Philosophy and Theology: August 2019

Sunday, August 11, 2019

Yale Uni. professor Doctor David Gelernter renounces Darwinism

"My argument is with people who dismiss intelligent design without considering, it seems to me — it's widely dismissed in my world of academia as some sort of theological put up job — it's an absolutely serious scientific argument…. In fact it's the first and most obvious and intuitive one that comes to mind. It's got to be dealt with intellectually".

Dr. David Gelernter

One reads at: https://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/famed-yale-professor-quits-darwin

Renowned Yale Professor

Quits Darwin

by Stephen Wynne • ChurchMilitant.com • August 8, 2019

Dr. David Gelernter: Darwinism can't explain origin of species

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (ChurchMilitant.com) - Famed Yale University computer science professor Dr. David Gelernter has renounced Darwinism.
In a column for the spring edition of the Claremont Review of Books, Gelernter announced that he is no longer a disciple of Darwin, saying the English naturalist's theory has been disproven.

"Darwinian evolution is a brilliant and beautiful scientific theory," he wrote. "Once it was a daring guess. Today it is basic to the credo that defines the modern worldview."

"Accepting the theory as settled truth ... certifies that you are devoutly orthodox in your scientific views; which in turn is an essential first step towards being taken seriously in any part of modern intellectual life," he added. "But what if Darwin was wrong?"In his seminal work The Origin of Species (1859), Darwin proposed that all life forms have descended from a common ancestor, suggesting that over time, random variation coupled with natural selection gives rise to entirely new species.

But, Gelernter wrote, "The origin of species is exactly what Darwin cannot explain."

"Darwin successfully explained the small adjustments by which an organism adapts to local circumstances: changes to fur density or wing style or beak shape," he noted. "Yet there are many reasons to doubt whether he can answer the hard questions and explain the big picture — not the fine-tuning of existing species but the emergence of new ones."

Dr. Stephen Meyer A key problem for Darwinism, Gelernter said, is the Cambrian explosion. The fossil record reveals that "a striking variety of new organisms — including the first-ever animals — pop up suddenly in the fossil record over a mere 70-odd million years," which contradicts Darwin's assumption that "new life forms evolve gradually from old ones in a constantly branching, spreading tree of life."

Chief among the flaws undermining Darwinism, he wrote, is molecular biology, which in recent decades has demonstrated that random mutation plus natural selection cannot give rise to new, more complex species.

Gelernter credited three books for his shift in understanding: Dr. Stephen Meyer's Darwin's Doubt (2013), Dr. David Berlinski's The Deniable Darwin and Other Essays (2009) and David Klinghoffer's Debating Darwin's Doubt (2015).

"These three form a fateful battle group that most people would rather ignore," he wrote.
Gelernter singled out Meyer's work as especially praiseworthy: "Meyer ... disassembles the theory of evolution piece by piece. Darwin's Doubt is one of the most important books in a generation. Few open-minded people will finish it with their faith in Darwin intact."

Darwinism is no longer just a scientific theory but the basis of a worldview, and an emergency replacement religion for the many troubled souls who need one. ….

Meyer, director of the Center for Science and Culture at Seattle-based think tank the Discovery Institute, is an advocate of a replacement theory, intelligent design (ID).

Biological life, ID proponents argue, is not the result of blind, undirected evolutionary processes, but the product of design by an intelligent entity.

Many adherents are religious. But, as Gelernter observed, "Intelligent design as Meyer explains it never uses religious arguments, draws religious conclusions, or refers to religion in any way."

Still, as ID has grown as a theoretical alternative to Darwinism, it has been savaged as a pseudo-scientific appeal to religion by committed Darwinists within the scientific establishment. This, Gelernter pointed out, is because Darwinism serves as their de facto faith:

The religion is all on the other side. Meyer and other proponents of I.D. are the dispassionate intellectuals making orderly scientific arguments. Some I.D.-haters have shown themselves willing to use any argument — fair or not, true or not, ad hominem or not — to keep this dangerous idea locked in a box forever. They remind us of the extent to which Darwinism is no longer just a scientific theory but the basis of a worldview, and an emergency replacement religion for the many troubled souls who need one.

