Does Darwinism Equal "No God"?

Program repeats today at 5 PM ET on PBSYOU.--Percy

Rose first asks what was Darwin's primary achievement. Wilson replies by saying it wasn't the idea of evolution, but of evolution by random genetic change sorted out by natural selection, and that the diversity of life was independent of an outside force. "It put humanity in a wholly different light, namely as potentially having arisen by this uncontrolled or undesigned process on our own on this planet independently."Watson chimed in, "That there was no designer." (he might have said, "That there was no design," hard to tell)--Percy

Comparing what they actually said to Randman's recollections, note the uncertainty. Wilson says, "potentially having arisen by this uncontrolled or undesigned process," and Watsom clarifies Wilson's thought by saying, "That there was no designer."And so we see that Wilson and Watson were saying that Darwin's significant contribution was the introduction of the possibility that man was not divinely created.--Percy

Okay, let's go back to the OP. You're recollection is incorrect. Wilson's "lengthy statement" was maybe 20 seconds, and it wasn't a statement but a reply to Rose asking what was Darwin's most significant accomplishment. And after Watson's concurring comment, "That there was no designer," it wasn't Wilson who spoke again, but Rose, who said, "That there was no creator." Wilson's very next comment was to pay a compliment to Watson, saying that he felt the discovery of the structure of DNA was right up there with Darwin's uncovering of the mechanisms behind evolution. Wilson never said that "life had 'risen autonomously'", and the discussion was never about the origin of life.So in light of this, let's examine your next comment: Wilson's and Watson's brief replies to Rose's question at the very beginning of the program were not addressed to the question of how life arose. Darwin's theory of evolution did not address the question of the origin of life. It addressed the question of the origin of species. Wilson, with Watson concurring, was saying that Darwin's most significant accomplishment was more socio-cultural than scientific. Unraveling the mechanisms behind evolution was a towering scientific accomplishment, but it had a significant social and cultural impact that extended far beyond scientific circles. Origin of Species was a best seller in its time.But it's minor point that you're wrong that the discussion ever touched on the origin of life. You're primary point is that these scientists believe that the theory of evolution implies that there is no God, and these scientists, Watson and Wilson, do absolutely believe that, as is made clear in this portion of the interview: So a transcript of the interview strongly supports the primary premise of your OP, that Darwinism implies "No God". They don't get specific, so it's hard to uncover any shades of meaning, but the comments were made in the context of the Creation/evolution controversy, so by "No God" they could mean "no Christian God of the Old Testament." Or they could mean "No God at all." I don't know, I'm not familiar with Wilson's and Watson's religious beliefs.A more accurate scientific statement would say that the theory of evolution provides no scientific support for the account of creation in the Old Testament and that from a scientific perspective it suggests that it is extremely unlikely to be an accurate account of events.And so I think you've satisfactorily proven the primary primise of this thread. If you want to discuss other things like the randomness of mutations then I think you should open another thread.--Percy

It would seem that one can't even agree with you without starting an argument.--Percy

