Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia;  Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.

Different interpretations of the same evidence

   Post 86. June 12, 2019 continued . . .

  Designed To Evolve

   Old Earth Creationism without Evolution

“As its name implies, it accepts the age of the universe and the Earth as determined through science. . . . For many, the stigma of evolution invokes the idea of a godless process that is incompatible with common ideas about creation.   It seems too haphazard a way for an omnipotent Creator to form beings in his image. . . . This leads to an old earth view that includes the special creation of life. Though macro evolution is rejected with this view, some degree of micro-evolution is usually accepted . . . “

• Since the holders of this view fill the gap between the the first day of world-making and the creation of human souls with the gradualism of evolution, they seem to feel vindicated in their intellectual sophistication and their commitment to religious values. This dualistic worldview separates physical processes from spiritual functions. However, as the author points-out, they don’t do justice to either. The author dismisses it as another gap theory.  

Intelligent Design

“Old earth creationism provides the philosophical basis for intelligent design.   Intelligent design is not a religious or philosophical view of reality in itself but a scientific method. . . . As it is, there is far too little invested into science that evaluates alternatives to purely naturalistic explanations when it comes to theories of origins."

• Most scientists view ID not as a “scientific method”, but a political scheme to get scriptures accepted as scientifically valid insights into the operation of reality. Proponents have muddied the waters with non-scientists by “preaching the controversy” within the ranks of scientists. But when they tried to get courts to accept ID as a form of impartial objective science, they were unable to convince even a conservative judge that it was not religiously motivated. My own version of a philosophical alternative to the materialistic (physicalist) presumptions of modern science is called Intelligent Evolution. It accepts all empirical evidence in the evolving world, but also allows miraculous creation as the explanation for the ex nihilo implications of the Big Bang.

Progressive Creationism

“A variant of old earth creationism is progressive creationism.   By this, life on Earth is created in full form, by special creative events throughout geological time. . . . This position is used to explain the progressive nature of the fossil record, while maintaining special creation of life-forms.”

  • The author seems to consider this variation of Intelligent Design as just one more attempt to fill gaps in the Geological and Paleontological records with divine intervention (special creation) instead of physical processes. Rather than inter-mittently interfering with his “good” (but apparently not good enough) creation, Davis’ God designed his world with the intention of allowing it to evolve over time. He follows the biblical outline of creation, based on his opinion that Genesis is “an accurate account of history”. Except for that presumption, his Designed to Evolve Principle is similar to the Intelligent Evolution thesis.

Post 86 continued . . . click Next

Progressive creation of divergent species leaves fossil tracks

Natural Evolution
versus
Artificial Evolution