Universal Intelligence (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Monday, September 28, 2009, 20:56 (5533 days ago) @ George Jelliss

George has quoted from The Origin:-"These authors seem no more startled at a miraculous act of creation than at an ordinary birth. But do they really believe that at innumerable periods in the earth's history certain elemental atoms have been commanded suddenly to flash into living tissues? Do they believe that at each supposed act of creation one individual or many were produced? Were all the infinitely numerous kinds of animals and plants created as eggs or seed, or as fully grown? And in the case of mammals, were they created bearing the false marks of nourishment from the mother's womb? Although naturalists very properly demand a full explanation of every difficulty from those who believe in the mutability of species, on their own side they ignore the whole subject of the first appearance of species in what they consider reverent silence."-Perhaps someone has written a thesis listing the changes in different editions. That last sentence is missing from mine (which I think is a reprint of the second edition). Mine continues: "Undoubtedly those same questions cannot be answered by those who, under the present state of science, believe in the creation of a few aboriginal forms, or of some one form of life. It has been asserted by several authors that it is as easy to believe in the creation of a hundred million beings as of one; but Maupertuis's philosophical axiom 'of least action' leads the mind more willingly to admit the smaller number."-This makes it clear that he is defending the theory that all species descended from one or a few forms, and you will find just a few pages earlier that "it is no valid objection [to his theory] that science as yet throws no light on the far higher problem of the essence or origin of life." And for good measure, on the penultimate page of my edition, he talks of "the laws impressed on matter by the Creator". Strange statements from a man who is supposed to have claimed that evolution was the creator of life!-However, I'm delighted to hear that you are going to discuss Dawkins' misrepresentation of Darwin on your Hastings Humanists blog. Perhaps in due course you will summarize the results for us.