Robert Brenchley wrote:

>The issue of a Creator isn't within the remit of
science, so isn't addressed. It's true that evolutionary theory has been
abused in order to attack the concept of a Creator, but it would be better to
tackle this as either an abuse of science, or in some cases as bad science. I
personally have met numerous scientists and others who affirm the theory of
evolution, as I would, and who have as strong a belief in God as anyone I
have met.

        This can hardly be called 'chemistry of honey' so I think it should
be renamed.

        I have worked for some years on this fraught issue of 'Creationism'
v. evolution.  I believe it is essentially a non-issue, a misunderstanding,
and I hope we don't waste much time on it.
        The best book I know of is 'How Blind Is the Watchmaker' (Ashgate
1998) by Neil Broom, with whom I recently published an article on the
subject in the NZ magazine _Stimulus_ .  This is not on the infobahn so I'm
prepared to send it as a M$W file to any who request it.
                We hold that science in general and evolution in particular
can offer no genuine conflict with true religion.  There are well-known
general grounds for our attitude. The purview of science is restricted: it
is as narrow as the physical realm of matter & energy (including living
organisms), but no spiritual entities. The fact that science can study only
this restricted realm (within which it has achieved very impressive
discoveries) is no handicap; it is simply a fact that the scientific method
applies only to energy and matter as defined by science, and when science
attempts to pronounce on moral questions, let alone spiritual questions, it
is a trespasser.
        My namesake is correct.  The fundamentalists who make out that
EITHER  organisms have evolved  OR  God has created them are confused.
Theirs is a phoney antinomy.  Evolution  - life unfolding over time with
increasing complexity & variety  - is simply a fact.  But the final cause
of this process cannot be illuminated by science.  if there's room, may I
append a newspaper article by Prof Broom & myself?
        The reason I think this topic is worth space on Bee-L is that the
way bees are handled, and many questions of how they should be confronted
with e.g. pesticides or GM pollen, do depend on whether we believe nature
is mere mechanism or God's Creation.  That issue is not basically dependent
on whether there has been evolution or not.



Life's Biggest Question Still Needs an Answer
                                                                NZ Herald
22-3-99
                The origins of human existence cannot be explained by
discoveries of where and how life developed, but rather by asking why,
write  NEIL BROOM and ROBERT MANN .

        Professor Paul Davies is certainly one of the most successful
modern scientists in guiding towards "a rapprochement between science and
spirituality".  But his latest book, The Fifth Miracle , asserts that, if
we find life elsewhere than on our planet, "the ramifications are profound
in the extreme."
         "They transcend mere science, and impact on such philosophical
issues as whether there is a meaning to physical existence or whether life,
the universe and everything are ultimately pointless and absurd" he writes.
        "That is the momentous import of the search for life on Mars and
beyond.  The search for life in the universe is thus a search for ourselves
-  who we are and what our place is in the grand scheme of things".
        The notion  -  called panspermia  -  that life first arose
elsewhere and then came across space on to our planet  has exerted only
minor, fitful influence on evolutionary theory.  The similar notion that
our planet may have 'seeded' microbes far afield has an even scantier
history.  The other logical possibility is that life arose independently in
two or more places.  Few scientific facts point to such hypotheses, and
none in any conclusive way.
        But, whatever facts science may yet uncover on Mars or further
away, these can not be important for the spiritual understanding which
Davies seeks.
        Davies says that the existence of life elsewhere, if factually
confirmed, "would be the most definite indication of there being a purpose
or direction to life  . . .  the closest we could get to proof of the
existence of a 'god'."  Similarly, he says that should life be found off
the planet this would be "the greatest evidence for a creator".
        These statements are, rather obviously, wrong.  The spiritual
questions grandly outlined by Davies cannot be illuminated by technical
facts about where life first arose, or where else it moved to, on or off
our planet.  'Where?', and even 'when?', are vastly less important, and
infinitely less spiritual, than 'why?'  -  the question about causes &
meaning.
        Scholarly consideration of causes in biology is famously
illuminated by William Paley's scenario of finding, during a stroll on a
heath, a watch.  The evident order of this mechanism  -  especially if it
was working when found  -  would rightly force the finder who studied it to
infer the existence of a design and, therefore, a designer.
        Watches can never be said to have arisen from an entirely
impersonal, mindless cause. Such mechanical contrivances are always the
expression of creativity, of some person who decided to construct a
mechanism for the purpose of telling time.
 Paley argued that the living mechanisms of nature  -  the complex
machinery so evident in biology  -  must similarly be inferred to be
designed.
However materialistic one's views might be and however many millions or
billions of years of evolution may be granted to us, the machinery of life
surely requires an explanation of a personal rather than impersonal kind.
We believe this argument has been wrongly neglected  -  certainly not
refuted.  Megatime is no substitute for purpose.
        To discuss causes of life, one needs traditional understanding of
the term 'causes'.  The four categories of cause, identified by Aristotle
and little challenged for 2.3 millennia, have rarely been taught to science
students let alone the general public, but they are crucial for explanation
in biology.  Two of the four are simply ignored today by most
scientist-philosophers.
        Before the recent decline in the philosophy of science, the
Auckland biologist John E. Morton, using science, as Aristotle of course
could not, illustrated the 4 categories of cause in his 1972 'claret
cameo', which we paraphrase below {see Box}.

