"Why Evolution Does Not Make the Problem of Evil Worse"

[Tim]

@Rope

I think most people will think that the various animal species that exist typically add more good than bad to the world (hence, the widespread support for animal conservation, and the widespread love for nature among biologists as well).

@Rope Kojonen.

This is at least the second time you have offered up a blatantly fallacious argumentum ad populum argument on this thread (the first time was here).

“Most people” live in cities and so their “experience of the world” gives them little insight into the life-cycles and thus balance of suffering and happiness of wild animals. To cite these experiences as some sort of ‘evidence’ is risible.

The same disqualification would appear to apply to the philosophers and theologians you cite in favor of a positive balance. Most philosophers and theologians likewise enjoy an urban lifestyle. Whilst it is possible that there are among them somebody whose experience of the world includes significantly greater insight, your references to them did not elucidate this aspect.

As Harlan Ellison said:

You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.

I have yet to see an informed opinion that gives weight to this balance being positive.

Lacking such an informed opinion, the most reasonable position would seem that which I stated before:

No, we don’t really know if ‘The Problem of Evil’ is a real problem or not. It might be. It might not be.

But then I’m not an apologist – and so do not have to reach the ‘right’ conclusion, no matter how far I must stretch things to get there.

[misterme987 (Andrew P.)]

You keep claiming or insinuating that @Rope is an apologist, but is that correct? Isn’t he just a theologian? I don’t think any lay people are reading The Compatibility of Evolution and Design to reinforce their beliefs in Christianity, it’s mostly a philosophical debate between theologians. Likewise with this article.

[Tim]

@misterme987: I notice you are carefully avoiding my main point – that @Rope’s argument was (again) blatantly fallacious.

@misterme987

You keep claiming or insinuating that @Rope is an apologist, but is that correct?

I have not “claimed” that he is an apologist. I have said things about apologists on this thread. Whether you think that I was “insinuating” that Rope is one with these comments would depend on whether you think “the shoe fits” – in that the comments about apologists also describes Rope.

I would however note that the video he linked to above is to an apologetics ministry, whose apologetic efforts he himself was aiding.

@misterme987

Isn’t he just a theologian?

Bluntly, no. Neither the ‘Problem of Evil’ nor the relationship between Design and Evolution are ‘just theology’. Both are issues closely related to apologetics – the former via theodicy (a major topic for apologetics), the latter via Intelligent Design Creationist apologetics.

@misterme987

I don’t think any lay people are reading The Compatibility of Evolution and Design to reinforce their beliefs in Christianity, it’s mostly a philosophical debate between theologians

No it is not “mostly a philosophical debate between theologians”.

This should be obvious from the title. Evolutionary Biology is Science not Theology. Design, both in context of evolution, and as it is used within this book, overlaps fairly heavily with “Intelligent Design” – a pseudoscientific apologetic effort to discredit Evolutionary Biology. Little, if anything in this book is ‘just theology’ or ‘just philosophy’.

His Chapter 4 is the most blatant example – it is chock full of IDC claptrap. This reaches its zenith in 4.3 with him claiming:

As biologists increasingly talk of “laws of form” underlying evolutionary development, the role of natural selection and mutation in explaining biological form seems comparatively less all-encompassing.

It turns out that it was not “biologists” talking about this at all – but just Michael Denton, a biochemist and ID proponent, with little prominence outside the ID echo chamber. Beyond Denton, "the phrase “laws of form” seems to be used exclusively in the context of G. Spencer-Brown’s book of the same name about mathematics and philosophy.

Apologetics need not be aimed at “any lay people” – it may be aimed at providing other apologists with material and/or intellectual cover.

If you are interested in the forum’s views on this book, there were four threads on the topic:

What if Evolution is Compatible with Design After All?

E. V. R. Kojonen is a philosopher that affirms evolutionary science, and uses it as an argument for divine design. He is making a philosophical/theological argument that is engaged with science, but (Unlike ID proponents) he is not claiming this argument is “science” proper. The timing is fortunate for coinciding with some work by @NLENTS: Nathan Lents: The Night Begins to Shine. I think Rope’s ideas are worth considering, along with their interactions with the IDM and with the bad-design argument.

"Laws of forms"?