What, your delete key stopped working? In addition to my earlier suggestions that you quote what you're replying to (which you actually did in Message 82) and stay focused on the topic (which you didn't), I think I should add the suggestion that you read a post all the way through before replying. No, Randman, I was not reluctantly agreeing. I started by pointing out the error in your OP that the discussion touched on the origin of life. It did not. In this you were wrong and I said so. You were the one who said to go back to your OP, so I did, and it turned out to be inaccurate. You were also wrong here in Message 82: The word "autonomously" was not used in this part of the discussion. You have misremembered. You are wrong. This is important because there's a whole subthread in this topic where you kept asserting they used the word "autonomously", often quoting it just as I did here, when they did not use the word. Here are more errors from Message 82: You are again wrong. How existing life forms change over time is evolution. How life originally came to exist is the origin of life. Within the science of biology, this distinction has been in place at least since Darwin, whose book was titled Origin of Species, not Origin of Life. If you look at the table of contents of Darwin's book you'll see that he never addresses the subject of the origin of life.That you somehow perceived Wilson and Watson as discussing the origin of life when the transcripts reveal they were not indicates that the confusion of evolution with abiogenesis originates with you. This is not a point on which biology has ever been confused, but it is a constant confusion within the Creationist mind.And in that same paragraph you've committed another error. "Spontaneous generation" as a serious scientific theory of the origin of life was disproven ages ago by Pasteur, among others. You are confusing spontaneous generation with abiogenesis.Getting back to your Message 84 that I'm replying to: There is nothing courageous about it. The transcripts are fairly clear in revealing that Wilson and Watson believe that the theory of evolution supports the conclusion that there is no designer.I think the reluctance of others to concede your assertion is that you're the only source of information of what was said, and your history of accuracy is poor. As the transcripts show, you were wrong that the discussion touched on the origin of life, and you were wrong when you thought you recalled they used the word "autonomously", but prior to seeing the transcripts how would anyone know if you were wrong and how you were wrong. The skepticism was less about whether some people reach atheistic conclusions from evolution and more about you as a source. No, you're not wrong, but open-ended topics are discouraged here. As AdminWounded said to you in Message 4 just before he promoted the topic: In other words, this thread is not a license for you to free range over the entire field of evolution. If you have specific objections to the theory or evidence behind evolution then propose them in new threads or discuss them in existing threads. This thread is about whether evolution leads to the conclusion that there is no designer.--Percy Fix minor grammatical errors. --PercyThis message has been edited by Percy, 12-18-2005 12:06 PM

Thread titles must necessarily be brief, so it's probably better to take the thread's topic from the description in the OP. What Randman wanted to explore in this thread was whether "no God" is a legitimate conclusion from the theory of evolution. I think Wilson and Watson are fairly clear that they believe evolution implies something not too far removed from a position of "no Creator" (though whether this means "no God" cannot be concluded from the interview): Their answers to Rose's question about the irreconcilability of the theory of evolution with a divine creator (see transcript in Message 79) are consistent with this. Clearly this interview cannot be construed as a concise statement of Wilson and Watson's views on God, but what they said is very consistent with equating evolution to "no God", especially from a conservative Christian's perspective. This is the key ambiguity behind what Watson and Wilson were saying, and I think this is the point you're trying to get Randman to see. We can't know, simply because the interview didn't explore this area, if Watson and Wilson believe in a God who created a universe where life and evolution was possible, but not in a God who was the direct creator of life on Earth and the guider of the process of evolution.--Percy

I watched the first 30 minutes of the program so that I would be sure to have watched at least as much as you, and I transcribed those portions that seemed most relevant. The word "autonomously" is never used. The origin of life is never discussed. You were wrong about both. You are wrong again. You have a very high error rate. This is the definition of "spontaneous generation" from Wikipedia: Moving on: If you were only implying their beliefs from their statements on other matters then you should have said so. It was your error to claim they made statements on the Charlie Rose program about the autonomous origin of life. Moving on: Wilson explained this quite clearly, and I already cited this back in Message 79: In other words, it's because we can see no other forces at work besides physics and chemistry. Physics and chemistry are reponsible for all life's processes, including random mutations, and the higher level mechanism of natural selection is the winnowing process behind evolutionary change.--PercyThis message has been edited by Percy, 12-18-2005 03:46 PM

No, Randman, I am not wrong. I am sorry if your children's encyclopaedia failed to put spontaneous generation in context, but it is a type of abiogenesis, now disproven, that held that living matter sprang spontaneously from non-living matter, such as that feces give rise to flies or that dirty water gives rise to microbes. By your use of the term I was unsure whether you were unfamiliar with the history behind spontaneous generation, or if you were being derisive by claiming that modern biologists hold to a long-ago disproven theory.You said you looked it up in a 1990's Worldbook, so here is the definition from WorldBook Online: How is it possible that they could be so right in 2005 and so wrong in that long ago era of the 1990s? Hmmmm. I did agree with you, and still do, about the basic premise of your opening post. Both Wilson and Watson do appear to believe that the theory of evolution leads to the conclusion that there is no designer who directly created the first life or who interfered with life chemistry to cause evolution. Whether or not they believe it means there is no creator is not something they addressed in the program.But as nwr made clear, and as I assumed you already understood or I would have pointed it out myself, there are many scientists who believe in both God and evolution. Almost none of these God-believing scientists believe that God controls evolution (Behe is an example of a scientist who does).You seem to be mistaking my agreement with your premise to be in some way absolute. I wrote a lot of words, and I quoted Wilson using the word "potentially" when he first stated his belief that evolution implies "no designer". I pointed out to Jar that your title shouldn't be interpreted as fully defining the topic, that your OP should serve that purpose, and I remind you of the same thing. I definitely do not agree with the thread's title.But I do agree with much of what you said in the OP. Despite your errors in insisting they talked about the origin of life and in terms they didn't use, and despite you're wandering off your own topic, your basic point that some scientists reach atheistic conclusions from evolution is accurate. But that doesn't include all scientists by any means, and you seem to keep forgetting that we're talking about the socio-cultural impact of evolution, not the science of evolution.--Percy

