Back in June, Brown University biologist Ken Miller published this review of Michael Behe's book The Edge of Evolution in Nature magazine. Considering the venue, Miller quite appropriately focused on Behe's rather dubious scientific arguments and showed that they were entirely incorrect.
Miller has now published a second review (not freely available online), this time in the Catholic magazine Commonweal. The scientific flaws are hardly the only thing wrong with Behe's arguments, it seems. In Miller's view, Behe's arguments have disturbing theological consequences:
A hopeful reader might be forgiven if he dismissed my criticisms as little more than partisan carping from a true believer from the “evolutionist” camp. After all, if God exists, he would indeed be an “intelligent designer” of the very highest order. So, why shouldn't we regard this provocative book as a helpful and timely scientific defense against the forces of atheistic materialism? One reason, as I mentioned, is that what it says is wrong. Its scientific arguments are built on a mistakenly improbable view of evolution. There is, however, a deeper reason that will also be of interest to Commonweal readers: Behe's view of the designer.The final chapter of The Edge is a confusing investigation of the nature of the “designer,” as implied by Behe's case against evolution. Behe happily notes, as I would, that we live in a universe whose fundamental physical constants are remarkably hospitable to life. To me, and apparently to Behe, these constants may well reflect the will of a creator we would both identify as the God of Abraham. That, however, is where we part company.
Behe's designer-God never gets it quite right. Behe accepts at face value common descent and the long natural history of life, but he attributes their complex features to the mutational tinkering of the designer. As a result, Behe's interventionist God had to produce millions of failed species over billions of years to arrive at the present state of the world. If today's world were God's only intent, just how “intelligent” could he be? Furthermore, it turns out that this designer-God has crafted some pretty awful things along the way. One wonders about the day he designed the malaria parasite so well that it could kill a million children a year, or the poliio genome that crippled my aunt, or the parasites that eat the livers of millions of souls in the tropics. To Behe these are not byproducts of a fruitful and creative natural world that also gave us the beauty of a sunset, the grace of the eagle, and the talent of Beethoven. No, each vicious parasite and fatal disease is the the direct and intentional work of the designer.
Quite right. Behe's insipid theorizing is impossible to reconcile with the idea of a just and loving God. He takes the already serious problem of evil, and makes it ten times worse.
Incidentally, this argument against ID is made also by the young-Earthers in a rare fit of clear-thinking. Their response is to argue that the good bits of creation are God's handiwork, while the nasty bits are the result of human sin. That's a pretty weak argument, but it is not the subject of this post.
So where do I agree with Behe? Well, Behe has responded to Miller. After pointing out that Miller's attempted answer to the argument from evil in nature is the same as that presented by Francisco Ayala, Behe writes:
So, how to respond to such a position? The first thing to say is that it's very hard to see how the Miller/Ayala position gets God off the hook. The “byproducts of a fruitful and creative [Darwinian] natural world” that Miller alludes to are not simply byproducts -- they are deadly, dangerous, vicious byproducts. No matter if malaria were designed directly by God or indirectly by a sloppy process He put in motion, many children of mothers in malarious regions of Africa are going to be just as dead. There is going to be as much suffering in the world one way as the other.Why couldn't a grieving mother justifiably demand of an infinitely powerful God that He explain why He chose such a sloppy process to make life, instead of a more efficient process that would not produce natural evils such as parasites and tsunamis? One that wouldn't cause such enormous pain? It seems to me that designing a poor Darwinian process that inevitably spins off natural evils leaves One as vulnerable to being sued for incompetence as directly designing them as finished products.
Bingo! That's exactly right, and it nicely punctures the sophistry offered up by theistic evolutionists. Miller is quite right that a God who directly creates malaria, polio, and all manner of other nastiness is not the all-loving, all-powerful God of Christianity. But he is dead wrong that he can do any better. I'm afraid the moral distinction between directly creating malaria and directly setting in motion a process that has things like malaria as inevitable side consequences (when other mechanisms of creation were available) eludes me.
And if you add to this the fact that evolution by natural selection is a rotten way of creating intelligent life (if the fossils are to be believed, then evolution on this planet stagnated at several moments in history, and could only be started up again by mass extinctions that must have been horrible for the species who experienced them) then you see just how feeble a view of things theistic evolution really is.
But here's the catch. Behe has no answer either. This is the best he can do:
On the other hand, as a theist one can make an argument that what strikes us as evil in nature is part of a larger whole which is good. In his recent book Francisco Ayala wrote that one could regard tsunamis as the unintended side effect of a good process (plate tectonics) which is necessary to build a habitable world. Well, heck, one can make the same argument for parasites and viruses. It may well be that such seemingly vile creatures actually play positive roles in the economy of biology, of which we are in large part unaware. If that's the case, then directly designing parasites and viruses is as defensible in terms of the overall goodness of nature as is designing the processes of plate tectonics. The fact that they are dangerous to humans is an unintended side effect of something that is good in itself.
Yes, it is always an option to hide behind the “mysterious ways of God” defense. Does anyone really find that satisfying? Just so we're clear as to the challenge faced by theists, to salvage God talk from the clutches of the problem of evil it would have to be the case that parasites and viruses are logically necessary to achieve the hypothetical greater good Behe mentions here. That's a pretty steep burden.
Richard Dawkins summed up the essential problem very nicely in River Out of Eden:
Cheetahs give every indication of being superbly designed for something, and it should be easy enough to reverse-engineer them and work out their utility function. They appear to be well-designed to kill antelopes. The teeth, claws, eyes, nose, leg muscles, backbone and brain of a cheetah are all precisely what we should expect if God's purpose in designing cheetahs was to maximize deaths among antelopes. Conversely, if we reverse-engineer an antelope we find equally impressive evidence of design for precisely the opposite end: the survival of antelopes and starvation among cheetahs. It is as though cheetahs had been designed by one deity and antelopes by a rival deity. Alternatively, if there is only one Creator who made the tiger and the lamb, the cheetah and the gazelle, what is He playing at? Is he a sadist who enjoys spectator blood sports? Is he trying to avoid overpopulation in the mammals of Africa? Is He maneuvering to maximize David Attenborough's television ratings?
And:
The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive; others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear; others are being slowly devoured from within by rasping parasites; thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst and disease. It must be so. If there is ever a time of plenty. this very fact will autmoatically lead to an increase in population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored.
Exactly right. The day I find a scientist or theologian who has any plausible answer to this objection is the day I will stop thinking of Christian theism as utter foolishness.
I would add only that in Miller's view God tolerated millions of years of this ceaseless suffering and misery all so that one day humans might appreciate the beauty of a sunset, or the pleasures of a Beethoven sonata. And Miller says Behe has no answer to the problem of evil?