  **************************

                        Morton's 'claret cameo'

        What are the causes of my bottle of claret?
        The material cause includes the grape juice and the yeast,
materials transformed by the efficient cause into this peculiar substance
claret.
        The efficient cause is the action of the yeast on the grape sugars
and some minor components, resulting in aqueous ethanol and some minor new
chemicals characteristic of claret.
        But my bottle of claret has also a final cause: a man (named
Babich) exerted his will to organise suitable vessels for the substances
which are the material cause, and planned a sequence of operations for the
purpose of making claret by maximising the likelihood that the efficient
cause for claret would operate, i.e.  the particular chemical action of the
yeast on the grape juice leading to claret.
        What Aristotle called the formal cause, on which we here say no
more, is the 'claret idea' in Babich's mind.
**********************

{photo of a frog  -     caption    Design secrets rest with the humble frog}

        If a bottle of claret is required by human reason to have a final
cause, how could it be denied that a frog also is designed?
        The attempt to explain life is, we believe, severely incomplete
until one faces up to final cause in biology.  This is little assisted by
panspermia, which merely pushes back one stage the scientific question of
where & when life first showed up in the universe, and has negligible
spiritual significance.
        The "enlightment" assumption that science can, and soon will, give
an essentially complete description and explanation of the physical
(including biological) world constitutes scientism  -  faith in science as
the "only" way of knowledge.  The only type of final cause  -  person
acting to bring about the observed change  -  is, in this modern approach,
human will.  'Who designed this watch?' is thus an allowed question, but
'who designed this frog?' is not.
        The attempt to illuminate spiritual questions by studying only
nature without recourse to special revelation is called natural theology.
One of us has recently tried to bring natural theology up to date in a
small book concentrating on design in biology (How Blind is the Watchmaker
? , Ashgate 1998).
        The existence of life on Mars or elsewhere seems to us a
scientifically interesting but theologically trivial question.  Attempts to
discern anything about God, or spiritual matters more generally, from this
sort of science are, in our opinion, doomed.
        There is compelling evidence much 'closer to home' for a
transcendent cause.  Just take a look at any one of the marvellous
mechanisms found in the living world.  Such living 'machines' embody and
express a degree of complexity, sophistication, and purposefulness, that
far surpasses anything created by human hands.  Are we then to conclude
that there is no evidence of mindful orchestration in the living world?  No
Mastermind?
         The really important questions about what we are and why we exist
are not scientific, and science is a trespasser when it pronounces on such
matters.  This fundamental limitation of science was admirably summarised
by Professor Morton a quarter of a century ago [in his book 'Man, Science &
God' Collins 1972].
        The feeling of breathless enchantment can be evoked by natural
theology, and can lead the children of atheism & agnosticism to investigate
more important parts of theology.
        But bugs winging their way to or from Mars, or any other version of
panspermia, are incapable of shedding light on the really important
questions concerning purpose and meaning in life.

~~~~~~~~~

        Neil Broom is associate professor of engineering, and Robert Mann
was until retirement senior lecturer in environmental studies, at the
University of Auckland.

---



-
Robt Mann
consultant ecologist
P O Box 28878   Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand
                (9) 524 2949