The third article, Walter Thorson's Naturalism and design in biology: is intelligent dialogue possible? takes the view that ID, when viewed as a theological approach, is compatible with a naturalistic approach to science. Taking the same tack as the uniformly excellent Science Held Hostage, Thorson notes:
The established habit of appealing to "evolution" as an ultimate explanation for the biological order is no more legitimate scientifically than appealing to "design"--and this philosophical bias in the scientific community should be recognized for what it is.
He also points out that experiments in science that attempt to show the inadequacy of particular theoretical constructs, even if they are performed by ID proponents, are legitimate scientifically. Read the whole thing.
Richard,
ReplyDeleteSorry to get back to you so tardily. I have read much of Dr. Ross' material, including "The Fingerprint of God" and find his treatment of astronomy quite intriguing. His work has been characterized by a great deal of care to detail and solid scientific research. The two problems that I have with his arguments are that 1. they do not constitute evidence for the existence of God. They constitute evidence for a universe constructed to exacting tolerances. 2. He goes off the rails when he talks about evolution, betraying a lack of understanding of its mechanics. This is especially aggravating since he chastises his fellow creationists for using bad arguments to argue for a recent creation.
A literal Adam and Eve...not sure. I am still working this one out. I have been reading a lot about the doctrine of original sin and am still formulating. The hypothesis that you are referring to is the mitochondrial eve model of modern human origins. As is typical with the media, they got the details wrong. Mitochondrial DNA is not recombined like nuclear DNA is and is passed down the line maternally. Consequently, it is possible to determine rates of divergence between populations based on known mutation rates. Based on this data, one study that was done in the late 1980s argued that modern humans went through a population bottleneck around 200 thousand years ago, in which only one or a few lineages survived. Note, this does not mean one Eve. Several problems with this original research have surfaced in the intervening years, suggesting that the evidence for a bottleneck of this sort is not as good as it once was thought to be. Does this help?
-jim