Comments
Your post title scared me, but I'm OK now.
Posted by: Chris Bell | October 31, 2007 6:12 PM
Yes, it is always an option to hide behind the “mysterious ways of God” defense.
Maybe it is and maybe it isn't. :)
My response to "God works in mysterious ways" is that we're not dealing with a God Whose observed behavior puzzles us or whose (audible) discourses refer to terms and concepts outside our of our ken. We're dealing with a God who simply fails to show up at all, and with fallible men who, in His absence, are telling us stories about Him, stories that are inconsistent with themselves and with real-world truth.
There's nothing mysterious about men telling inconsistent stories. It's just plain old lying.
Posted by: The Professor | October 31, 2007 6:21 PM
"If today's world were God's only intent, just how “intelligent” could he be?"
Wouldn't this be a big problem fir ID, that they just assume that there's a particular purpose to this tinkering and that we're actually important to the process? For all we know, the designer designed us to better food for mosquitoes, and to build nice warm houses for cockroaches and mice to live in.
"The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation."
It may not be plausible, but I've always had the impression that western religion on the whole basically just doesn't give a hoot about what happens in the natural world. I mean, they're just animals right? They can't experience "real" suffering. Animals don't really count for much except as resources to be exploited.
Posted by: Moopheus | October 31, 2007 6:30 PM
That hasn't been mostly true since the 1970s. Mainline/Liberal Protestantism usually pretty closely reflects the Zeitgeist, and in recent decades it really has taken the whole environmentalism thing seriously (using words like "justice" and "stewardship" and stuff like that).
But once again, you can get a skewed view of western religion if you only pay attention to the US religious right or the uppermost levels of the Catholic Church. (Both of which, I do concede, have a disproportionate influence in a minority of countries around the Western world.)
Posted by: Pseudonym | October 31, 2007 7:34 PM
"The day I find a scientist or theologian who has any plausible answer to this objection is the day I will stop thinking of Christian theism as utter foolishness."
The answer to the objection about cheetahs, Gazelles and suffering is found in Genesis. The earth was originally free from pain and suffering. Cheetahs and Gazelles (at least the original cat and gazelle kind) lived peacefully together. But Adam and Eve brought sin and suffering into the world when they disobeyed God. That brought about a curse, and we are living in that fallen world today. Of course faith in Jesus Christ and his victory over death is the answer to the problem of sin, death, pain and suffering.
Posted by: Jon S | October 31, 2007 10:41 PM
"But Adam and Eve brought sin and suffering into the world when they disobeyed God. That brought about a curse, and we are living in that fallen world today. "
Looks like you agree with Miller and Behe. God did it. His universe, his rules.
Posted by: Divalent | October 31, 2007 11:56 PM
Divalent: Actually, Jon S probably doesn't agree with Miller. Miller, AFAIK, doesn't believe in a non-metaphorical Adam and Eve.
Posted by: Pseudonym | November 1, 2007 2:36 AM
Okay let's bring bring Adam and Eve into the equation of god being a terrible designer... In fact if God directly constructed Adam and Eve into a destroyable paradise he is twice the bastard for cruelty and sadistics.
So he designs a creature with free will into Eden, a perfect paradise minus one feature. A big red self destruct button (well okay a lot of red buttons... apples). He than expects said free willed critters to follow his commandments to the letter or he'll punish them despite having built the whole situation.
From a designers point of he builds a human when he really wanted a robot, and than due to his bugger up takes it out on the creation.
This is not to me an all knowing all loving sort of thing to do. In fact I'd go as far as say very intentionally cruel.
That's like putting a candy bar in a room with a 7 year old, on PURPOSE, leaving the room, and than punishing the kid when you discover they've "shockingly" eaten the candy...
See at least had the story gone that Adam and Eve being real smart, became inventors and created sin themselves it might work. Heck had Satan made Sin it would work... oh but wait then, that would make Satan a creator too, and thus a God...
Polytheisms work so much better for sweeping devine morality issues under the rug... Too bad the Poly's are mostly dead religions or Christians could try and borrow some stuff to fix their creation stories
Posted by: Traumador the Tyrannosaur | November 1, 2007 4:00 AM
If anything, the existence of pathogens backs up Christian ID. All you need to do is to read the Bible to see what it means that God is loving and just. God expresses his love not unlike an abusive parent. If you're suffering by design, chances are that you, or someone you are associated with, however incidentally, has ticked God off with some insignificant transgression.
Posted by: Flaky | November 1, 2007 4:18 AM
Let me try this:
It is an undeniable fact that there is great suffering in the world.
If you take God to be an explanatory factor, then you are searching for a God-based explanation for this fact. And that inevitably leads to the problem as described.
But the theist need not look to God as an explanatory factor for everything - or for anything at all, for that matter.
This, to be sure, leaves the problem of evil unresolved. I don't mean to ignore or minimize that. But God is not the explanation. No more than God is the explanation for thunder, or the vertebrate eye, or "why is there something and not nothing". Any of which God is quite inappropriate as an explanatory factor for.
Posted by: TomS | November 1, 2007 7:15 AM
I agree that neither Miller nor Behe have an answer to the suffering problem and that it's not something trivial, either.
I have to admit though that I find it personally more endurable (not satisfying at all) to think that this is the result of a process that requires death to continue - rather than the direct, cruel idea of a God who willingly and very consciously put suffering into the world.
A God that could stop this and doesn't do so (or chose a less cruel way) isn't quite a fancy being, either, but at least it doesn't seem like he took an intact world and put some suffering in there consciously - for no apparent reason. With a God-conducted evolution, death and suffering and survival of the fittest at least have the meaning of progress in the whole scheme, however cruel it may seem. We might not understand why the process needs to be this cruel, but we can agree that death (and even or especially death by environmental factors like starving, sickness, etc.) isn't pointless.
Can we attribute all of that to mysterious ways? Or sin? Even the death of truly innocent beings who have hardly even taken a breath on this world before they cruelly die?
I prefer an evolutionary process conduced by God over a creator or designer whose process works without all that, but who chose to put it in there, anyway.
Posted by: Petra | November 1, 2007 8:26 AM
First, let me share the fact that the Discovery Institute responded to something I wrote, and in the process let slip a significant admission.
Second, although I am more of a panentheist than a theist, I still think that one can make a better case for why a God of the sort traditionally envisaged by Christian theology (not necessarily popular thought in that tradition) would create through evolution than for some other method. If God's aim was to create free beings, then it is unclear how else that could be accomplished. If one creates a first 'Adam and Eve' as adults, then they must be pre-programmed with all the things humans learn growing up. If they are created as infants, then what? Raised by wolves? Raised by angels? Evolution certainly makes sense as a process that can produce this end, even though it is clearly extremely wasteful in the process.
