Is Evolution a Radical Idea?

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My own view is that evolution leads quite naturally to evolutionism and is devastating to religious belief.

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And we have observed that creation has led many to "creation science", which is devastating to religious belief.How much are we to hold an idea responsible for the manner in which certain people misuse it?BTW, good to see that you do distinguish between evolution and "evolutionism". It seems that most "creation science" rhetorics and misleading arguments is based on confusing the two terms. Their main fight should properly be with the philosophy of "evolutionism", not with science of evolution.BTW, why would abiogenesis suggest no God any more than any other area of scientific research? It's the investigation of natural processes and conditions that would given rise to life. Why would God be restricted from using natural processes in the Creation of Life?

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BTW, good to see that you do distinguish between evolution and "evolutionism". It seems that most "creation science" rhetorics and misleading arguments is based on confusing the two terms.

I'm arguing from an atheistic point of view.

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Nonetheless, it is still good that you do draw that distinction.And we need to call "creation science" proponents on it when they confuse those terms and we need to pin them down and get them to define those terms. I've tried that with creationists who would constantly toss out the term "evolutionist" and describe exactly what these "evolutionists" "believe" (ie, pure straw-man), and yet they would absolutely refuse to define that term or to describe how to determine whether someone was an "evolutionist".

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Why couldn't the entire universe (quarks, elements, stars, planets and evolution) be a God's single act of creation?

Evolutionism tells us there's no necessity for such a concept (Big Bang ideas about something coming from nothing,etc.).

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Right, a philosophy of evolutionism would tell us that. But the science of evolution would not. Nor the science behind abiogenesis. Nor the science behind planetary formation. Nor the science behind cosmology. Nor any scientific discovery of the natural forces and processes involved in The Creation.The only kind of god that science would present a problem for is one who can only work through supernatural means and cannot work through natural forces or processes. IOW, a "God of the Gaps" (GOTG).So the god that a philosophy of evolutionism would consider would be a GOTG. The same god that ID considers (I once read an article by Philip Johnson in which he stated that his opposition to evolution is that it doesn't give God anything to do; blatant GOTG). The same god that "creation science" keeps invoking.With so many creationists constantly invoking a GOTG and claiming (albeit mainly indirectly) that natural explanations disprove their god, is it any wonder that the public has accepted that premise of theirs at face value?Edited by dwise1, : No reason given.

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What I'm arguing here however is that there is a sense in which the fundamentalists (YEC's) are correct about the dangers of evolution. They recognize full well how devastating evolutionism, suggested by science, is to the religious position. The liberal Christians, I would argue, are incorrect in thinking there can be accomodation. Evolutionism is not science, but its ideas are based on the findings of science, and they are very plausible.

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So you are arguing that evolution needs to be opposed because it can lead to "evolutionism". Therefore, Christianity should also be opposed because it can lead to inquisitions and even worse things, like Christian Reconstructionist theocracy. That's the same reasoning that I'm seeing you apply.So then, what are you proposing in this thread about evolution? That because someone could misuse ideas from evolution, evolution should not be taught? Should ignorance be the answer? Even a past governor of Mississippi said (in support of his education reforms), "We've already tried ignorance, so we know that it doesn't work."Certainly, they should address evolutionism and show where and why it is wrong. But why also attack evolution? Why also attack science, and in so doing weave a tangled web of lies and deception (AKA "creation science") that has destroyed the faith of far too many?
Instead of attacking science out of fear and ignorance, shouldn't they be addressing the proper roles of science and religion? Instead of creating a conflict where none needs to exist.

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The only kind of god that science would present a problem for is one who can only work through supernatural means and cannot work through natural forces or processes. IOW, a "God of the Gaps" (GOTG).

I'm not understanding this. I guess I don't quite know what a GOTG is.

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As I had indicated, GOTG is an acronym for "God of the Gaps."GOTG is an apparent attempt to preserve and protect God from the perceived encroachment of science, as one scientific explanation after another has been discovered for things that had before always been "acts of God" that had had only supernaturalistic explanations. Basically, GOTG theology takes the position that God continues to exist within the gaps of our knowledge.I don't think they had anticipated this, but that turns their god into an impotent thing that is powerless against Nature (as opposed to God as Sovereign over Nature) and that is constantly being diminished ever more as science continues to close those gaps in our knowledge. Another possibly unanticipated consequence of GOTG theology is that it paints science as "the Enemy of God" and as attacking their religion, since, they believe, it is the advance of science that is diminishing their god, whereas the truth is that it's their own false theology of GOTG that is diminishing their god.Also not anticipated, I'm sure, is that GOTG offers atheists proof that God does not exist, since the Christians who espouse GOTG set up the false premises that natural explanations disprove God.For more information, Google on "God of the Gaps". I would personally recommend a few essays by a PhD Physics and practicing Christian, Dr. Allan H. Harvey, whose essays are at No webpage found at provided URL: http://members.aol.com/steamdoc/writings.htm:
"A Personal View of the Evolution Issue" at No webpage found at provided URL: http://members.aol.com/steamdoc/writings/evolution.html
"Science and Christian Apologetics" at No webpage found at provided URL: http://members.aol.com/steamdoc/writings/apologetics.html
"What Does "God of the Gaps" Mean?" at No webpage found at provided URL: http://members.aol.com/steamdoc/writings/gaps.html

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So you are arguing that evolution needs to be opposed because it can lead to "evolutionism".

