Transcript Evolution Vs Intelligent Design

Evolution Vs Intelligent Design
G-d Versus Science
What Evolution is
• The claim that all living creatures must
have a living parent.
• Some living creatures are very different
from some others.
• Simple animals and plants existed on
earth long before more complex ones.
What About Intelligent Design?
• The Intelligent Design argument, which holds that the
development of organic life must be guided by some
higher-order intelligence responsible for the incredibly
complex designs of particular structures (e.g., the human
eye), is entirely compatible with the theory of evolution
(although not with Darwin's account of how evolution
works). All one has to concede is that the process
governing evolution is supernatural rather than
natural. This is not a scientific position, of course, since
any invocation of non-natural causation in explanations
about nature lies outsides the methods of science. But it
is one way to believe in evolution without abandoning a
faith in god or gods.
What Evolution is not
• Evolution is the development of animal and plant
species out of other species not at all like them,
for example, the process by which, say, a
species of fish gets transformed (or evolves)
through various stages into a cow, a kangaroo,
or an eagle. This definition, it should be noted,
makes no claims about how the process might
occur, and thus it certainly does not equate the
concept of evolution with Darwinian Natural
Selection, as so many people seem to do. It
simply defines the term by its effects not by how
those effects are produced.
Origin of Life Objections
• The most common objection to the case made
for evolution is the question, "But what about the
origin of life?”
• Any scientific explanation for the origin of life
will, of course, have to involve matter and
physical laws, without appeals to supernatural
processes, and it will have to generate
predictions which can be tested.
The Defense of Genesis as a
Scientific Document
• The claim that if we read Genesis
allegorically, making each "day" a long
period of time, then the sequence of
creations described matches (more or
less) the narrative developed by
science. Hence, we ought to ascribe
some scientific validity to the Biblical
narrative.
Response
• The fact that a confirmed scientific theory bears some
resemblance to an old story provides no scientific
justification for the story. The Greeks had old stories
which explained the orbits and positions of many
stars. These myths often involved transformations of
human beings into celestial phenomena (as a reward or
punishment). Science has developed and confirmed
different theories for why these stars appear to move the
way they do. Even if such ancient stories contain details
also found, more or less, in scientific explanations, that
confers no scientific value on those stories.
The Objection Based on the
Absence of Visual Confirmation
• Others reject the notion of evolution
outright (without reference to the
argument) with the simple claim that it
cannot be true because no one has ever
seen a complete transformation of one
distinct species into another (e.g., fish to
reptiles).
Response
• Science does not proceed by demonstrating that
certain theories are irrefutably true. It
demonstrates by repeated testing that they are
not false. The more a theory is confirmed, the
stronger the probability that the explanation it
offers is correct.
• Evolution is a theory, just as atomic structures,
black holes, electricity, relativity, DNA, gravity
magnetism, and so on are "just theories."