Anyway, this is just my way of saying that I think Miller does genuinely have the theological upper hand in this one, from the perspective of Christian theology, even if in the end you find neither persuasive when viewing their discussion as an outsider to that tradition. But for me, the thing that is amazing and demands awe (rather than attempts at explanation) is the fact that the universe has produced living things that can compose music and appreciate the beauty of a sunset.
Posted by: James McGrath | November 1, 2007 12:55 PM
If God's aim was to create free beings, then it is unclear how else that could be accomplished.
They have free beings up in heaven and they don't have any bad stuff up there. So just do things the same way down here. No big deal!
I never understood why god wasn't happy enough with all the angels that were created. God had to go and make people too. Why not just make a bunch of angels and save lots of trouble? The whole thing is just stupid. :P
Posted by: 386sx | November 1, 2007 1:21 PM
"They have free beings up in heaven "
What I was taught as a child was that angels *didnt* have free will (when I then asked how lucifer rebelled I was told to stop asking questions, but that is a differant issue) and that's why god created humans. Of course the bigger "why" of why god wanted creatures with free will at all never really got answered either. I always just assumed that god was insecure and wanted people to choose to worship it. Which isn't much of a choice when the alternative is hell, but I've found consistancy isn't a religious virtue. But I also wasnt raised in what most consider a mainstream xian sect (it was mormonism), so the teachings I got only hold so much weight to most of these folks.
Posted by: jba | November 1, 2007 1:39 PM
"The answer to the objection about cheetahs, Gazelles and suffering is found in Genesis. The earth was originally free from pain and suffering. Cheetahs and Gazelles (at least the original cat and gazelle kind) lived peacefully together. But Adam and Eve brought sin and suffering into the world when they disobeyed God. That brought about a curse, and we are living in that fallen world today. Of course faith in Jesus Christ and his victory over death is the answer to the problem of sin, death, pain and suffering."
This doesn't explain anything. The problem is still that cheetahs "appear to be well-designed to kill antelopes" and antelopes appear designed for "the survival of antelopes and starvation among cheetahs." Human sin certainly did not design the "teeth, claws, eyes, nose, leg muscles, backbone and brain of a cheetah."
Posted by: Nick | November 1, 2007 2:13 PM
How could the cheetahs and gazelles have been living peacefully before the apple scandal? What were the cheetahs eating???
It's amusing to see the all powerful having to make a compromise between habitable worlds and no tsunamis. The almighty can't eat his cake and have it, too?
Posted by: Koray | November 1, 2007 4:43 PM
Jon S-
As I said in my opening post, I don't think the “sin entered the world” defense is very convincing. The problem comes when you try topicture the details. We imagine Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, living in God's perfect creation without any worry about parasites or diseases or any of the other nasty bits of nature. Then they sin. What happens next? Does God say, “Uh oh! They sinned. Better go add some nasty things to my creation?” Were microbes already there in benign form get altered as the result of Adam and Eve's sin? And what about the gazelles and the cheetahs? As Nick suggests, was the result of the sin that these creatures had their anatomy changed for the purpose of having them engage in blood sport? What, exactly, happened as the result of the sin.
The fact is that arguing that sin entered the world is not really an attempt at an explanation. It is meaningless phrase that gets used to wish the problem away.
James McGrath-
It's not clear to me why an adult Adam and Eve poofed into existence in Eden, just as the Bible describes, would be any more or less free than an Adam and Eve that arose as the products of evolution. And even if we stipulate for some reason that God had to create through evolution, he certianly did not have to make natural selection the driving force of the process. He could have left a role for Lamrckian evolution, or for directed mutation, either one of which would have led to a far less odious evolutionary process.
As for the universe inspiring awe, you will get no argument from me. God talk, by contrast, leaves me distinctly cold and uninspired. The universe is a far more impressive place without Him.
Posted by: Jason Rosenhouse | November 1, 2007 4:50 PM
I love the "original sin" defense for the problem of evil. It's by far the most entertaining.
Another problem with it is the total lunacy of God choosing to ruin his perfect, happy world over the consumption of one, forbidden apple. Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill.
Couldn't Adam have just said "Dude, relax. I get that you're angry, but there's no good reason to destroy the wholle world over one stupid apple. If you don't want me to eat the apples, then why put the tree there? Besides, it's only a matter of time before one of the giraffes eats them."
Posted by: Caliban | November 1, 2007 6:24 PM
Well, if the evil things that happen to nature is a result of human sin, then that illustrates the power of human sin....and the weakness of God.
No, you cannot save the God concept by blaspheming it, can you?
Posted by: Dale Husband | November 1, 2007 7:09 PM
"If that's the case, then directly designing parasites and viruses is as defensible in terms of the overall goodness of nature as is designing the processes of plate tectonics. The fact that they are dangerous to humans is an unintended side effect of something that is good in itself"
How, in the Christian worldview, can something be good in itself? Something is good because it concords with God's will. And don't forget, God is omnipotent. Why couldn't he come up with teflon plates that don't cause earthquakes when they slide under each other? Or a system of creation that doesn't require tectonics?
"The answer to the objection about cheetahs, Gazelles and suffering is found in Genesis. The earth was originally free from pain and suffering. Cheetahs and Gazelles (at least the original cat and gazelle kind) lived peacefully together. But Adam and Eve brought sin and suffering into the world when they disobeyed God. That brought about a curse, and we are living in that fallen world today. "
And what did the gazelles ever do to deserve paion and suffering? They didn't disobey God. This only lends more credibility to the "God is a sociopath" school of thought.
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | November 1, 2007 7:57 PM
Traumador Says "if God directly constructed Adam and Eve into a destroyable paradise he is twice the bastard for cruelty and sadistics... He than expects said free willed critters to follow his commandments to the letter or he'll punish them despite having built the whole situation... From a designers point of he builds a human when he really wanted a robot... This is not to me an all knowing all loving sort of thing to do. In fact I'd go as far as say very intentionally cruel.
God is a holy God and hates sin. In fact he hates sin so much the punishment is death (Romans 6:23). But again, the world he created was originally very good and without sin, death, or suffering. He only gave Adam one command, but Adam was deceived and blew it. God certainly didn't want robots, or he would have created us as such. Instead he wants us to freely worship him. After sin entered the world God cursed the earth, and now we live in a fallen world. God is not taking anything out on creation, as you suggest. God had a plan to redeem man right from the beginning, and while bad things happen, all things work for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28).
