Evolution vs. Creation

[Virgil]

--and of life on our planet--are too numerous to co-exist by evolutionary chance. Instead, they have been deliberately designed by a Supreme Intelligence."

Yes, that was interesting Todd. I was at a presentation recently where a group of software engineers were presenting a software on systems design. It had nothing to do with God or any connotation to it. It was somethng to the effect of understanding how each parameter and variable goes into a design of a system and how one design parameter of one variable can influence the whole system. Their example was with an airplane jet engine. What was particularly interesting was that the software calculated the odds of the engine coming together by chance, and that was something over 7 Billion to one. My memory of the details is fading, but it was I think as if someone ignorant of jet engne design sat down as said he would randomly pick variables and paramenters and come up with the correct solution. Now an jet engine is subtle and requires finesse, but it is no where as complex as a human being, with the workings of the mind and various biological sub-systems. Who can even aproximate the odds of such complexity coming together. Or even evolving from a simple cell. To me that is more signalling of an intelligent design than just random chance. Flew came to the same understanding that I and other scientifically minded people come to. Now that doesn't mean i don't believe in evolution.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

Despite the rumours flying around, I would hardly consider Flew's position to have shifted as radically as the God-lobby would like to believe.

See here.

[Virgil]

I had never heard of Antony Flew before. Here's an excerpt for wikipedia:

While an undergraduate, Flew attended the weekly meetings of C. S. Lewis's Socratic Club fairly regularly. Although he found Lewis to be "an eminently reasonable man" and "by far the most powerful of Christian apologists for the sixty or more years following his founding of that club," he was not persuaded by Lewis's argument from morality as found in Mere Christianity. Other philosophical proofs for God's existence also fail, according to Flew. The ontological argument in particular is false because it is based on the premise that the concept of Being can be derived from the concept of Goodness. Only the scientific forms of the teleological argument impress Flew as being decisive.[1]

In God and Philosophy (1966) and The Presumption of Atheism (1984), Flew earned his fame by arguing that one should presuppose atheism until evidence of a God surfaces. He still stands behind this evidentialist approach, though he has been persuaded in recent years that such evidence in fact exists, and his current position appears to be deism. In a December 2004 interview[2], he said: I'm thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins.

On several occasions, apparently starting in 2001, rumours circulated claiming that Flew had converted from atheism. Flew refuted these rumours on the Secular Web website.[3] In 2003, he signed the Humanist Manifesto III.

In December 2004, an interview with Flew conducted by Flew's friend and philosophical adversary Gary Habermas was published in Biola University's Philosophia Christi, with the title Atheist Becomes Theist - Exclusive Interview with Former Atheist Antony Flew. Flew agreed to this title.[4] According to the introduction, Flew informed Habermas in January 2004 that he had become a deist [5], and the interview took place shortly thereafter. Then the text was amended by both participants over the following months prior to publication. In the article Flew states that he has left his long-standing espousal of atheism by endorsing a deism of the sort that Thomas Jefferson advocated ("While reason, mainly in the form of arguments to design, assures us that there is a God, there is no room either for any supernatural revelation of that God or for any transactions between that God and individual human beings."). Flew states that certain philosophical and scientific considerations had caused him to rethink his lifelong support of atheism. However, it is clear from the interview that Flew is not comfortable with either Christianity or Islam.

Flew's conception of God as explained in the interview is limited to the idea of God as a first cause, and he rejects the ideas of an afterlife, of God as the source of good (he explicitly states that God has created "a lot of" evil), and of the resurrection of Jesus as an historical fact. He is particularly hostile to Islam, and says it is "best described in a Marxian way as the uniting and justifying ideology of Arab imperialism."[6]

Flew has subsequently made contradictory statements to those given in the Habermas interview as justification for his endorsing of deism. In October 2004 (before the December publication of the Flew-Habermas interview), a letter written to Richard Carrier of the Secular Web, stated that he was a deist and also said that "I think we need here a fundamental distinction between the God of Aristotle or Spinoza and the Gods of the Christian and the Islamic Revelations."[7]. Flew also said: My one and only piece of relevant evidence [for an Aristotelian God] is the apparent impossibility of providing a naturalistic theory of the origin from DNA of the first reproducing species ... [In fact] the only reason which I have for beginning to think of believing in a First Cause god is the impossibility of providing a naturalistic account of the origin of the first reproducing organisms.

In an another letter to Carrier of 29 December 2004 Flew went on to retract his statement "a deity or a 'super-intelligence' [is] the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature." "I now realize that I have made a fool of myself by believing that there were no presentable theories of the development of inanimate matter up to the first living creature capable of reproduction." wrote Flew. He blames his error on being "misled" by Richard Dawkins, claiming Dawkins "has never been reported as referring to any promising work on the production of a theory of the development of living matter". (Dawkins has - in "Evolutionary Chemistry: Life in a Test Tube," published in the 21 May 1992 issue of Nature, with Laurence Hurst.) The work of physicist Gerald Schroeder had been influential in Flew's new belief, but Flew admitted to Carrier that he had not read any of the scientific critiques of Schroeder that Carrier referred him to.

