It is a product of how the genome is designed.

You have no evidence any genome was designed. You lose.

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Well, scientists might not be impressed, but economics runs the world .
And if theology is like it…

Mike Behe links Darwinian evolutionary theory to economics in his book. :slight_smile: