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21 January 2004
The incompetent watchmaker
'Intelligent design' is the latest riff on the creationist hymn.* Unlike troglodytic 'young earth' creationists (the world is 6,000 years old; the Lord salted the earth with fossils to fool the unbeliever, etc.), though, IDers are willing to accept many of science's conclusions.
Michael Behe, for example, whose argument for ID is that he can't for the life of him figure out how stuff got the way it is unless there was an Intelligent Designer, is quite prepared to accept that life has existed for several billion years, that evolution occurs, even that we humans share common descent with the great apes. But he and his comrades insist for all that that the origin and development of life require regular waves of the Almighty's wand. And IDers are busy as you read these words, beavering away to theologise American biology schoolbooks by requiring them to discuss Intelligent Design as at least equally likely as natural selection.
Comes now the Unintelligent Design Network to argue that the IDers are only half right: God designs organisms all right; but so badly that He is clearly a few bricks shy a load.
The intelligent design people say there are too many holes in the fossil record, and that evolution is only a theory; the scientists say there's not enough evidence of intelligent design. So we say, instead, that life has indeed been designed, just not very well.
The UDN site is satire, of course. But they take their point (as they acknowledge) from cell biologist Kenneth Miller, who is both a committed Christian and a committed Darwinian. In Finding Darwin's God, Miller excoriates ID theory mercilessly. That ID is shite science has been pointed out by many writers. Miller's religious belief allows him to go further, demonstrating that it is shite theology as well, requiring the Creator to be a slow-learning incompetent.** The UDN uses Miller's example of the Proboscidea, the elephants and their kin:
There have been 23 elephant-like animals in history, and yet only two survive today (and we add, they're not doing very well). Clearly, this is the mark of an all-powerful creator who is stuck on the same stupid idea and can't figure out why the hell they keep dying off.
It might not be as important to the UDN as it is to Miller that ID is as poor theologically as it is scientifically, but no matter. Like Miller, I do not begrudge the IDers their faith; indeed, to some degree I share it. But it would not matter a whit if their theology were sound. They err in trying to theologise biology at all. Science has nothing, can have nothing, to say to theology; and theology certainly has nothing to say to science.
* Alphonse Karr was right. ID theory isn't really anything new. It's William Paley's old argument from design, tarted up with talk about clotting factors. And as Richard Dawkins once wrote, Paley's was the best explanation for the origin of life until Darwin proposed a better, more parsimonious explanation. So it's not that IDers are stupid. In fact, they deserve a respectful hearing, as long as the year is 1858 or earlier.
** It surprises me that, to my knowledge, no IDer has made the obvious riposte to Miller's elephant example. To do this, of course, one would need to be a pretty hard-core Calvinist.
(A tip o' the T6I Mao cap to Brad DeLong for the link.)
Posted by Mrs Tilton at 12:30 PM | Permalink
Comments
"indeed, to some degree I share it."
To what degree? Jesus being the son of God and proposing a new covenant is an either/or question, isn't it?
" theology certainly has nothing to say to science."
What does theology have to say and to whom?
Posted by: SpiritualGenocide at 23 Jan 2004 18:20:46
Jesus being the son of God and proposing a new covenant is an either/or question, isn't it?
Indeed. But what the answer to that question implies isn't. For example, I don't accept that an affirmative answer means one must insult one's own intelligence by assenting to creationist nonsense.
What does theology have to say ...
An enormous number of things, coming from an enormous number of theologians, many of them in contradiction. Little of what they say is ultimately very important, I think.
... and to whom?
To theologians, for the most part.
Posted by: Mrs Tilton at 23 Jan 2004 19:34:35
Are you married to a man named Tilton or is your name a literary reference? great site, by the way, wish you posted more often.
To what degree do you share it, if it's not too personal? To the degree that you believe in Heaven but not in Hell or something like that? You might say it's inconsistent to do that, but 54.4% of Brittons believe in Heaven while 25.9% believe in Hell*. Any idea as to the cause of the disparity?
"I don't accept that an affirmative answer means one must insult one's own intelligence by assenting to creationist nonsense."
