[Image] [Image][Image][Image][Image][Image][Image][Image][Image][Image][Image][Image][Image][Image] [Image][Image] [Image] Fuz Rana on NPR's Glenn Mitchell show KERA 90.1 FM Dallas, TX July 9th, 2002 transcript Glenn Mitchell: Welcome back. Almost since Charles Darwin proposed the theory of evolution through natural selection in the middle of the 19th Century it?s been the target of attacks, first on religious, more lately on scientific grounds. Some say the fight should be over. As John Rennie, the editor of Scientific American puts it, ?The massing of evidence from paleontology, genetics, zoology, molecular biology and other fields gradually established that evolution?s truth is beyond a reasonable doubt. Today that battle has been won everywhere except in the public imagination.? Why? Rennie wonders if it?s because myths die hard and many of them, whether under the banner of creationism, Intelligent Design or other names, prolong a bias against the acceptance of evolution. Critics such as Dr. Fazale Rana of the non-profit inter-denominational organization Reasons To Believe argue the so-called myths are reinforced by genuine skepticism. Rennie has distilled his arguments into an article for the current issue of Scientific American entitled ?Fifteen Answers to Creationist Nonsense.? John Rennie is only the 7th editor in chief in the 156 year history of Scientific American. Before becoming editor he helped edit some of the magazines single topic issues including ?Life, Death, and the Immune System,? which was later published as a book. Since he?s become editor another single topic issue, ?What You Need to Know about Cancer,? won a national magazine award. After earning a bachelors of science at Yale, he began writing for a variety of publications including The Economist, The New York Times, and Longevity, before joining Scientific American in 1989. Dr. Fazale Rana is Vice-President of Science Apologetics at Reasons To Believe. He earned his Ph.D. in chemistry at Ohio University followed by post-doctoral work at the Universities of Virginia and Georgia. He?s published more than 15 articles in peer-reviewed journals and delivered 20 presentations at international scientific meetings. He co-authored a chapter for the text, ?Biological and Synthetic Membranes.? He says it was his research in biochemistry that first suggested to him life must have a Creator. Mr. Rennie, welcome. John Rennie: Thanks for having me. GM: Dr. Rana, welcome. Fazale Rana: Thank you. You can just call me Fuz, please. GM: Alright, I will. John, some of your myths may take a little bit of explaining to a non-scientific audience, but a couple of them don?t and they?re the ones I think most people have probably heard. So let?s start there. The first is that evolution is only a theory, it?s not a fact or scientific law. Why is that a myth? JR: Well, I think this is a problem that picks up off of a common misconception, something people sometimes have learned when they were in school which is the idea that a theory is a state of knowledge that?s somewhere between a hypothesis which is a very tentative thing that we don?t know very much about, and something like a scientific law which is supposed to be something that is established and is virtually a fact. But that?s not really what a theory is. A theory represents some kind of well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, one that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences and tested hypothesis into it. That?s the definition that the National Academy of Sciences uses. GM: Fuz, will you at least agree to that? FR: Oh, sure. I mean, in fact, I?d like to point out that there?s a lot of the items in this article that we at Reasons To Believe and I personally would agree with. I felt that in many cases some of these items that were listed as creationist nonsense are that indeed, or straw-man arguments and don?t necessarily reflect the best thinking with respect to scientific challenges to Darwinism or biological evolution in general. So I would agree with John Rennie that his assessment or description as to what is a fact, what is a theory, what is a law, is right on target and we would most definitely agree with that. GM: Well, describe a straw man argument as you see it. FR: Well it?s an argument that?s a caricature of someone?s true position. GM: No, I mean pick one. FR: Oh, pick one. Okay, well the one about the monkeys. If evolution is true then why are there still monkeys today if man descended from apes? Obviously, nobody from the creationist movement that I?ve known (people I respect and people I even don?t respect quite frankly) use that argument. It?s clearly a straw-man argument, and I think in a sense it?s designed to belittle the intellectual quality that is coming from much of the Christian community or the Intelligent Design community when it comes to genuine criticisms from a scientific perspective of biological evolution. JR: If I may beg to differ on that one point. I wouldn?t dispute that the more sophisticated members of the creationist community or the Intelligent Design community, when they try to make their arguments, no, they almost certainly not use that particular argument. Unfortunately they are not the only ones who make arguments relating to creationism and are pushing the agenda that I?m discussing in the article which is that of trying to make sure that creationism in some form would be inserted into science classrooms. Unfortunately all of the sorts of questions and arguments that I raise in these are ones that repeatedly come up anytime a forum like this is raised, and the point of my article was to try to give an answer to all of those. So, you?re right, some of these are very unsophisticated arguments that should very easily be shot down and some of them are more sophisticated but they all get introduced by people on the creationist side of the argument. GM: Well let?s talk about one that probably will provoke more disagreement and that is that living things have very intricate features, couldn?t function if they were any less complex or sophisticated. Therefore, the