fruitful faith » evolution

methinks no telos in evolution

Dale — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 05:45:06 +0000

My ‘techno-skepto’ mate, Damian, has posted an updated version of his funky cool little evolving tool. Head over and have a play with the numbers (offspring & mutation rate) and the target phrase.

original sin essay

Dale — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 23:43:02 +0000

Done.

I really enjoyed the research on this one. My continual struggle is starting early enough on an assignment so that I have time to drown myself in research and actually write the essay. There are 34 items in the bibliography (dictionaries, commentaries, journal articles and some topical monographs), and I really only dipped into things. Pretty late in the piece I was wow-ed by Karl Barth’s commentary on Romans 5:12, and really want to look into that more.

Anyway, hope it’s interesting reading (warning, it’s 4,000+ words)!

falling out with animals

Dale — Fri, 28 May 2010 01:27:15 +0000

I’m just getting my teeth into a research essay for my Humanity and Hope (Anthropology and Eschatology) paper, which will be about The Fall in Christian Evolutionary Perspective – in other words, how to biblically, Christianly, and Theologically understand the Fall in a framework that accepts evolutionary science. As usual, I’ll post the essay on my Essays page – it’s not due for another couple weeks, so won’t be until after that.

For now, I share a quote regarding the effect of the human fall upon the rest of creation – from a lovely little book called Living with the Animals: The Community of God’s Creatures, by Charles Birch & Lukas Vischer:

“God’s creation is so designed that one part depends on another. Life is born from life. Life must come to an end so that new life can begin. The creation is characterized by constant dying away and coming into being. It lives by the continual sacrifice of living things. All living things – humans, animals and plants – share in this process, each in its own way. They all pass away and serve one another by their passing away. All form part of the vast sacrifice that life as a whole makes possible. In the end, no part of the whole can escape this common feature of creation.

By rejecting God, however, humans bring a new dimension into this factual state of affairs. They upset the fragile equilibrium of all creation in order to establish and implement their rule. Having exceeded the boundaries laid down for them, they then make humankind the centre of their universe to such a degree that they lose sight of the community of creation as God intended it to be. They believe that the only purpose of living creatures, animals and plants is humanity as the centrepoint of creation. The use of violence is taken as self-evident. The basic rule of creation is perverted. Instead of producing new life, humans work death and destruction.” (p.13)

musical bodies

Dale — Wed, 26 May 2010 23:39:47 +0000

The following is not intended as a theistic proof, but it is yet another of countless points of ‘resonance’ with belief in a Creator.

I was just thinking last night about how deeply human or ‘anthropocentric’ music is. Whilst we can anthropomorphise and talk about the ‘song’ of the bluebird, or the rhythm of the cicadas or crickets, these animals are not truly doing ‘music’. It is a human activity.

I think of the vast pre-human time where there was no scales, chords, melodies, harmonies, minor or major keys, suspensions, arpeggios, triplets, modes, beats, resolutions, or tensions. What a breathtaking development for music to arrive on the scene!

I’m not going to speculate on what the first music sounded like, or whether music was before or after language, etc. What I was particularly thinking about last night was the way in which minor chords and keys and certain tensions, beats and rhythms can ‘move’ (and indeed, at times manipulate) us. The victorious flavour of ‘bright’ major chords and keys contrasts beautifully with the reflective shade of ‘darker’ minor chords and keys. It beautifully reflects the reality of the basic bifurcations of life as we experience it as humans.

The interesting thing for me is that from an evolutionary perspective, music would with little or no doubt have arrived on the scene after our most recent major physiological evolutionary step. Music, therefore, could not have been part of the environmental pressure shaping pre-human (and thus pre-musical) life. There could be no survival of the most musically moved, so to speak. So it would be hard for me to grasp how we could blame (or thank) evolution by natural selection for the effect that music has on us. I welcome corrections to my thinking here (both in musical and evolutionary theory), but from where I stand, it appears that the wonderful coherence between the bifurcation of major and minor chords and our bifurcated experience of life is yet another of many ‘coincidences’.

naturalistic dualist?

Dale — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 12:09:40 +0000

I knew I’d have to blog about this one. I just got back from the latest TANSA (Theology and the Natural Sciences in Aotearoa) meeting at Laidlaw College.

