I was discussing evolution with @John_Harshman. He doesn’t believe in God.
As far as I am concerned, if God directly acted in a way that looks like evolution and the bio diversity we observe in nature is impossible without God’s action, then it’s better to call it intelligent design.
IMO, Evolution as a process should not need God. If it needs God to explain stuff, then it’s not evolution.
If God directly acts through nature, then what we see may be impossible without God. If there is no God, or if God does not in any way act through nature, then what we see does not need God.
There is no known empirical evidence that could distinguish between those two possibilities. That’s why you can have both theists and atheists working cooperatively as scientists to better understand and describe our world.
To paraphrase, scientific theories need to explain stuff without invoking God.
Sure. Not in all cases.
Then we disagree about basic definitions. Carry on.
If a species has been in a stable environment for a long period of time it is going to be well adapted to that environment and very few changes, if any, are going to improve fitness. Therefore, stabilizing selection is going to be the dominant selective pressure. The adaptations the species have are still very effective, and selection is still in effect.
Indeed, it does. This is called a “fitness peak”.
We could use playing cards and poker as a rough model. You start by drawing 5 random cards. You then draw a single card, and if that card improves your hand then you keep it and discard one. If you keep repeating this process your hand will continually improve until you get either a 4 of a kind or a royal flush, and from there on there won’t be any change in your hand because none of the drawn cards will improve your hand. Next, change the rules. The best hand is now a hand with no pairs, no flush, no straight, and the lowest rank possible. Your hand will start to change rapidly once again until it hits the lowest hand possible, and then it won’t change anymore. This is analogous to how evolution works.
Last Thing First: I understand that you don’t live in America. But you need to know that in America, the term Intelligent Design is intimately associated with a political project of some branches of American evangelicalism to teach religion (intentionally or not) in the public schools of the country. It is a hugely controversial and POLITICAL issue.
ALSO, a great many Creationists who zealously support Intelligent Design, don’t accept Evolution at all.
So your recommendation to rename “God-Guided Evolution” by the term “Intelligent Design” is incredibly inappropriate… not only because of the political circumstances, but because this has all been explained to you before.
It is politically IMPOSSIBLE for @swamidass and his supporters to consider using the term “Intelligent Design”; it is the 3rd rail (as in subway train electrical rails!) of American Christianity. So you need to “get with reality” and stop talking foolishness.
Secondly, this is also not the first time that it has been explained to you how mindlessly simplistic you are being when you claim that “Evolution” can’t still be called “Evolution” if God is involved.
The key feature of Evolution is not the lack of deity. The key features of Evolution includes:
[1] variations controlled by genetic information occur by flawed genetic replication in all populations, all the time.
[2] these variations can be beneficial, harmful, or neutral to the individual, and in simultaneously different ways at the level of the population.
[3] when enough variations accumulate in various sub-groups of a species population, reproductive compatibility can be effectively ended between one sub-group or another, and even between one sub-group and the entire species outside the sub-group.
[4] when reproductive compatibility effectively ends (even when there might be some low level of compatibility still available under low-probability circumstances) any given sub-group now isolated from others of its kind can evolve separately from the rest of the species, which can include changes in phenotype that can be considered minor or major.
[5] the principles of common descent are demonstrated in each successive generation of a species, whether speciation occurs or not, but the phrase common descent is especially used when discussing how 2 or more species in one or more time periods ultimately share a “common ancestral population” that may look similar or quite dissimilar.
Adding God into the context as a guiding principle does not in any way eliminate these 5 factors… for these are the 5 factors that embrace the natural processes identified with the creation of “kinds” of life on Earth.
And, @Ashwin_s, none of these 5 points have anything to do with “Creationism” as the term is understood in the English-speaking world. In fact, I think most Creationists would be at a loss to accept anything to do with Evolution under the name “Intelligent Design”, since they wouldn’t believe that such a re-naming was done in good faith.
I assure you, that my telling them “it’s ok, Ashwin says it’s ok!” would not be an adequate explanation to anyone.
So maybe you can “give it a break” when it comes to proposing name changes that seem more intent on creating confusion than coming to a Christian Truth.
P.S. Adding “God-Guided” to rain storms, or other “acts of God” like hurricanes and tornadoes, does not mean we would change the name of God-Guided Weather to something else; perhaps you would suggest these events should be renamed as “Intelligent Weather Episodes”?..
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George, For the last time, i am not interested in american Politics or Guilt by association attached to ID. I find frequent references to trying to incorporate ID into school education quite boring.
I am not recommending to rename anything. I am just making two true statements -
- Evolution is a scientific theory which does not rely on God or claim to need God to explain the emergence of life as we see it. In fact, most evolutionary scientist will make the opposite claim, i.e that evolution explains how the first life became all the organisms we see today without any need for any guidance by any intelligence… Including God.
- “God Guided evolution” sounds exactly like some forms of Intelligent Design. The central difference between evolution and ID is the necessity of an intelligent being to explain how life emerged/diversified .The only difference in your version being a difference of opinion regarding whether Gods action can be proved “Scientifically”.
However, because you also view God’s intelligent intervention as necessary for a proper explanation. What you are proposing is ID.
