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Theism versus Evolution
The scientific evidence for evolution is solid but it doesn't follow that creationism is irrational in the way that many evolutionists assume. Creationism follows rationally from theism. I recognize that this argument is not likely to please many people. The evolutionists fear to question the premise while modern/moderate theists fear to question the conclusion.
Suppose that you find a watch in the forest. If you know there is no watchmaker then the theory of evolution is a brilliant and compelling explanation for the presence of complexity without design. But suppose that you know a watchmaker exists then surely the simplest and most compelling explanation is that the watchmaker made the watch. Any other explanation, particularly one so improbable (see extension) as evolution would seem to be preposterous and beside the point.
Thus for someone who knows, really knows, that god(s) exists (and there are many people who claim to know that god(s) exists) then some form of creationism (see the extension) follows as a rational deduction from the premises. It's no point telling these people that creationism is unscientific because given the premise that god(s) exists creationism is scientific. If god(s) exists then evolution is almost certainly false, if not in every particular then surely in the grand claims of a undesigned nature.
Evolutionists don't like this argument because they know that if the public is forced to choose between evolution and god they will choose god every time. Better inconsistency, they say, than a foolish consistency. Moderate theists don't like it either because they wish to maintain their theism whilst still being modern, scientific and progressive.
Only creationists and atheist evolutionists are consistent, everyone else is in a muddle.
Comments are open. I trust that all will remain civil.
I say that evolution is an improbable theory in light of Holmes's dictum that "when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." Excluding god as impossible leaves us with the improbable but true theory of evolution. Fail to exclude god and evolution is nothing but an improbable theory.
Theism implies some form of creationism but not necessarily the 'on the 7th day he rested' version. One could of course so weaken theism as to make it consistent with anything (e.g. deism) but in practice this is amounts to atheism or agnosticism. Any theism worth its name, i.e. postulating a god that works his or her ways in the world today is bound to be inconsistent with evolution. It makes no sense to assume a god that intervenes to answer prayer but who never has done any genetic engineering.
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on June 20, 2005 at 07:14 AM in Religion, Science | Permalink
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Comments
Or you could posit evolution as the mechanism which God put in place to accomplish creation.
Or you could say the heck with it all and recognize that creation is a theory of *how life got here*, and evolution is a theory of *what happened to it once it did*, so there's really no necessary contradiction.
Posted by: Andromeda at Jun 20, 2005 7:43:21 AM
This is hardly surprising or noteworthy, given that it is the case in logic that from false premises anything can be derived.
hugs,
Shirley Knott
Posted by: Shirley Knott at Jun 20, 2005 8:06:22 AM
Let's set aside the 'watch lying in the forest' argument for something much less esoteric. How about islands? Some islands have pretty typical assortments of continental terrestrial animals and no unique species whereas other islands are (or were) missing many, many continental animals and have (or did have) many, many unique species found only there.
The question is why? Even if you KNOW that God exists, it makes no sense--why would God have populated the world's islands in such a strange, haphazard way? All one can say is, "It's yet another mystery that man is not meant to understand, amen".
But if you also believe in evolution and and old world, then it's no mystery at all. Some islands are continental shelf islands. During the last ice age when much water was tied up in ice and water levels were lower, those islands were connected to continents, and animals wandered back and forth freely until they were cut off by rising waters. Since this happened only thousands of years ago, there has not been time for unique island species to evolve since then.
But other islands are deep sea islands formed in place by volcanic activity. They were never connected to continents, so the only species there are ones that made it by flying (birds, insects), or floating on rafts of branches (animals that can survive for long periods with little nutrition--tortoises, for example), or those that were later introduced by man. These 'founder populations' then underwent radiant evolution to produce unique species and fill all the empty niches. This takes considerable, time, of course, so older volcanic islands (like the Hawaiian islands) have more unique species than newer ones.
Now why wouldn't even somebody who believed in God still prefer such a straightforward, sensible explanation to "It's just a mystery?"
Posted by: mw at Jun 20, 2005 8:12:25 AM
"It's no point telling these people that creationism is unscientific because given the premise that god(s) exists creationism is scientific."