only prudent conclusion is that they were the product of Intelligent Design; hence the argument from Intelligent Design. John Rennie, you first, what?s wrong with that? JR: Well, there are a few things wrong with it. One point that?s really a footnote to it is that it?s not a new argument at all. It?s really the same kind of argument that?s been made for at least 200 years since William Paley advanced what was talked about ?the argument from design.? The idea that if you were in a field and you found a pocket watch sitting there you wouldn?t assume that the pocket watch somehow just naturally grew in the field. You would know because it has these intricate complex properties that it must have been made by someone. So it?s an old argument. The problem with it is that it relies on saying that any questions that evolution can?t answer at the moment can only be answered by invoking some kind of supernatural force. And supernatural forces are not ones that are part of the scientific fabric. Science is based on what?s called methodological naturalism. That is, we work only within the field of fact and observable forces, and energies and principles that we can deduce by studying nature empirically. And unfortunately it?s not to say that science is denying that there could be supernatural forces at work in the universe, it?s just that there?s no place for them in any kind of scientific explanation. GM: Fuz, what do you think, the argument from design? FR: Sure, well first I?ll point out that just because an argument is old doesn?t mean it necessarily lacks validity. And, really, the main challenge that I?ve seen in my readings, to, the Watchmaker Argument that has been popularized and has William Paley?s name associated with it (he?s not the sole person to argue from design) was basically Hume?s Challenge. And his challenge in essence was that this is a poor analogy and because it?s a poor analogy the conclusion isn?t very sound. A watch and a living organism clearly are very different from one another. And the more similar items are when you do analogical reasoning, the more sound your conclusion, the more dissimilar the more uncertain your conclusion. Well, Paley and Hume don?t have the level of understanding that we have today when it comes to the intricacy of the cell?s chemistry. And there are a number of discoveries that have been made in recent years that actually revitalize and reinvigorate the Watchmaker Argument. And, one thing that I would point out are molecular motors that are found inside living systems. These are protein ensembles that literally are functioning as motors, that literally have the components of man-made machines. The bacteria flaggellar system has a rotor, a stator, a bushing, a universal joint. There?s the F1-F0 ATPase and the closely allied V1-V0 ATPase, both rotary motors. There?s DNA translocating system that?s part of the bacteriafage Phi-29 that?s also a rotary motor of a different sort, again having man-made components. And the list is growing as we apply x-ray defraction methods and other methods to make atomic level measurements on the structures of these very complex systems. Now, these are literally motors, and these reinvigorate the Watchmaker Argument. They satisfy Hume?s Challenge to Paley?s argument. And so when we encounter motors inside the living system just as we would encounter a motor on the side of the road, at least it?s rational to entertain the idea that there must be an Intelligent Designer. Or there must be supernatural going on here or possibly a creator. At least that question is a rational question to ask in light of that data, it?s not a ?God-of-the-gaps? reasoning, it?s actually a conclusion that?s based on data that?s emerging from biochemistry and biophysics. GM: John, are you in danger of not updating your theory? JR: Well, unfortunately I mean, I think although he tries to argue the point very well, he?s really only reiterating the same arguments that have been made in the past. In effect he is arguing a God-of-the-gaps because he?s saying that, well here?s something that looks like a machine, it sure acts like a machine, it therefore must be like every other kind of machine that we know about which means that it must have been designed. FR: And so where?s the gap in that reasoning? That?s a reasoning?I?m drawing a conclusion based on the data that I have at hand. It?s no different then saying well I see homology or analogies in the living system therefore evolution must be true, it must be descent from a common ancestor. That?s an inference that you?re drawing based on the data that you have at hand. I?m doing nothing different than drawing an inference based on the data that I have at hand. JR: But there is a very important difference in what you?re doing which is that the inference that the evolutionary biologists are making stays within the methodological naturalism fabric of the rest of science because it is not invoking some kind of agency, some sort of supernatural power that isn?t known to exist anyplace else in nature. Moreover, the common observation of a lot of biologists is that in fact these different systems you?re pointing to are not examples of some kind of irrefutable, irreducible complexity. FR: But wait a minute. I didn?t argue that these things were irreducibly complex, I argued that they are strict analogs to man-made systems. That?s a completely different argument than irreducible complexity. And so by analogy, by sound analogical reasoning, I satisfied Hume?s critique of Paley?s argument and by sound analogical reasoning, I?m drawing a rational conclusion. I?m not saying that these systems are necessarily irreducibly complex, that?s a different argument for design. JR: Yes. The solution that you?re drawing is not one that can exist within the scientific framework because in effect you?re invoking a supernatural agency that could have done this. I mean, you?re actually just saying that some force beyond any other kind of science that we would have known would have provided the answer in this case. It?s as though a detective were walking in and