No George. Science is neutral on whether or not God is involved in natural selection and other natural processes.
Here is a proposal for you to use: Why don’t you say "it is hypothesized that God guides natural processes, therefore if this were true then …
I think a better proposal:
As Christians, we can take this as a God-Guided system, these two processes are mostly overlapped!
He is pointing to a theological model that is consistent with science, and not making a scientific claim.
I would edit this to:
As part of my Christian beliefs, I take this as a possible God-Guided system where these two processes are mostly overlapped.
You’re still not getting my point… I deny that there is something called “the” scientific theory of evolution. There are many competing scientific theories of evolution. They all assume common descent, but Shapiro’s theory is different from Coyne’s is different from Gunter Wagner’s is different from Lynn Margulis’s etc. Larry Moran regularly chides various evolutionary theorists on his blog post, saying, “Evolution doesn’t work that way; it works this way…” He is saying that these other people don’t correctly understand the mechanisms of evolution. But if the proposed mechanisms are different from theorist to theorist, then to that extent the theory is different from theorist to theorist as well. You are collapsing all the various proposed mechanisms as if they fall into one tidy, coherent package, called “evolutionary theory”. But evolutionary theory is in ferment right now, and which mechanisms are to be included, and their relative weights, are heavily contested. There was an old joke that if you asked ten economists for their analysis, you would get eleven different answers. That’s almost true of evolutionary theory today, regarding mechanisms.
I shouldn’t need to prove this, to someone who is a biologist and implies that he is up on evolution. It’s quite obvious that Craig Venter’s attack on the idea of a “tree of life” (which offended Dawkins) and his intimation (going beyond even Darwin) that there might have been scores or hundreds of different starts of life, constitutes a different view of evolution than that of classical neo-Darwinism, which assumed only one original form or a most a very small number. It’s also quite obvious that Shapiro’s emphasis on genomic self-engineering is not shared by all evolutionary biologists, and while there is now wide agreement that a considerable portion of evolution may not be “under selection”, the amount of evolution that is under selection is not agreed upon by all, not by a long shot. Is there a consensus that 50% of evolution is under selection, and the rest is not? Or is there a consensus for 80/20, or 20/80? No, there isn’t.
(By the way, an aside about Larry Moran. He’s one of the most opinionated people on the planet on the subject of evolution. He once admitted on his site that he himself has not published any articles on evolutionary theory in a peer-reviewed journal. According to you, if it’s not published in a peer-reviewed site, it’s not science. So would you say that Larry Moran’s discussions about evolution – which many in these blogosphere debates seem to regard as authoritative – are “not science”? Just asking. 
)
When I read the writings of the actual specialists in evolutionary biology, the people who are hired by Yale, Chicago, etc. to research and teach in evolutionary biology, I find that “consensus” regarding mechanisms eludes these people. It’s only in the blogosphere, where people, often not scientists, or if scientists, not necessarily biologists, or if biologists, not necessarily specialists in evolutionary theory, talk sweepingly about “modern evolutionary theory” or “the theory of evolution” as if it is seamless, unitary, and without any division into camps or factions. So when I see that kind of language, I always suspect I’m not talking to a specialist, but to someone like myself, who may know more of biology than I do, but still isn’t au courant with the journals and the debates specific to evolutionary theorizing.
Of course not. Your original point was that ID and creationist people made too much of a fetish of Darwin, as if his particular theories in the 19th century were important. My point was that this same fault you find in the ID people, of drawing attention to Darwin’s particular person or views, is found in the TE writers, who make Darwin himself the center of discussion. And have you not heard of “Darwin Day”? It’s a celebration heavily promoted by scientists, atheists, TEs, liberal clergy, etc. What is that but a massive cultural celebration of “Saint Darwin”? Why don’t we have a “Newton Day” instead? He was much more worthy of public adulation. Or a “Galileo Day” or a “Kepler Day”? My point was a simple one: the focus on Darwin is not something invented by ID folks. Darwin has been a name to conjure with, or curse against, since 1859. But this is a side-point, really; we should get back to the main issues.
The place to find ideas about that are in good writings by informed people about the relation of theology and science. And those people aren’t Applegate, Falk, Venema, Haarsma, etc. They are people like Ian Barbour, Robert John Russell, Alvin Plantinga, etc. – scholars specifically working in the area of theology and science, not evangelical scientists who speculate loosely based on the most superficial understanding of Christian theology, and avoid scholarly study of the primary sources like the plague.
If you want a good blog which introduces these issues – and then refers you to a mass of good literature – again I recommend the columns of Jon Garvey on Hump of the Camel. He tries to do what BioLogos promised to do, but never delivered on – relate Bios to Logos.
That does not follow. To say that “random mutations filtered by natural selection” is not an adequate explanation for evolution is not to say that there aren’t random mutations and that there isn’t natural selection. It’s simply to deny the sufficiency of neo-Darwinism. But already neutral theory denied the sufficiency of classical neo-Darwinism. Its sufficiency has also been criticized from an evo-devo point of view, by Shapiro, by Margulis, and many others. That is what the Altenberg conference was about. That is what the Third Way people are about. That is what the conference in England last year was about. No one is saying that mutations random in your sense play no role in evolution. No one is saying that natural selection plays no role in evolution. But there are more players in the game now. The day when Dobzhansky, Mayr, Gaylord Simpson, and Julian Huxley could snap their fingers and expect all of evolutionary theory to fall into line – that day is long over. Evolutionary theory has now become a dialogue between competing emphases; it’s no longer a unitary orthodoxy. And that new openness is all to the good of science, because classical neo-Darwinism was shallow, narrow, and suffocating. Orthodoxies in academia usually are.