@swamidass has asked “anonymous/non-academic participants [to] step out of this conversation”, so I’m taking the liberty of creating this side-conversation to address an issue raised on the original thread, that of @Rope’s claim that: A claim that he cites, in part, to Sean Carroll’s article: Chance and necessity: the evolution of morphological complexity and diversity Given that neither Kojonen nor I are biologists, I’d like to address three questions to the biologists on this forum: Are you and/or your colleague increasingly talking of “laws of form”? @Mercer, at least seems to be unaware of this. Do you think Carroll’s article supports this claim? Does this indeed mean that “the role of natural selection and mutation in explaining biological form seems comparatively less all-encompassing”? (I must admit that I find this statement rather puzzling, as I had previously thought that Neutral Theory had been around for several decades, meaning that NS+M had been known to be c…

Side/Comments on What if Design is Compatible with Evolution

Unfortunately, in my opinion you are mistaken. Perhaps you could try explaining briefly what the substance of this compatibility is. What does God add to evolutionary biology that evolutionary biology needs? That’s not the important question, which is rather whether the quote is being used to say something that Carroll, in context, didn’t mean. I and others would say that it is. I’m afraid not. You have focused on peripheral issues without getting into the substance. I for one still don’t understand what you mean by the compatibility of evolution and design and whether it means anything beyond the ideas of Behe and Denton. Where, again, does God fit into evolution? Beyond that, how would we tell?

Tim's comments on What if Evolution is Compatible with Design After All?

The following was originally posted here. [ Addendum: in an a further attempt to air-brush-by-moderation, the position-of-the-original-post has been moved here. Which (i) makes things more than a little confusing, and (ii) is further evidence of how dysfunctionally stultifying the moderation of that thread is – I’m glad to be out of there. ] Welcome Dr Kojonen. This impression was formed by the combination of an over-familiarity on this forum with Creationist abuse of secondary-sourced quotes and by the fact that you proceeded thereafter to engage with the secondary source rather than Carroll himself. I apologise for the misapprehension. Here, I cannot agree with you. The tentative wording (a mere “possibility”) of the passage you quote, combined with the immediately-following passage, gives the strong impression that Carroll is merely positing an open question that he intends to address, rather than that he is offering any firm conclusion. It is the conclusion of this article th…

@misterme987

Likewise with this article.

The problem being that while ‘The Problem of Evil’ may be a problem for theists, and thus for theologians too, it is a problem that has its basis in a factual issue – animal suffering, not a theological or philosophical issue. “Philosophical debate”, lacking an informed opinion on this factual issue, is just so much idle speculation and hearsay.

[Roy (34-year veteran)]

@Rope

However, even for those who think it is inscrutable whether a greater amount of present-day animals add more disvalue than value to the world, I do not think a change in the title of my article would be required. If we cannot know whether some X (such as a greater number of turtles) makes the world a worse place, then from our perspective, we cannot appeal to the existence of that X (a greater number of turtles over deep time) as making the problem of evil worse.

Similarly, we cannot appeal to the existence of that X as not making the problem of evil worse. But that’s what your title does.

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@misterme987

You keep claiming or insinuating that @Rope is an apologist, but is that correct? Isn’t he just a theologian?

I think that @Tim is concentrating on problems with the words @Rope wrote, while avoiding the shorthand of labeling people.

[Tim]

@misterme987:

Following up on my final point above, it is not at all clear to me whether Rope, and the fellow philosophers and theologians that he cites, are talking about animal suffering in this real world at all, or some completely imaginary hypothetical world.

From my perspective, the title of the article therefore might as well be:

Why Evolution Does Not Make the Problem of Evil Worse in Middle Earth

… and I see no basis for taking this fiction-based philosophy seriously.

@Puck_Mendelssohn made a similar point about the unreality of much of modern philosophy, in an earlier thread about Rope’s work:

@Puck_Mendelssohn

These days I often see “philosophical” used to mean “I am talking out of my arse, and I have and need have no basis for the things I say about the world.”

[Roy (34-year veteran)]

@Tim

Following up on my final point above, it is not at all clear to me whether Rope, and the fellow philosophers and theologians that he cites, are talking about animal suffering in this real world at all, or some completely imaginary hypothetical world.

I don’t know about Rope and his sources, but @vjtorley was definitely in an imaginary world when he was musing about 1% of animals experiencing horrendous suffering.

[sfmatheson (Stephen Matheson)]

@Roy

but @vjtorley was definitely in an imaginary world when he was musing about 1% of animals experiencing horrendous suffering.

Try reading what @vjtorley actually wrote, then ask yourself why @Roy splattered the conversation with this gratuitous (and obviously false) insult.

[Dan_Eastwood]

@Tim

Following up on my final point above, it is not at all clear to me whether Rope, and the fellow philosophers and theologians that he cites, are talking about animal suffering in this real world at all, or some completely imaginary hypothetical world.

I think you are overreaching. Rope didn’t write this for you, or for atheists, but for a specific readership where the Problem of Evil is a recurring question. You seem so determined that Rope must be wrong that you are ignoring his intended purpose. Granted that purpose may have no meaning to atheists, but that’s hardly a problem Rope needs to solve.

We’ve had some really good discussion on this topic, and I think we should credit that to Rope for posting an interesting idea, whether or not we agree with all of his reasoning.