saying, ?Now we can?t actually rule out the possibility that ghosts might have killed this man.? GM: We have to take a break. We?ll come back. We?ll start taking some calls. We?ll get to some more of the points raised in the article. John Rennie is the editor of Scientific American. His article is called, ?Fifteen Answers to Creationist Nonsense.? Dr. Fuz Rana is Vice-President of Science Apologetics at Reasons To Believe. We?ll take a quick break and be right back. (BREAK) GM: John Rennie is the editor of Scientific American, editor in chief to give him his full due. He?s written an article for the current issue entitled ?Fifteen Answers to Creationist Nonsense.? Critiquing the article is Dr. Fuz Rana who is Vice-President of Apologetics at Reasons To Believe. Let?s start the phone calls with Isaac in Dallas. Hello. Caller: Hey, how you doing? GM: Fine. Caller: Good. I had a question I guess for both the guests here. My question is about the transitional evidence for the species and why there hasn?t been any documented. GM: Alright, we?ll ask. That?s one of the issues that John raises in his articles. So John, you want to go first? JR: Sure. I mean, I think the idea that there isn?t any example of, sort of, transitional forms in the fossil record is itself really a myth created by a lot of people in the creationist community. In fact, the fossil record consists almost entirely of organisms that are, you know, can be seen as transitional in some form between preceding and later forms. For example, the evolution of whales from a four-legged mammal to the sea-going creatures that we know has been very thoroughly documented. The transition of the evolution of birds out of reptiles is something that is constantly they?re filling that in and of course there are a lot of questions about precisely how it goes but it?s, there are plenty of transitional creatures along the way. The transition of the formation of the evolution of the ear, for example is something that has been well documented. In fact, the record?s just full of transitional forms, and it?s sort of surprising that this myth manages to persist. GM: Fuz? FR: Well, first of all I?d like to point out that the term ?transitional intermediate? is actually an ambiguous term. There?s two ways to look at it. Transitional forms can be those intervening forms that should exist between species A and species B, or organism A and organism B to be more general. Or they could be also forms that simply show up in the fossil record between two time points. At many times evolutionary biologists assume that anything that exists between two intervening time points is a transitional form, but what the criticism is, is that there are not enough intervening forms that document a transition from organism A to organism B and the very few cases that can be pointed out, actually when you examine them in more detail there?s a number of problems with them. Let?s take the whale example since John brought that up. When you look at the whale transitional form, supposedly a wolf-like animal called Pakicetus evolved through body elongation and the loss of hind limbs into the development of flippers into whales. But when you look at the, ?major transitional forms? that document this transition they all occur in an overlapping time régime within the fossil record and what?s going on is actually a pattern is being imposed on the record of nature as opposed to letting the record of nature give us the pattern that we should interpret. The time window for many of the initial forms, Pakicetus, Ambulocetus, Basilosaurus, they all overlap in the fossil record, so to call these transitional forms isn?t necessarily a sound conclusion. JR: I have to interrupt you already because already I think, unfortunately, you?re starting to mislead people again about what even evolution would be saying about this. Evolution would never say that you would not be getting overlapping of these forms. That plays into the falsity of evolutionists saying that you?re having species somehow kind of mutate from one into the next as though, basically it is a different form of the, if there is, if humans came from monkeys why are there still arguments. Of course they?re going to overlap. These are different types of closely related life that are going to show up in the fossil record and over time they chart the evolution of populations that give us the kinds of species that we?re looking at. FR: But you?re looking at essentially an instantaneous time window within the fossil record where these forms show up. JR: That?s right. And I think the analogy to think about that is that suppose you were looking at an album that showed photographs taken of family reunions over 100 years stretch of span...100 years. Every year a family all gathers together and they all pose for a family reunion picture of some kind. You?re not going to necessarily have all the members that are represented because it?s going to be incomplete. And you?re going to miss the changes that have taken place from year to year. So you?re actually therefore also going to have a hard time necessarily knowing with perfect accuracy what the relationships of all the different people shown in those photographs over time are. But no one would question nonetheless that what you?re looking at is the actual evolution and change of a family over time. And that is what we see in the fossil record. FR: But my point is? GM: I don?t want to get tied down too much on any one of these issues but Fuz, I just want to ask you about one that John sites in his article and that?s archaeopteryx which combines feathers and skeletal structures peculiar to birds with features of dinosaurs. How does that one not suggest some sort of transition? FR: Well first of all archaeopteryx is considered by paleonornonthologists, people who study the fossil record of birds, to be a true bird. It belongs to the group archeornathenise so it?s not necessarily a transitional form, it?s the first true bird that appears in the fossil record and I would point out that there?s nothing in the fossil record prior to this to suggest