Transcript Creationism to Universal Darwinism

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Creationism to Universal
Darwinism
Evolution and Religion Today
Taner Edis
Truman State University
www2.truman.edu/~edis
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l Thus sayeth
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l In the US:
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the polls...
~45% of the population are creationists.
~45% believe in a progressive
evolutionary process guided by God.
~5-10% accept naturalistic evolution
with no explicit divine involvement.
Darwinian evolution has very thin public
support in our rather religious culture.
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l Creationism and “ID”
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l  Not just literalism, fundamentalism.
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Object to Darwinian mechanism.
Central idea is design. Order must
arise from mind and purpose.
Intelligence must not be reducible to
material processes.
Stop materialism by refusing a foothold:
deny efficacy of naturalistic evolution.
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l Guided Evolution
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l  Confine Darwinian approach to biology.
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There is a transcendent driving force
behind evolutionary progress toward
higher consciousness, capability,
spirituality, and morality.
Darwin himself OK. Correct in biology,
left room for God as First Cause.
No conflict between science and
religion. Separate spheres.
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l Religion-free Evolution
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l  Natural selection a non-directional
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mechanism. “Progress” is an artifact.
Natural selection is the source of the
creativity in the history of life, though
other processes such as genetic drift,
phenotypic plasticity, mass extinctions
etc. are also important.
Biology is naturalistic, but this only
means we must seek God elsewhere.
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l Godless Evolution
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l  The concept of scriptural revelation is
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crippled -- only liberal handwaving.
Problem of Evil: Darwinian evolution is
cruel, inefficient.
God as add-on an unnecessary
hypothesis. Like Santa Claus to the
Christmas of naturalistic evolution.
Part of a broader case against God.
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l Universal Darwinism
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l  Darwinism applies beyond biology. It
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explains all creativity; it is central to
achieving all complex order.
Speculative: Darwinian cosmology.
Speculative: “Memes” and culture.
More solid: Darwinian AI. Our own
intelligence and creativity relies on
Darwinian processes in the brain!
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l Darwin vs. God?
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l  Today, the Darwinian challenge to
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religion is broader. Not confined to
chasing God out of biology.
The challenge is also deeper. At first,
we added evolution to purposeful
design as an alternative explanation for
complex order. Now, these two are both
subsumed under Darwinism. The
design analogy cannot get started.
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l What
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all this means...
It is no accident skeptics of religion are
usually such great fans of Darwin.
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l To learn more
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l  www2.truman.edu/~edis
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Taner Edis, The Ghost in the Universe:
God in Light of Modern Science, coming
out in March 2002! (Check with campus
bookstore.)
Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous
Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life