Creationism to Universal Darwinism Evolution and Religion Today

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Creationism to Universal DarwinismEvolution and
Religion Today

• Taner Edis
• Truman State University
• www2.truman.edu/edis

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Thus sayeth the polls...

• In the US
• 45 of the population are creationists.
• 45 believe in a progressive evolutionary
  process guided by God.
• 5-10 accept naturalistic evolution with no
  explicit divine involvement.
• Darwinian evolution has very thin public support
  in our rather religious culture.

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Creationism and ID

• Not just literalism, fundamentalism.
• Object to Darwinian mechanism.
• Central idea is design. Order must arise from
  mind and purpose. Intelligence must not be
  reducible to material processes.
• Stop materialism by refusing a foothold deny
  efficacy of naturalistic evolution.

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Guided Evolution

• Confine Darwinian approach to biology.
• There is a transcendent driving force behind
  evolutionary progress toward higher
  consciousness, capability, spirituality, and
  morality.
• Darwin himself OK. Correct in biology, left room
  for God as First Cause.
• No conflict between science and religion.
  Separate spheres.

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Religion-free Evolution

• Natural selection a non-directional mechanism.
  Progress is an artifact.
• Natural selection is the source of the creativity
  in the history of life, though other processes
  such as genetic drift, phenotypic plasticity,
  mass extinctions etc. are also important.
• Biology is naturalistic, but this only means we
  must seek God elsewhere.

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Godless Evolution

• The concept of scriptural revelation is crippled
  -- only liberal handwaving.
• Problem of Evil Darwinian evolution is cruel,
  inefficient.
• God as add-on an unnecessary hypothesis. Like
  Santa Claus to the Christmas of naturalistic
  evolution.
• Part of a broader case against God.

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Universal Darwinism

• Darwinism applies beyond biology. It explains
  all creativity it is central to achieving all
  complex order.
• Speculative Darwinian cosmology.
• Speculative Memes and culture.
• More solid Darwinian AI. Our own intelligence
  and creativity relies on Darwinian processes in
  the brain!

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Darwin vs. God?

• Today, the Darwinian challenge to religion is
  broader. Not confined to chasing God out of
  biology.
• The challenge is also deeper. At first, we added
  evolution to purposeful design as an alternative
  explanation for complex order. Now, these two
  are both subsumed under Darwinism. The design
  analogy cannot get started.

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What all this means...

• It is no accident skeptics of religion are
  usually such great fans of Darwin.

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To learn more

• www2.truman.edu/edis
• Taner Edis, The Ghost in the Universe God in
  Light of Modern Science, coming out in March
  2002! (Check with campus bookstore.)
• Daniel C. Dennett, Darwins Dangerous Idea
  Evolution and the Meanings of Life