Random mutations with respect to fitness are not inherently godless.
No, I’m not interested in starting such a thread. I was merely trying to give you some food for thought on the subject, since you seem (in my view uncritically, but some may differ) to accept the professional party line and to over-value peer-reviewed articles in relation to generally intelligent discussions which may not be peer-reviewed but may still be very relevant and insightful, and also may come from less hidebound and freer intellects. We philosophers have an unbreakable habit of casting doubt upon professional party lines. We’ve been doing it since Socrates first questioned the Sophists.
All of the (real) competing theories of evolution in the scientific community involve random mutations with respect to fitness. This is a basic mechanism of the theory that isn’t under any serious question by anyone, other than those who are ideologically driven to reject evolution (as in the case of Shapiro).
Horizontal genetic transfer has been known about for decades and has nothing to do with the randomness of mutations. What Behe and others are rejecting are the mechanisms that everyone (>99%) agrees are a part of the theory.
And there we are again with the comparisons of evolution to a religion which tends to argue against the claim that ID supporters are only trying to focus on the science. This type of argument really doesn’t help their appearance to the scientific community.
The recommendations are appreciated, but it the questions I asked seem central to the theme of this topic. How does Natural Theology deal with these seemingly random processes? I am by no means saying that if something is random the God is not guiding it. Rather, I am asking how you or others deal with these issues within Natural Theology.
Random mutations with respect to fitness are a necessary part of any adequate explanation of evolution as determined by the vast majority (>99%) of the scientific community. It is this mechanism that ID supporters are rejecting, so I don’t see how they can say that what they are proposing is evolution.
Found this at Biologos https://discourse.biologos.org/t/alex-berezow-and-stephen-meyer-talk-about-god-and-evolution-on-the-michael-medved-show-the-biologos-forum/796/185
Eddie and I have a lot in common.
Eddie in a reply to Swanidass I found this https://discourse.biologos.org/t/alex-berezow-and-stephen-meyer-talk-about-god-and-evolution-on-the-michael-medved-show-the-biologos-forum/796/185. They hid every post you made. Where you later banned from Biologos?
I accept the re-wording @Swamidass. It makes the point more on point. Your grasp that this is a THEOLOGICAL discussion is gratifying.
I see no qualifications you need to sustain the context in a God-Led context. You are watering down the message of PeacefulScience.org… by relying on a technicality… while never including narrative to support the technicality.
This is interesting. In my anecdotal experience, the three kinds of people who keep talking about “Darwin” are
In other words, the word “Darwin” almost always has an ideological connotation when used today. Therefore, we shouldn’t be careful to lump especially categories 1) and 3) together - I think it is wrong to say that that scientists and TEs in general heavily promote things like Darwin Day which have an atheological connotation. The perception that science is heavily atheistic is quite common among people who are sympathetic to ID, YEC, or others, and ironically it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy - few Christians end up going into science because they fear it. In reality, most scientists don’t really care what you personally believe in as long as you’re doing your science in an acceptable way. (Perhaps the climate is very different in biology vs. physics.)
On the other hand, whenever I read serious biologists and scientists without a religious/anti-religious axe to grind, they seem to never talk about Darwin, because Darwin’s theory of evolution is outdated by now and the science changes according to the evidence - it is different from an ideology or school of thought (Kuhn notwithstanding). It’s similar to how physicists don’t talk about “Maxwellianism” or “Einsteinism” but simply “electromagnetism” and “special relativity.” Therefore, when someone starts to critique “Einstein” instead of “special relativity” it is very likely that they are a crank of some sort.
I’m all for a Higgs Boson Day on the 125th day of the year.
I totally agree.
Without any animosity directed towards Darwin, associating modern understanding and outreach on evolution with him is counter productive.
I also totally agree. Darwin is a great scientist who lived 150 years ago. Modern understanding of evolutionary science is far from what Darwin started. Darwin continues to be recognized as one of the greatest scientists up there with Newton and Einstein. But bringing up Darwin in a discussion of today’s evolutionary science would be like bringing up Alexander Graham Bell in a discussion of my smart phone.
Somebody quoted this at BioLogos. I reviewed the entire Laudate 'Si here. Francis is, indeed, a less than rigorous thinker - much to the frustration of Catholics like Ed Feser - but what is missed by ECs are the Thomistic nunaces of his statement.
So “autonomy”, in this passage, means not independence, but the laws of the natures of creatures enabling theme to realise a “potency” to become some other life form. In other words, he is saying that evolution is an inbuilt power, like that of generation. That is proved by his later condemnation of the kind of autonomy man takes on himself to go against natural law and God’s will.
Now, that is as entirely at odds with open-ended evolution as it is with special creation.
But note also “fullness of being” - again, just froth until you realise it is Thomistic being that is meant, ie God creates all things to tend towards an end good, and providentially “gives being to every reality”, which is not to say that he allows them to exist, but that all particular forms of being are the result of his continued presence.
In other words Francis has given two solid elements to his version of evolution, neither of which stringly affirm design, and both of which are at odds with the current theories of evolution in terms of their open-endedness:
(1) Evolution is an unfolding of the powers inherent in each creature by creation, tending towards the end result, and
(2) God’s ongoing presence is the providential guarantor that these particular ends (ie, specific forms of life), are attained.
There is lots of necessity, but no chance, no natural selction, no random drift mentioned, and that is not accidental.
Surely you didn’t intend to write THIS equation ?
Natural Selection works via randomness… and works even better when God is controlling the process of Natural Selection!
We’re discussing what the Pope wrote, not what you or I believe. And he doesn’t metion natural selection or randomness in this quote, supposedly supporting evolution.