The Sacred Cosmos: Christian Faith and the Challenge of Naturalism

1. The Sacred Cosmos:Christian Faith and the Challenge of Naturalism 3. Evolution: The Journey Into God Sunday, January 24, 2010 10 to 10:50 am, in the Parlor Presenter: David Monyak

2. Primary Reference • The Sacred Cosmos: Christian Faith and the Challenge of Naturalism, Terrence L. Nichols, Brazos Press, 2003. (Reissued Jan 2009 by Wipf and Stock)

3. Primary Reference • The Sacred Cosmos: Christian Faith and the Challenge of Naturalism, Terrence L. Nichols, Brazos Press, 2003. (Reissued Jan 2009 by Wipf and Stock)

4. Dr. Terrence Nicholsis Professor of Theology at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul Academic History Ph.D. - Marquette University B.A. - University of Minnesota

5. The Sacred CosmosChristian Faith and the Challenge of Naturalism • Jan 3. God and Nature • Jan 10: Origins: Creation and Big Bang • Jan 24: Evolution: The Journey into God • Jan 31: Human Nature: Embodied Self and Transcendent Soul, Part 1 • Feb 7: Human Nature: Embodied Self and Transcendent Soul, Part 2. Conclusion: A Sacred Cosmos

6. We give you thanks, most gracious God, for the beauty of earth and sky and sea; for the richness of mountains, plains, and rivers; for the songs of birds and the loveliness of flowers. We praise you for these good gifts, and pray that we may safeguard them for our posterity. Grant that we may continue to grow in our grateful enjoyment of your abundant creation, to the honor and glory of your Name, now and for ever.. For the Beauty of the Earth, Book of Common Prayer, p. 840

7. This Week:3. Evolution: The Journey Into God

8. Introduction

9. IntroductionThe Challenge of Naturalism “The cosmos is all that ever was, is, or shall be.” • With these words, Carl Sagan in the popular Cosmos television series, proclaimed naturalism: the view that the natural world is all that exists, echoing the “opposing” Christian doxology: “Glory be to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as it was, is, and ever shall be, world without end ...”

10. IntroductionThe Challenge of Naturalism • Naturalism is the philosophical theory about reality that declares: • nature is all that exists, • there is no reality that is greater than and independent of nature, • there cannot be any hope of an afterlife, nor any means to really transcend our natural condition.

11. IntroductionThe Challenge of Naturalism • Nichols believes Naturalism is probably the most serious challenge facing Western Christianity. • A recent survey in Scientific American revealed: • 90 percent of the members of the National Academy of Sciences consider themselves agnostics or atheists. • Among biologists: 95 percent.

12. IntroductionCan Naturalism Explain the World? • How well can Naturalism actually explain the world and humanity? • We have been considering naturalistic versus Christian explanations for: • the origin of the universe (Jan 10) • evolution (today) • human nature (next week, Jan 31).

13. Religion and Evolution: Challenges

14. Religion and EvolutionChallenges God created man pretty much in his present form within the last 10,000 years Man has developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process, including man’s creation Man has developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life. God had no part in this process

15. Religion and EvolutionChallenges • The five main reasons people cited who did not believe in evolution: • Their belief in Jesus Christ • Their belief in God • Their religion or faith • Insufficient evidence • Their belief in the Bible • Why is there such a perceived conflict between religion and the theory of evolution?

16. Religion and EvolutionChallenges • Reasons are complex. • Both our culture and biologists can be faulted. • One challenge: it is a fundamental Christian belief that there is a purpose, a goal, a “final cause” to creation: • The cosmos and its creatures come from God in creation, • And are being called back to God, to a final reconciliation of humanity and the cosmos with their Creator in a New Heaven and New Earth. • The method of science however is to focus only on efficient and material causes. • Science does not look for “final causes,” purposes or goals.

17. Religion and EvolutionChallenges • This methodology of science however has frequently been extended to a metaphysics in dogmatic proclamations by some biologists: • Futuyma, Evolution, Chapter 10 “Genetic Drift: Evolution at Random, p. 225, 2005: “… In fact, scientists consider purposes or goals to be unique to human thought, and they do not view any natural phenomena as purposeful.” • Richard Dawkins: “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.”

18. Religion and EvolutionChallenges • A second challenge: while the fact of evolution is almost universally accepted by biologists, the mechanism of evolution — what causes evolution to occur — is disputed. • The full theory of evolution is thus immature, likely to change in the future • This has made it risky for theology to respond to issues arising from the theories of evolution – especially issues related to the mechanism of evolution

19. Religion and EvolutionOutline • Define “evolution” • Looks at the various proposed mechanisms for evolution (mechanisms through which God might act seen or unseen) • Briefly look at theories of “Directed Evolution” • Make the case that the modern Christian can view evolution as a journey into God: • A journey in which nature has been granted a degree of freedom to evolve and “make itself” by its Creator, but • A journey still guided and sustained by the Creator.

