evolution and orthodoxy

[jgress]

Here is an interesting essay by someone who is a conservative Anglican and sympathetic to Orthodoxy, and also trained in evolutionary biology.

http://christian-evolutionist.blogspot.com/

Despite the blog title, Dr Charlton is not arguing that evolution is completely compatible with Christianity. Rather, he explores which aspects of evolutionary theory are unacceptable, and which aspects are compatible. He has some very interesting things to say. Please read for yourself and we can discuss it.

[Lydia]

His argument seems to revolve around natural selection as the cornerstone of evolutionary theory, and whether this exists on a large enough scale or just a micro scale.
Natural selection has not been shown to result in new species and therefore, cannot account for evolution as it is taught today.

I listened to a Protestant speaking about whether Christians can embrace evolution. His premise was this: In order for evolution to be an acceptable explanation it requires a belief in on "old world" which is not biblical.

His second point was that if evolution were true, it would require a progression of organisms through many eons If these organisms lived, mutated, procreated and died it would mean that death was in the world long before Adam's fall. However, since Christians believe( and Romanides taught) that death only existed AFTER the fall, this would preclude the possibility of evolutionary change. I thought that was quite an incisive analysis.

[orthros]

His argument seems to revolve around natural selection as the cornerstone of evolutionary theory, and whether this exists on a large enough scale or just a micro scale.
Natural selection has not been shown to result in new species and therefore, cannot account for evolution as it is taught today.

I listened to a Protestant speaking about whether Christians can embrace evolution. His premise was this: In order for evolution to be an acceptable explanation it requires a belief in on "old world" which is not biblical.

His second point was that if evolution were true, it would require a progression of organisms through many eons If these organisms lived, mutated, procreated and died it would mean that death was in the world long before Adam's fall. However, since Christians believe( and Romanides taught) that death only existed AFTER the fall, this would preclude the possibility of evolutionary change. I thought that was quite an incisive analysis.

Your last point is why I've always rejected the evolutionary hypothesis.

Unless someone can explain how death can exist pre-sin without rejecting spiritual truths, (macro) evolution will always be a non-starter.

[jgress]

His argument seems to revolve around natural selection as the cornerstone of evolutionary theory, and whether this exists on a large enough scale or just a micro scale.
Natural selection has not been shown to result in new species and therefore, cannot account for evolution as it is taught today.

That is more or less his argument, yes. Evolution, whether by artificial or natural selection, is simply an observed fact. What's disputed is to what extent the mechanism of variation and selection leading to change over time can account for all the biological diversity we see today. Therefore, in his view, it is reasonable to question the existence of natural "macro-evolution" (origin of all species through natural selection), but not reasonable to question the existence of "micro-evolution" (natural selection within species).

Of course, the distinction between macro- and micro-evolution requires a clear definition of "species", so that we can test whether all observed cases of evolution indeed only occur within species. This is where I felt his argument was weakest. He asserts that speciation has never been observed, but if you do a little research, you can find many reported cases of observed speciation. You could, of course, define species in such a way that all those alleged cases of speciation turn out only to be cases of intra-species evolution, but I'm not convinced. For example, there have been cases of new flower species arising that are fertile among themselves but not with their parent stock, which seems to me to be an open and shut case of speciation. And if true speciation is observed, the empirical grounds for doubting macro-evolution are considerably weakened: you end up arguing that perhaps only the evolution of new families is impossible, or perhaps new orders or kingdoms or phyla.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/sci ... ervations/

See also:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html

He spends the later part of the essay talking at length about how modern mainstream left-wing intellectuals accept macro-evolution, but not micro-evolution (at least with respect to humans), i.e. they believe humans evolved from non-human primates, but deny the possibility that e.g. the different human races may have different characteristics arising from different evolutionary paths. I think the idea behind that is to identify and critique what he sees as the principal ideological enemy lying behind the metaphysical application of natural selection, which he simply calls "leftism". I think he has some interesting metaphysical insights, e.g. he summarizes leftist ideology as essentially denying common sense and common experience. For example, believing that species are fixed as a whole follows "common sense", because the vast majority of the time (unless perhaps we carry out a careful scientific investigation) we don't see any evidence for one species changing into another. On the other hand, we see very obvious differences between the sexes, between different races and ethnic groups. Yet leftists insist we accept the former and deny the latter, in the face of common sense and experience.

I can certainly sympathize with his point of view, since acceptance of science can result in a kind of disorienting skepticism, where we are unwilling to accept what our "gut" tells us without some rational or empirical confirmation. At the same time, I don't think you can deny that the scientific method has revealed many truths about the world that are not obvious to common sense and common experience, and often flat out contradict common sense, e.g. the fact that the earth revolves around the sun, and that the impression we have of the sun's revolution arises from the earth's rotation. We know this is true because, when you take the time to study the observations, experiments and reasoning that underlie the scientific claims, you find that in fact they are completely rational and clearly correct. Also, once the scientific claims are accepted, the world continues to make sense, although we understand it in a new way: to paraphrase Wittgenstein, if the sun revolving around the earth is the "common sense" interpretation of the sun's rising and setting, what exactly would we expect it to look like if instead the earth were rotating at a fixed distance from the sun?

I listened to a Protestant speaking about whether Christians can embrace evolution. His premise was this: In order for evolution to be an acceptable explanation it requires a belief in on "old world" which is not biblical.

His second point was that if evolution were true, it would require a progression of organisms through many eons If these organisms lived, mutated, procreated and died it would mean that death was in the world long before Adam's fall. However, since Christians believe( and Romanides taught) that death only existed AFTER the fall, this would preclude the possibility of evolutionary change. I thought that was quite an incisive analysis.

[Lydia]

Two things:

1. A great deal of scientific knowledge involves that most human of exercises, categorization. However, it is only valuable as a tool to help us cope with the natural world. It is not a pronouncement on the essence of anything. For example, a mammal is categorized as an organism that bears live young. But a platypus is a mammal that lays eggs. So much for human observation and definition. Is a species a species because that's what it is or is it a species because we say it is? As Christians, we put faith in revealed truths, even when they defy observed reality, experience and experimentation.
2. Since Newton's law states that motion is relative, it is perfectly correct to say that the sun moves around the earth, in the same way it is logically and scientifically correct to state that the road on which we travel is in motion relative to the car in which we sit.

[JamesR]

I don't think evolution is really the problem. I think that the problem is more so the origin of life and how we understand where man came from.

[Hieromonk Enoch]

Everyone must admit that death in the natural world, came through Adam.

In Christ,

Fr. Enoch