The Speaker was Dr. Peter Wills, who, it turns out, is a naturalist (I also met and had a nice talk with a lady who shared that she no longer professed faith, so this was no Christians-only affair). Nicola, the chairperson for TANSA, opened with a lovely quote from theologian Michael Welker to give expression to the ‘T’ in TANSA, as Peter would handle the ‘N’ (couldn’t help but smile to myself seeing boxes of ‘Hell’ pizza behind this ‘godless’ scientist ;D ).

While I was able to follow the entire talk (I especially appreciated his honest personal intro about his upbringing in the fundamentalist Exclusive Brethren movement and his leaving of it and faith altogether), I was aware of my limited comprehension due to my not being up with microbiology (the notes below don’t represent full comprehension by me!). Wills is an interesting character who would have many enemies, but particularly interesting was his criticism of many of his biological colleagues, who according to him, don’t deal sufficiently enough with the question of biological ‘information’.

He said that you can’t have a theory of the origin of life without a theory of causation in the universe, and criticised reductionist accounts that were only ‘materialistic’ and ‘mechanistic’, saying that this was ‘dogmatism’ which should be absent in science. Following Schrodinger, he talked about the ‘information in a molecule’, and noted the fundamental and constantly overlooked distinction between the ‘representational’ (information) and the ‘material’ (molecule); questioning what the mechanism was for the evolution of the relationship between the two. He posed a kind of ‘chicken/egg’ dilemma wherein if you don’t have specificity of (biological/molecular/genetic?) action, the system breaks down. ¹

Along the way, he heartily recommended a recent book (at the 150/200-year Darwin marker) by an atheist author, Fern Elsdon-Baker called “The Selfish Genius: How Richard Dawkins Rewrote Darwins’ Legacy”, which criticises Dawkins’ presentation of genetics in ‘The Selfish Gene’. He agreed with her criticism that Dawkins’ treatment doesn’t satisfy the need for explanation of the relationship between information and the molecule, nor where the information comes from. He then moved on to provide his own hypothesis about what he called ‘spontaneous generation’ or ‘informed generation’. The term ‘informed’ doubly signalling that a) the generation needs the information to be there, and b) is formed within the system (not outside).

In an interesting point, he stated that genes need ‘interpreters’ to determine what they will do, and made reference to a programme he had which took the human genome and ‘interpreted’ it into Beethoven’s 9^th!! He argued for care with words and more honesty in biology, for example in reference to talk of ‘information’, which he insists must be non-material. He summed up by saying that we live in a universe of both physical/chemical events and information, which are in kind of an inseparable ‘marriage’ together in such a way that the world is very creative.

The Q&A time was quite interesting, and not a little over my head, but drew out things a bit further (esp. when Jonathan – who comments here from time to time – asked some questions with words I’d not heard before! Peter attempted a response and clarification for laypersons present, and then – probably wisely – deferred the question to be followed up afterward.) It did lead (not surprisingly) to a few philosophical/theological questions (warmly received by Peter – as he admits an interest in metaphysical issues).

My main reflection has to do with how to describe his worldview. He self-identifies as a naturalist, and does not believe in a God (though he didn’t elaborate on his absence of belief – and seemed quite happy for people to posit a First Cause and call that ‘god’). But he quite clearly seemed to be an ontological dualist of sorts (reality = material elements + ‘information’)? For me, this really puts him more in the category of a loose kind of Einsteinian or Spinozian sort of pantheism – an impersonal, yet ‘ordering’ kind of vague divinity.

Personally, I found it wonderful that TANSA would host a non-theist as a presenter, as it reflected a warm spirit of dialogue and respect across lines that often divide. The regular gathering (mostly Christians) engaged with him respectfully and robustly. Well done, TANSA.

I’d heard similar terminology from intelligent design proponents about later evolution, but to me it actually makes more sense as a kind of hard barrier at the level of abiogenesis.

pre-fall death

Dale — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:15:13 +0000

On the 5th day, God filled the skies and seas with all kinds of sky-life (‘every sort of winged bird’) and sea-life (‘swarms of living creatures’). Everything that flies through the sky. Everything that lives in the sea. A few points:

Someone a lot more biologically inclined than myself could (probably? if indeed such short-lived organisms exist?) give examples of fast-reproducing organisms (microbes, gnats, etc.?) whose life-spans are only a few hours, and thus would have died on the same day of their creation.
According to ‘mature creation’ theory (creation created ‘mature’ – light already in transit from distant stars, trees with [very misleading!] annual rings only moments old, etc.), there would have been very, very ‘mature’-slash-about-to-die birdies and fishies created, some of which – conceivably – would have died on the same day of their creation.
Also, unless not one, single, fish-eating bird dipped down and tasted of the delicious bounty of the shimmering little fishies below, at least some fish would have died on the same day of their creation.

