Science, Religion:
JoT re MP re "Creationism as Anti-Theory"

I just don't know which of your errors I should respond to. There's the false correlation between atheism and evolution. There's the unfortunate strategy of treating God as the supernatural phenomenon that explains that which science doesn't explain to one's satisfaction. There's the human-centered misconception that life and intelligence aren't rare. Any of those topics would make a perfectly good rant. But just now I'm reading Steven Pinker's How the Mind Works, so I think I'll take on your summary of the theory of evolution as randomness.

As Pinker points out, the theory of natural selection predicts that complexity is generated by replicators (which mutate and compete with each other to replicate). That's why you see complexity in living things, not in inanimate, natural objects. If spirits, deities, YHWH, or other supernatural entities had created the world, then inanimate, natural objects could be complex, just as human-made objects are. You could find metal ores that sang hymns, for example, or stones that worked as telescopes. But in the natural world we see complexity among replicators, not among non-replicators. Likewise, if the theory of evolution amounted to the statement that "living creatures got that way randomly, like collections of randomly-colored pixels on a computer screen," then you'd see the same thing. If the theory of evolution said that complexity appeared randomly, then it would predict you'd be as likely to see mountains singing to each other as whales.

While we're at it, this comment deserves a response:

"[I]f I ever tried to convince someone that I had a program that was generated from random opcodes and operands being sent to the CPU, and it was fully functional, stable, and useful, they would laugh me off of the net."

Pinker reports on a new field of computer science: genetic algorithms. Programmers set up multiple programs that mutate, reproduce sexually (virtually), and reproduce more the better they are at solving the problems put before them. In some cases, the resulting programs are better than what a human programmer would generate. (Page 177.) That random programs don't work doesn't disprove evolution because evolution doesn't amount simply to randomness.

Of course, doctrine is fun to debate, but it's not really the point. I'm with Jesus that it's how one treats others (especially the most vulnerable) that counts, not one's doctrines.

—JoT
July 2002

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