Even if you believe there is a God, this doesn't make creationism the best explanations for the diversity of life on earth. Considering we already know about the existence of DNA. And that DNA (or RNA) codes for the traits of all organisms on the planet. And that we know that genetic mutations occur. And it's hard to argue against the idea that organisms most likely to successfully continue their genetic line, will over long periods of time do that. In laboratories, it can be shown that the genetics of populations change over time to reflect those better suited for survival in their environment. Knowing all of this, it is essentially a certainty that evolution does occur. There could be evolution and creationism, however, the observable facts lead us to conclude there is evolution; even the axiom that there is a god doesn’t necessarily lead us to the conclusion that life was created diverse. If science is used to explain the laws of nature by way of observable, testable phenomena, our theory must be evolution, god or non god. Even given your premise, it seems to me that creationism is only scientific in the way that it would be scientific to adhere to the Ptolemaic model of the cosmos while ignoring Newton’s much simpler model.
Posted by: josh at Jun 20, 2005 8:40:17 AM
Evolution via natural selection is not a theory. It is a fact. We have solid evidence that it has occurred. While there are gaps in the fossil record here and there for various species, humans included, there is nonetheless plenty of evidence of evolution.
Andromeda: Evolution via natural selection provides for the creation of life as well as what happened once it "got here." As mentioned above, what happened after that is fact, not theory. We can't show for sure that life started up on its own, so that much is theory. Even so, the best evidence we have suggests it.
Creationist justification of beliefs in light of (or in spite of) scientific evidince strikes me as rationalization.
"and there are many people who claim to know that god(s) exists"
I could claim to know that a meteor will strike the earth ending all life in the year 3459. Like the people you mention, I really have no evidence, and have no way to prove or disprove it in a timeframe that matters to anyone now living. Thus, regardless of what they may think or claim to know, there is no place for a 'conclusion' that life was created by a divine maker. As Shirley said, if you can pick your premise you can effectively pick your conclusions. In reality, you can't always pick the premise. This is one of those cases.
Posted by: Brock Tice at Jun 20, 2005 8:41:24 AM
In defense of the middle ground: One could believe in an God who is omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, &c., and still believe in the veracity of the theory of evolution. Such a God could put in place all the various laws of the universe that He wills, all of which might produce evolution as we observe it. This does not necessarily lead to a "clockwork universe," however. Given a God with such characteristics, could not all of His interventions be consistent with one another across time and space? That is, intervention is not inconsistent with evolution (cf. the last two sentences of Dr. Tabarrok's post.) One might then ask: "but what evidence or reason could anyone have for believing in Him?" To this there are a few answers, all of which may be subsumed under the loose heading of "faith" (viz. individual inspiration, dogma, personal experience, &c.)
The only problem with the above is that it requires a refutation of Dr. Tabarrok's claim that "If god(s) exists then evolution is almost certainly false, if not in every particular then surely in the grand claims of a undesigned nature." Not so, for the reasons above that design and intervention are not necessarily inconsistent with the appearance of non-design and non-intervention.
Posted by: PJB at Jun 20, 2005 8:46:23 AM
"The night is caused by a giant dragon that eats the world and spits it out every morning
the morning. Do you want me to believe that the world is round? That it spins?
That there is an invisible thing called gravity ? That the suns burns?? That the universe expands???
Come on!! Sorry, Mr. Smart, it is much easier to believe in the the Dragon.
I believe in the Dragon!!!"
Is his position scientific??
Posted by: C. Furtado já morreu at Jun 20, 2005 8:58:01 AM
"The night is caused by a giant dragon that eats the world and spits it out every morning
the morning. Do you want me to believe that the world is round? That it spins?
That there is an invisible thing called gravity ? That the suns burns?? That the universe expands???
Come on!! Sorry, Mr. Smart, it is much easier to believe in the the Dragon.
I believe in the Dragon!!!"
Is his position scientific??
Posted by: C. Furtado já morreu at Jun 20, 2005 8:58:55 AM
Evolutionists don't like this argument because they know that if the public is forced to choose between evolution and god they will choose god every time.
This seems so true I often wonder how the rest of the world got so atheistic. I wonder what a worldwide survey would say on creation vs evolution? Do the Hindus care?
Posted by: Noumenon at Jun 20, 2005 9:07:52 AM
To Noumenon:
the reason the "rest of the world got so atheistic" is the inefficiency and corruption of state-run churches (or church-run states). Not only did this lead to lower-quality religion due to the lack of competition, it also meant that anyone trying to overthrow a government had to work hard to discredit its church. see http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2004/04/why_is_western_.html
Posted by: dk at Jun 20, 2005 9:18:14 AM
I'd add a caveat to the Mr. Tabarrok's original proposition to address some of the evolutionary arguments made here: In the absence of much knowledge of earth sciences (such as biology and geology), then belief in a god makes creationism a logical conclusion. However, as pointed out above, once you study it, the god hypothesis doesn't fit nearly as well to the available evidence.