Beyond conceivable doubt, even given a 24-hour day understanding of creation (with 6, successive acts of ‘spontaneous creation’), there would have been physical death before the events of Genesis 3.

((note: I see no reason to doubt that the text of Genesis 1 was originally a poem/song expressing theological truths, as opposed to being a play-by-play, moment-by-moment, fact-by-fact account of the ‘how’ of creations’ origin. Thus, the nit-picking-ly detailed exercise above ought to be unnecessary – but is merely noted in reference to those who insist that there could have been no death before the Fall.))

‘big question’ essays

Dale — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 09:44:55 +0000

Cheers to Bryson for directing me to an essay, which I discovered was one over several over at The John Templeton Foundation.

The essays are comprised answers to ‘big questions’ from a variety of perspectives – theist, atheist and agnostic. They make for interesting reading whatever your beliefs are.

Two of the ‘big questions‘ essays were of particular interest to me: “Does the Universe Have a Purpose?” and “Does Science Make Belief in God Obsolete?“.

Some other bits which may be of interest to some readers include:

“Does Evolution Explain Human Nature?“
Debates between contributers to the Science/Belief essay (Christopher Hitchens v. Ken Miller; Jerome Groopman v. Michael Shermer; and Steven Pinker v. William D. Phillips).
A Brief interview with (physicist/cosmologist) Paul Davies concerning multiverse theory
assorted video content (look for it)

thanks ian…

Dale — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:37:05 +0000

Thanks, Ian Luxmoore…

…for a friendly, respectful, engaging and thoroughly enjoyable conversation about life, god, the universe, morality and all the rest.

mixed responses

Dale — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 12:00:36 +0000

The Christian response to the ‘Faithful Science’ day-conference have been mixed.

Most of the appreciative and complementary feedback has been email or verbal. As for the less-appreciative feedback, unfortunately it’s been more public.

First, the Christian newspaper “Challenge Weekly” published a (to say it kindly) selective and less-than-inaccurate piece entitled “Conference fuels Controversy” (which can be viewed here – scroll down about half way), which, among other things, made the bizarre and out-of-left-field claim that some of the presenters held views more like Deism (which was anything but the case).

Predictably, the “letters to the editor” section in subsequent issues have been spotted with a handful of readers who were concerned/shocked by the conference. And, also not a surprise, a fresh write-up by CMI (Creation Ministries International) was subsequently published (here), entitled “Genesis not a Myth”, warning against a roadway to “spiritual disaster”.

The CMI article is also up here at their own website in very similar format, though more specifically targeting the Faithful Science conference.

I’ve offerred a couple of responses to Challenge, hoping to a) correct factual errors, b) help to clarify relevant issues, and c) challenge (no pun intended) readers to be more patient, and not assume what “those christian evolutionists” actually believe. Also, I’ve responsed to the CMI article and am hoping for some positive interaction there.

Also, I’ve had some dialogue (which is absolutely exemplary in terms of tone, patience, etc.) with an I.D. advocate who is a member of my church and attended the conference.

Here’s to (hopefully!) fruitful dialogue and interaction in the next… however long.

faithful science

Dale — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:41:11 +0000

Announcing “Faithful Science“…

A one-day Science & Faith conference – coming August 1.

Speakers and topics:

DALE CAMPBELL – Science & Faith: Key Issues
YAEL KLANGWISAN – Reading the book of Genesis
NICOLA HOGGARD CREEGAN – Evolution and Evil
MYK HABETS – A Scientific Theology
JEFF TALLON – Physics and Faith
MATT FLANNAGAN – Does Evolution Make Belief in God Untenable?
GRAEME FINLAY – The Glorious Ape
NEIL BROOM – Is there Transcendence in Nature?
GRAHAM O’BRIEN – Evolution & Purpose

Organised by TANSA…

Hosted by Northcote Baptist.

PDF flyer here.

Y’all come now ya hear?