The Case for a Creator: Introduction
By PotatoStew | September 22nd, 2005 | 6:27 pmI’d like to use this post to begin a follow up on a discussion I was having with someone on the News and Record’s Letters to the Editor blog, home to a host of some of the most partisan posters on the Internet.
The debate between Evolutionists and Creationists has been going on for quite some time now, making its way back into the news recently with the Kansas State Board of Education’s debate on Intelligent Design and Evolution in their school curriculum and with President Bush’s remarks on the issue.
A recent letter to the editor in the News and Record pointed out the difference between science and philosophy, correctly noting that evolution is sound science and implying that the philosophy behind Intelligent Design is not scientific. “If you want to find out why atoms interact, ask a scientist. If you want to know why life has meaning, do what I and my colleagues in the sciences do: Ask your pastor, minister, parish priest, rabbi or imam,” said the writer.
In the course of the comments, a poster named ECUMAN said:
[W]hat you mean is all philosophies should be excluded from science classes except materialistic naturalism, no matter how illogical it can be at times … [T]he second definition is the philosophical definition of materialism and naturalism that everything MUST have a materialistic explanation. That is the definition that is arbitrary and that I take issue with.
I responded:
It is not arbitrary… the assumption of materialism is fundamental to practicing science. It doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s the way the world is, it’s just that this assumption is useful for making science work. By definition, the supernatural, or immaterial can’t be quantified or observed by science. So trying to make such explanations a part of science is incoherent.
And you know what? This assumption of materialism…. it works. How’s that computer that you’re typing on working out for you? Have any lifesaving medical procedures done lately? Evidence of the usefulness of the assumption of [materialism] in science is all around you.
We briefly discussed the necessity of materialism to science, and at one point I commented:
If you look at ID arguments, you’ll see that they are all just criticisms of evolution. They look for an area where something is not fully explained, or where there is disagreement, and rather than say “we don’t know that yet” they say “an intelligent designer did it”
To which ECUMAN replied that there was more to it than that, and a good place to find a summary of the evidence for ID was in the book “The Case for a Creator” by Lee Strobel. I asked for a brief overview of the strongest evidence presented there, and ECUMAN listed the following:
- The evidence for the Big Bang
- The difficulty of life beginning in the cosmos, this solar system and this planet by accident.
- The complexity of biological life.
- The amount and complexity of information found in DNA.
- Accounting for human consciousness.
- The problems with the evidence for macroevolution.
Since then I’ve visited the library and checked out a copy of the book, and I’d like to spend a few posts going through it and addressing the points raised by ECUMAN. Some things I’ll be looking for: Are they in fact arguments that fit the definition of science, or do they lean more towards philosophy? Do the arguments indeed point towards a creator? Can I actually finish reading a library book before it’s due back?
September 22nd, 2005 at 7:55 pm
This is a ridiculous argument. Basically ID says that for EVERYTHING that we can’t explain, someone else made it happen. While that VERY possibly could be true, that’s also a terrible shirking of responsibility.
For example, back in the day: volcano blows up. People die. Gods must be mad.
Current day: Oh, there’s molten rock movement underneath the surface and there’s tectonic plate movements.
I’m not saying that there isn’t someone bigger and badder than us because that’d be ridiculous to think we’re it. But it’s just like saying that if we were bacteria and God was a human being…. if suddenly the God popped a Altoid, was he planning on killing us? Probably not.
People need to read Anne Rice’s vampire series. Not only a good series, but puts some of the bigger pictures into perspectives. *laugh*
September 22nd, 2005 at 8:03 pm
“This is a ridiculous argument. Basically ID says that for EVERYTHING that we can’t explain, someone else made it happen. While that VERY possibly could be true, that’s also a terrible shirking of responsibility.”
Not only that, but it puts it entirely outside of the realm of science, which is what I was trying to explain to ECUMAN. Science examines the natural, the physical, the material — that’s all it’s equipped to do. Being supernatural, God is not something science can investigate, so while God may indeed exist, science is not able to address him in any meaningful way. By definition, any “theory” involving God is not science.
September 24th, 2005 at 8:20 am
Unless God wasn’t supernatural. When I was a kid, I always wondered… what if we were just germs on a giant space dog or something. Totally oblivious to us, but in all technicality, “it” created us. That would be possible actually then for science to prove.
March 1st, 2006 at 5:33 pm
ID is not something investigated, it is just what all the modern scientific discoveries point to. Belief in ID in no way puts a stop to scientific discovery unless you are just plain lazy. It only gives people more reason to investigate and see how much more they can learn about things that an ID created. ID just says that things in physics are so fine tuned, so much information is stored in DNA, etc… that the only withstanding theory is ID. Other theories fall short, or are so comlicated they are excluded by Ockham’s Razor.
March 1st, 2006 at 10:16 pm
Hi Animecomic, thanks for the reply. The arguments for ID are mostly arguments from ignorance and incredulity – in other words, they’re based on either gaps in our knowledge or an unwillingness to believe a given scientific explanation. So I’m not sure in what way scientific discoveries could point to ID. ID could certainly be seen as *compatible* with scientific discoveries, but only in the sense that ID can be made to fit absolutely *any* set of facts, since no matter what the evidence is, you can always say “that’s just how God designed it”. Evolutionary theory, on the other hand, requires in many cases that the facts look a certain way for it to be true, and so far the theory has stood up to the facts quite well.
July 28th, 2006 at 9:13 pm
I have read the book The Case for a Creator and, while I find much of it weak and philosophical, as opposed to scientific, it does bring up some interesting problems with purely naturalistic evolution theory. My biggest problem, however, with scientists is that many seem determined to disprove the existance of a greater Being, which is utterly stupid and a waste of time. It is impossible to scientifically disprove something that by definition is outside the material world. The arrogance of many scientists is astonishing; If I can’t measure and observe it, it must not exist. That is idotic. Similarly, I find it absurd for so many people to try to PROVE that God exists. If God did create the world, He did a masterful job of making impossible for us to nail down a concrete proof of His existance. No burning bushes or loud booming voices from the sky lately. I goess that is what faith is for. Regardless, these are two seperate realms that can easily coexist without each side trying to destroy the other.
July 30th, 2006 at 11:04 pm
Hi Critical Believer – thanks for the reply. I agree with a lot of what you’ve said, however, I think that most scientists probably aren’t trying to disprove a greater being. As you said, it’s impossible, and I’m sure most scientists realize this.
As for the idea that “If I can’t measure and observe it, it must not exist” – It’s not so much that it doesn’t exist, but that it can’t be addressed by the tools of science, since those tools require measurement and observation. So, if scientists can’t measure or observe something, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist, but it does mean that scientists (while “doing science”) must behave as though it doesn’t.
Also, while I’m commenting on this post again, I must apologize to everyone for never actually following through with the review of this book. I didn’t really have time to do it properly, and from doing a few Google searches, I found there were already quite a few reviews out there that did much the same thing as I was attempting.