Topic: William Lane Craig on Evolution

[The God Delusion]

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=9351&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ReasonableFaithNews+%28Reasonable+Faith+News%29&utm_content=FaceBook

[Neon Genesis]

Intelligent Design theorist?  Is that like an ancient astronaut theorist?

[Johnny Slick]

Reasonable Faith got its name, apparently, as a spoof of the Reasonable Doubts podcast. As "reasonable faith" goes, if that's the best it gets, I guess it's one of those things like jumbo shrimp.

[Belgarath]

Every time someone uses William Lane Craig in a sentence with evolution, god kills a kitten.

[stretcher]

I only read a bit and saw it's the same few basic arguments they've been starting with for, like, ever.

[jomike]

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=9351&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ReasonableFaithNews+%28Reasonable+Faith+News%29&utm_content=FaceBook

Andrew:  Stephen Meyer who is an American scholar, philosopher of biology and advocate for intelligent design says, “Evolution is a purposeless undirected process no one not even God can direct an undirected process or give purpose to a purposeless process.” He also has called theistic evolution is Oxymoron....

William Lane Craig:  Obviously, science is in no position whatsoever to say justifiably that the evolutionary process was not under the providence of a God endowed with middle knowledge who determined to create biological complexity by such means.

Or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or the invisible dragon in my garage, or...

Andrew:  If you do accept evolution at what point did humans become human?

William Lane Craig:  I think that a hominid animal, however advanced, which lacks a human soul is not a human being. So it really doesn’t matter whether or not there was a sharp dividing line biologically between pre-human hominids and human beings.

But, Dr Craig, if a soul is essential to human-ness, then it does seem relevant to ask where was the dividing line between human an animal.  Speciation being a gradual, continuous process -- undetectable, from one generation to the next -- where do you reckon the dividing line in your own ancestry might lie?  For the most recent couple thousand generations leading up to you, there presumably is no question; your great-great- x2000 grandma in southern Africa was an anatomically modern human.

But what about your great-x150,000 grandma a couple million years ago?  She was an Afarensis or a contemporary thereof.  Was she human?  Did she have a soul?  Going back still further -- say, six million years ago -- your great-x300,000 grandma more closely resembled a gibbon than a human (or a chimp, for that matter).  Clearly, an animal without a soul.

So at what point did God step in and say, "hmm, this here mother is an animal, but her daughter's human... a soul for her, then."  Was it your great -x5789 grandma?  Great -x18253 grandma?

[drizz]

As big of a tool as Craig usually is, this is probably the most sensible thing I've ever read or heard from him. I don't really understand all the hate.

He is right to state the science is in no position to say that evolution was not directed by God. He does not say that this proves the Christian God, just that science cannot rule it out. In response to the question he is answering, this is technically correct. I also thought that this was well said:

...when the evolutionary biologist says that the mutations that lead to evolutionary development are random, the meaning of the word “random” is not “occurring by chance.” Rather it means “irrespective of their usefulness to the organism.”

He goes on with this paragraph:

Now this is hugely significant! The scientist is not, despite the impression given by popularizers on both sides of the divide, making the presumptuous philosophical claim that biological mutations occur by chance and, hence, that the evolutionary process is undirected or purposeless. Rather he means that mutations do not occur for the benefit of the host organism. If we take “random” to mean “irrespective of usefulness to the organism,” then randomness is not incompatible with direction or purpose. For example, suppose that God in His providence causes a mutation to occur in an organism, not for the benefit of the organism, but for some other reason (say, because it will produce easy prey for other organisms that He wants to flourish or even because it will eventually produce a fossil that I will someday find, which stimulates my interest in palaeontology, so that I embark upon the career God had in mind for me). In such a case, the mutation is both purposeful and random.

Which, while fanciful, is at least technically correct. This kind of purpose is not ruled out by evolutionary theory. The point he is making without knowing it is that life and intelligence arising completely purposelessly is not ruled out by evolutionary theory either.

He is actually REFUTING Stephen Meyer and Michael Behe here.

His response to question 2 is again, technically correct, within the confines of his unfalsifiable fantasy world.

Not the worst I've seen from Craig by a long shot.

But seriously, is that the best photo of him they can find?

[jomike]

As big of a tool as Craig usually is, this is probably the most sensible thing I've ever read or heard from him. I don't really understand all the hate.

I feel no hate for him at all, personally.  Reading his web site and listening to in debates, his thoroughness, intelligence, and passion are evident.  He's an outstanding technical debater with an encyclopedic mastery of his subject matter.  The trouble with his argument WRT theistic evolution is that it supports every imaginable hypothesis equally well:

He is right to state the science is in no position to say that evolution was not directed by God, Cthulu, FSM, the invisible dragon in my garage, or orbiting teapots. He does not say that this proves the Christian God, Cthulu, FSM, the invisible dragon in my garage, or orbiting teapots, just that science cannot rule them out. In response to the question he is answering, this is technically correct.

