Efficient Causation vs. Teleology

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Efficient Causation vs. Teleology
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Darwins Theory of Natural Selection

• Darwin's theory of natural selection implies no
  concept of progress
• According to the classical view of science,
  evolution is not a directional process
• So why do we tend so much to see evolution in
  evaluative terms?

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Herbert Spencer

• Introduced the phrase survival of the fittest
  in his Principles of Biology (1864)
• Wrote This survival of the fittest . . . is
  that which Mr. Darwin has called 'natural
  selection', or the preservation of favoured races
  in the struggle for life.
• Spencer used this phrase to reinforce his social
  theories, which came to be called by the name
  Social Darwinism

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Aristotle's 4 Types of "Cause"
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Teleology/Study of Final Causes

• The Greek word telos meaning end or completion,
  is behind the philosophical term, teleology,
  meaning the study of the purposes of things
• Teleology has been discredited by modern
  scientists

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Efficient Cause

• According to the classical view of science, the
  only real cause at work in the universe is the
  interactions of atoms according to the strict
  natural laws of physics
• Physical events are the real causes behind every
  effect
• All causation is really bottom-up (from the
  atoms)

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Conflict Religious Critics of Darwinism

• Behe argues for Intelligent Design (not for
  "young earth creationism")
• Organisms are like "mousetraps", irreducibly
  complex interlocking systems that don't work if
  you remove any key parts (Eg. flagella of simple
  bacteria are composed of dozens of different
  proteins)
• Based on William Paley's teleological argument
  (1803), which uses the analogy A watchmaker is
  to watch as God is to universe
• Avoid using the G-word

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Conflict Naturalist Critics of Religion

• Dawkins asks why would the eye be designed so
  inefficiently if it was the product of
  intelligent design?
• Answer Because evolution is a process that
  always must create "ad-hoc" solutions from
  existing natural structures

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Independence Primary and Secondary Causality

• Secondary Cause In the natural world there are
  always chains of causes (eg. Why are you here?
  Your sperm met your egg, your parents had sex,
  your parents met, your grandparents had sex, etc.
  back to the big bang, are all legitimate
  scientific answers)
• Primary Cause Explains the existence of the
  entire world of secondary causes

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Modern Theology on Creationism

• Roman Catholic and some Protestant theologians
  believe God is the primary cause of the entire
  universe (creationism) but that the whole
  sequence of secondary causation in the universe
  does not necessarily need any direct involvement
  by God
• God acts through the laws of nature
• These views are opposed to Biblical literalists
  and their position of young earth creationism

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Dialogue

• Religious critics ask whether it is true that
  nature can be explained fully by efficient
  causation alone
• What about instances of apparent top-down
  causation (influence of a system as a whole on
  sub-systems)?
• "internal drives of organisms can initiate
  evolutionary changes (Baldwin Effect) such as
• soldier termites
• Whales
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vrRNYArhCnBQfeature
  fvsr

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Integration

• Modern biology, like quantum physics, rejects
  strict determinism
• Role of apparent chance in evolution leaves
  some room for possible action of God at a higher
  level as the ultimate top-down cause and as the
  designer of the boundary conditions of the
  self-organizing system of nature

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Can Religion and Science Really be Separated?

• Is it fair that metaphysical views like
  scientific naturalism and materialism can
  possibly get past the rules protecting the
  separation of "church" and state?
• Ex If a physics teacher says to a class, "the
  universe is composed of matter and energy" who
  makes it clear to the students that this is a
  philosophically contentious assumption?
• Or a biology teachers who says, "species come
  from random mutations and the operation of
  natural selection." Who points out that the
  ultimate presence of randomness in the universe
  is a philosophically contentious issue?