TomS- You say the problem of evil remains unresolved if we use God as an explanatory factor for anything and everything. Of course God is not the source of evil, as some will try to proclaim. Evil and sin is disobedience to God. If Adam and Eve never disobeyed God, we'd still be living in a perfect world. However Adam did disobey, and that brought sin into the world. But you're incorrect when you say the problem of sin is unresolved, because it was resolved on the cross. God is a perfect explanatory factor for thunder and the vertebrae eye. That's not to say that we stop trying to understand those things, as many atheists will insist upon; instead it's a good reason to study and understand the world around us.
Petra- No one is truly innocent (Romans 3:23). All have sinned and fall short of God's glory. Evolution isn't the answer to anything, but Christ is.
386sx says "I never understood why god wasn't happy enough with all the angels that were created. God had to go and make people too. Why not just make a bunch of angels and save lots of trouble? The whole thing is just stupid. :P"
God was quite happy with his creation of angels. But he also chose to create humans in his image because it gave him pleasure and glory to do so. Far from being stupid, it's quite amazing!
jba- Of course angels had free will, which is exactly the point you made concerning Lucifer. God certainly is not insecure and doesn't need anyone or anything to be complete. He created man for his own glory, not because he needs us to keep from getting lonely.
Nick- The original cat kind had teeth and claws, but they were vegetarians at the beginning. Bears, bats, and many other animals have teeth and claws, yet many are vegetarian, so just because cheetahs appear to be well designed to kill doesn't pose a problem as you suggest.
Posted by: Jon S | November 1, 2007 9:26 PM
Jon S-
The god you describe sounds exactly like the kind of god an 8 yr old would imagine ... I think that you'll take that as a compliment ... it's not.
Posted by: Jim | November 1, 2007 9:59 PM
Vegetarian mosquitoes? Yeah, that makes perfect sense...
Why did they even need to eat at all? Why not just live on God's love? If it wants us to "freely worship" it so bad, wouldn't that be a better way to go?
It could have planned any kind of world it wanted. How is a world with suffering, Hell and a very conditional redemption a better plan than a world without those things?
Posted by: Caliban | November 1, 2007 10:06 PM
Jason- I understand you don't find the 'sin entered the world' defense very convincing. But I think it makes perfect sense of the world around us. It explains why there's death, disease and suffering in a world created by a loving, all powerful God. If God does exist, and if he has revealed himself through the Bible, then the 'sin entered the world' defense is true whether one finds it convincing or not. I think in the end it boils down to what is the truth? If there's no God, then truth is relative, and in the end it doesn't really matter what the truth is. But if the God of the Bible is real, then there is ultimate truth. I personally don't find it very convincing that truth is relative. That would mean everyone can do what's right in their own eyes, whether anyone else likes it or not. I'm sorry, but I don't buy that. Sounds like wishful thinking to me... wouldn't it be great if we could do whatever we wanted without any consequences? Well, that's a fairy tale life without God. I'd rather experience some pain and suffering now and be rewarded with heaven at the end. To me heaven is worth all the misery we have to go through to get there.
As for microbes, although the Bible doesn't spell out the details, God does proclaim his creation very good. So if there were microbes present at the beginning, then perhaps they were benign, and after the curse it's possible that they mutated into something harmful (but remained microbes without evolving into man). And again, the cheetahs and gazelles that we see today were probably represented by their original kind, and yes, their anatomy has most certainly changed from then to now, but they both lived peacefully together at the beginning of creation on a vegetarian diet as indicated Genesis 1:29-30. I don't see why this is hard to understand, as I pointed out that we see many animals today that are vegetarians, even though they have canines and claws and other predatory anatomy.
You say "The fact is that arguing that sin entered the world is not really an attempt at an explanation. It is meaningless phrase that gets used to wish the problem away."
But your argument only makes sense if there is no God. On the other hand, if there is a God, then sin is precisely the reason why there's death and suffering in the world, and exactly the reason Jesus died on the cross. If God is real, then dismissing sin is as meaningless is simply denying the truth. From the perspective of a believer, the explanation offered in Genesis makes complete sense and has nothing to do with wishful thinking. I'd certainly love to be living in a perfect world. However that would be wishful thinking and delusional. The good news is that Christ died on the cross for our sins, and those that put their faith and hope in him will have eternal life in paradise. Now I'm sure that sounds like wishful thinking to an atheist, but to a believer it's truth.
Posted by: Jon S | November 1, 2007 10:08 PM
Jon, that would have required a level of evolution far greater and more chaotic than what scientists actually propose.
What you are proposing is evolution on crack, which is especially ironic given that you reject evolution.
That said, you have absolutely no evidence for any of this. It seems rather silly for you to reject evolution and then instead propose this ridiculous, overly complicated scenario that not only flies in the face of everything we know, but insults out intelligence along the way. Vegetarian sharks and benign e. coli?
How stupid do you think we are, Jon?
And to make matters worse you actually used the word "mutation". That's about as valid as sci-fi movie makers callng the 50-foot woman a "mutation".
Posted by: Leni | November 1, 2007 10:38 PM
That's just great Neal. Boy, you sure showed us. If Christians, according to the bible, are to be "known by thier love", i guess you must make some sort of Commie or athiest, huh?
I suggest you remove the log from your own eye before you come here and start judging others. I wonder what Jesus would have to say about such behaviour? Neal, people like you are the reason why so many turn away from religon. Congradulations.
Posted by: Caliban | November 2, 2007 12:33 AM
By all means, Neal, if you have ANY evidence, for your position, why don't you provide it?
Posted by: Caliban | November 2, 2007 12:52 AM
God was quite happy with his creation of angels. But he also chose to create humans in his image because it gave him pleasure and glory to do so. Far from being stupid, it's quite amazing!
Not really. If god is omnipotent then nothing is amazing to god. Nor should it be amazing to anyone who understands that god is omnipotent. Omnipotence means god can do whateveh like it was nothin. :D
Posted by: 386sx | November 2, 2007 3:27 AM
God was quite happy with his creation of angels. But he also chose to create humans in his image because it gave him pleasure and glory to do so. Far from being stupid, it's quite amazing!
I think what is amazing is the things that god doesn't do, rather than the things god does do. God can do whatevah... but doesn't. That's the amazing part. Religions always have everything backwards for some reason. Oh well. :D
Posted by: 386sx | November 2, 2007 3:31 AM
Hah, theodicies are always going to plague creationists and the ID camp which they keep quote mining off.
Neal, quite hiding behind complexity. It's just an argument from ignorance to serve your own, ironically so, hypocritical theological beliefs.
1st, all caplocks is a good sign of the writers lack of maturity or sanity, re Timecube. 2nd, you want evidence? Google Scholar + evolution, or there's always talk origins archive and wikipedia's actually become rather good. Then, I suppose you want evidence + 1 right?Also, if you claim evolution is wrong, and the science is accepted, thus the burden of proof is on you to show how evolution doesn't actually work. Have fun.
