2010

The BioLogos Foundation recently published a scholarly essay (with several accompanying blog posts) titled “Science and the Question of God” by Randy Isaac. Isaac is a physicist and executive director of the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA)–a scholarly society of Christian natural scientists. In his essay, Isaac examines, as he puts it, “three schools of thought regarding the possibility of detecting God’s existence through science: Evolutionism, Creationism, and Intelligent Design.”

In this and two follow-up posts, I’ll respond to some of the themes of Isaac’s essay.

When I began to read “Science and the Question of God,” I worried that Isaac would define ID as an explicit attempt to prove the existence of God.

But, happily, Isaac doesn’t make that mistake, and provides instead an acceptable definition of ID: “The essential principle of ID,” he says, “is that there are patterns in nature that are best explained by the action of an indeterminate intelligent designer.”

Over at the Huffington Post, that organ of sophisticated theological analysis, Matt Rossano argues: If he were alive today would Aquinas be an evolutionist? His writings suggest a mind already resonating with many evolutionary concepts. My sense is that Aquinas, like Aristotle and Albert before him, was just too curious and too smart not be at the intellectual vanguard wrestling with exciting new knowledge. Limping weakly behind with whiny unimaginative creationists would have been far too boring for a mind such as his. In fact, Rossano actually tries to marshal St. Thomas for the least plausible part of the Darwinian program–evolutionay psychology. Rossano finds some simlarities between Thomas’ thought and the ideas of evolutionary psychology. But any two schools of Read More ›

Recently I asked Larry Moran of Sandwalk: what do you, as a New Atheist, really believe? To focus the discussion I asked eight fundamental philosophical questions. The insistent New Atheist claim has been that belief in the supernatural in any form- traditional Christian belief seems to rile them the most- is nonsense and has been shown to be such by modern science. New Atheists claim the mantle of logic and reason, as against irrationality and superstition of theists.

Dr. Moran replied to my questions, courteously, and as I have promised I will answer the questions in the same spirit. For clarity, I will give the original question, then Dr. Moran’s answer, and then mine.

A little background on my perspective: I am a Roman Catholic. I converted from agnosticism to Catholicism about 6 years ago. My answers to the eight questions will draw on traditional Catholic teaching. Much about existence and God can be understood by reason, by philosophical reflection and by contemplation of nature, although some truths can only be discovered by revelation through Scripture. The fullest understanding is a harmony of both. Although my answers are from a Catholic perspective, I believe that many of them are in substantial agreement with those of my Protestant, Jewish, and Islamic friends. It’s worth noting that the original forms of many of these answers were proposed by Aristotle, who was a pagan.

The philosophical views that I summarize have been held by most educated men for a couple of millennia. After Aristotle, this philosophical tradition was further developed in the High Middle Ages by Aquinas, Averroes, Maimonides and many others. Today it is the kernel of the New Essentialism school of philosophy of nature. This philosophy represents the foundation of Western thought.

Over the past couple of centuries these explanations have largely been forgotten by atheists and by scientists with a dogmatic materialistic view of nature, as classical philosophy did not prove congenial to a mechanistic atheist view of the world. It’s an impoverished view; most New Atheists don’t even understand the questions that the classical explanations have addressed. Unsurprisingly, the classical explanations have never been successfully refuted.

I am very much a theological and philosophical amateur. In my brief summary of my beliefs, I will do little justice to these remarkable insights.

1) Why is there anything?

Biochemist and CSC Fellow Michael Behe engaged in a lively radio debate with Keith Fox a British biochemist and theistic evolutionist. Premiere Radio describes it this way: Michael Behe is professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University, Pennsylvania and the founder of the modern Intelligent Design movement. His book “Darwin’s Black Box” ignited the controversy 14 years ago when it claimed that certain molecular machines and biological processes are “irreducibly complex” and cannot be explained by Darwinian evolution. His new book “The Edge of Evolution” takes his conclusions further, arguing that the Darwinian processes of random mutation and natural selection are incapable of producing the variation and complexity we see in most of life. So can we conclude that life was Read More ›

FoxNews recently published two articles (see here and here) about extrasolar planets and extraterrestrial life. Although skepticism is supposed to be a hallmark of science, one evolutionary scientist quoted, Steven Vogt, boasts that he has “no doubt” that there is life on this newly discovered extrasolar planet: “Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say, my own personal feeling is that the chances of life on this planet are 100 percent,” said Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, during a press briefing today. “I have almost no doubt about it.” Let me make sure I understand this right. Dr. Vogt has “almost no Read More ›

Yesterday morning ENV reported about a forum at the upcoming Vibrant Dance of Faith and Science Conference that would feature an exchange of views from leading scientists from Discovery Institute and the BioLogos Foundation. Unfortunately, yesterday afternoon we were informed by a conference organizer that the session in question was being canceled. The good news is that attendees will still be able to hear the same speakers at other sessions, and the rest of the conference is going forward. For my part, I earnestly hope that another forum for a public exchange of views can be found in the future.

The most popular of the Origin of Life (OOL) models is the RNA-first world. RNA can have catalytic properties similar to proteins (enzymes) and are thus called ribozymes. RNA or some form of pre-RNA is an attractive early earth molecule and possible progenitor to early life because, unlike the chicken-and-egg problem with proteins and DNA, theoretically, RNA replication can be completely self-contained. In fact, in January 2009 Nature reported on the synthesis of a self-replicating RNA molecule capable of catalyzing its own replication. See Casey Luskin’s report here.

There are several problems with the RNA-first model (See here for a short discussion on some problems with RNA, and see Chapter 14 in Signature in the Cell) not the least of which is how difficult RNA is to synthesize. However, two of the major problems that OOL researchers face are the inherent instability of RNA (a much less stable molecule than DNA) and the dilute reaction conditions that were likely on the early earth. A recent Nature Communications proposes a hypothesis that addresses these problems. The authors propose that perhaps these early earth RNA reactions occurred in ice.

A while ago Larry Moran at Sandwalk asked:

Let’s stop the whining about how “know-nothing” atheists are ignoring the very best arguments for the existence of God. Come on, all you theists and accommodationists, put your money where your mouth is. Give us something of substance instead of hiding behind The Courtier’s Reply. Let’s see the angels…I’m betting that [theists] haven’t the foggiest notion of any new and sophisticated arguments for the existence of God that the New Atheists haven’t already addressed. I’m betting they’re just blowing smoke in order to provide cover for their theist friends in the hope of saving them from intellectual embarrassment.

Moran got 551 comments. Not one argument for theism satisfied him: