the ohio center for ecology & evolutionary studies 2010 kitzmiller lecture

The Ohio Center for Ecology & Evolutionary Studies

2010 KITZMILLER LECTURE

Sponsored by OCEES & The Kennedy Lecture Series Biological Sciences Biomedical

Sciences Philosophy The College of Arts & Sciences

Dr. Elliott Sober Hans Reichenbach Professor & William F. Vilas Research Professor University of Wisconsin - Madison

Charles Darwin and “Intelligent

design”

Hilary Putnam

analytical philosophythe mindlanguage

mathematicscomputer sciences

Albert Einstein

probabilityrelativity

time and spacequantum mechanics

Hans Reichenbach

simplicityparsimony

evolutionary biology

Elliott Sober

• Evolutionary Biology • Evolutionary Theory • Evolutionary Philosophy • Adaptationism and Optimality• Psychology of Unselfish Behavior• Reconstructing the Past • Parsimony, Evolution, and Inference • The Nature of Selection

Important underpinnings of Evolutionary Biology

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Darwinism and Intelligent Design

Elliott SoberPhilosophy Department

University of Wisconsin, Madison

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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What is evolutionary theory?

• It views present species as tracing back to common ancestors.

v

the only diagram in the Origin

http://static.flickr.com/34/106425400_d3b61dcd9c_o.jpg

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• It regards natural selection as an important cause of the diversity we observe.

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• 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 embraces the former, not the latter.

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The 2 naturalisms

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Outline


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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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Creationism – Evolutionary theory is false and God exists.

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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




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


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What evolutionary theory does not reject in Creationism


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 Interventionist Model (I)

complex adaptive (D) God the evolutionary process features of organisms

complex adaptive (I) God the evolutionary process features of organisms

Outline


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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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• 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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• 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 they do not occur because they would be useful to the organism.

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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 they 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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• Tossing coins and seeing whether they land heads more often when this would help gamblers.• Monitoring mutations and seeing whether they occur more often when they would be good for organisms.

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• Tossing coins and seeing whether they land heads more often when this would help gamblers.• Monitoring mutations and seeing whether they occur more often when they would be good for organisms.

Neither experiment tests whether God intervenes in nature.

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Outline


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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


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2 views of God’s relation to nature


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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 43

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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.” Origin

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.

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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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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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.

D on the death at age 10 of his favorite daughter, Annie.

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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).

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• There are several arguments for the existence of God.

• Evil – this is a problem for theism to address.

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• Evil – this is a problem for theism to address.

• There also is the question of whether belief in God should be based solely on evidence, or should be a matter of faith.

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• The problem of evil.• Should belief in God be based solely on

evidence, or should it be a matter of faith? Evolutionary theory says nothing about any of these.


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People v Propositions

Darwin 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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• 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


• In fact, the theory is consistent with a God who intervenes in nature, not just with a God who creates nature and then sits back.

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Summary


• In fact, the theory is consistent with a God who intervenes in nature, not just with a God who creates nature and then sits back.

• Believing in a God who created nature, or 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

the ohio center for ecology & evolutionary studies 2010 kitzmiller lecture

Documents

supernatural god

scientific theory

metaphysical naturalism

present species

common ancestors

scientific theories

important cause

college of arts sciences