Posted by: Nick Sullivan | November 2, 2007 4:51 AM
Neal, the only thing "infinitely implausible" here is the dribble you've been posting.
I guess someone forgot to take thier crazy pills last night...
Posted by: Caliban | November 2, 2007 7:51 AM
Re Jon S
I see that we are being revisited by YEC Jon S with his ludicrous fantasies, which have no basis in fact. However, in the interest of scholarly intercourse, I would pose the following query. In my previous employment, I had dealings with several bridge engineers and designers, all of whom could design a human spine superior to the one we are cursed with. Since according to Mr. Jon S, Adam was a perfect physical specimen, presumably his spinal column did not exhibit the poor design we fallen humans are stuck with. Is it Mr. Jon S' contention that god deliberately altered Adams' spinal column so as to curse his descendants with the subject poor design? If so, would Mr. Jon S care to elucidate us as to just what the design of Adams' spinal column consisted of.
Posted by: SLC | November 2, 2007 8:12 AM
Jason, just out of curiosity, have you ever read "Grass" by Sheri S. Tepper? I'm guessing it may not be entirely your cup of tea, but it has some interesting ideas embedded in it, regarding God, moral responsibility, and a plague which...um, I can't reveal that bit, that's a plot spoiler. But it sounds like a really nasty way to die, though.
Posted by: Luna_the_cat | November 2, 2007 8:43 AM
Let us know when you find the explanation in Jewish theism.
Or for that matter, when you find something in any religion that explains why a hyperintelligent, 'transcendent' deity responsible for the entire universe should be concerned about the neurological states of organisms one way or another.
The problem of evil isn't to explain why evil exists, but why humans think their concepts of evil are objectively important.
Posted by: Caledonian | November 2, 2007 9:15 AM
I think Ginger Yellow has made the most trenchant observation. Putting aside the bizarre claim that those of us currently living should be punished for an action that temporally we were rather ill-equipped to prevent, any god that would convert peaceful vegetarian animals into vicious carnivores, ensuring endless generations of pain and suffering should hardly expect to be the object of worship. Is the concept of innocent bystander so hard for god to understand? Watch the lions bring down an elephant in Attenborough's "Life on Earth" and tell me again about the loving and merciful god that orchestrated all this.
Posted by: Dyticum | November 2, 2007 10:18 AM
Ken Miller:
I'm gonna call "bollocks" on that. Everybody knows that the dimensionality of spacetime was chosen so that Aphrodite could get tied up in knots.
Once again, theology is merely vanity by another name. Just listen to Uncle Carl:
And those Lithic Principles would be invoked, no doubt, by the stones which wished to distance themselves from Intelligent Sedimentation while retaining their childhood admiration for the great god Volcano.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | November 2, 2007 11:20 AM
Hmmm. I see that Neal is continuing the habit he displayed at ERV of sounding exactly like a Markov re-processing of himself.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | November 2, 2007 11:22 AM
My goodness, Neal. And they call women emotional.
The burden of evidence is on anyone who makes a claim; however, those who make an extraordinary claim have the added burden of demonstrating why that claim should replace what is already known and demonstrated.
Of course we can't demonstrate a complete pathway from amino acids, say, to the development of cells; but by doing the hard work we will be able to in the future. If we just say "Goddidit," we would kill all further research. What if we had just said "Goddidit" (as people like you did) in response to bacterial infections and viruses? We would not have antibiotics and vaccines at all, as people like you once did not (for which you probably thank God).
"Implausible pathways," what rot. Calm yourself, and make yourself a peanut-butter and banana sandwich and sit down for a lonely night watching "Privleged Planet" as your ID heroes apparently do, since you're convinced you're right.
I fail to see why creationism appeals to anyone - it's all about "somebody else did this, somebody else did that, I can do nothing by myself, because I'm worthless." How boring, even if it were true; and what vanity, to be so "worthless" that you (or we, I guess) deserve eternal punishment! I wonder if there's a connection between following the lives of celebrities, watching too many soap operas, or being obsessed with sports figures, and talking incessantly about God (oh, excuse me, the designer).
Everything that we know about dysfunctional relationships goes right out the window when people talk about God. Whatever happened to "Absolute power corrupts absolutely"? Even if God exists, what's the big diff between him and, say, Saddam Hussein? By whose authority is God God? I didn't vote for him. ;-)
Posted by: Kristine | November 2, 2007 12:33 PM
LOL. Anger issues much? Perhaps Neal has an undiagnosed case of IMS.
Maybe if you spent more time eduicating yourself and less time freaking out you'd have noticed the reams upon reams of literature on the evidence for evolution that exists, beginning around one hundered and 60 years ago with Darwin's The Origin of Species".
Try to keep up, will you?
Not that you'd be able to understand it, but the evidence is there. Given how much evidence there is, your total ignorance of it and refusal to accept what little you are aware of is not a valid position, it's a tedious excercise in willfull ignorance and outrageous arrogance.
The ball is in the creationist court, so why don't you come back when they fing the f#*@ing ark.
Posted by: Leni | November 2, 2007 1:28 PM
Leni said "Jon, that (benign microbes) would have required a level of evolution far greater and more chaotic than what scientists actually propose."
Nonsense. This is precisely what we observe today when we examine bacterial resistance. A normal strand of bacteria may be harmful, but when we expose them to antibacterials, only the mutated strands immune to the antibacterials survive; this is due to a loss of genetic material, and the surviving bacteria are far more deadly. In the same way, if there were microbes at the beginning of creation, and if they were benign, then after the curse we can presume that the mutated strands lost genetic information, and, thus, became harmful.
Leni said "you have absolutely no evidence for any of this. It seems rather silly for you to reject evolution and then instead propose this ridiculous, overly complicated scenario that not only flies in the face of everything we know, but insults out intelligence along the way. Vegetarian sharks and benign e. coli? How stupid do you think we are, Jon?"
I'll refrain from responding to your last question. But bacterial resistance is a perfect example to support my point. Do you believe in bacterial resistance? And you laugh at vegetarian sharks, but there are sharks, such as the whale shark (the largest shark) which eats plankton! Did you know there are bears that are vegetarian? So why is it hard to imagine a vegetarian diet at the beginning of God's creation? There are known examples of Lions today that don't eat meat, and of a lioness that adopted several oryx calves. This is a picture of what it was like at the beginning, and of what it will be like in heaven (Isaiah 11:60).
SLC said "In my previous employment, I had dealings with several bridge engineers and designers, all of whom could design a human spine superior to the one we are cursed with. Since according to Mr. Jon S, Adam was a perfect physical specimen, presumably his spinal column did not exhibit the poor design we fallen humans are stuck with. Is it Mr. Jon S' contention that god deliberately altered Adams' spinal column so as to curse his descendants with the subject poor design? If so, would Mr. Jon S care to elucidate us as to just what the design of Adams' spinal column consisted of.