It explains anything, therefore nothing.  It's the sort of non-argument that appears reasonable at a glance but on closer inspection turns out to be vacuous.

[drizz]

As big of a tool as Craig usually is, this is probably the most sensible thing I've ever read or heard from him. I don't really understand all the hate.

I feel no hate for him at all, personally.  Reading his web site and listening to in debates, his thoroughness, intelligence, and passion are evident.  He's an outstanding technical debater with an encyclopedic mastery of his subject matter.  The trouble with his argument WRT theistic evolution is that it supports every imaginable hypothesis equally well:

He is right to state the science is in no position to say that evolution was not directed by God, Cthulu, FSM, the invisible dragon in my garage, or orbiting teapots. He does not say that this proves the Christian God, Cthulu, FSM, the invisible dragon in my garage, or orbiting teapots, just that science cannot rule them out. In response to the question he is answering, this is technically correct.

It explains anything, therefore nothing.  It's the sort of non-argument that appears reasonable at a glance but on closer inspection turns out to be vacuous.

That's all fine and good and you won't get any argument from me. The issue though is that he was asked the question as it pertains to the Christian god, and he answered it as it pertains to the Christian god. He was never asked "is it possible to believe in evolution and still worship Cthulu" or "is there any inconsistency between orbiting teapot theory and evolution"? All he said was that there is no inconsistency, and there isn't. You might think it's ridiculous and fanciful, and personally, I do, but that's not the question that was asked, was it?

[jomike]

The issue though is that he was asked the question as it pertains to the Christian god, and he answered it as it pertains to the Christian god. He was never asked "is it possible to believe in evolution and still worship Cthulu" or "is there any inconsistency between orbiting teapot theory and evolution"? All he said was that there is no inconsistency, and there isn't. You might think it's ridiculous and fanciful, and personally, I do, but that's not the question that was asked, was it?

Yes, but the trouble is that the answer he gives turns out not to be an answer.  As you note, the question is posed WRT the Christian (or at least the general monotheistic) notion of a conscious Being:

Andrew:  Stephen Meyer who is an American scholar, philosopher of biology and advocate for intelligent design says, “Evolution is a purposeless undirected process no one not even God can direct an undirected process or give purpose to a purposeless process.” He also has called theistic evolution is Oxymoron....

Whereas Craig's reply, for reasons noted above, doesn't actually address the question (although it superficially appears to, at a glance):

William Lane Craig:  Obviously, science is in no position whatsoever to say justifiably that the evolutionary process was not under the providence of a God endowed with middle knowledge who determined to create biological complexity by such means.

He could as well have replied "science is in no position whatsoever to say justifiably that the evolutionary process was not under the providence of Cthulu, FSM, invisible dragons, orbiting teapots, the Void, or a Nothingness," and it would have been just as (non)responsive to the question posed.  It isn't inconsistent, certainly, but it's a non-answer just the same.

[drizz]

You're accusing him of making a claim he never makes. He never tries to use evolutionary theory to prove his God. I read this as him basically saying that science and his faith don't really intersect, and that he's comfortable enough with the fact that science has nothing to say about his beliefs.

You seem to be going to great lengths looking for something to debunk here. Craig has plenty of other articles where he actually gives what he believes are arguments for his faith, maybe you should be debunking those? I don't think Craig is so formidable an opponent that we need to be setting up strawmen of him. You're right, evolution allows for the divine intervention of God, Cthulu, teapots and dragons. I think Craig would probably agree with you and then ask you to move on to his actual arguments for the existence of God.

For the record, I think Craig is extremely lame, and has a lot of really terrible arguments for God's existence, its just that this isn't one of them.

[lumberjohn]

I am by no means a fan of Dr. Craig's but I am with Drizz on this one.  His statement is indeed true, though no one on here should get worked up about it because it doesn't move the ball forward for him on making the Christian God any more likely.  Craig is saying that science can only tell us whether evolution was guided by a common purpose -- one that would demonstrate consistency from generation to generation.  Craig theorizes that God may have had any number of ad hoc purposes from organism to organism, generation to generation, etc.  Because any such assortment of unrelated and inscrutible purposes would be indistinguishable from randomness to today's scientists, Craig has defined his theory in such a way that is it non-falsifiable, which is always the last resort for a debater.  This should be seen as a victory for science, which has beaten Craig back to this untenable position.

The position is untenable because the next step in evaluating any non-falsifiable hypothesis is to determine whether there is any good reason to believe it is a better hypothesis than all the alternatives.  This is where Craig's theory would run into the problem of having no leg up over the Flying Spaghetti Monster, teapot, invisible dragon, etc. hypotheses.  And when judged against the consensus scientific position of "random" mutations guided only by natural selection, Craig runs straight into Occam's Razor.