A friend of mine who is devoutly Catholic came up to me and said, "Before you misunderstand me any further, I want you to know that I believe in the theory of evolution. However, you should also know that I think evolution is like God's tool for creating life- It's like God is using evolution as a tool to create new life forms."
I replied that there was no evidence to support the idea that there is an actor controlling the process of evolution, but (as usual) he smacked it down on grounds of faith. I know an argument to faith is absurd, but is there any other way to convince him of this, or is it pointless?
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I am not sure there is ANY argument your friend will find convincing, but there are some good ones:
1. Generally, when a tool is made, it is made with a use in mind. With evolution, this is not so, its results vary so greatly and sporadically that it is a piss poor tool to use for anything intentional.
2. If we could run evolution multiple times, the results would vary greatly every try, which makes it about as useful as a hammer that only exists at random intervals.
3. We understand how evolution works, what fuels and drives it, and none of it is related to the existence of sky fairies in any way.
You could ask him what is the value of his faith to him, and how he feels when practicing it. You might not win the debate, but you could gain some insight on the nature of faith, and of your friend.
He cannot resolve Genesis and Evolution with the reasoning a child can understand. If he nor anyone else can do that, then the alternative is to pretend to resolve it at the fairy tale level. The latter has been the method of convincing children to embrace belief systems since their creation. He simply chooses to remain a child.
Move on.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-new-physics-theory-of-life/ A theory that increasing organization (evolution) occurs as matter attempts to shed heat(entropy) more efficiently. The author, Jeremy England, is a believer but does not associate his experimentation with a creator nor a god. Like the complexity of Dawkin's selfish gene, there is no straight path from his experiments to natural selection., just to increasing complexity in chemical groupings. Nonethelesds, his experimental results have put another nail in the casket of creationism.
Thanks for the link to that article. I found its breakdown of the second law of thermodynamics intriguing. The posited association of changes in entropy as causal and resultant from life somehow fits in with the idea that formamide may have reacted to the energy of the late heavy bombardment to produce nucleobases. Fascinating, even if it turns out not to be completely correct.