Jared,
I had to go back and figure out what, exactly, it really was that we were arguing about.
My point in the post that you called into question was that the strength of evolutionary algorithms in a creative process lies in both its exploratory nature and its ability to design without a designer. However neither of these can really be considered virtues in the hands of a (supposedly) vastly powerful creator.
If the Creator did used only these algorithms then it suggests both that 1) He didn't really know what the final product would entail exactly and 2) He didn't really to the creating Himself. These are problems in addition to the typical problems of wastefulness and natural evil.
The IDers state that God didn't use ONLY these algorithms, but instead jumped in to give the Creative process a helping hand every now and then. This however raises other problems. First of all, the problems of wastefulness and natural evil are serious issues now, for whereas the ECist can write off most wastefulness and natural evil to the mindless nature of the process (just as we will everything else to a certain degree). Another problem is that it would seem that God would intervene under with ID only when He for some reason couldn't accomplish His purposes with EC, in which case the Designers power and/or competence is called into question. Finally, and most importantly, the evidence for the creative process can only ever work against ID as far as I can tell.
At this point you responded that this process is only wasteful if we only consider humans as being somehow important. If we look at the whole picture, you suggested, we might have a very different perspective.
I don't think so. The wastefulness comes not necessarily from the billions of years which life took to evolve to us, but from the very nature of evolution by natural selection. There is a constant struggle for survival and resources are always limited with few exceptions. In this light, the creation of any organism looks a bit wasteful and a bit cruel.
I also think that we shouldn't get too carried away in our esteem, in God's eyes, for other animals. We have no strong scriptural reason to think that this earth and all its life was created for anybody but us humans. The idea that intelligence extends into the animal realm, as I have defended elsewhere, is an entirely ad hoc attempt at twisting the scriptures. This isn't to say that it isn't a good idea, only that we have no reason to believe it really.
The main objection to it, as I said earlier, is that God, though not ALL powerful, really needs to be VASTLY powerful in order to inspire worship. Nobody is saying that any idiot could create a full blown ecosystem without the help of evolutionary algorithms, on that God should have been able to.
As to the fallen world, fallen compared to what? What was the not-fallen world from which we supposedly fell? The basic difference, it would seem, is merely mortality. But the existence of mortality does not at all suggest that life must come into existence in such an indirect and brutally competitive way. This is the beauty of special creation in that mortal life is created whenever God wills it. What EC and to a certain extent ID say is that God apparently COULDN'T have created a paradise at all, that this was pretty much the best He could do. Remember, at no point in the past do we have any reason whatsoever to suggest that there was a "fall" from a paradisiacal earth to a fallen one due to man's failure. Instead, it has always been pretty much this way, and this, THIS was pronounced "good."
Now as I said at the beginning of this comment, the problem of evil is only exacerbated (sp?) by a more direct creation. The problem of wastefulness is addressed a little bit but not too much. The problem of credit, however, is alleviated as is the problem of competence (whether God knew the eventual outcome).
That is the main point of that part of the post, namely that these problems work against each other in considering ID versus EC. One can only give God more credit and competence in the creative process only at the expense of exacerbating the problems of wastefulness and natural evil.
Posted by
Jeffrey Giliam --
Posted by Jeffrey D. Giliam to Mormons and Evolution at 12/05/2005 10:39:19 AM
