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3 What is evolutionary theory? It views present species as tracing back to common ancestors.
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Darwin and Intelligent Design
Elliott SoberPhilosophy Department
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Outline
1 What is Evolutionary Theory?2 God and Evolution – 3 options, not 23 Mutations – guided or unguided?4 Darwin’s views on God and Christianity
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What is evolutionary theory?
• It views present species as tracing back to common ancestors.
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What is evolutionary theory?
• It views present species as tracing back to common ancestors.
• It regards natural selection as an important cause of the diversity we observe.
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What is evolutionary theory?
• It views present species as tracing back to common ancestors.
• It regards natural selection as an important cause of the diversity we observe.
• It regards mutations as unguided.
Evolutionary theory is a scientific theory, not a philosophy.
• It says nothing about God, or materialism, or ethics, or free will, or life after death.
• It obeys the principle of “methodological naturalism,” not “metaphysical naturalism.”
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Methodological Naturalism: scientific theories should not postulate the existence of
a supernatural God.
Metaphysical Naturalism: No supernatural God exists.
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The 2 naturalisms
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Methodological Naturalism: scientific theories should not postulate the existence of
a supernatural God. Metaphysical Naturalism: No supernatural
God exists.
Evolutionary theory endorses the former, not the latter.
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The 2 naturalisms
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Outline
1 What is Evolutionary Theory?2 God and Evolution – 3 options, not 23 Guided Mutations4 Darwin’s views on God and Christianity
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God and Evolution – 3 options, not 2
Atheistic Evolutionism – Evolutionary theory is true and there is no God.
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God and Evolution – 3 options, not 2
Atheistic Evolutionism – Evolutionary theory is true and there is no God.
Creationism – Evolutionary theory is false and God exists.
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God and Evolution – 3 options, not 2
Atheistic Evolutionism – Evolutionary theory is true and there is no God.
Creationism – Evolutionary theory is false and God exists.
Are theism and evolutionary theory inconsistent with each other?
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“… any confusion between the ideas suggested by science and science itself must be carefully
avoided.”
─ Jacques Monod, Chance and Necessity
God and Evolution – 3 options, not 2
Atheistic Evolutionism – Evolutionary theory is true and there is no God.
Creationism – Evolutionary theory is false and God exists.
Theistic Evolutionism – Evolutionary theory is true and God exists.
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Creationism (C)
complex adaptive (C) God the evolutionary process │ features of organisms
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What evolutionary theory rejects in Creationism
complex adaptive (C) God the evolutionary process │ features of organisms
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What evolutionary theory does not reject in Creationism
complex adaptive (C) God the evolutionary process │ features of organisms
2 types of theistic evolutionism
Deism – God produces organisms via the evolutionary process and then never intervenes in what happens.
An interventionist God – God produces organisms via the evolutionary process and sometimes intervenes in what happens.
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2 types of Theistic Evolutionism Deism (D) and the Supplementary Model (S)
complex adaptive (D) God the evolutionary process features of organisms
complex adaptive (S) God the evolutionary process features of organisms
Outline
1 What is Evolutionary Theory?2 God and Evolution – 3 options, not 23 Guided Mutations4 Darwin’s views on God and Christianity
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theism and mutations
• Evolutionary theory says that mutations are “unguided.”
• Does this mean that the theory denies that God influences which mutations occur?
Guided mutations and evolutionary theory
• What do biologists mean by saying that mutations are unguided or undirected or random?
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Guided mutations and evolutionary theory
• What do biologists mean by saying that mutations are unguided or undirected or random?• This does not mean that they are uncaused.
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Guided mutations and evolutionary theory
• What do biologists mean by saying that mutations are unguided or undirected or random?• This does not mean that they are uncaused.• It means that when they occur, this isn’t because they would be useful to the organism.
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Darwin on mutationLet an architect be compelled to build an edifice with uncut
stones, fallen from a precipice. The shape of each fragment may be called accidental; yet the shape of each has been determined
by the force of gravity, the nature of the rock, and the slope of the precipice, -- events and circumstances all of which depend on
natural laws; but there is no relation between these laws and the purpose for which each fragment is used by the builder. In the same manner the variations of each creature are determined by
fixed and immutable laws; but these bear no relation to the living structure which is slowly built up through the power of natural
selection, whether this be natural or artificial selection.
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Some blue organisms are placed into a green environment, others into a red.
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An experiment
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Some blue organisms are placed into a green environment, others into a red.
Protective coloration is advantageous. In a green environment, green organisms survive better than red organisms. In a red environment, the reverse is true.
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An experiment
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Environment is red green
red f1 f2
Mutate to
green f3 f4
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Look at the frequencies with which blue organisms mutate to …
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Environment is red green
red f1 ≈ f2
Mutate to ≈ ≈
green f3 ≈ f4
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the results
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the conclusion to draw
The probabilities of these mutations are not affected by the fact that one would be better for the organism than the other.
