Darwin's God: Evolution and the Problem of Evil

Rating:
Summary: Darwinian metaphysics.
Review: Charles Darwin's storied "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" (1859) featured an appropriately long name. Darwin characterized it as "one long argument," and his recurring metaphysical assertions continue to be argued today, whether by Ken Miller, Mark Ridley, or the producers of PBS videos. The "long argument" has continued for a century and a half.
In this volume, biophysicist Cornelius Hunter examines these persistent metaphysical assertions. While metaphysical presuppositions are woven into Darwinism / neo-Darwinism, it remains that metaphysical assertions are not themselves within the logical domain of any physical science. "God wouldn't have done it that way" is not a scientific argument, it is a metaphysical -- more precisely, theological -- argument. This is the whole of Hunter's thesis here, and while some reviewers may be disappointed that the discourse is so narrowly defined, it is a philosophically important treatment. If Darwinian theory is scientifically sound, why the persistent usage of such an obviously questionable, perhaps even naïve, theological justification? Readers familiar with Darwin's writings will find that his arguments are reflected quite accurately in Hunter's examination. The author isn't wrestling with straw men here, but the reader will find many reasons to wonder what Hunter's theological ideas may be. Ultimately, this question isn't important, Hunter isn't the one whose metaphysics are under consideration, nor, unlike Darwin and his apologists, does the author misrepresent his own metaphysical views as being science. Mark Ridley, in his textbook (Evolution, 1993) says, "Positing a God merely invites the question of how such a highly adaptive and well-designed thing could in its turn have come into existence." Hunter reflects on the metaphysical presuppositions and logical poverty concomitant to such (often repeated) arguments, suggesting: "It is little wonder that many people do not believe in evolution. Whether coming from Le Conte in 1888 or Ridley in 1993, these sorts of metaphysical meanderings say more about evolutionists than they do about evolution. . . But Le Conte's and Ridley's premises, that only natural explanations are rational and that God was designed, respectively, are nonscientific. They are statements of personal belief." (p90). This criticism is rather kind. Ridley effectively demands an infinite regress of causes, in which case all explanation, including his own Darwinian one, is epistemologically meaningless.
This volume doesn't assume a judgment on Darwin's conclusions so much as it questions Darwin's logic. Judgments on whether Darwin's conclusions are right or wrong will today need to be oriented toward mathematical arguments. Darwin said that natural selection must act upon variations (mutation is our only candidate here) which he recognized must occur in "inconceivably great number". If 50 billion species (a number readily approximated and often cited) are to have been mechanistically generated in less than 4 billion years, then Darwin understated his "inconceivably great" problem. The most noted mathematicians in this debate are currently Ken Miller (for Darwin) and William Dembski (against Darwin). These arguments are not treated here.

Rating:
Summary: Darwinism / Evolution is rapidly collapsing
Review: Evolution is an idea that look great on the surface but the moment you dig it you would start to giggle, the more you dig the louder you giggle.... You would find out soon that the whole idea of evolution is laughable as it is fatally flawed.
Hunter's argument is Great, the whole idea of evolution is NOT science, it is Theodicy.
I wonder how Hemoglobin could exist as a result of long chain of uncontrolled blind chances of chemical reactions?
Imagine one day you walk in to a laboratory, in that lab you mix all kinds of chemicals that are available on earth at total random, would the chemical reactions create blood by chance? Most probably the lab itself would be destroyed by fire soon (as a result of crazy mixture of the entire chemicals).
Yes, any uncontrolled random mutation in any form is self-destructive in it self, thus it is NOT possible to create any gradual change of primitive life into higher form, even the life it self could not have existed in the first place.
Great astronomer sir Fred Hoyle once conceded that the chance that higher life forms could emerge through evolutionary process is comparable with the chance that a "Tornado sweeping through a junk yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the material therein". ("Hoyle on Evolution", Nature, Vol. 294, Nov 12, 1981).