You may not like it, but the above statements are true. As a Historical claim on how life actually emerged and reached where it is today, your claim does not differ in any significant way from what someone like Micheal Behe claims.
Whereas someone like @John_Harshman would tell a totally different story if he were to share what he believes about how life emerged/reached where it is today.
No, not totally different. Behe and I would differ only slightly on the history of life. It would have the same cast of characters, related to each other by the same tree of common descent, featuring the same mutations and fixations. What we would differ on would be over the source of some fairly small portion of the mutations. I’m not sure how small, but fairly small. (Unless he’s seriously going with the billiard shot, and then we only disagree on the probability that the mutations would have happened without an initial very careful setup.)
Thats the main difference. Behe’s story would have an intelligence (presumably God) acting at one or more points in the narrrative and playing a crucial part in an explanatory sense…
While yours would not have an intelligence involved in the process at any point and would consider it unnecessary in adding an explanatory power to the story.
Would this be a fair distinction? I was highlighting this mainly.
Yes. I merely point out that this distinction is not “totally different”. A YEC would be much closer to “totally”. If your scale runs only from me at one end to Behe at the other, you miss almost all the diversity.
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Agreed. I was just making a point so that @gbrooks9 would realise what his narrative really is.
There is a lot of diversity out there.
Edit: As to using “totally”, its difference in perspective, You are looking at the events… I am looking at the Agents acting in the narrative.
@Ashwin_s, then stop sticking your nose into our political problems by arbitrarily (or intentionally) choosing, nay - - insisting on! - - a provocative name-change guaranteed to create sweeping upset on both sides of the problem. If you choose to ignore my recommendation, this won’t be the last time you get this boring speech. You are a guest here in more than one way; it would be minimally courteous to avoid starting a riot.
@Ashwin_s, are you normally this tone deaf?
Yes, “Evolution is a scientific theory”. But in the English language, “qualifiers” are used to modify a word or label so people know that it is different from the usual thing.
There are cars, and there are “racing cars”.
There are planes, and there are “fighter planes”.
There is Evolution, which is a theory of science which does not incorporate the actions of deity.
And there is God-Guided Evolution which is a theory of metaphysics that DOES incorporate actions of deity.
A 3rd grader understands the use of qualifiers.
As to your other thought, that “God Guided Evolution” sounds exactly like SOME forms of Intelligent Design… !! BINGO !! … there’s the rub!!!
It sounds like SOME forms… but the label’s specificity does not allow it to fit all the criteria for how Evangelicals use the term. So… there we are!: Besides the lack of good fit, it would create hopeless confusion on both sides of the problem.
@swamidass, how many times would you say we have had to explain all this to @Ashwin_s, where he pretends to agree, and then comes back and repeats the same mantras?
I would recommend a short period of time at Trust Level Zero if he defiantly rejects this repeated set of corrections. As a matter of fact, I recall the last time you had to explain this to him, he didn’t agree at all, and defiantly explained why you were still wrong.
I would say he has been sufficiently warned under the circumstances, wouldn’t you?
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In Behe’s videotaped comments about the Billiards Shot … Because Behe does not incorporate super-natural events into his Billiards analogy, he points out that there would be no way for the observor to tell whether God had arranged the Billiards shot or not.
I have an alternative suggestion… be more mature.
Yes, and i was asking about evolution as a Scientific theory., when you interrupted with the below statement -
Just because you use the terminology of “God guided evolution” doesnt mean that everybody has to… or even agree that it’s useful in any way.
Nobody has to use the phrase “God Guided Evolution” … but I believe @Swamidass would insist that you don’t call his G.A. scenarios “Intelligent Design” scenarios. That would be inaccurate in view of how the Evangelical ID community uses the terminology.
When did I call @swamidass Scenarios as ID? It obviously isn’t.
As far as i understand he has got a far more nuanced position that acknowledges evolutionary science and especially the common descent of homo sapiens as a species from a common ancestor shared with chimps.
The option for denovo creation for Adam and Eve that he proposes is only for specific individuals.,not the species. He has consistently advocated that there is strong evidence for the common descent of human beings as a species through evolution.
According to your very own words, @swamidass can’t be discussing “Evolution” - - because it his faith stance that God guided Great Ape evolution to create humanity.
Your memory is exquisitely (and conveniently) quite short.
You can clarify with @swamidass on what he believes about how God guided great Ape evolution.
I don’t think he advocates your stand of God purposefully guiding mutations to get the desired result. I think his stand is more nuanced. In fact i am not sure he advocates any particular model, but rather sticks to showing where the science is (Such as in GA) and making it clear what science cannot address (such as miracles).
But i will not speak for him. He can do it well himself.
Lots of high brow thoughts… but you haven’t explained how any of your speculations changes the fact @swamidass does not think there is Evolution without God, because his faith is anchored in God. He would be quick to say that it is not Science that convinces him of his faith in God.
There is a difference between believing in God and thinking the evolution of life from a single cell organism would be impossible without the intervention of God/an intelligence.
I am fairly confident that he believes natural processes are sufficient for life to evolve from a single celled organism. That’s a basic premise of evolutionary science as far as i understand.And he has consistently affirmed evolutionary science.
I wont be clarifying anymore on this subject. Like i said, he can talk for himself.