They might well mean that, but they might not. I'm sure there are some scientists that do mean "no God" when they say "no Designer", and Wilson and Watson may well be among them, but there was nothing that Wilson or Watson said in that program that leads unambiguously to that conclusion.The point you're trying to make is that evolution leads to atheism, and the fact of the matter is that while that is true for some, it is not true for others. Someone said in a recent post that perhaps what you 're arguing isn't that Darwinism equals "no God", but that Darwinism equals "not your God", and I echoed the same sentiment earlier when I said that Wilson and Watson definitely believe that evolution falsifies the God of the Old Testament. I think you and Faith are in agreement when you say you believe that those who accept both evolution and God are not true Christians.--Percy

Rose didn't ask about the scientific significance of Darwinism. He just asked about the significance. Obviously, both Wilson and Watson thought the socio-cultural effects more significant than the scientific ones. There is no doubt that they're not speaking scientifically. If you go to the scientific papers of Wilson and Watson you won't read anything about designers or creators or God. What they stated on Rose's program are their personal non-scientific opinions. This would be an interesting topic of discussion if you would like to propose a thread for it. It's off topic here.--Percy

You are wise to be skeptical. Once again Randman is in error. Watson and Wilson definitely did not state that the significance of Darwinism was the claim of no Designer. Obviously they wouldn't say this since Darwinism makes no such claim.I transcribed the relevant parts of the broadcast. A short portion appears in Message 63, but here it is again: I presented a longer transcript of another relevant portion in Message 79 that I won't reproduce here.--Percy

Hmmm. Interesting. What would you say to the statement, "The Bible doesn't lie, but interpreters of the Bible may fail as they are fallible."But we're drifting off topic. I think someone should open a new thread if they want to discuss which whether scientists' interpretation of nature is more or less accurate than conservative Christian theologians' interpretation of what the Bible says about nature.--Percy

Interesting, but off topic. Maybe you and Moose could resume your debate.--Percy

Well, I'm glad to hear you don't believe evolution leads to atheism. Neither do I, and neither does Jar, and if you believe the same as us then what are we arguing about?The title of your thread is "Does Darwinism Equal 'No God'", and your OP elaborates that point. Faith interprets your point the same way the evos have - read her recent posts in this thread arguing that evolution caused millions of Christians to drop from the ranks of believers. I've already commented on this. To Wilson and Watson the central significance of evolution is socio-cultural, not scientific. They are not making scientific statements. To restate your premise, you believe that what Watson and Wilson believe to be the primary significance of evolution was also the primary motivation behind its development. To you, Darwin was seeking not an explanation for the diversity of life but a way to undermine Christianity.But the scientific evidence behind evolutionary theory is unambiguous. Behe himself understands and accepts this evidence, believing that most evolution happens in just the way the theory says, and that the earth and universe are billions of years old. I said "you and Faith". I suggest you read Faith's posts. She has aligned herself with your views in this thread, and if her particular take on your views is incorrect then you should tell her so. But I'm a so-called Darwinist, and I don't believe that. Jar doesn't believe that. Thousands and thousands of scientists don't believe that. It's not even clear that Watson and Wilson believe that. Yes, Randman, you have. You do it all the time. You deny the status of Christianity to any Christian who professes a view different than your own. So does Faith. Here's an example from your Message 121: It is a fact that many Christians accept both God and evolution.--Percy