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Monday, May 24, 2010

Christian Darwinist admits that design explanation is better

Here is an amazing excerpt from the thoughts of Christian evolutionist Steve Matheson:
Matheson: I don’t find the argument convincing, I really don’t, but I think I know why. And the reason why is, I just figured out tonight, you said that we reason backwards from what we know works, which is that intelligence makes codes. I’ll agree with that. Can I see the hands of people that don’t agree? Of course not. Okay, well we reason back and say, therefore, this is the one explanation we know that can do this. I buy that, I get it, it’s, it’s obvious. But I see the world differently than you do. And so here’s the thing. I haven’t yet [pause] well, you said intelligence always creates information. And my view is a little different. Everywhere I look, and every time I look, if I wait long enough, there is a natural and even materialistic explanation to things. Now, don’t I have the right to say, you know, I’m going to go ahead and extrapolate that back, like Steve’s book, not because I’m an obnoxious Calvinist—maybe that’s true—but because, well that’s just kinda my preference? And so what I want all of us to agree on is that it’s fruitless, it’s pointless to say, Steve, don’t be stupid, design doesn’t explain what you want it to. Well, of course it does—how could it not? But wouldn’t it be reasonable for some of the Christians in this room to say, You know—

Meyer: You’re comfortable waiting for another explanation.

Matheson: I am.

Meyer: Which, in a strict sense, concedes that the one I offer is currently best—[The audience erupts into applause. Unintelligible between Meyer and Matheson]—and we have a different philosophy of science, which is where the locus of our disagreement probably lies, and where we should continue to converse.

Matheson: I’ll offer the acknowledgment: [pause] Design will always be an excellent and irrefutable explanation. How can it [pause] I just don’t see how it couldn’t be. I’m just saying it doesn’t look designed to me. He’s right, and there’s some stuff that goes on in the cell, I don’t know how you get design into there.
Basically, I wonder whether Matheson doesn't want to acknowledge design because his living may depend on denying it.

Should I offer him a membership in the "Stooges for Darwin "Eat me last!!" Club?

More to the point, there is a fundamental thinking error here: If non-atheist materialist explanations cannot beconsidered, any materialist atheist explanation, no matter how foolish, is acceptable.

Big bazooms theory of human evolution? Big brow ridge theory of human evolution? Dancing dad theory of human evolution? That sort of thing dumbs down our culture. That is what is not being confronted here. And it is what Bill Dembski and I fully intend to confront in our upcoming book, Christian Darwinism: Why theistic evolution fails as science and as theology. Listening to this guy, you hardly need to read the book, but you probably should anyway, if only to hear more of the crackpottery fronted in the name of Darwin in Christian circles.

PS: Don't bother writing in to tell me that there are other explanations of evolution besides Darwin's. Of course there are, and many very respectable ones, too. Darwin's explanation is, as he explicitly intended, the only one to power materialist atheism. So where does that leave the Christian Darwinist?

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

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