Evolation

In a debate produced by Firing Line at Seton Hall University, several of the major contenders in the Creation v. Evolution debate squared off on whether or not evolutionist should accept creationism as a viable, alternate theory.

No one should have been surprised to find a non-believer on the creation side and believers on the evolution side. As the evolutionists often proposed during the exchange, the science of evolution should be discussed, taught, and considered as science. This should leave the ultimate question of whether or not another force initiated and or guides evolution to the philosophers and theologians.

The philosopher Daniel C. Dennett helps us understand what makes evolution so difficult for some believers to hold. He explains that "Darwin's dangerous idea is that Design can emerge from mere Order via an algorithmic process that makes no use of pre-existing Mind." More simply put by Darwin himself, "Design out of Chaos without the aid of Mind."

"Mind" in this context is the creative force of the creationist's designer as presented in their claim that intelligent design can be observed in the record of life on our planet. The danger to the idea of a creator is simply that one is not needed to cause life to evolve--a proposition that before Darwin was practically untenable.

After Darwin, Mind becomes unnecessary or a "skyhook"--what Dennett calls all such attempts to grasp at these sorts of external, superfluous forces. And in science, the unnecessary can and should be discarded. It's not that evolutionists want to throw out the Designer, they just don't need one. Nevertheless, just as some religious creationists tremble at what Darwin has wrought, some atheist evolutionists rejoice.

Neither trembling nor rejoicing, in my opinion, is called for. The process of creating anything, from a theory to a thimble, does call for as honest an assessment as humanly possible of the way things are, before beginning the creative process. Our creative efforts will pass or fail the test of time, rising or crumbling on the truth or fiction of their foundations.

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