No, not at all.

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That because someone could misuse ideas from evolution, evolution should not be taught?

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No, not at all.

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Well then I'm not sure what your point is.

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Certainly, they should address evolutionism and show where and why it is wrong.

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I myself don't think evolutionism is wrong. It makes sense to me. Of course, it's not certain. It's not scientific.

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Nonetheless, anti-evolutionists do think that it is wrong. So they need to address it and make their case.Myself, I believe that it is wrong insofar as it claims that science can disprove God.

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Well, the ideas of evolutionism are very plausible, so it's not a very good straw man.

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But one of the requirements of a strawman is that it has to seem plausible, because an implausible strawman wouldn't fool anyone. Remember, the purpose of a strawman is to make you think they're attacking the real thing instead of a dummy. If instead of "evolutionism" they named their arch-enemy to be the Purple Demon and his Teletubby Minions (especially that gay one), even their most ardant followers would laugh them off the stage (or be too embarassed to ever show their faces in public again)."Evolutionism" and its attendant "evolutionists" are indeed "creation science" strawmen. And the fact that there are some people who would agree with some of the ideas and characteristics that those strawmen caricature does not in any way diminish the fact that they are indeed strawmen and are constantly employed as such in "creation science" rhetorics.

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It's just a matter of looking at the way nature works as a whole.

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Nature works the way that it works. If their theology [foolishly, in my opinion] makes definitive statements about how Nature must work in order for their religion to be true (eg, "If the earth is more than 10,000 years old, then Scripture has no meaning." John Morris at the 1986 International Conference on Creationism) and those definitive statements are contrary-to-fact (see John Morris example), then their theology is faulty and needs fixing. If they claim that their theology (which is fallible human interpretation and speculation about the supernatural) is infallible, then leave and go find yourself a more honest con to get suckered into.Apologetics is essentially the attempt to harmonize the contradictions (whether apparent or real) between one's faith and the "real world". I believe that the worst possible way to attempt harmonizing Christianity with the findings of science is to lie about the science, to deny the very existence of the physical evidence, and to claim that if any of that science is right and/or if any of that physical evidence does indeed exist, then Christianity is totally wrong. And yet that is what "creation science" does and as a result then, yeah, the way that nature works would be radically opposed to their theology. In which case, the fault does not lie within evolution, but rather within themselves.But for Christians who are able to successfully harmonize Christianity with the findings of science, there's really nothing radical about the idea of evolution. And "evolutionism" is a curiosity and a wrong idea that needs to be corrected.

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Yes, but evolutionism has got something to back it up.

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So did "social Darwinism." And both cases are misapplications of the scientific ideas that they were purportedly based on.

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So did "social Darwinism."

That's an interesting comparison, but evolutionism is not about survival of the fittest, only about gradual change. And of course it has nothing to do with human culture.

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No, "evolutionism" is a "creation science" strawman. What it's about is deceiving the creationists' audience into believing that the scientific idea of evolution is not scientific, but religious. I've seen creationists do that repeatedly ever since my first encounter with "creation science" circa 1980 and I'm sure that they had been doing it for at least another decade before (the creation of "creation science" having occurred shortly after Epperson vs Arkansas, 1968, even though the anti-evolution movement goes back to around WWI). Which means that, no, you did not coin the term.As I had said, "And both cases [, both "social Darwinism" and "evolutionism", ] are misapplications of the scientific ideas that they were purportedly based on." "Social Darwinism" was a bastardization of the scientific ideas of Darwinism for the industrialists to justify their actions. "Evolutionism" is a gross caricature of evolution, but instead of actually being based on evolution, it is based instead on a morass of misconceptions about evolution with a huge dollop of "God of the Gaps" thrown into the pot, thus painting "evolutionism" as an attempt to disprove the existence of God.Now you have taken "evolutionism" as your own and are apparently trying to use it for the same purpose that creationists claim that it is being used, to disprove God. Science cannot do that. Philosophy can disprove God logically, but only if it can get you to accept the right premises. But all that could do would be to show that such proof that God doesn't exist is valid. A valid proof can only be known to be true if the premises from which it proceeds are true. Sorry, but the premise, that natural processes being involved in proximate origins (eg, origin of man, origin of life on earth, origin of our solar system) or even in near-ultimate origins (eg, the Big Bang) disproves God, is simply not true. That premise comes from "God of the Gaps" reasoning.Now, if you want to use your "evolutionism" to prove that Christian theology is false, then relax, you don't need to. We already know that it is ... or at least that it is not completely correct. Theologies are man-made and are fallible human attempts to describe in excruciating detail things about the supernatural, things which no human could possibly know. And even if such things ever did become fully known to a human, that information could not get transmitted uncorrupted over milennia and through countless translations (each of which is an exercise in fallible human interpretation -- ich wei ja wovon ich schreibe) and through the long chain of teachers teaching their misunderstanding to students who misunderstanding their teachers. You don't have to prove what we already know.