I suspect that creationists fear that the converse is true: acceptance of the reality of evolution leads to the disbelief in a god as traditionally defined. While it is possible to believe in a god and evolution simultaneously, the kinds of gods described in Middle Eastern-derived religions are all-powerful and all-knowing, and hence the state of the world makes no sense from the perspective of someone trying to understand how an omnipotent and omniscient being would have let it become this way.
Posted by: Sandy Smith at Jun 20, 2005 9:20:59 AM
Natural selection isn't an a-priori unlikely hypothesis. It's a tautology. Theism implies special creation, but serious "omnipotent, omnitient" theism puts god in the seat of physics, and makes evolution no more of a competitor for god than it is a competitor for physics in the naturalistic worldview.
In addition to a tautology, evolution is a statement about subjective probability, while the role of god or physics is to constrain objective probability (reality).
Posted by: michael vassar at Jun 20, 2005 9:22:04 AM
Uhm, I'm a theist that believes in evolution and creationism. Why couldn't a god of some sort have set into motion the rules by which our section of the universe formed and evolved such that our current state is a combination of those set rules and the chaos(randomness) that then ensued? This is the problem with hardcore evolutionists and fundamentalist religious views, they refuse to see a middle point because they fear that might weaken their personal view. It in fact is the perfect median. God creates the universe, sets up the super-intricate laws of the universe (hey, we still haven't figured out all the rules!), possibly even giving a little nudge to the formation of carbon based life forms, and then lets chaos take it from there. I mean, if god really did make us in his image, he's either not the great holy being we think he is or theres a deeper meaning to that, and by his image, what is really meant is his grand design. I guess thats the other fallacy, that we're the perfect animal, which we are most definitely not, there is much improvement that could be made.
Posted by: Steve at Jun 20, 2005 9:27:12 AM
These comments illustrate Alex's insight so well.
Posted by: robi at Jun 20, 2005 9:30:30 AM
Some commenters cite the fact that we are certain of the existance of DNA mutations and of natural selection. I don't think that this is where the disconnect between theists and atheists lies. Rather, those arguments presuppose the existance of an organism that already has DNA to mutate, and is already capable of reproduction. This is the weakest link in the theory, and Alex is right to say that if one believes in God/god/gods, it is only reasonable to believe that He/she/they created at least the first organism.
While the evidence for natural selection is solid, I would say that the evidence for the wider theory of naturalistic origins is only weakly plausible on its own. It is the presupposition that God does not exist that makes it attractive to those who believe in it.
Posted by: Eli at Jun 20, 2005 9:42:57 AM
I think the most remarkable part of the above post is this quote:
"If god(s) exists then evolution is almost certainly false, if not in every particular then surely in the grand claims of a undesigned nature."
Together with:
"I say that evolution is an improbable theory in light of Holmes's dictum that "when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." Excluding god as impossible leaves us with the improbable but true theory of evolution. Fail to exclude god and evolution is nothing but an improbable theory.
...
It makes no sense to assume a god that intervenes to answer prayer but who never has done any genetic engineering."
If you put these quotes together, you realize that what Prof. Taborrok is really saying is that religious people believe in God because God serves us in solving our economic and political problems. If we cannot believe that God can do this, there is no reason to believe in God at all. If God is isn't concerned about our trivial problems, then we might as well kill him off. That's a remarkable attitude that will not gain favor with the true God of the universe should one exist.
I believe PJB above had it right: you can believe that God created evolution. I cannot explain why you would believe that anymore than why one should believe in anything. I cannot believe that what you believe matters to anyone but yourself and believing in false things cannot help.
We should believe in evolution for a simple reason that was mention above: it explains the world that we live in. It is exactly the reason why we believe in market economics instead of socialism. The value of a theory is its predictive power. Theism has a problem as a theory: how can you predict what God will do? If you could, then God would fail to be greater than your imagination.
Posted by: Michael H. at Jun 20, 2005 9:53:58 AM
As previously stated, it is entirely possible to believe in both evolution and God(s). This is great for many people: it is merely two sides of our personalities getting what they want. The logic and reason based half gets some needed theoretical (probably realistic) history of 'life'. While the insecure hope based side of our mind gets to keep believing that some all-knowing and all-seeing parental figure is in the sky watching over all of us.