When asked in December 2004 by Duncan Crary of Humanist Network News if he still stood by the argument presented in The Presumption of Atheism, Flew replied he did but he also restated his position as deist: "I'm quite happy to believe in an inoffensive inactive god". When asked by Crary whether or not he has kept up with the most recent science and theology, he responded with "Certainly not", stating that there is simply too much to keep up with. Flew also denied that there was any truth to the rumours of 2001 and 2003 that he had abandoned his atheism or converted to Christianity.[8]

A letter on Darwinism and Theology which Flew published in the August/September 2004 issue of Philosophy Now magazine left the world hanging when it closed with, "Anyone who should happen to want to know what I myself now believe will have to wait until the publication, promised for early 2005, by Prometheus of Amherst, NY of the final edition of my God and Philosophy with a new introduction of it as ‘an historical relic’."[9]

But in 2005, when God and Philosophy was republished by Prometheus Books, the new introduction failed to conclusively answer the question of Flew's beliefs. The preface says the publisher and Flew went through a total of four versions (each extensively peer-reviewed) before coming up with one that satisfied them both. The result is an introduction, written in a distinctly detached third-person context, which raises ten matters that came about since the original 1966 edition. Flew refrains from personally commenting on these issues, and basically says that any book to follow God and Philosophy will have to take into account these ideas when considering the philosophical case for the existence of God.

[toddhill]

Thanks for that, Virgil. Seems like Flew doesn't know what he himself believes. Hope he figures it out. Have any of you heard of the string theory proposed by Leonard Susskind, a theoretical physicist of Stanford University? A strange one to be sure. Here is a quote from a periodical I read recently, "At the end of an interview in New Scientist, Susskind is asked--if his theory is ultimately not borne out--'Are we stuck with Intelligent Design?' And Susskind gives a candid answer:

'I doubt that physicists will see it that way...I am pretty sure that physicists will go on searching for natural explanations of the world. But I have to say that if that happens, as things stand now, we will be in a very awkward position. Without any explanation of nature's fine-tunings we will be hard pressed to answer the Intelligent Design critics. One might argue that a hope that a mathematically unique solution will emerge is as faith-based as Intelligent Design.'"

At least he was honest.

I'll be interested to see the book Francis Collins, the head of the Human Genome Project, is coming out with called The Language of God. Apparently he also is an intelligent design proponent. Todd

[Virgil]

'I doubt that physicists will see it that way...I am pretty sure that physicists will go on searching for natural explanations of the world. But I have to say that if that happens, as things stand now, we will be in a very awkward position. Without any explanation of nature's fine-tunings we will be hard pressed to answer the Intelligent Design critics. One might argue that a hope that a mathematically unique solution will emerge is as faith-based as Intelligent Design.'"

In all fairness to Flew, we all struggle with this. At various times of my life I swung on both sides. There is one thing I could quibble with Flew, here let me quote it:

In God and Philosophy (1966) and The Presumption of Atheism (1984), Flew earned his fame by arguing that one should presuppose atheism until evidence of a God surfaces.

Well, why is that. Granted, on his side of the ledger there is no empirical evidence of God. But on the other side of the ledger, there is thousands of years of belief, there is a wide spread belief in some form of diety across the overwhelming majority of cultures, and there is the statistical inductive argument (which is what convinces me) that I presented above. If Flew thinks he can declare that he will win a million to one odds lottery on a given night then he is correct on where the burden is. But frankly given the BILLIONS to one odds of complex life just happening and correctly evolving, then I feel the burden is with the atheist to explain how humanity won this lottery.

[toddhill]

Well said, Virgil. Would it be weird for me to say, "I like your mind"? Todd

[The Unnamable]

At various times of my life I swung on both sides.

I would never have guessed you were into this, Virgil. Shouldn’t you post such revelations in the ‘secret identities’ thread?

[Virgil]

I would never have guessed you were into this, Virgil. Shouldn’t you post such revelations in the ‘secret identities’ thread?

You can't imagine how loud a laugh I just let out. Thanks.

[Grumbleguts]

Well, why is that. Granted, on his side of the ledger there is no empirical evidence of God. But on the other side of the ledger, there is thousands of years of belief, there is a wide spread belief in some form of diety across the overwhelming majority of cultures, and there is the statistical inductive argument (which is what convinces me) that I presented above. If Flew thinks he can declare that he will win a million to one odds lottery on a given night then he is correct on where the burden is. But frankly given the BILLIONS to one odds of complex life just happening and correctly evolving, then I feel the burden is with the atheist to explain how humanity won this lottery.

It seems reasonable that in a universe that is billions of years old a billion to one shot would come up once in a while. Especially when you multiply those billions of years by all of the days, hours, minutes, seconds, milliseconds in them and all of the billions of galaxies, stars and planets upon which those milliseconds are played out, then it starts to look virtually inevitable.