the appearance of anything resembling a bird transition. Now this whole argument that birds evolved from dinosaurs or share common ancestry with dinosaurs again is problematic because all the transitional forms that supposedly link birds to dinosaurs appear after the appearance of archaeopteryx, many times on the order of 50 million years to that extent. One of the best sites for these particular specimens is a site in China, the Laoning province of China where the site is located. That site dates now at about 124 million years ago whereas archaeopteryx shows up at about 155 million years ago in the fossil record. And so you?re seeing transitional forms appear subsequent to the appearance of the first true member of the first true bird. So this would be problematic. My analysis would say, how else can we explain these forms that seem to be transitional forms? And I would argue perhaps convergence would be a way to explain them, given that both birds and these archaeoraptor-type dinosaurs are bipedal organisms. Biomechanics says they?re going to have very similar types of anatomical systems and when you actually look at the details of the footprints and the details of the foot structure you see superficial resemblance between these dinosaur, so-called ?dinosaur-bird intermediates?, and the foot structure of true birds, suggesting that what?s happening here is convergence, not a true evolutionary relationship. JR: But if you want to make the argument about convergence then essentially you?re arguing that these creatures are evolving in form over time and at the point the only real distinction is whether or not you actually want to make the additional leap that the rest of the biological community does make that you can get enough change over time to have new species and new groups arise. Invoking convergence basically just gives you a way to embrace evolution while trying to pretend that you?re not. GM: Gentlemen let?s move on and get a call here from... FR: I want to respond to that. I want to respond to that real quickly. GM: Okay but do it quickly. FR: This whole idea that convergence is somehow linked with evolution is a false idea. The founder of that idea of homology and analogy, and analogy?s essentially the same thing as convergence, was Sir Richard Owen and he did this in the context of not the evolutionary paradigm this pre-dated Darwin?s Origin of Species, he did this in the context of essentially a form of creationism. And so convergence would be equally explained as a single Creator utilizing a common blueprint to bring about identical structures and organisms that are not related. GM: Okay. Now let?s go back to the phones, and Michael, good afternoon. Caller: Hello. I just want to make a quick point to simplify some of this for some of the listeners and if we could all take this conversation back several thousand years in the days of Galileo and Copernicus and we could have a church representative and, in this case, I?m just saying someone other than...someone that?s not rooted in science as their methodology and we could have the argument be, this being is the Earth the center of the universe and does the Sun revolve around the Earth. I think everyone knows the answer and all my point is that the church and all of the attempts to somehow interject religion and doctrine into science has miserably failed over and over and over. And the evolutionary question is the same way. I?m almost amazed that people even take these creationists seriously. GM: All right well, we?ve got your point here. That?s obviously for Fuz. FR: Okay, well, John?s welcomed to respond obviously but I would say first of all that people have over simplified what happened in Galileo?s time. It wasn?t so much a debate between science and religion or the church and science. It was as much about the political hierarchy within the church and there were also questions about the proper way to interpret Biblical text that were at stake. There?s also a Catholicism/Protestantism debate that was going on that influenced everything that happened to Galileo. We have to be cautious about over simplifying what happened in Galileo?s time, which was a few hundred years ago, not a few thousand years ago by the way. We have to be careful not to oversimplify what happened in Galileo?s time and make it simply a black and white, Christianity versus science. In fact, it?s important to note that actually modern day science was birthed and flourished in Christian Western Europe. And the great and imminent historian of science, Stanley Jaki points out that science was born in a number of different civilizations throughout human history, but it was stillborn. It quickly fizzled out. It was only in Western Europe and within the Christian context of an understanding of nature, God?s role with nature, God?s interaction with nature, and man?s interaction with God that led to the founding of modern day science and the flourishing of modern day science as we understand it today. So science owes a tremendous amount to Christianity in terms of the assumptions necessary to carry out to scientific enterprise. GM: John? JR: Oh, sure. There are a couple of different things about that. I certainly wouldn?t argue much with anything that the caller was saying and I don?t think anyone would dispute that, of course, science owes a debt to the historical nurturing that it received at the hands of Christianity and the West. But nevertheless the reason why Western science grew was because it came to embrace methodological naturalism which was that it centered itself on looking at what could be observed and studied empirically in the physical world and didn?t just invoke supernatural causes or divine causes. You know, Isaac Newton was an extremely devout man and he was, of course, was a great scientist. He gave us our understanding of the laws of motion and gravity and he himself when he was confronted with the problem of whether or not his laws could explain all the motions of the planets he wasn?t sure whether they really could. He wondered whether, and you may really always need some divine