20. What is Evolution?

21. What is Evolution?Definition • Charles Darwin in his Origin of Species (1859): “descent with modification.” • Living species had developed from a few simple ancestral species over vast stretches of time, by a variety of mechanisms, the main one being natural selection. Charles Darwin, 1809-1882

22. What is Evolution?Darwin’s Observations • Darwin observed: • 1. In any species of plants or animals there was considerable variation. • Plant and animal breeders exploit this variation for their own purposes (“artificial selection”) Drawing by Charles Darwin of the variety of domesticated pigeons produced by “artificial selection”

23. What is Evolution?Darwin’s Observations • Darwin observed: • 2. Every species of plant or animal leaves vastly more progeny than can possibly survive in the environment. • Thomas Malthus, in his An Essay on Population had earlier noted that food production increases arithmetically, whereas population increases exponentially • Result: the human population will always outstrip its resources, and poverty and famine will be inevitable • The only way to avoid this is to limit births Thomas Malthus 1766-1834

24. What is Evolution?Natural Selection • There is therefore Darwin wrote, “a struggle for existence.” • Those individuals best adapted to the environment will be more likely to survive and leave progeny, while those individuals less well adapted, or less “fit,” will not survive and leave progeny. • This Darwin called “natural selection.” • Gradual adaptation over long periods of time causes the evolution of life.

25. What is Evolution?Natural Selection • The idea of “natural selection” is simple and easy to understand • Too simple, according to some critics.

26. What is Evolution?Modern Definition • Modern biologists would usually refine Darwin’s definition by saying evolution involves the emergence of more complex forms from simpler forms. • Life develops: • from single-celled organisms without nuclei (prokaryotes), • to single-celled organisms with nuclei (eukaryotes), • to multi-celled organisms, • to creatures that can fly, swim, burrow, and run, • to intelligent creatures like primates and human beings. • Each of these transitions involves an increase in the order of complexity

27. What is Evolution?Modern Definition: Complexity • Complexity: • A “complex” system is one in which many diverse parts are interrelated into a functioning whole. • Measures of “complexity” might include: • measure of the number of significant interconnections between the parts of a system. • amount of “information” necessary to describe that system (how long would a computer program be to describe the system?) • Example: a functioning watch versus an undifferentiated lump of molten metal and glass (a melted watch) • Melted watch: simple to describe (51 percent iron, 5 percent chromium, 5 percent silicon dioxide …) • Functioning watch: much longer description required

28. What is Evolution?Evolution and Modern Genetics • Darwin wrote his theory before the discovery of modern genetics. • He did not know the source of variations in a population, or how the variations were passed on. • Darwin’s critics claimed any advantageous variation would soon be “washed out” by interbreeding:

29. What is Evolution?Evolution and Modern Genetics • We now know heritable variations are passed on by genes, discrete units which retain their distinctiveness even if they are not expressed Human Chromosomes, containing the genetic information of a cell encoded as “genes” in a double stranded DNA molecule

30. What is Evolution?Evolution and Modern Genetics • The source of variations are changes that can occur (from multiple causes) in the DNA molecule which encodes the genetic information. Errors may occur in the copying of DNA, or damage done to DNA by ionizing radiation like x-rays or cosmic rays

31. What is Evolution?Neo-Darwinism Darwin’s original theory of evolution + modern genetics = Neo-Darwinism

32. The Mechanism of Evolution

33. The Mechanism of EvolutionPossible Mechanisms • The fact of evolution is almost universally accepted by biologists, • but the primary mechanisms of evolution — what factors cause evolution to occur — are still under debate. • Some options currently in play: • Random Mutations (random permanent changes in DNA of germ cells) • Natural Selection (survival of the fitness in the natural environment) • At the level of the gene versus at multiple levels • Chance (meteor strikes, global and local natural disasters) • Life’s ability to change its environment (rather than simply adapting to its environment) • Processes and “laws” of “self-organization” in complex systems that may channel the trajectories of evolving organisms.

34. The Mechanism of EvolutionOrthodox Neo-Darwinism • Orthodox Neo-Darwinism: primary mechanism is: • random mutation (random permanent change in DNA of the germ cells) coupled with natural selection • the majority of mutations are harmful, some lethal • A few mutations are beneficial, helping an organism adapt to the environment, survive, and leave more progeny (natural selection) • Mutations can only change organisms by tiny degrees, never by saltation (= jumps or leaps)

35. The Mechanism of EvolutionOrthodox Neo-Darwinism • A compelling and triumphalist account of Orthodox Neo-Darwinism can be found in the writings of Richard Dawkins, British biologist and widely publicized atheists (author of The God Delusion) Richard Dawkins 1941-

36. The Mechanism of EvolutionOrthodox Neo-Darwinism • Dawkins writes: • Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. • We are survival machines, robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.