This is more nonsense. Go ahead, let's see your bridge engineers create a spine superior to what God designed. Why is it that man is constantly trying to imitate nature if man can create things better than God? Darwinism actually has misled researchers into developing a harmful set of treatment techniques for certain back conditions. These therapies were based on the idea that humans at one time walked on all fours and that back problems were produced primarily by complications resulting from humans newly evolved upright posture. Treatment today is the opposite of the now disproven Darwin-influenced techniques. Physical therapist Robin McKenzie said "The lumbar spin is, instead, a most efficient means for supporting weight and providing for movement in erect, bipedal posture." Third world countries, in fact, rarely report chronic back pain. Darwinist professor of osteopathy David Shuman said "... no question that the human back, given proper care and rightly understood, is an astonishingly effective mechanism... the human back is the hallmark of our true nobility and a major factor in the...supremacy of... man"
Posted by: Jon S | November 2, 2007 5:29 PM
To me, and apparently to Behe, these constants may well reflect the will of a creator we would both identify as the God of Abraham.
Thanks. Maybe Abraham should have asked his god to spare Sodom and Gomorrah if only two righteous persons were found therein, instead of the ten or fifty Abraham was hoping for.
Naturally of the two righteous persons who were found therein, the God of Abraham decided to turn one of them into a pile of salt. :D
The God of Abraham was a complete jerk, and the fact that you are willing to overlook that means.... something. I dunno exactly what.
Maybe you're projecting your idea of what your god should be like into the God of Abraham. Well, I hope it's a much nicer god than the jerk God of Abraham. :P
Posted by: 386sx | November 2, 2007 5:51 PM
Why is it that man [sic] is constantly trying to imitate nature if man [sic] can create things better than God?
Ahem. Drink water much? From a tap? Or from a "God-created" creek? Or do you drink beer? (Probably not.) We are nature - that's true whether we "imitate" it or not.
Drive a car? Ride a bus? Or do you walk every single place you go on your "God-designed" feet? Come on. Incidentally, the spine was not "designed," or your God is a poor designer. When you get older, you'll find out how "great" the spine is. Believe me.
Posted by: Kristine | November 2, 2007 6:03 PM
Jon, the scenario you're proposing is beyond silly. It is patently ridiculous.
"The world used to ruled by pixies. And all was peace and love. But then a selfish human displeased the pixies so they cast a mighty spell that changed many of the creatures into corrupted, carnivorous versions of themselves. The only way to break free of this terrible magic is to open one's heart to the divine mischief of the great Pixie Spirit. If you want evidence for this, notice that some of the creatures today are vegetarian, just like they were before the great Pixie spell was cast! And look at bacteria, they mutated to become resistant to drugs just like tigers mutated from vegetarians to carnivores."
The difference between that scenario and the one you propose differs only cosmeticly.
Posted by: Caliban | November 2, 2007 6:03 PM
Neal-
Your comments have been deleted. If you wish to comment here in the future do not write in all caps, and leave your profanity at home. This is a family blog.
Posted by: Jason Rosenhouse | November 2, 2007 6:20 PM
Dyticum says "any god that would convert peaceful vegetarian animals into vicious carnivores, ensuring endless generations of pain and suffering should hardly expect to be the object of worship. Is the concept of innocent bystander so hard for god to understand? ... tell me again about the loving and merciful god that orchestrated all this."
But God does expect worship, despite our supposed innocence. It makes sense that those who worship God, despite our pain an suffering, will receive the crown of life. God expects us to persevere, and he promises to reward those who are willing to suffer for him. While I don't like to suffer any more than anyone else, I'm willing to endure for the sake of God's promises that he will make it worthwhile. Secondly, no one is innocent, otherwise there was no need for Jesus to die on the cross. That's the type of loving and merciful God we have. He was willing to become a man and expose himself to pain and suffering to the point of death so that whoever believes in him will not taste eternal death, but will have eternal life. Jesus is the only innocent man to live, yet he paid the penalty we deserve, and his blood covered the atonement for every one who believes in him. That doesn't sound like something an evil tyrant would do.
Kristine says "I fail to see why creationism appeals to anyone - it's all about "somebody else did this, somebody else did that... How boring, even if it were true; and what vanity, to be so "worthless" that you (or we, I guess) deserve eternal punishment!...Even if God exists, what's the big diff between him and, say, Saddam Hussein? By whose authority is God God? I didn't vote for him. ;-)"
Creationism appeals to me because it's true. There's nothing boring about an almighty God creating and sustaining everything by his very word. If you want fun, then heaven is where you want your final destination to be, because that's where the celebration party will be. Having your excitement here on earth is pointless if God is real. The diff between God and Saddam should be obvious. God is a good, just omnipotent, all powerful, all knowing, holy creator, while saddam was only a man, and an evil one at that. God is God because there is no one greater than him.
Posted by: Jon S | November 2, 2007 6:25 PM
Kristine says "Ahem. Drink water much? From a tap? Or from a "God-created" creek? Or do you drink beer? (Probably not.) We are nature - that's true whether we "imitate" it or not. Drive a car? Ride a bus? Or do you walk every single place you go on your "God-designed" feet? Come on. Incidentally, the spine was not "designed," or your God is a poor designer. When you get older, you'll find out how "great" the spine is. Believe me."
What's your point? Of course I drink water, and I do enjoy a good beer or wine on occasion. But we're not nature in the sense you're referring to. We didn't come about by random chance. I never said the spine we have today is perfect; only that it's a well designed spine. Since we live in a sin-fallen world after the curse, it only makes sense that the spine will wear down, and we will eventually die. That doesn't negate the great design of the spine. If Adam and Eve didn't sin at the beginning they'd still be alive today, and their spine would be just as strong as when God first created it.
Caliban says "Jon, the scenario you're proposing is beyond silly. It is patently ridiculous... The difference between that scenario and the one you propose differs only cosmeticly."
Nonsense. What kind of scenario do you propose? One where hot gasses eventually form a lifeless planet that eventually produces just the right mixture of chemicals and elements that just so happens to come together to form the first life, and that first life just so happens to be able to sustain itself and reproduce and become more and more complex until you can say 'hi, I'm just a random pile of pondscum and I laugh at the existence of God?' Really Caliban, who's fooling who with fairy tales and insanely impossible odds?
Posted by: Jon S | November 2, 2007 6:47 PM
Jon, You list five historical events that need to have transpired for life to arrive naturaly. Five. And this seems to you "insanely impossible odds"? Despite the fact that we already have mountains of evidence supporting those events (with the one exception of abiogenesis)and absolutely none supporting your scenario?