influence to explain this, but in fact, had science gone along with that sort of worry about his, his worry about that, then it might?ve put an end to this. It was only by virtue of the fact that it stuck with methodological naturalism that it kept looking for physical explanations that after 200 years we came to understand, indeed, Newton was right and all of his rules did apply and that is why we do understand why the planets move around the sun as they do. GM: Back to the phones and to Mark in Wichita Falls. Hi. Caller: Gentlemen welcome to the best talk show in the United States. I have read the articles in Scientific American and Mr. Rennie is quite admirably responding to these sorts of things in the way that evolutionists normally do, that is, defend the creationist?s attempt to pick apart the evolutionary model, but the problem is no one ever goes on the offensive and this is, I?m so effective that?s my function, generally. So, what I want to know is this: I would finally like to hear the creationist offer his model of what happened. What do you think happened? The evolutionists constructed a model of what took place years ago, the origin of life, why we?re all here, why everything looks like it does right now, constructed from the facts and the evidence. What is the creationist?s model? GM: Alright. We?ll find out. FR: Okay. Well, that?s an excellent point and we would agree with that, that so often Christians just simply attack evolution and don?t step up to the table with a model that?s testable, that?s capable of making predictions, and in fact at Reasons To Believe we are in the process of developing from beginning to end a testable creation model that encompasses the beginning of the universe, the beginning of the origin of our planet, the origin of our solar system, the origin of life on our planet and life?s history on our planet through the origin of mankind. So it?s a comprehensive testable creation model. If you want to see more details on that model we would refer you to reasons.org. We?ve held two conferences in the past few years where we spent a week, or a weekend actually, discussing the details of the model, unveiling the model. In fact, Hugh Ross, who?s the President of Reasons To Believe and a colleague of mine, he and I have just completed a manuscript for a book on the origin of life question where we roll out a scientifically testable biblical creation model again full of predictions and evaluated that model in light of the scientific discoveries that are emerging in the origin of life research program. Compare our model with the collection of models that describe the origin of life from a naturalistic perspective. And our conclusion is that our model is in perfect agreement with the scientific record and moreover out performs the naturalistic models for the origin of life. GM: Well give us a thumbnail sketch. FR: Okay. With respect to the origin of life or?? GM: Yes?Evolution. FR: Okay with evolution. Well we would basically say that there?s...that God basically brought our planet into existence at 4 ˝ billion years ago, that God introduced microorganisms onto the planet, both archaeabacteria and true bacteria as a means to begin to transform the planet to make it ultimately suitable for the appearance of humanity and that throughout the next couple of billion years that these bacteria were transforming the Earth?s crust, altering the Earth?s atmosphere, generating an oxygen atmosphere at 540 million years ago God supernaturally introduced the first complex multicellular animals during the Cambrian explosion and that for the next 500 million years God was basically introducing life on Earth at the maximum level that Earth could sustain in order to provide the necessary resources that humanity would need when humankind came on the scene. But we would argue that basically God intervened at different times in the Earth?s history to bring about these different organisms. Now if this is our?and that these extinction events that we see in the fossil record are essentially events that happened either through natural processes or through supernatural means in which God essentially wiped out the life on the Earth and then replenished that life with new life forms because the Earth was constantly changing and, again, the intent was to keep the Earth at a maximum level of biomass in order for ultimately human life to come into existence. Now I?m going through this very fast so there?s a lot of details that are being left out but there are certain fingerprints you are going to expect to see in the record of nature if this model is true. For example, when it comes to extinctions and recovery events, we would argue that extinctions will occur, followed by that the recovery event should be quite dramatic and quite complete over a narrow window of time. In fact, this is what we?re seeing more and more as geologists and paleontologists probe the extinction/recovery events that have happened throughout Earth?s history. We would expect the sudden appearance of life forms in the fossil record. We would expect a near-absence of transitional forms. We?d expect these organisms to persist relatively unchanged or to experience stasis over the time frame that they?re in existence on the Earth?s history. So these are some ways in which we can probe our model in very quick terms. GM: Okay, granted that was only a thumbnail sketch. But, John, what was your impression? JR: Well I?m really grateful for the question because I think actually one of the big problems is that it is often very hard to get people who are on the creationist or Intelligent Design people to sketch out anything resembling a model for what they think happens and at what points the divine agency or supernatural agency is supposed to be acting. I mean, as it is, I still have a lot of questions. You mentioned that God introduced for example archaeabacteria billions of years ago. Did God do this in one step? Were suddenly the cells created in one go, or were they sort of built up gradually over time? FR: Well, I mean, in terms of our model we both use the biblical