Critics have long argued that Darwinism is atheistic philosophy disguised as science. Since Darwin's day, they note, it has been used to reject Christian orthodoxy and advance materialism, the view that human beings are merely the accidental results of unguided natural processes (as opposed to being purposefully created by God), and that the human mind is the only — and therefore, the supreme — consciousness that exists.

I am attacking their religion and I don't blame them for being all head up, it is a big issue for them. ….

In a 1997 article for The New York Review of Books, leading evolutionist and atheist Dr. Richard C. Lewontin testified to the fact that materialists are committed to Darwinism, in spite of its myriad inconsistencies and flaws, because they are committed to the denial of God.

We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori [pre-existing] adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

Gelernter worries that materialists' philosophical/religious commitment to Darwinism is precluding genuine scientific inquiry. In an interview with Stanford University's Hoover Institution last month, he expounded on this concern.

"My argument is with people who dismiss intelligent design without considering, it seems to me — it's widely dismissed in my world of academia as some sort of theological put up job — it's an absolutely serious scientific argument," he said. "In fact it's the first and most obvious and intuitive one that comes to mind. It's got to be dealt with intellectually." ….

Gemma Tognini: Law needs to recognise that a dead child is not ‘just a foetus’

I’ve got a question, two actually, and I’m happy to be judged on their merits because I think the issue is important.

Who gets to decide when an unborn baby matters? Furthermore, who gets to say what worth is placed on the life of an unborn child when that life is ended either intentionally or recklessly by a criminal act?

Because they were not born, their lives aren’t acknowledged as more than a biological extension of their mother. The law in NSW does not look at what happened to Katherine and see three lives lost.

No, the law in NSW — and in WA — sees the death of an unborn child as one of the mother’s injuries. The law says a baby must show independent life outside a mother’s body to be deemed a living person, and therefore a victim of crime.

The law, as they say, is an ass.

Who got to decide this, and when? Why is there such resistance to reforming this part of the Criminal Code?

Those unborn twin boys were mourned in their own right. Relatives told media “these babies were already part of the family”. They were mourned to some degree by each one of us who read the story and wept a little on the inside.

Like most of us, I know couples who’ve gone through the trauma of late-term miscarriage or stillbirth. Maybe you’re one of them.

You can’t tell me the babies you lost were nothing more than a bunch of cells attached to a life source. They were your children.

Disagree? OK, let’s have some real talk, some adult talk if you’re up for it.

How many of you have ever been invited to a foetus shower? Didn’t think so. We hold baby showers to celebrate the pending arrival of a unique life, brimming with promise. An expecting couple doesn’t get asked, what sex is your foetus or, have you chosen a name for your foetus? I could go on, but best I don’t.

Try telling parents who’ve lost a baby, or a woman who has delivered a stillborn child, that that baby is ‘just a foetus’ and doesn’t deserve to be recognised.

We call them babies when they’re born and foetus when we try to justify everything else. The language we use sanitises truth for the sake of our comfort, softens the blow when the blow is worthy of being felt.

A spokesman for Attorney-General John Quigley said the State Government had no plans to review WA’s legislation.

I want to know why not.

In NSW, the reform agenda is known as Zoe’s law. In 2009, Zoe Donegan was stillborn at 32 weeks after her mother’s car was hit by a mini-van. Behind the wheel, a drug-addled driver. You should google the story. It will break your heart. Zoe’s law seeks to amend NSW law to make it a crime to harm or destroy a child in utero. The Bill is yet to be passed and remains in limbo.

A lot of the pushback on this kind of legislative change has come from pro-choice campaigners who fret that adjusting the law could affect legislation around late-term abortion.

To me, the two issues are separate.

To conflate them is at best mischievous, at worst a terrible insult to the women who chose to keep their babies, but were robbed of their choice and their children by a crime.

What we’re talking about here is an appropriate penalty for criminal acts, and about recognising that life is precious, at every stage. If the law is drafted correctly, not reactively or in haste, there’s no need for concern.

