Faith Well Grounded

I saw the below article at cyberkitten's blog. I decided to form a brief response to each point of the article, as originally seen:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-harris24dec24,0,3994298.story?...

10 myths—and 10 Truths—About Atheism

By Sam Harris for The Los Angeles Times

December 24, 2006

A word about directionality: Evolution does not have a direction. Organisms can go towards complexity or simplicity. It's all determined by the environment and selection pressures. Just because humans are complex multi-cellular animals doesn't mean we've had the most evolution. Every living creature today is the result of the same amount of evolutionary time.

With all of the talk of information in the genomes, the natural question arises:

If DNA is a storage medium for information, doesn't that indicate a designer? DNA encodes and decodes information based on an alphabet. It even contains error-checking.

DNA as a natural process is like accepting the natural formation of the TCP/IP protocol.

I was recently taken to task for making reference to the fabled 747/tornado argument during a discussion of abiogenesis.

The comment read:

Please don't bring that old canard up. It's really beneath you. Anyone who thinks that is analogous to the way evolution (and these hypotheses of abiogenesis) works is only displaying a profound lack of understanding of the most basic concepts.

The various discussions here centered around evolution have often come back to my (and others') distinction between micro and macro evolution. EDogg stated the evolutionist's mindset very well in a recent comment, in that he makes no distinction between micro and macro evolution. We see changes now, thus these small changes over a vast amount of time equate to macro evolution. Small changes add up.

The Evolutionists: the Struggle for Darwin's Soul, Richard Morris, pg 97...

A refutation of Darwinism by a noted lawyer and law professor. Given credit as the start of the modern creationism movement.

Author:

Philip E. Johnson

Publisher:

InterVarsity Press; 2 edition (November 1993)

ISBN:

0830813241

Pages:

220

Price:

$10.20 @ amazon.com

Rating:

7

Synopsis:

A refutation of Darwinism by a noted lawyer and law professor. Given credit as the start of the modern creationism movement.

Review:

Since its printing, Johnson has come under much fire from those on the opposite side of the argument, and this is to be expected. Most of the criticism is based on the accusations that he treats the subject as a lawyer, and uses law practices (such as suppression of evidence, misdirection, etc...) to bolster his arguments. With that said, I will not speak to these accusations, as I'm not really the person to do so.

I'm really not even going to speak much on the evidences presented for his argument, or the lack of evidence presented which could have damaged his argument. The reason for this is that the book's power is not in swapping evidences. I find this form of debate eventually falls into useless tedium and almost never makes the point of the debate.

Johnson's power is of a more presuppositional nature. He makes a powerful argument that (neo)Darwinian Evolution decides the results before hand and then interprets the evidences accordingly. In other words, naturalistic evolution is the only acceptable answer, therefor all evidence is interpreted in a "must-have" framework.

And he makes this argument very convincingly.

No book on the subject is going to be a silver bullet. Any subject as fiercely divided as evolution will produce poles of emotion. This book is no different. If your worldview is friendly to evolution, then you will not be impressed by this book. You may even get a bit perturbed. If you are predisposed to a skepticism of evolution, then you will probably very much appreciate "Darwin on Trial". I don't foresee a middle ground.

I liked the book. I think a lot of good points are made. If you want your skepticism of evolution fed, read it. If you are an evolutionist and want something to spike your blood pressure, read it.

Related links:

Amazon Listing

CS Lewis, in "Miracles", proposed that we can not trust our rationale if it is the result of mindless, unplanned, irrational causes. In other words, if the string of rationality is broken in the cause-effect string going back, then there is no rationality.

The implication is that if our logic and rationality is the result of naturalistic evolution, then we can't trust that logic and rationality. If our rationality is thus caused, then the rationality of naturalism has no basis and is self-defeating and internally inconsistent.

1Jo 3:18 Little children, we must stop loving in word and in tongue, but instead love in action and in truth.