text to provide a general framework of the model and then we look to the record of nature to begin to fill in some of the details. Much like the evolutionary models would do for life?s history. And as we make these discoveries we are in the position to fine-tune our model. I would actually argue that probably what was going on would be a serial introduction of different types of bacterial forms at different times in the Earth?s history to, at their just right time, to continue and allow for continuous transformation of the Earth?s crust. JR: You know, I think unfortunately the problem with a lot of the sort of model the way you?ve sketched it out and from what I?ve seen in looking at the Reasons To Believe Web site. I mean, my same sense of this is that?and I recognize that the overall activity of what you?re trying to do is trying to create a good scientific basis for people to have their faith in the Bible but quite frankly I think that?s bad theology and bad science. And I?m not sure which in the end ends up being sort of more insulting. The fact is, scientifically none of these ideas kind of make sense. I mean, sure it?s roughly a scientific model and you say that there are certain patterns you would predict you would find. But you?re sort of making predictions on the basis of what you want to find based on what the biblical tract is saying and you?re explaining it. I mean, for example you said that after some sort of rapid extinction you would expect to see very rapid re-growth. Well how, first of all, how rapid a re-growth? And how is that re-growth different from what you would expect to see with the kind of proliferation that normal biological activities would be saying. How?you can talk about for example the bacterial flagellum which I imagine is something else that you?re saying that at some point God would have stepped in and would have created in some way. But the point is, sure, let?s say, hypothetically God did do that, but what about much more mundane things? Webbed feet? God might have created those directly, too. There?d be no way within your scheme of things for you to really distinguish what have to be divine creations from other ones that might be divine creations and that might also have evolved. So that?s the problem of?your model doesn?t really have much explanatory value, it only explains what you want it to explain. GM: How about a quick response and then we have to take a break. FR: And my response would be, well what does the evolutionary model predict with regard to the origin of life with regard to life?s history on Earth? I mean, essentially what you?re doing is you?re going to the record of nature and then developing a model based on what you discover in the record of nature. We?re doing the same thing but we also are looking at the biblical text to constrain the types of things that should happen. So I don?t see? JR: So you?re assuming what your conclusions are going to be based on the biblical text. Which is not really the scientific method. FR: No, no. I?m not assuming any type of conclusions. I?m basically using the biblical text to develop a set of predictions and then once I have those predictions in hand I can go to the record of nature and see, are those predictions in a sense consistent with what we see?what we see in the record of the nature. Are those discoveries consistent with our model, yes or no? GM: And on that we have to take a quick break. We?ll be right back. (BREAK) GM: Welcome back. John Rennie is the editor in chief of Scientific American. His article in the current issue is entitled ?Fifteen Answers to Creationist Nonsense.? Dr. Fuz Rana is Vice-President of Science Apologetics at the group Reasons To Believe. And we?re going to go right back to the phones, and talk to Rob in Fort Worth. Caller: Hello. Great show. I want to pose a similarity that I see in either side of the argument here. And, ya?ll are very learned, forgive me if I misstate your point but it seems to me that since science is dealing with unknowns, largely, and the creationists side is faith-based. I wonder if ya?ll, I mean could you comment on the idea that Carl Sagan and Espinoza espouse and that is that the laws of nature are together the mind of God. And that when ya?ll are both doing your work that you?re beholding the fame of mystery. GM: Alright. Who wants to go first on that? JR: I?d like to take a crack at that if I could. GM: Sure. JR: Sure. Thank you. You know, throughout history people who have looked at scientific problems have often been motivated by some desire to want to understand the works of the universe in a better way in part as a way of getting closer to God. And I don?t think that there?s fundamentally irreconcilable with science and the scientific enterprise and with evolution in this and that?s why, for example, the world?s major religions have all basically found that they have no problem with evolution and that it?s not irreconcilable with evolution at all. The fact is that science is a certain provisional way of knowing things. No one would I think claim that with science you ever would get a perfect complete understanding of everything. So I think it?s possible, the late Carl Sagan often talked about religion and science as being non-overlapping magisteria. The idea that science can speak about certain things very?with great authority having to do with the physical world and religion can speak with perfect authority about things having to do with the spiritual and moral world and it?s best for them not to try to step on one another?s toes in this respect. I think that if you want to regard religious truth as a higher truth than scientific truth. So be it. Just please don?t try to force religious ideas into science classrooms and have them be taught as science. GM: Fuz, what about peaceful co-existence? FR: Well, first of all I would begin by saying from a Christian perspective, from a theological perspective within the Christian faith, it?s clear throughout scripture that God reveals Himself to us through a record of nature. This is a biblical teaching. And so therefore when we