Different in degree or kind: more Denton: (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, February 19, 2016, 18:24 (3200 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw; Darwinian evolution does not cover the ORIGIN of the mechanisms that run evolution. That is why - in contrast to your author's claims - Darwin's theory is perfectly compatible with teleological theism. - DAVID: Whoa! What Darwin says is the mechanism of evolution just IS. Darwin says RM/NS does it all, no planning, just natural process. For Darwin origin is not an issue. - And that is how your author misrepresents Darwin. He wrote that Darwin's “earth-shattering message was that nature's pseudo-creative mechanism can mimic the work of a designing Creator”. But if the Creator created the mechanism (= origin) - and with all his references to the Creator, Darwin clearly allows for that to be the case - his mechanism “precedes and shapes the process (Teleological Theism)” which “precedes and shapes the appearance of design (Neo-Darwinism)”! No either/or. My inventive mechanism hypothesis could be seen as God's invention of something deliberately mimicking his own work, but even Darwin's mechanism of random mutations and natural selection has still produced “endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful” (Origin of Species) - as your God might have known it would - so why should an open-ended experiment, God's own let's see-what-will-happen mechanism, not be regarded as his purpose? Once more, evolutionary theory and teleological theism are not incompatible if God invented the mechanism that runs evolution - but they may of course be incompatible if individual humans insist that God's purpose corresponds to their own personal religious or anthropocentric readings of his mind.