First you have to believe, *then* you'll understand : ) Unless you disagree with Augustine.
*The World values survey ( Inglehart et al. 1990 )
Posted by: SpiritualGenocide at 24 Jan 2004 15:02:35
I am married, but not to a man named Tilton. My blogonym is rather an historical than a literary reference.
What are my beliefs? I shall try to encapsulate them.
I used to be an atheist: very hostile to institutional religion; not hostile to the idea of God, I simply believed it false.
Now I am a Christian. I didn't reason my way to this belief. I doubt one can.
My beliefs are very simple. We are all of us sinful, and nothing we could do would make us worth redeeming; but God loves us for all that and offers redemption as an unmerited gift.
I'm still fairly hostile to most manifestations of institutional religion.
I don't disagree with Augustine. Given when he lived, he could not possibly have known about evolution. But I think he would have been fairly contemptible of a faith that required one to disavow what one's reason came to know. God made a wonderful world, and gave us minds to understand it. In learning about the world, we honour him. In making up tales to force what we see into a literary reading of Genesis, we insult him gravely.
Why do more people believe in heaven than in hell? I suppose it's because it's much nicer to believe in heaven. As for me, I find it much easier to believe in hell (and, in a way, could have done so easily while still an atheist). It's the bit about heaven that is, for me, the amazing and unexpected surprise.
Posted by: Mrs Tilton at 24 Jan 2004 19:52:38
BTW, thanks for your kind words about the site. I too wish I had time to post more often.
Posted by: Mrs Tilton at 24 Jan 2004 20:04:24
About the site:
I wish you had categorised archives.
Are you a scientist?
Who was Tilton? I don't know enough about British history to understand the reference. Why that person?
Religion:
Did something happen in your life around the time you converted to Christianity? Did you convert to the same denomination you were raised in?
Didn’t Turtellian say “Credo quia absurdum” “I believe because it is absurd”? The idea being that believing something that makes sense is not a show of faith at all.
Perhaps Augustine would have asked people to believe in Creationism first as a way of understanding it, thus his “seeing is believing” stance. What would you say to someone who believes in Creationism for the same reasons you believe in Christianity?
“My beliefs are very simple. We are all of us sinful, and nothing we could do would make us worth redeeming; but God loves us for all that and offers redemption as an unmerited gift.”
What do you think of the common argument among atheists that this is an unjust deity, sending righteous secular people ( if you think it’s possible to be both ) in Hell but paedophiles who accepted Jesus on their death bed get sent to Heaven?
Why would we all be sinful if the story of Adam and Eve isn’t literally true?
“God made a wonderful world, and gave us minds to understand it.”
Then God must be quite cruel to those who are born retarded, considering they never had any chance of understanding the wonderfulness of the world. What about the idea that God’s mind is greater than our own, that we cannot understand divine wisdom and that we have to submit to the divine revelation? If we could figure it out by ourselves, what would the point of revelations be?
If I understand correctly, you think reason should trump Scripture ( or that whatever interpretation of Scripture that doesn’t conform to reason is wrong ) or otherwise it’s an insult to YHVH. But you can’t reason your conversion to Christianity. Aren’t you insulting YHVH by being a Christian then?
Hope I didn't overwhelm you with questions.
Posted by: SpiritualGenocide at 24 Jan 2004 22:43:37
SG:
I do have categorised archives, I think.
I'm not a scientist. I do wish I knew more about science, though, and I try to pick up what I can.
Tilton wasn't a figure from British history. I chose the reference deliberately to be so obscure that nobody would know to what it refers.
Nothing special happened in my life at the time of my conversion (if you want to call it that. There was no dramatic occurrence on the road to Damascus. I didn't convert to any particular denomination.
Of somebody who sincerely believes in creationism, I can only say, That's really too bad. I don't doubt their sincerity, and in itself it doesn't make them evil. It's just a pity, for their own sake. I do object to them trying to force their beliefs to be taught in schools. That seems pretty exclusively an American phenomenon, though. It's not an issue where I live.