examine the record of nature it?s an opportunity for us to worship God. An opportunity for us to detect God?s fingerprints in the record of nature. And so on that basis, we would argue at Reasons To Believe that as properly interpreted the words of the Bible and the record of nature should be in harmony with one another. And so we are looking actually at a model of full integration with science and Christianity. Science and religion in general. And if the basis of our faith, Scripture speaks a lot about natural history, a lot about life?s history, there are a lot of scientific ideas that are embodied in scripture that can be directly tested. And by putting Scripture to the test we can have confidence that the words of the Bible are true. We can have confidence in God?s existence. Now in terms of this idea of non-overlapping magisteria, again, my model would be one of full integration or full overlap and I would point out that there are very few ideas in science that don?t have theological implications. And there are very few theological ideas that don?t have scientific implications. I mean, when we talk about the beginning of the universe, when we talk about the origin of life, when we talk about the origin of humanity, these are all theological ideas and they also are scientific ideas. And what I?m uncomfortable with is this whole idea of defining science in such narrow terms that we only allow natural cause explanations to explain the physical and material universe. You know, I think that that?s the place that we should begin. Are there natural cause explanations? But as we bump into things like a singularity beginning to the universe, a dramatic appearance of very complex life forms at the origin of life event here on Earth, the recent origin of humanity, for example, things like the Cambrian explosion, these have supernatural overtones to them. These have supernatural fingerprints, or potentially supernatural fingerprints and we should allow the scientific method to interrogate that as a possible explanation because if we don?t, science now becomes an enterprise where we?re never going to discover truth. We?re only going to discover possible, hopefully plausible, natural cause explanations. But if there actually is a supernatural explanation to our reality, science is going to be impotent to ever discover that. And so by allowing science to probe the supernatural where it seems appropriate I think we give science the greatest power and the greatest capacity to fully discover what is truth. So as a scientist I?m uncomfortable with methodological naturalism. It?s simply a philosophical presupposition that is brought to bear that, in my opinion, is largely indefensible when you get down to the nitty-gritty. JR: I?m really sorry that you take that view because aside from that fact that it puts you at odds with, essentially, the entire rest of the scientific community, I think it shows that you don?t really understand what it is that science has to try to do. What the nature of scientific thought is. Anything is potentially explainable in supernatural terms. How my computer works is explainable in supernatural terms. FR: But we can design experiments to test whether or not your computer?s operation is based on supernatural explanations or on natural cause explanation. GM: Let?s give John a chance here. JR: Yeah. No look. I mean, suppose we sent my computer back in a time machine back to the 18th Century and had them take a look at this. There?s no portion of my computer that people could possibly understand how it did anything of what it did. The means available to them would all indicate that its workings would clearly transcend anything that was physically understandable. So if the scientists at that time said, well clearly this is a magical box, clearly this is powered by elves or some other kind of supernatural agency. Then the science would really be going down the wrong alley. The fact is all science can do is it can test out different methodologically naturalistic ideas and say, well does this seem to work? Well this works, or, well this doesn?t seem to work so we?ll keep on looking. There is no point in the scientific process where it can ever say the conclusions lead to supernatural agency. All it can do is say we cannot explain this in terms of anything else. And science, when it looks at the issue of evolution or, frankly, the Big Bang, or anything else, none of that leads them yet to that point where they say sorry we just can?t go any further in explaining this in purely naturalistic means. GM: Let?s go back to the phones and talk to Ed in Duncanville. Hi. Caller: Howdy. You know, computers are powered by magic smoke and I guarantee you if you let the magic smoke out of your computer and if smokes then it will not work anymore. My question is directed chiefly to your theological guy and maybe Mr. Rennie has an explanation, too. But I?m wondering why it is that creationism and especially Intelligent Design, since William Paley popped off with it over 200 years, have been absolutely inert in creating any scientific advance since, roughly 1830. If there is a wit of science behind creationism and Intelligent Design, why does it not show its face? GM: Gentlemen. FR: Well?