37. The Mechanism of EvolutionStephen Gould and Punctuated Equilibrium • The Harvard University paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould (along with Niles Eldredge) developed a rival theory of evolution known as “Punctuated Equilibrium” • The fossil record reveals less often the gradual development expected in Orthodox Neo-Darwinism, and more often long periods of stasis (equilibrium), punctuated by sudden extinctions, or the apparently sudden emergence of new species. 1941 to 2002

38. The Mechanism of EvolutionStephen Gould and Punctuated Equilibrium • For example, around the beginning of the Cambrian epoch (about 600 million years ago), all the basic animal phyla, each exhibiting a different body plan, suddenly appear in the fossil record. • Gould called this the “Cambrian explosion.” • It was followed by massive extinctions of many of the phyla, • followed still later by diversification within the remaining phyla. Biological Classification of Life

39. The Mechanism of EvolutionStephen Jay Gould • Gould also disagreed with Orthodox Neo-Darwinism by: • Insisting that organisms shape their own environments, and are not simply passively shaped by natural selection • Natural selection, Gould writes, is “a necessary but by no means sufficient, principle for explaining the full history of life.” Stephen Jay Gould 1941-2002

40. The Mechanism of EvolutionStephen Jay Gould • Gould also emphasized the role of chance in evolution • He argued that massive extinctions play a major role in shaping the direction of evolution, and that the survival of species through these events is truly random, not the result of natural selection: • “The history of life is a story of massive removal followed by differentiation within a few surviving stocks, not the conventional tale of steadily increasing excellence, complexity, and diversity.”

41. The Mechanism of EvolutionEvolution and Complexity Theory • Complexity Theory is a relatively new science that studies: • how relationships between parts give rise to collective behaviors of a complex system (so called “emergent” phenomena or behaviors, including self-organizing behaviors) • how such emergent phenomena interact and form relationships with its environment. • The older Chaos theory (the “butterfly effect”, the study of systems with extreme sensitivity to initial conditions) can be considered a subset of Complexity Theory.

42. The Mechanism of EvolutionEvolution and Complexity Theory • Complex systems, from computer-modeled networks to biological systems, exhibit a surprising degree of spontaneously generated, “emergent” order. • Examples: cellular automata, the strange attractors of Chaos Theory Lorentz Strange Attractor

43. The Mechanism of EvolutionEvolution and Complexity Theory • Some have suggested that there are emergent phenomenon of complex systems that are truly novel entities, governed by their own natural laws: • “more is different” • Such novel entities may have the power to influence or change the parts that compose them. • Such top-down causality is a radical reversal of the bottom-up causality of most of science. • The application of Complexity Theory to evolution is just beginning to be explored, and is potentially enormously relevant.

44. The Mechanism of EvolutionEvolution and Complexity Theory • A sampling of some early explorations: • Stuart Kauffman* of the Santa Fe Institute: • I propose that much of the order in organisms may not be the result of selection at all, but of the spontaneous order of self-organized systems. . . . The order of organisms is natural, not merely the unexpected triumph of natural selection. … * In January 2009 Kauffman became a Finland Distinguished Professor (FiDiPro) at Tampere University of Technology, Finland

45. The Mechanism of EvolutionEvolution and Complexity Theory • British biologist Steven Rose, an acerbic critic of Dawkins and of genetic reductionism, emphasizes the importance of considering organisms in evolution as novel complex systems (“more is different”): • So at each level different organizing relations appear, and different types of description and explanation are required. Hence each level appears as a holon—integrating levels below it, but merely a subset of the levels above. In this sense, levels are fundamentally irreducible; ecology cannot be reduced to genetics, nor biochemistry to chemistry

46. Directed Evolution

47. Directed EvolutionDefinition • “Directed Evolution:” the scientific evidence is best explained by concluding evolution is directed by a super-intelligent being. • Such theories “by definition” are outside the realm of mainstream science, whose method is to look only for natural causes and explanations. • They often identify a problem or inconsistency (a “gap” in knowledge) not easily explained by standard theory, and then explain the gap or problem by evoking God.

48. Directed EvolutionIntelligent Design • The most famous of these is “Intelligent Design,” which claims: • Some features of the natural world exhibit features of design. • In particular, there are designs which are irreducibly complex such as the cilium of a swimming cell or the flagellum of a bacterium. Flagellum of a bacterium

49. Directed EvolutionIntelligent Design • Like a mousetrap or a watch, such structures only work if all the parts are present and arranged in a specific order. Move or remove one part, and the trap or the watch does not work. • How could such a structure been gradually built up in a stepwise fashion through random mutations and natural selection? • Conclusion: God must have reached into the evolutionary process at some point and inserted a designed organism or biological structure. Flagellum of a bacterium

50. Directed EvolutionProblem of Gene Pleiotropy • Other problems or gaps that have been used to support a theory of Directed Evolution (= evolution is directed by a super-intelligent being): • The Problem of Gene Pleiotropy • Most genes are pleiotropic: they effect not just one structure, but many. • Thus, if one gene changes, many different systems, each already well adapted, change. • Even if the change is beneficial for one system, it will almost certainly not be beneficial for the other systems. • Result: poorer adaptation and fitness overall. • To significantly change an organism, it would be necessary to change many genes simultaneously in very specific ways. • But the chances of this, in an undirected, random process would be simply astronomical.