Who created this WONDERFUL and mysterious universe? It is GOD yes G-O-D, The GREATEST artist who created colorful fish, fruits, birds, music, flowers and many things. The Greatest of all: He created people who can love.

Rating:
Summary: Start at the beginning
Review: There are some technical terms which I needed to be informed about, so I couldn't skip around in this book as much as I expected to. The logic is as good at the beginning of the book as anywhere, with Milton and a few major philosophers showing up by page 14. Taking "For the eighteenth-century philosopher Immanuel Kant, our innate moral sense is sufficient to prove the existence of God," (p. 14) as a starting point which will never be refuted, the scientific theory of evolution can still be seen metaphysically as an attempt to answer a question about the extent of God's nature and power.

On a very basic level, Darwin was able to make more sense out of the natural world, as it exists, by trying to understand a longer history than religion could provide for 7 days and 6,000 years. This book, DARWIN'S GOD by Cornelius G. Hunter, on evolution and the problem of evil, tries to make theodicy, ("Darwin's theory of evolution was very much a solution to the problem of evil," p. 16) a metaphysics of a God who had been gone much longer than that, because "Darwin's gritty and chaotic world--the real world seen up close by naturalists--implied no such Creator. Creation was irrational, and therefore there was no such benevolent Creator, or at least not one who attended to details." (p. 17).

Though opposition to Darwin is often seen as religious, for me it makes more sense to see it as political, like the political opposition with which complacency maintains its sentimental opposition to anarchy. One reason the American war in Vietnam lasted as long as it did was that the anti-war message was always more unpopular than the war itself. Radicals voicing outright opposition to American military policies represented a challenge to American status as a superpower in a way similar to the belief that God's power to reward every victor in any form of fight should not be called into question. Outrageous opinions of anarchists about pitiful, helpless giants who ought to bug out are found to be offensive, much as the grief of U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone's supporters at the time of his death was greatly increased by the lack of a popular alternative to militarism, and the unfortunate display of that grief as a political attack on those who considered themselves the equal of Paul Wellstone as U.S. Senators, but who might as well have been the antiChrist for those who don't like the way in which they use power to rule over their political enemies at home and abroad, hurt a few feelings.

Theologically, "After the sixteenth century, modernism had tended to view God as removed from creation, but Darwin was now increasing this separation to the point that the link between creation and God was severed." (p. 17). But his ideas didn't actually prove the point. "The theory of evolution is true not because species obviously evolved from each other but because of the failure to reconcile God and nature." (p. 47). "The evolutionist's notion of God and divine creation is, for many people, just a straw man--an overly simplified metaphysic that conveniently supports their views." (p. 49). Anarchy as an ideal might also be considered an overly simplified metaphysic that conveniently supports the views of those who would be better off if they were not constantly being attacked by people that they do not consider anarchists. Politically, every stretch seems to come out of nowhere.

Modernity has arrived like the " `Cambrian Explosion,' the most spectacular of biology's big bangs. Estimated to have taken place almost 600 million years ago over a period no greater than five million years, it initiated virtually all the major designs of multicellular life with barely a trace of evolutionary history. In a geological moment, the fossil species went from small worm-like creatures and the like to a tremendous diversity of complex life forms, including all of today's modern designs." (p. 69). It might have happened from holes in the ozone layer and an excess of carbon dioxide, for all we will ever know. "Geneticist Steve Jones wonders if the Cambrian Explosion reflects some crucial change in DNA," (p. 70) which sounds more scientific than political to me. A fossil record begins with simple bacteria, "almost four billion years ago." (p. 71). "Modern thinkers as disparate as John Wesley and Thomas Jefferson had agreed that their good God never would have allowed species to become extinct." (p. 81). A book by Kenneth R. Miller written shortly before this one, and still more popular, called FINDING DARWIN'S GOD previously stated, "Nothing he designs is able to make it over the long term." (p. 82). The ideal of an eternal existence is crumbling as our knowledge of everything increases. Talking about the metaphysics of all this hardly makes anarchy as feasible as it is likely.