I don't know whether God sends righteous atheists to hell but death-bed converting paedophiles to heaven. I don't think it very important that I know how God deals with others. As J. said to one of his disciples who had asked an impertinent question: what is that to thee; follow thou me.
Actually I never found the Adam/Eve story very convincing, even if it were literally true. Sure, *they* screwed up. Why should that skin my cat? 'Original sin' may be a myth, but perhaps something like 'original sinfulness' is not. We can make choices, hence by definition we can make bad choices. And, try as hard as we might, we cannot fully avoid choosing the wrong thing. At least (I cannot speak for you) I can't.
I don't think God cruel to the retarded, any more than he is cruel to the caterpillar parasitised by a wasp (or to me, when something terrible happens in my life). Life is often cruel. Animals eat other animals. People exploit other people. The wonder of the world does not inhere in it being like a day at Disney World.
I can't know how the retarded experience and analyse the world, BTW. They have a cognitive handicap, in some cases a very severe one. They may have functions of personality, though, that perform well, even better than my own equivalent functions.
I don't think reason trumps scripture. I think reason tells us that much of scripture is myth or poetry or allegory or what have you, not a telephone directory. As I said, I think God gave us reason, and to refuse to use it to understand the world insults him. That doesn't mean we are nought but reason. I can't lead my belief back to a reasoned decision, it's true. But nor does my love for my spouse and family rely on reason. In neither case do I think God insulted.
I hope I'm not insulting God by being a Christian. If he is insulted, he has only himself to blame. I don't think I chose my belief all by myself. Indeed, if you'd asked while I was an atheist what sort of theism I'd choose if I had to be a theist, I'd have answered Judaism. I was quite surprised to find myself a Christian.
Posted by: Mrs Tilton at 25 Jan 2004 00:26:25
Why would it have been Judaism? Were you raised in that religion?
What did you study? I thought you were an entomologist or a biologist.
“God made a wonderful world, and gave us minds to understand it.”
The question concerning the mental retardation was about this : Why didn’t God give everyone a mind equally able to understand it? That is why I said it was cruel if true. That would mean some people, through no fault of their own since they were born that way, are not allowed to understand the wonderful world whereas others are and it is all God’s decision ( since he’s the one giving the minds ).
What do you think it takes to get into Heaven or be sent to hell?
In what way has becoming a Christian changed the way you behave?
Why be hostile to institutional manifestations of religion? You are not against institutions using coercion for what is best, as I gather from your apparent socialism/ democratic-socialism, though I may be wrong about your political leanings. If economic ideas are good, it’s okay to use the institutional coercion of the government to get people to follow them, why does this not apply to Christianity?
What do you think of the following:
Timothy 1
2:11
Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.
2:12
But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
This isn’t formulated like a metaphor would be. Do you agree with it, even though it may very well go against your reason? In case you want to argue that it was meant for another time, that means God revealed a morality that was time and place sensitive, which is moral relativism. Is God a moral relativist? I could quote a bunch of verses that are worse and not phrased as metaphors.
“As J. said to one of his disciples who had asked an impertinent question”
Whether or not God is just is an impertinent question?
Don’t take those questions as aggressive, I’m just quite curious as to how this belief works. You seem ot have “caught” Christianity like some people wake up with a flu.
Posted by: SpiritualGenocide at 25 Jan 2004 04:01:03
I wasn't raised in Judaism. In fact it would be hard to be goyisher than I. But even as an atheist I admired Judaism's emphasis on morality and justice (especially in the ancient world, it stood out as a beacon in this regard); I admired the Jewish people's perseverance against all manner of adversity; I admired their construction of a great system of law. And I admired the way Judaism placed such emphasis on man's responsibility to use his mind to engage with God and work out his will. (I realise that Judaism also has an important strain of mysticism; I don't know much about it, though, and what little I know of it I don't find terribly interesting.)
I studied the humanities, and received almost no formal education in the sciences. I have merely an amateur's enthusiasm for biology and entomology (and a few other biological ologies).
