This gap is getting mighty cramped
So might God say, after a new book by Michael Behe, titled The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism, deskills the Intelligent Designer's role in evolution even more:
Our Mutator, who art in Heaven...
But IDers, like all creationists, are never down for the count, because they see themselves as fighting for the Lord. So Behe is back now, with a new book and a brand-new theory that puts the Intelligent Designer back into biology. What has Behe now found to resurrect his campaign for ID? It's rather pathetic, really. Basically, he now admits that almost the entire edifice of evolutionary theory is true: evolution, natural selection, common ancestry. His one novel claim is that the genetic variation that fuels natural selection -- mutation -- is produced not by random changes in DNA, as evolutionists maintain, but by an Intelligent Designer. That is, he sees God as the Great Mutator.
II.
For a start, let us be clear about what Behe now accepts about evolutionary theory. He has no problem with a 4.5-billion-year-old Earth, nor with evolutionary change over time, nor apparently with its ample documentation through the fossil record -- the geographical distribution of organisms, the existence of vestigial traits testifying to ancient ancestry, and the finding of fossil "missing links" that show common ancestry among major groups of organisms. Behe admits that most evolution is caused by natural selection, and that all species share common ancestors. He even accepts the one fact that most other IDers would rather die than admit: that humans shared a common ancestor with chimpanzees and other apes.
Our Mutator, who art in Heaven...
posted by Anonymous at 8:20 PM
8 Comments:
Which is why ID is wrong, but no place for G-d need be made.
In fact, the problem with the IDers is that they have insufficient faith and too cramped an understanding of Creation.
I was thinking that's where ID would end up. Merging the supernatural and superempirical. Gamma rays cause mutations. Nobody knows where a specific gamma ray came from (since it originated before humankind existed and its generation and travel are too chaotic for mere humans to postdict). Yet an omniscient diety could've generated said gamma ray and predicted its effect ahead of time. Therefore, the gamma ray could've come from a natural or supernatural entity. Can't be proven one way or the other. God will always be able to find refuge in the superempirical gap.
Bret: Where's Tolstoy when Anna throws herself under the train. The failure of ID is the inability to imagine that G-d is as powerful as Tolstoy.
In fact, the problem with the IDers is that they have ... too cramped an understanding of Creation.
Well said.
Looks like Mike found it lonely out there with the kooks and wants back in.
This morning I went on a float trip down the Snake River.
These days, anything that courts death nearly as ardently as washing your car requires signing a disclaimer absolving the floatists of any responsibility for a whole host of things, including:
"The interpretive remarks of the guide regarding geology, adaptation, and the age of the surrounding terrain, which may cause some people significant mental distress."
Some ID/Creationists must have gotten in the suing mood.
Jeez, I hope they had firearms check-in
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