(end side one; side two begin) one of our predictions is that life should appear very early in the Earth?s history. I won?t go into the details as to why we would arrive at that conclusion. There?s an abstract of that reasoning, I think, that?s posted on our Web site at reasons.org. But we would argue that life should appear very early in the Earth?s history. Now that statement, that prediction now can stimulate paleontological investigation, geological investigation, into the Earth?s earliest history to see, can we find fingerprints, can we find evidence for life?s existence very early on. So here?s a prediction that would stimulate scientific investigation of the fossil record. Now I?ll point out that just until a few years ago, maybe the last 10 years or so, origin of life researchers didn?t think that life appeared until about a billion years or so after the Earth came into existence, I?m sorry about a billion and a half years after the Earth came into existence. I mean, most origin of life researchers would have placed the appearance of the first life forms shortly under three billion years ago. Well, geochemical investigation and investigation of the fossil record does show now that life does clearly appear to be evident on the Earth at 3.5 billion years ago perhaps even as far back as 3.8 years ago, although there?s some dispute over some of that evidence now. But the point is, is that from an origin of life standpoint, from a naturalistic perspective, you would not necessarily be motivated to look for life?s signature prior to three billion years ago given the current model, I?m sorry not the current model but the previous model that was advanced just before ten years ago or so. JR: I think the words you look for, that are critical there and you talk about are, motivated to look for it. Science keeps on looking for everything all the time and, yes, certain things do get more attention than others but, let?s face it, the existing evolution naturalistic model for science did lead us to make those very same discoveries. And you?re right, if certain ideas that people had about the origin of life turned out to be wrong, the fabric of science also just absorbs that. Science is constantly self-correcting and constantly making different ideas. I think the strange thing about the program that you?re creating is one in which you?re tying your religious faith to your scientific process and you?re basically constantly rolling the dice. I mean, is there some discovery that could be made that would suddenly cause you to stop believing in the Bible? FR: Sure. Sure. There would be discoveries that would be made that would stop me from believing in the Bible. JR: Really? What kinds of things would invalidate your whole program that way? FR: Well, if for example you could show me that the universe was eternal and infinite. JR: No, but we?ve already had plenty of evidence to indicate that that?s not the case? FR: That?s my point. JR: ?within the structure of science we know at the moment, what is still testable about this? Because you?re developing your idea after those other ideas were already in place? I don?t see that?you talk about the research program that would evolve from this but the research program?what??you talk about doing paleontology research? Looking for more? We?re doing that now. I don?t see what the unique contribution and unique quality of understanding that would come from your model would be and that seems like that?s a very high price to suddenly be bringing in some sort of supernatural agency into the structure of science for exactly the same payoff that we?re getting now. GM: I want to work in one e-mail question that sort of ties in with what we?re talking about now. This is from Gary who says, ?Your creationist guest has just said, God created Earth and then introduced bacteria to condition it before his next supernatural invention. If God is omnipotent, why did He need to do this? Why not just plunk right down at the outset exactly what He wanted to end up with?? FR: Okay. Well, first of all I?ll point out that when we look at, for example, the Genesis 1 creation account and, by the way, this is not the only creation account found in scripture. We have a large number of creation accounts to draw from to develop a comprehensive picture about what the Bible teaches, about what God has done. But the Bible talks about God bringing about His creation in a purposeful, progressive fashion, this actually comes more clearly from Psalm 104, but also describes God in Genesis 1 using a number of means to do this. God creates in a bara fashion, which is a Hebrew word meaning to bring something new into existence in the supernatural transcendent fashion, God fabricates as He creates using existing templates. God let?s the laws of nature run their course. And what?s going on here though is God has the option to do a number of different things. Our job, within the context of what the Bible teaches, is to try to discover from the record of nature what God has done in different instances as He?s brought about His creative purposes. But then the big question becomes why. And again, the Bible teaches that God is doing things in a purposeful progressful fashion, not boom zap all at once. And God has also brought into existence the laws of nature, the laws of physics, the laws of chemistry. The Bible is very clear that God?s brought these laws into existence, that He?s fixed these laws in place within the cosmos and that God then operates according to the laws of physics. So based on the laws of physics I would argue that in order to have physical life, physical human life that?s going to have the necessary resources to survive, that God would bring the planet into existence at 4 ˝ billion years ago which, by the way, is the earliest time in the universe?s history that you could have a rocky planet with the right chemical composition? GM: Gentlemen, we?re almost out of time. John, final word. Thirty seconds. JR: I think there?s not too much to say except that I appreciate the efforts that Fuz and his colleagues are making to try to find a way to bolster both their faith and their science and wed them together. But, quite frankly, I don?t think either faith or science needs that effort. GM: Gentlemen, thank you very much. John Rennie is the editor in chief of Scientific American. His article, ?Fifteen Answers to Creationist Nonsense? appears in the current issue. Dr. Fuz Rana is Vice-President of Science Apologetics at Reasons To Believe. You can find out more at reasons.org. We?ll be right back. Copyright 2002 Reasons To Believe [Image] Home | About Us | F.F.F. | Donate | RTB Radio | Web Store | Resources | Kids Space | Worldwide | Contact Us | Search RTB Conference © 1988-2003 Reasons To Believe, Glendora, CA, All Rights Reserved No content from this site may be physically kept on any other Web site without the express written permission of Reasons To Believe. [Image] [Image] [Image] [Image]