Misrepresenting Darwin (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, September 14, 2009, 08:19 (5548 days ago) @ George Jelliss

This discussion began with George's statement that "life is far too complex to have been designed. It could only have evolved."-This sets design against evolution as if they were mutually exclusive, and I've been arguing that the two theories are compatible. Darwin himself said so explicitly, and for this reason it is a misrepresentation of Darwin to associate his name (and "Darwinism") with atheism. The fact that many theists accept the basic theory of evolution should also make it self-evident that the two are compatible.-George: "I am a great admirer of Darwin, but because he said something doesn't make it true." Quite right. I'm not suggesting that because Darwin was an agnostic, we all have to be agnostics! Nor, of course, am I saying that either the theist or the atheist interpretation of evolution is correct. I'm merely pointing out that Darwin is a not insignificant opponent of your argument, which in your previous response seemed to be based on your apparent and possibly unique knowledge of how life looks when it is designed and when it is not designed. -I tried to explain why the two theories were compatible: i.e. a theist can argue that the original self-replicating molecules with their potential for variation were too complex to have come about by chance, and must therefore have been designed. Evolution followed (possibly with, possibly without intervention). Where is the clash between evolution and design? (He/she could also argue that the whole process of evolution is a vast experiment overseen by the divine scientist. Again, no clash.)-Your response to this was to refer me to two articles by Karen Armstrong and Richard Dawkins. You said that "Armstrong's idea of God is nothing like the theist evolutionary god that dhw describes in his post." This is simply because Armstrong doesn't deal at all with the false dichotomy of evolution versus design. She asks whether we can use evolutionary theory "to recover a more authentic notion of God" (who judges its authenticity, I wonder?), and comes up with a semi-mystic equation of religion with art, leading to an "attitude of wonder" which she shares with Dawkins. Her article is irrelevant to our discussion.-Dawkins ... not unusually ... bases his argument on a distortion: "Evolution," he says, "is the creator of life." No it isn't. "We know, as certainly as we know anything in science, that this [= Darwinian evolution] is the process that has generated life on our own planet." No it isn't. Darwinian evolution did NOT create or generate life. Darwinian evolution is the process that took over once life had been created/generated. Dawkins states his case as if it were based on scientific fact, but neither he nor you nor anyone knows how life was created/generated, and that (not Darwinian evolution) is the point at issue. While I understand your kinship with Dawkins, George, it baffles me that you can condone such misrepresentation.-You are, however, absolutely right when you say that my non-belief in the ability of chance to create/generate/bring into existence the immensely complex processes of replication and variation is an "argument from personal incredulity". If someone puts forward an argument for which there is no evidence and which seems to me to place undue demands on my credulity, of course I can't believe it. I don't believe in an omnipotent, omniscient creator either, but I doubt if you'll dismiss that non-belief as "an argument from personal incredulity". -As regards variation, if all life evolved from the original self-replicating molecules, those molecules must have contained the potential for variation ... if they hadn't, nothing would have changed and there would have been no evolution. But in any case this makes no difference to the basic fact that belief in the theory of evolution is perfectly compatible with belief in design.