Month: October 2010
Theists Don’t Have Problems With Gradual Processes…
I’m here at the Vibrant Dance of Faith and Science Conference in Austin, where I’ve enjoyed hearing from Stephen Meyer, Hugh Ross, Darrel Falk, Dan Heinze, and more in presentations to a large auditorium of conference attendees. It’s interesting and I think good to bring together so many different perspectives on science and origins, though sometimes distinctions seemed purposefully blurred so as to preserve unity. An example of this might be Biologos’ Darrel Falk’s plenary session, where he discussed his view of “evolutionary creation” (he doesn’t like “theistic evolution”) as God working through a gradual process. He is right that most of the theists in the room do indeed agree on the point that God is creative and creator, but Read More ›
Randy Isaac on “Creationism” and “Intelligent Design”
“Creationism” In my previous post, I discussed Randy Isaac’s distinction of “evolutionism” and “evolution” in his essay “Science and the Question of God,” published at the BioLogos Foundation website. After proffering a distinction between “evolution” and “evolutionism,” Isaac talks about (young earth) creationism. I have some quibbles with what he says on the subject, especially with respect to biblical authority; however, I do share his concern that many young earth creationists appeal to the “tu quoque” argument. That is, many argue (in effect) that since everyone holds arbitrary presuppositions, it’s no problem for Christians to do so. But saying that everybody begs the question is hardly a reasonable rebuttal to the charge that I’m begging the question. This strategy makes Read More ›
Intelligent Design explains and unifies data from across the spectrum of scientific fields
Previously I noted that BioLogos has created a taxonomy of various viewpoints in the debate over origins that First Things blogger Christopher Benson called “helpful”. Given how badly it misrepresents ID, in my view it is anything but. Previously I showed that ID finds its supporting evidence in the fields of cosmology/physics and biology, thus refuting BioLogos’s mistaken assertion that “Intelligent design (ID) proponents believe that much of modern science is wrong and must be rejected because of its naturalism.” Let me reiterate two more points I made in response Benson’s orginal post: 2. The BioLogos taxonomy states: “The term Intelligent Design, although appropriated by these science critics, is used in many ways and is embraced by the first 5 Read More ›
Another Layer on the Information Story: Quorum Sensing
I was recently directed to a video lecture on the phenomenon of quorum sensing, the mechanism by which bacteria communicate with one another to establish the population density of micro-organisms of their own kind within their proximal environment. Bonnie Bassler, the lecturer in this video, does a masterful job of portraying fairly technical concepts and ideas to a lay-audience. The purpose of quorum sensing is essentially to ensure that sufficient cell numbers of a given species are present before initiating a response that requires the population density to be above a certain threshold. A single bacterial cell secreting a toxin into a eukaryotic organism is not likely to do the host any harm and would waste resources. If, however, all Read More ›
Randy Isaac on “Evolutionism”
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, Read More ›