[Pendragon]

But frankly given the BILLIONS to one odds of complex life just happening and correctly evolving, then I feel the burden is with the atheist to explain how humanity won this lottery.

Don't feel to bad, Virgil, my friend, when I gave a similar argument about how chance was nigh impossible as the starting point for evolution, people wouldn't accept my arithmetic either. And Math is called an exact science, at that. Still, I will cheerfully admit that I could always be wrong. That is the one thing that one must always learn.

Cheif Justice of the Surpreme Court Oliver Wendell Holmes was once asked to what he attributed his success in life. He replied. "At a very early age I discovered that I was not God." Those are words to live by. None of us are exempt from mistake or misunderstanding. So while we point the finger at others to proclaim them wrong, remember, we point three back at ourselves at the same time. Question what you believe, but if you really believe it, don't budge.

[toddhill]

It seems reasonable that in a universe that is billions of years old a billion to one shot would come up once in a while. Especially when you multiply those billions of years by all of the days, hours, minutes, seconds, milliseconds in them and all of the billions of galaxies, stars and planets upon which those milliseconds are played out, then it starts to look virtually inevitable.

"Nobel Prize winning biologist, Professor deDuve, wrote in a book called Tour of a Living Cell, 'If you equate the probability of the birth of a bacteria cell to chance assembly of its atoms, eternity will not suffice to produce one.'"

[beer good]

It's funny the way scientists' words seem to count all the more when they agree with you but are easily dismissed when they dis-.

Nah, on second thought, I won't get into this. It's just a funny debate to be having. Or following.

[toddhill]

Ha . I agree. But it is a valid rhetorical device (appeal to the expert).

[Virgil]

It's funny the way scientists' words seem to count all the more when they agree with you but are easily dismissed when they dis-.

Nah, on second thought, I won't get into this. It's just a funny debate to be having. Or following.

and

It seems reasonable that in a universe that is billions of years old a billion to one shot would come up once in a while. Especially when you multiply those billions of years by all of the days, hours, minutes, seconds, milliseconds in them and all of the billions of galaxies, stars and planets upon which those milliseconds are played out, then it starts to look virtually inevitable.

Hey this is no slam dunk debate. Grumbleguts has a good point. But it's not decisive to me. It could be for others. There are other factors too (such as the scientific notion of entropy, which show that things will tend to disorder if left to their own devices, so what has caused nature to not disintegrate toward chaos, especially life) that go into my thinking. All I want to say is that there are intelligent people on both sides of the debate. There are plenty of scientist on my side of the debate, including Einstein. The atheists love to characterize believers as some sort of Bible thumping simpletons. I just feel that is so unfair, and just stymies the debate.

[Grumbleguts]

Hey this is no slam dunk debate. Grumbleguts has a good point. But it's not decisive to me. It could be for others. There are other factors too (such as the scientific notion of entropy, which show that things will tend to disorder if left to their own devices, so what has caused nature to not disintegrate toward chaos, especially life) that go into my thinking. All I want to say is that there are intelligent people on both sides of the debate. There are plenty of scientist on my side of the debate, including Einstein. The atheists love to characterize believers as some sort of Bible thumping simpletons. I just feel that is so unfair, and just stymies the debate.

Thank you. For what it's worth, I think that you make some valid points as well. I sincerely hope that I have not been guilty of characterising anybody but genuine bible thumping simpletons as such.

I must address your remarks regarding entropy however as there is a common misconception that any system in which entropy cannot be shown to increase is evidence of outside influence. This is not a valid argument. The second law of thermodynamics only shows that this is true for an 'isolated' system. The Earth is not such a system, in fact no such system truly exists. The entropy of the universe is increasing as the kinetic energy created by the big bang (in my opinion the only valid time and place in the history of the universe where any argument for the existence of God's hand is justified) is converted into other forms and spread out over time.

Entropy is about kinetic energy being spread about until things approach a state of motionless absolute zero (a state that can never actually be reached due to the first law of thermodynamics, that of conservation of energy). As an example, the creation of stars would appear to be an example of negative entropy. However the overall long-term result of a star's creation is a net increase in the entropy of the universe. Similarly the evolution of life provides only a short term reduction of the local entropy of the energy contained within that life, the net result of all life when viewed as a part of the entire picture of the Earth and the wider universe is no different to the case of stars and planets, a temporary blip. Things are 'degenerating into chaos' or more acurately into stagnation but the time scales are immense, the currently consensus puts the point at which entropy will affect the formation of star systems capable of supporting life at many times greater than the life of the universe so far, don't expect it to happen in the next few weeks.

On your other point, regarding the sides to this debate and their adherents. I should prefer to see a debate as an open discussion where both points of agreement and difference can be established, rather than as an adversarial conflict. You seem like an intelligent and rational man and I would hope that you would agree with this outlook.