# Eugenie Scott's lecture about the creation/evolution controversy



## cih1355 (Dec 2, 2009)

I just finished watching Eugenie Scott's lecture about intelligent design and the creation/evolution controversy. It was given at the University of Michigan. She says that creationists have the following misconceptions of evolution: 1) If things evolve, then things happen at random or by chance, 2) Amphibians are more closely related to fish than other terapods, and 3) If the theory of evolution is false, then creationism is true.

She says that Intelligent Design is a subset of Creationism because there is a book about intelligent design that is a revision of some books about creationism and the definitions of creationism and intelligent design in those books are similar. My response is that this does not prove that Intelligent Design is a subset of Creationism. This could mean that some creationists are also involved in the Intelligent Design Movement. 

She thinks that science should operate according to the principle of methodological materialism. She believes that supernatural explanations should not be allowed in science. She says that science makes no assumptions about whether or not the supernatural exists. She says that it is wrong for scientists to say, “This phenomena has a natural cause and God has nothing to do with it.” 

She gives a critique of the intelligent design arguments. Since there could be some unknown natural cause that can explain certain phenomena, then there is no need to use a supernatural explanation when explaining that phenomena. Many of the arguments in favor of intelligent design uses analogies between man-made objects and biological structures. She says that the analogy between man-made objects like machines and biological structures is not good. Man-made objects and biological structures do not come into existence in the same way. They do not develop in the same way. She talks about the intelligent design arguments that have to do with complexity, but she does not talk about the arguments that have to do with the origin of information in certain biological structures like DNA. 

How would you respond to her lecture?

Here is a link to the video that has her lecture. It is 1.5 hours long. 

[video=youtube;PE3Qvfm8jU0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE3Qvfm8jU0&feature=related[/video]


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## Hebrew Student (Dec 2, 2009)

cih1355,

Euginie Scott is worse than Richard Dawkins. My simple response would be that, if you rule out the presuppositions of supernaturalism, you cannot do science, since you need things like induction and logic in order to do science. One has to ask Eugenie Scott if she can account for her usage of induction or logic given her "methodological naturalism" [i.e., just plain ol' naturalism].

Also, I would question whether the phrase "naturalistic explaination" is even coherent. Explaination involves some type of meaning, and, if all you have is matter, how can you come up with meaning?

Also, Eugenie Scott needs to stop pretending neutrality. She is purposefully creating a self-contradition between epistimology and metaphysics. She says that she will only consider naturalistic explainations [naturalistic epistimology], but will allow for someone to hold to supernaturalistic views of reality [metaphysics]. The problem is that the two branches of philosophy, metaphysics and epistimology, are related to one another. How you know what you know is intimately related to the nature of reality, because the only way you can know if your epistimology is correct is through metaphysics, and vice versa. Hence, she is setting up, in the mind of the Christian student, a contradiction by smuggling in a naturalistic epistimology disguised as "methodological naturalism." That strikes me as a move of cowardice.

As far as the critiques of intelligent design, I have always thought intellegent design to be weakened by this idea that both sides are just doing "science." I don't think you can go that route. I think Greg Bahnsen had the better argument, and that is, if you accept "methodological naturalism," how do you explain any order? What is order in a universe that simply has matter and motion?

As I said, Eugenie Scott is worse than Richard Dawkins. At least Richard Dawkins is honest enough to admit that folks like Eugenie Scott are really atheists who are promoting atheism, and calls them to be more honest about their conclusions than what they are. I can only pray for the day when she will do that, and stop dodging the issues.

God Bless,
Adam


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## MMasztal (Dec 2, 2009)

Hebrew Student said:


> My simple response would be that, if you rule out the presuppositions of supernaturalism, you cannot do science, since you need things like induction and logic in order to do science. One has to ask Eugenie Scott if she can account for her usage of induction or logic given her "methodological naturalism" [i.e., just plain ol' naturalism].



Your first paragraph nailed it, Adam. As you noted, Euginie Scott operates using the proverbial "borrowed capital" as coined by Bahnsen (or maybe VanTil) in order to conduct her research but Satan has blinded her to comprehending that fact.


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