Murdoch University lecturer Lorraine Finlay is a former State prosecutor, a former associate to Justice Dyson Heydon in the High Court (among many other things) and has written extensively on the topic.

She says while the concerns of pro-choice campaigners are important, the issues are not automatically interlinked. She wrote recently that the law can be drafted so that it has no broader implication for either abortion or the legal rights of pregnant women.

As a society, we acknowledge that life, at every stage, matters.

If it didn’t, we wouldn’t have such stringent, well-debated and carefully drafted abortion laws in Australia.

The taking of life, either medically or via a reckless or intentional criminal act, is a monumental thing and as a society we recognise that.

We don’t need to have further conversations around existing abortion laws. It’s about looking at current holes in the Criminal Code and plugging them. It’s about recognising that most of the difficult and complex social issues we face are worth the subsequent awkward and uncomfortable conversations.

Try telling parents who’ve lost a baby, or a woman who has delivered a stillborn child, that that baby is “just a foetus” and doesn’t deserve to be recognised. You just wouldn’t.

I mean, at the very least, stop and ask yourself, how would I feel if it were me, would current laws be enough?

This conversation is about as fun as walking barefoot through a paddock full of doublegees.

But here’s the thing — two ideas can and should be able to coexist in tension. This is no different — probably more emotive, but at the heart of it, no different.

Zoe’s life counted. The lives of Katherine Hoang’s unborn twin sons, counted. The law needs to reflect that.

Gemma Tognini is managing director of GT Media

https://thewest.com.au/opinion/gemma-tognini/law-is-wrong-when-unborn-lives-are-lost-ng-b88999761z

Wednesday, August 7, 2019

True wealth is found in Jesus Christ, not money, Pope Francis says

By Hannah Brockhaus

Vatican City, Aug 7, 2019 / 04:26 am (CNA).- Pope Francis Wednesday criticized those who give more consideration to money than the sacraments or helping others find true wealth – a relationship with Jesus Christ.

“How many times do I think of this when I see some parishes where it is thought that money is more important than the sacraments! Please! A poor Church: let us ask the Lord for this,” the pope said Aug. 7.

The Gospel teaches to not put trust in financial resources, but in “the true wealth” that is a relationship with Jesus Christ, he said. “We are indeed – as St. Paul would say – ‘poor, but capable of enriching many; as people who have nothing and instead possess everything.’”

“Our all is the Gospel, which manifests the power of the name of Jesus who performs wonders.”

“Here the portrait of the Church appears, which sees those in difficulty, does not close its eyes, knows how to look humanity in the face to create meaningful relationships, bridges of friendship and solidarity instead of barriers,” he said.

After a month-long break from general audiences, Pope Francis resumed his catechesis on the Acts of the Apostles, reflecting on the book’s first account of disciples performing a miraculous healing.

In the episode, Peter and John are going to the temple to pray when they encounter a crippled man who had been carried to sit outside the gate called “the Beautiful Gate” to beg for alms.

Francis explained that at that time, people with physical disabilities were not allowed to offer sacrifices inside the temple, or even to enter, because it was believed their infirmity was due to their sin or sins of their parents.

Then Peter took him by the hand and raised him up. The man, crippled from birth, “leaped up, stood, and walked around, and went into the temple with them, walking and jumping and praising God.”

“This is the ‘art of accompaniment,’” Pope Francis said. “This [is what] the two disciples do with the cripple. They see him, they say look at us, they give a hand, they help him rise, and they heal him.”

“This is what Jesus does for all of us,” he added. “When we are in bad moments, in moments of sin, in moments of sadness. We say to Jesus: Look at me. I am here. And we take Jesus’ hand and we let ourselves be raised.”

The goal should be a Church “which knows how to take by the hand and accompany to lift, not to condemn,” he said, adding that “Jesus always, always holds out his hand, always trying to lift, to make people heal, to be happy, to meet God.”

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/true-wealth-is-found-in-jesus-christ-not-money-pope