As for being a "random pile of pondscum" this remark seems especially ironic to me as you are the one telling us how sinfull and deserving of eternal torture humanity is. Personaly, i find the evidence that reveals my common ancestry with all life on the planet far more majestic and enobling than your worship-Jebus-or-burn-forever worldview.
Posted by: Caliban | November 2, 2007 7:19 PM
"What kind of scenario do you propose? One where hot gasses eventually form a lifeless planet that eventually produces just the right mixture of chemicals and elements that just so happens to come together to form the first life, and that first life just so happens to be able to sustain itself and reproduce and become more and more complex until you can say 'hi, I'm just a random pile of pondscum and I laugh at the existence of God?'"
Sounds good to me, except for the "hi" part. Since evolution isn't a random process, no one is a "random pile of pondscum." Well, maybe you see yourself that way, but I don't think anyone else here does.
As for laughing at "God," well, not really. But I do reserve a smile for people who "worship" an entity who sets his children up for a fall and then punishes them terribly when they do.
What a pointless universe that would be!
Posted by: Michael Glenn | November 2, 2007 7:36 PM
Re Jon S
As usual, it is a total waste of time arguing with with a schmuck like Mr. Jon S. Richard Dawkins once said that one who rejects the theory of evolution is either ignorant, stupid, or insane. Mr. Jon S is all of the above. Contrary to Mr. Jon S' admiration for the human spine, I challenge him to find a bridge designer who will agree with him that it is anything but a poor design. Reference to physical therapists or osteopaths who wouldn't know how to design a bridge if their life depended on it is totally unimpressive (I suspect that Mr. Jon S also wouldn't know how to design a bridge). Of course the reason it is a poor design is that it is adapted from a quadrupedal animal. Other then the S curve, the human spine differs not at all from that of a dog, a cow, or a horse. None of those animals suffer from back trouble because it is a pretty good design for a quadruped.
Posted by: SLC | November 2, 2007 7:59 PM
Certainly untrue for horses, arguably so for many breeds of dog (whose skeletal problems are found mostly in their hip joints). Of course, these are the products of artificial selection, and would disappear after a few generations of natural selection.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | November 2, 2007 10:17 PM
My dictionary says "glory" is "high renown or honor won by notable achievements" (plus other definitions painting it as an intrinsic quality of god, heaven, etc). If some god feels a need for "glory", he/she/it would be better advised to seek it from other deities - the sycophancy of humans would be a very poor substitute.
If I had the power to, say, create a new species of ant, I'd be quickly bored if they felt their primary function was to praise Me - and would tell them to get busy on something, anything, more creative/useful.
I've never gotten a clear answer to this, and don't really expect one now, but I gotta ask: just what do you believers mean by "glory"?
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | November 2, 2007 10:30 PM
Gosh, I guess the coalition of ignorance (macro-evolutionary conjecture and assertion) lives on even still, with the vastly tilted scientific evidences (continuing to accumulate at ever increasing velocity) that shows you, are just so bankrupt in your "enterprise" (by the way Star Trek fans, the ship Enterprise probably has more (as ridiculous as it sounds) scientific credibility (which is an absurdity to say the least) than your pet philosophy regarding chemicals to ecosystems. Your program of "perpetuating the obvious inanities of a hideously outdated concept" just exposes your own personal agendas which might include some sort of anti-religious philosophical preference. Again YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES. Trying to convince yourselves and the innocent public (ON THEIR DOLLARS FOR THE SAKE OF BUDDA!!!!!) that for some totally scientifically unrepresented idea (that caught hold decades ago because "they didn't know what we know now") that you actually have substantive evidential matter that could even come close to supporting your claims!!!! (Oh by the way, I hope you realize your assertions have INCREDIBLE EFFECT ON THE PUBLIC AT LARGE AND HOW SIMPLE INDIVIDUALS RESPOND IN THEIR CIRCUMSTANCES FOR THE "GOOD" OR "BAD" (if there are such things right? (you masters of knowing it all)
Did someone say this is a "family friendly forum?" (meaning innocent kids are involved?) This is something I have a hard time believing. Stripping innocent children of what should be the unambiguous, non-authoritorion-adult relationship to essentially demand they are exposed to the hugely unsubstantiated drivel that the ones in charge of the development of such individuals have the RESPONSIBILITY to
guide these innocent ones in attempt to allow them the ability to come to well informed decisions.
Continue on, morons. Continue to produce (because of your philosophical preferences) individuals who will bring a system of fairness and global respect down to the continuing progression "i want what i want now and will do any thing i can to get it" And you MUST!!!!!! know what i mean. ON the other hand most of you most certainly DONT.
Posted by: Neal | November 2, 2007 11:07 PM
Neal, when you post a tantrum worthy of a two-year-old, you yourself come across as "i want what i want now and will do any thing i can to get it."
In other words, "Don't have a cow, man . . ."
Posted by: Michael Glenn | November 3, 2007 12:16 AM
Neal, nothing you say is new to anyone here. It's the same bogus claims that have been disproved day after day by people actually producing work in the relevant fields.
If you have evidence to support your position that evidence will speak for itself. In science, the idea that causes a revolution and overthrows previous assumptions is the idea that wins Nobel prizes, fame and prestige. All one has to do is present thier case and show the evidence.
If you know so much about the topic why does no one listen to you? Well, besides the fact that your posts read like the ramblings of a very agitated schitzophrenic...
Posted by: Caliban | November 3, 2007 1:27 AM
Jon S wrote (bold):
That's evolution. Not magic curses.
Now explain to me every single step required to make a pre-curse great white shark into a post-curse. And then provide the evidence. Ok- if you don't have sharks, that's fine. I'll take some other current species of carnivore; bears maybe. You just have to demonstrate that they were at one point in our recent past, after humans evolved presumably, exclusive herbivores.
No, the Bible doesn't count as evidence. Neither does complaining about the fossil record.
If this process wasn't magic and is "precisely" what we see in bacteria, then you should be able to detail those steps fairly readily. If you can't, then perhaps the honest thing would be to refrain from making the argument until you can.
The problem here Jon, is that you are presuming an awful lot and providing no evidence to support these presumptions.
Case in point: equating loss of genetic information with "harmful". Nowhere have you justified this. You are simply attaching a meaningless value of "bad" to a process you have neither described nor justified. I don't see at all how mutation = information loss = innocent vegetarian great white sharks becoming big mean carnivores.
You needn't. The mere fact that you expect to be taken as seriously as the generations of people who have done a great deal more work than you (painstaking, meticulous observations resulting in peer-reviewed research I might add) speaks for itself.