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the conclusion to draw
The probabilities of these mutations are not affected by the fact that one would be better for the organism than the other. This conclusion does not rule out the idea that God causes everything.
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• Coins do not land heads or tails because this would be good for gamblers.
• Mutations do not occur because this would be good for organisms.
Both claims are consistent with God’s causing everything.
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an analogy: mutations and coin tosses
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Outline
1 What is Evolutionary Theory?2 God and Evolution – 3 options, not 23 Guided Mutations4 Darwin’s views on God and Christianity
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Darwin’s views on …
• Theistic Evolution v Creationism• why special creation is a poor scientific theory• whether God exists• Christianity
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The Origin begins with a quotationfrom the philosopher William Whewell:
“But with regard to the material world, we can at least go so far as this – we can perceive that events are brought about not by insulated interpositions of Divine power, exerted in each particular case, but by the establishment of general laws.”
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2 views of God’s relation to nature
“But with regard to the material world, we can at least go so far as this – we can perceive that events are brought about not by insulated interpositions of Divine power, exerted in each particular case, but by the establishment of general laws.”
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2 views of God’s relation to nature
“But with regard to the material world, we can at least go so far as this – we can perceive that events are brought about not by insulated interpositions of Divine power, exerted in each particular case, but by the establishment of general laws.”
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the 2 possibilities
God’s 1st decision observation 1 God’s 2nd decision observation 2(D) … … God’s nth decision observation n
observation 1 (U) God general laws observation 2 … observation n 39
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Which theistic framework did Darwin prefer?
“to my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual.”
Darwin was inspired by Newton
“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
Why Darwin preferred the Unified Model U
“On the ordinary view of the independent creation of each being, we can only say that so it is -- that it has so pleased the Creator to construct each animal and plant.”
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“On the ordinary view of the independent creation of each being, we can only say that so it is -- that it has so pleased the Creator to construct each animal and plant.”
D thought that special creation is scientifically empty.
Why Darwin preferred the Unified Model U
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Was Darwin a theist?
“the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man … as the result of blind chance or necessity …I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a theist.” D’s Autobiography
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But on the next page …
Darwin refers to himself as an “agnostic,” by which he says he means someone “who has no assured and ever present belief in the existence of a personal God or of a future existence with retribution and reward.”
Elsewhere, Darwin describes himself as being in a “muddle.”
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Francis Darwin, quoting his father:
“the mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic.”
“I think an Agnostic would be the more correct
description of my state of mind. The whole subject [of God] is beyond the scope of man's intellect.”
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Darwin on Christianity
In the Autobiography, Darwin describes Christianity as a “damnable doctrine” because it says that his brother, father, and grandfather must suffer everlasting punishment for their lack of belief.
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Darwin on Christianity
In the Autobiography, Darwin describes Christianity as a “damnable doctrine” because it says that his brother, father, and grandfather must suffer everlasting punishment for their lack of belief.
Why didn’t Charles follow the lead of his wife, Emma?
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Darwin on the problem of evil
D and Asa Gray corresponded about the parasitic wasp Ichneumonidae.
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Darwin on the problem of evil
D and Asa Gray corresponded about the parasitic wasp Ichneumonidae.
D says in a letter that he can’t persuade himself that “a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created” this arrangement.
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how to think about whether God exists
• There are several arguments for the existence of God (the design argument, the first cause argument, the ontological argument, etc). Are any of these compelling?
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how to think about whether God exists
• There are several arguments for the existence of God. Are any compelling?
• Evil – Does the quantity of evil that exists pose a problem for theism?
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how to think about whether God exists
• There are several arguments for the existence of God. Are any compelling?
• Evil – Does the quantity of evil that exists pose a problem for theism?
• Should belief in God be based solely on evidence, or should it be a matter of faith?
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• There are several arguments for the existence of God. Are any compelling?
• Evil – Does the quantity of evil that exists pose a problem for theism?
• Should belief in God e based solely on evidence, or should it be a matter of faith?
Evolutionary theory does not answer any of these.
how to think about whether God exists
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Darwin the man v Darwin’s theory
The man had religious doubts, stemming from the problem of evil.
This doesn’t mean that D’s theory is in conflict with theism (or with Christianity).
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Summary – what is evolutionary theory?
• It views present species as tracing back to common ancestors.
• It regards natural selection as an important cause of the diversity we observe.
• It regards mutations as unguided.
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Summary
• Evolutionary theory does not rule out the existence of God.
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Summary
• Evolutionary theory does not rule out the existence of God.
• In fact, the theory does not rule out a God who intervenes in nature.
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Summary
• Evolutionary theory does not rule out the existence of God.
• In fact, the theory does not rule out a God who intervenes in nature.
• Believing in a God who created nature, and who sometimes intervenes in it, is no substitute for doing natural science.
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“… any confusion between the ideas suggested by science and science itself
must be carefully avoided.”
─ Jacques Monod, Chance and Necessity
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