Yes, retarded people haven't the intellectual power others have. That's a misfortune. So is a missing limb. But then all people differ in their abilities. Some people without cognitive disabilities nonetheless are unable to get their minds round (say) physics, or their interests and gifts simply run in another direction. And the cognitively handicapped can have gifts in other areas. Think of Down's syndrome sufferers, who are intellectually quite dim but often capable of a very high level of social integration. Think of William's syndrome sufferers, who are even more intellectually deprived, yet have powerful verbal skills, and rejoice in them. There are, of course, far more unfortunate cases; severe autistics, or those so profoundly retarded that it is difficult or impossible to say what they experience or how. I don't pretend to have an answer for the conundrum they pose. In one of the posts above this one, I quoted Dan Simon quoting the Talmud. Sometimes there's not much more one can say than that. But I don't see in these misfortunes the cruelty of God. They just happen, because a gene mutated randomly or some toxin poisoned the developing foetus's environment or whatever. I don't think God did this; nature did. If I thought God interfered directly in our makings, I might as well be an 'intelligent design' creationist.
I don't think much about heaven and hell. I don't know what these concepts mean, and nobody else does either. Scripture tells us there is a life after death. It doesn't tell us what that means or what form it might take. All our concepts of it are mere human speculation. But I do believe that if I trust in God then what he wishes for me will come about, and that this will be a good thing, whatever it is. As for what exactly it will be, I'll just have to put my trust in him for that as well.
Christianity hasn't changed my behaviour as much as I might wish. This worries me a bit. But then, I think an important part of Christianity is coming to understand that we will very often fail, and that even those far better than I will never come close to achieving perfection.
I dislike much institutional religion, especially institutional Christian religion, because it makes very important things I don't think important at all. I dislike it especially when it seeks to coerce what it regards as proper belief and behaviour. There is no room in Christian faith for coercion. It can only be a free individual response.
I'm not much of a socialist, BTW. My views are strongly liberal, in the classical sense of the term. Any pseudo-bolshie tone you find on this site is meant ironically. The serious bit beneath the irony is that liberty is an exciting and revolutionary thing.
As for that passge from Timothy and similar passages, I don't think God was sending a message meant for a specific time and place. I think he was sending a message through people whose minds were stuck in a specific time and place; not quite the same thing.
The impertinent question was not whether God is just. It was: what were God's plans with regard to another? The passage is from John 21:
Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following ... Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me. Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?
Note that the message is repeated, as though for emphasis. And the message is pretty clearly, 'Mind your own damned business'. As Aslan the Lion (the thinly-veiled Jesus figure in CS Lewis's allegorical tales for children) kept telling people, you are told your own story, nobody's else.
Your metaphor of the flu is pretty apt. I certainly never expected or looked for Christian faith. Mind you, I'm a bit happier about having that I would be about a flu.
If I may ask you a question in turn: what, if any, is your religious background, and what, if anything, is your actual religious belief?
Posted by: Mrs Tilton at 25 Jan 2004 18:16:12
“I admired Judaism's emphasis on morality and justice”
Even Number 31 or Leviticus 20:13? Talk about coercion being used.
“I don't think God did this; nature did. If I thought God interfered directly in our makings, I might as well be an 'intelligent design' creationist.”
So, YHVH gave us minds but the minds that don’t work well aren’t from YHVH?
You don’t believe in miracles?
“I think he was sending a message through people whose minds were stuck in a specific time and place; not quite the same thing.”
This is something that often comes up. The parts one likes were correctly transmitted messages from YHVH. The parts one doesn’t like suffered from cosmic/ historical static. That’s very handy for picking and choosing bits of the Bible, claiming sanction for what one already agreed with and dismissing whatever one doesn’t like. In much the same way that people quote Lev. 20:13 ( “it’s the Word of God” ) but rarely Deut. 14 ( “that was part of the Old Covenant” but then again so was Lev. 20:13 ). In much the same way, many more Jews observe the kashruth than wear clothes made of one type of fiber, even though both are equally treyf.
I would be quite curious to see the result of an experiment where two groups, one in favour of X and one against X, are shown Bible quotes that relate to X and see how many have changed their minds after having read the quotes and how many now consider their previously held opinion to be YHVH’s very own.