No, I don't believe in it. I know it can happen because it's a well-documented phenomenon.
I laugh at herbivore sharks with teeth like the guy on the top right. With the big teeth.
Also, I chuckle a bit at the fact that you think whale sharks are "vegetarian". They aren't. They eat plankton, sure. And krill, small fish, squid and even some larger fish. Also, filter feeders are very rare among shark species . There is no reason to suspect that they are representative of sharks as a whole and several reasons to suspect they are not.
Fossil evidence for one. But also (and more importantly) the fact that both whale sharks and their more toothy carnivorous cousins have been around a lot longer than humans. So if a human is responsible for their traits it worked retroactively.
Last, why wouldn't the whale shark get the "harmful" carnivore mutation? Was the whale shark less guilty of Adam and Eve's sin than the Great White or the Tiger shark? Well, they are cuter and friendlier, that's true. Maybe that's why.
Do I care? (No.) If one species of bear is veggie it doesn't mean they all had to be at one point. Especially if the vast majority of them aren't and if their ancestors don't appear to be either.
It could just as easily be that because the vast majority of them are omnivorous scavengers that it is the vegetarian who is the anomaly. In fact, that's what the evidence suggests.
I can imagine it just fine. But then as soon as I do it immediately occurs to me that it's not a very good model for reality and so I move on.
Jon, it's not the evidence that makes you think this, it's the fact that you want the world to look like how you believe the Bible says it does.
Let's at least be honest about that. You can hopelessly slaughter bacteria evolution and whale shark diets, but would you just admit that it isn't their biology that made you magically jump to the conclusion that the Bible is right, but rather the Bible that made you jump to the conclusion that their biology is "wrong".
Posted by: Leni | November 3, 2007 2:29 AM
"Neal, when you post a tantrum worthy of a two-year-old, you yourself come across as "i want what i want now and will do any thing i can to get it."
In other words, "Don't have a cow, man . . .""
Totally irrelevant statement. You are so cozy in your world of vastly unsubstantiated assertions. You haven't a clue.
"Neal, nothing you say is new to anyone here. It's the same bogus claims that have been disproved day after day by people actually producing work in the relevant fields."
There is absolutely NOTHING about my claims being "disproved " by anybody "producing work in their relevant fields". First of all, most scientific work being done, including in the biological, medical etc. fields are not concerned with the philosophical assertions of the macro-evlolutionary "darwinian" camp of individuals who somehow continue to suck public funds for their personal vendettas against whatever the hell it is they don't like about certain social "conventions". OK? There layers upon layers upon layers upon layers etc etc etc of assumptions (lets just skip over these unanswerable problems, (because we can and nobody can stop us because after all we are "SCIENTISTS" and the stupid ass public should only DARE to question what we say), and move on to more less controversial areas that (oh, by the way) will produce greater funding.) You pathetic buttholes!!!!! There are VASTLY, HUGELY SO MANY MORE UNEXPLAINED UNKNOWNS AND UNEXPLAINED ELEMENTS TO WHAT YOU ASSERT TO BE "SCIENTIFICALLY DEMONSTRATED CERTAINTIES" that I believe you are perversely dillusional and without any kind of hope. (And I worry about anybody innocently influenced by your perversional sense of entitlement, that in your minds allows you to think there is any kind of substantive support for your philosophically preferred assertions. (god, you are a pack of dumb shits!!!!!)
Posted by: Neal | November 3, 2007 2:46 AM
Sorry to multi-post, but I just thought of an intersting case, Jon.
Gorillas.
Take a look at their skulls for a minute.
Have you looked? I hope so.
What's striking about it is not the fact that they have "fangs" despite the fact that their diet is largely plant matter. (They do eat ants and grubs and things- but so far as I know they don't hunt or scavenge meat.)
Anyway, what's striking about this animal is the evidence for it's plant based diet, right there on top of it's skull. It's not the teeth or the claws or the fact that it has an herbivore cousin somewhere among primate species. It's that huge, unmistakable crest that anchors the massive muscles it uses for the constant chewing it must do in order to eek the meager sustenance out of the reedy weeds it lives on.
So Jon, if all species exhibited some tendency toward herbivorism, we should expect and be able to see it in the fossil record. Because not even that is the easy do-nothing lifestyle you seem to think it is. Those calories are hard fought for, whether they come from plants or other animals.
But we don't all show evidence of past herbivorism. The fact that your answer to this is "It was magic!" (cue Disney sparkles) isn't just sad, it's abysmally depressing. You're not just rejecting some wanton evidence, you're rejecting the truth about nearly every being that ever lived.
Go read about gorillas. You will love them, I promise. You might not want to be one, for sure, but only a heartless moron would fail to admire them and be amazed by both their brutality and their gentleness. And to see some of our own strengths and failings in them. They aren't flawed because they aren't vegetarian, they're flawed because they're alive.
I wouldn't want to live in a world where people could not appreciate that amazing and heartbreaking reality.
Posted by: Leni | November 3, 2007 3:08 AM
That would be because they are science and not philosophy. They are doing exactly what they should be doing. Science.
That doesn't mean scientists aren't concerned with the philosophical implications of their work, it just means they might not necessarily blather on about inappropriately in the primarily literature the way you no doubt would.
Posted by: Neal | November 3, 2007 3:28 AM
Crap, that last one was me!! Not Neal!
I have this weird habit of typing the persons' name to whom I am responding in the "Name" field when I post. (Most annoying tendency EVER.) Sorry!
Posted by: Leni | November 3, 2007 3:40 AM
Jason, I just want to say that your post quite superbly brings out the tension between any Darwinian account (including Behe's ID-added one) and the existence of an all-powerful providential deity. It's surely one of your best posts yet, and one of the best I've seen anywhere on Scienceblogs.
Posted by: Russell Blackford | November 3, 2007 5:18 AM
Re Pierce R. Butler
Not to be nitpicky here but would hip joint problems be considered a spinal column problem?
Re Jon S
By the way, in order for present day carnivores, such as lions, to have previously existed as vegetarians, they would have had to have had totally different digestive systems and dentitions. A present day lion would starve to death on a vegetarian diet, aside from its dentition being totally unsuited for consuming vegetation. Would Mr. Jon S care to inform us of any evidence in the fossil record of lions with appropriate dentition for a vegetarian diet. Not to mention, of course, the notorious Tyrannosaurus Rex. Any evidence in the fossil record of Tyrannosaurs with teeth like Apatosaurs (aka brontosaurs)?
Posted by: SLC | November 3, 2007 9:06 AM
Obviously the merciful creator deity made protein trees to slake the hunger of the herbivorous T-Rexes.
These trees haven't survived in the fossil record because they were *so* delicious.