If you’re fascinated by science but bored with discussions about evolution (as I am), then I recommend this short video exchange between linguist John McWhorter and biochemist Michael Behe.
McWhorter, who happens to be an atheist, does an excellent job of asking the questions many of us have about the explanatory ability of Darwin’s theory. Behe, who happens to a Catholic, answers honestly and without overstating either the current scientific understanding of the process or his alternate teleologically-oriented hypothesis.
Although the video was produced for Robert Wright’s Bloggingheads.tv, it’s no longer available on that site. That’s a shame since it provides an interesting juxtaposition with Wright’s own arguments. Whereas Behe (and apparantly McWhorter) believe the theory has limitations for explaining biological phenomena, Wright appears to argue that evolutionary processes can explain almost everything, including God.
Related: See my post on Robert Wright as the founding theologian of neism and David Marshall’s review of Wright’s The Evolution of God.
(Via: Uncommon Descent)
August 27th, 2009 | 3:46 pm
Evolution can certainly explain human behavior (often called socio-biology). The Roissysphere is the clearest demonstration of this fact.
August 28th, 2009 | 10:42 pm
Behe is not saying that evolution has no explanatory power. He is saying that there are serious limits to what it can explain.
August 30th, 2009 | 11:03 pm
The first point made by the interviewer is what always seems to come up and IMHO will be resolved over time as Lamarckian ideas reveal themselves… ie. the organism is involved in it’s own evolution, rather than simply ‘ramdom’ mutation.
EDL
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