“My views are strongly liberal, in the classical sense of the term”
Good, someone on Internet who uses the term “liberal” properly. Is there a libertarian party that has an actual chance of gaining seats in Britain? Failing that, as you seem hostile to the Tories, without irony, what’s the second best choice?
Religious background: Catholic.
Actual religious belief: Agnostic.
May I ask what you studied in the humanities and what your job is ( not the company’s name but the sector, although I realise this may be too personal a question ).
Turnabout being fair play, I am an undergraduate student in history and philosophy.
How do you feel about Acts of the Apostles 2:44-45, which is depicted in a positive light:
2:44
And all that believed were together, and had all things common;
2:45
And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.
All property in common, people take economic resources on the basis of need. Sounds proto-Communist. Is this another example of YHVH foolishly forgetting to do a background check on the open-mindedness of his rep. people? Being atemporal and omniscient, you’d think he would have been able to know whether or not his message was going to suffer from a game of telephone.
Posted by: SpiritualGenocide at 26 Jan 2004 16:10:11
Oh, and before I told you about my religious beliefs, how did I come off? Fundamentalist, mainstream, secular or something else?
Posted by: SpiritualGenocide at 26 Jan 2004 16:10:32
There is much in the Jewish scriptures that is harsh or coercive. There is also, however, a very strong and recurrent theme: do justice; if you are strong, do not exploit the weak; I [i.e., God] desire mercy, not sacrifices. And there is much more to Judaism than scripture.
It's not that God gave us minds when they are good, nature when they are bad. As I see it, God wills the existence of the natural world. He doesn't interfere in it or direct its development. From the moment of the Big Bang, as it were, nature developed as it developed, in matters large (formation of planets; autocatalytic formation of RNA, if that indeed is what happened; the origin of species by means of natural selection) and small (X is born a geníus and Y has Down's syndrome).
I don't believe in miracles, if by miracles you mean divine intervention to overrule the way nature works. I suppose I should say, I do not rule out miracles categorically and a priori, I just doubt very much that God makes use of them. You will doubtless be tempted to quote chapter and verse, asking What about that man who was cured of blindness? or What about those Gadarene swine? First, I'm no biblical literalist. Second, who knows, maybe these things did happen, but have a perfectly natural explanation of which a writer in the 1st c. could not possibly have been aware. The big exception to this would be the resurrection. This I accept on faith, and can offer no rational explanation for it.
It's not a question of picking and choosing ('Love one another': obviously the Inspired Word Of God; 'Women shut up': obviously cultural bias). Rather, I think that, from a Christian perspective (my perspective, anyway; I can't speak for other Christians) most of what's in scripture, whatever its importance or interest otherwise, is secondary. For me, the Christian faith is exceedingly simple; childishly so, compared with (say) Judaism or Islam. It is this: trust God.
As for classical liberalism: not being British (I'm Irish), I am spared having to decide which British party is least unacceptable. As I do not live in Ireland and Ireland does not allow expats to vote, I am spared the equally distasteful task of deciding this in an Irish context. I am allowed the vote in local and European elections where I live. I've generally voted strategically for one of the larger two parties, as a way of voting against the other. I do not vote for the party that is, in theory, closest to my way of thinking because they are a shower of unprincipled jackanapes who do not merit the noble name of 'liberal'.
I studied history, literature and law. As for my job, I am (as the strapline to this website states) a running-dog lackey of the bourgeoisie. If you're really curious, drop me an email and I'll give you the gory details.
As for para-socialist Christian communities: fair play to them, so long as they are entirely voluntary associations.
How did you come across? As a formerly catholic agnostic, of course. No, I jest. You came across as mainstream secular, though with a keen curiosity as to what people believe and why, with particular interest in internal self-contradictions.
Posted by: Mrs Tilton at 26 Jan 2004 20:28:34
Oh, yes: just out of curiosity: why do you refer to God using an anglicised version of the tetragrammaton?
Posted by: Mrs Tilton at 26 Jan 2004 20:30:21