Its win-win for those of us who refuse to believe that death is the end of our individual being.
Posted by: J.M. at Jun 20, 2005 10:26:53 AM
"If god(s) exists then evolution is almost certainly false, if not in every particular then surely in the grand claims of a undesigned nature."
You make it sound as if evolution were a default position that we have to assume not because of evidence in its favor, but simply because there's no credible alternative - when in fact, there's an incredible amount of evidence for common descent and macroevolution.
Take a look at this page, perhaps especially the molecular evidence:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
Whatever genetic engineering gods have been doing, it must have been either very small-scale, or painstakingly made to look like the results of chance and natural selection.
Posted by: Martin R at Jun 20, 2005 10:40:02 AM
I think the real problem with this post is that the definition of God is much to amorphous.
We need a real definition of "God", and then a classification of the differnet kinds -- what is the justification for our knowledge about "God", under the different definitions -- revealed, the bible, the Koran, intuition, logic? Then we can get somewhere.
Posted by: theCoach at Jun 20, 2005 10:50:37 AM
As the religious scientist Miller details in his excellent "Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution"...
If you don't accept evolution then you have to believe that God (or maybe Satan?) went to a awful lot of work to create a world exactly like one evolution would have made.
Let's face, it "God" could have created the world yesterday, and us with all of our memories, and childhood pictures and films. But why would a loving god do that? I think a religious person takes the rings inside a tree as evidence that the tree has been living for the number of years evidenced by the rings. Otherwise God is lying to us.
I think a consistent position (though I'm an atheist) is to believe that God wrote the book of Earth, and humans wrote the bible. If you want to know God's word, cut into the trees and see what He says.
Posted by: Jim W at Jun 20, 2005 11:07:17 AM
As the religious scientist Miller details in his excellent "Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution"...
If you don't accept evolution then you have to believe that God (or maybe Satan?) went to a awful lot of work to create a world exactly like one evolution would have made.
Let's face, it "God" could have created the world yesterday, and us with all of our memories, and childhood pictures and films. But why would a loving god do that? I think a religious person takes the rings inside a tree as evidence that the tree has been living for the number of years evidenced by the rings. Otherwise God is lying to us.
I think a consistent position (though I'm an atheist) is to believe that God wrote the book of Earth, and humans wrote the bible. If you want to know God's word, cut into the trees and see what He says.
Posted by: Jim W at Jun 20, 2005 11:07:40 AM
The fundamental flaw at the heart of this argument is pretty prosaic: nobody can KNOW that god exists. Belief doesn't constitute knowledge, whatever the theologians think, nor does "claiming to know." Knowledge requires proof, and the existence of god cannot in any way be proved. And while the proven existence of the watch may SUGGEST a watchmaker, it doesn't constitute PROOF that such an entity exists. And without that proof, creationism dies.
Posted by: Stephen Ayer at Jun 20, 2005 11:37:08 AM
The problem here is that creationism is inherently self-contradictory: The main value in creationism, to the creationists, is that it supports a literal interpretation of the Bible, but to do so, we need to accept the idea that God would do deliberately deceptive things, like placing light from stars more than 6000 light years aways into the universe as if those stars were more than 6000 light years away.
The reason why I, as a Christian, accept evolution over Christianity is not because evolution denies God, but because creationism reduces Christianity to an absurdity.
Posted by: don Hosek at Jun 20, 2005 11:37:14 AM
Noumenon asks: "I wonder what a worldwide survey would say on creation vs evolution? Do the Hindus care?" Hinduism has a doctrine of the cyclical evolution & dissolution of entire universes. They emerge, expand, evolve, decay, disappear over eons. Then, eons later, the cycle repeats itself.
Posted by: Sudha Shenoy at Jun 20, 2005 11:51:42 AM
"If we assueme that God exists then some form of creationism follows as a rational deduction."
As an economist (and decision-theorist), you should think again about this inference. For mere mortals who have constraints and preferences, it is easy to observe choice outcomes and say whether they can be explained as the rational will of the chooser. But God has no constraints. And therefore God can choose his own preferences. How does he decide?
On the contrary, when one assumes that God exists and therefore that everything else that exists was the result of God's rational will, explaining *anything* becomes infinitely more difficult.
Posted by: jeff ely at Jun 20, 2005 12:23:38 PM
