Creation questions - Four American academics give some answers

William Dembski helped move intelligent design into public prominence. He is an associate research professor in the conceptual foundations of science at Baylor University and a Senior Fellow with the Discovery Institute. His latest book is No free lunch: why specified complexity cannot be purchased without intelligence (Rowman & Littlefield).

Q: Ray Kurzweil and many others have predicted an age of spiritual machines, complete with artificial intelligence, uploading and downloading of human consciousness, and whatnot. Do you think this will ever happen?

A: It's a pipe dream. There's no evidence that consciousness, intelligence, or conceptual understanding has anything to do with computation or complexity. Kurzweil's extravagant claims are driven entirely by his materialistic presuppositions: (1) humans are entirely material; (2) their brains have a certain degree of complexity; (3) computational power is fast exceeding that complexity; (4) thus a suitably programmed computer will in short order beat human cognitive capacities.

The actual field of artificial intelligence (rather than the materialistic philosophy surrounding artificial intelligence) has made very limited progress and shows no signs of capturing human cognition. So the short answer is no. Kurzweil is peddling science fiction and bad philosophy.

Q: How do you think mainstream scientists can leave strict Darwinism behind while maintaining their professional integrity?

A: Let me turn it around. Mainstream scientists must leave strict Darwinism behind if they are to maintain their professional integrity.

Strict Darwinism asserts that Dar-win's mechanism of random variation and natural selection is able to account for all the complexity and diversity we see in living forms. The evidence simply does not support this claim, and there is good evidence to suggest that this mechanism cannot do all that strict Darwinists attribute to it (evidence now acknowledged even by biologists who oppose intelligent design). To maintain strict Darwinism is to maintain an unsubstantial dogma. That's not how science is supposed to work.

Michael Behe questioned common notions about natural selection in Darwin's Black Box: the biochemical challenge to evolution (Touchstone). He is professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University and co-wrote Intelligent Design: the bridge between science and theology (InterVarsity) with William Dembski.

Q: Some argue that design is simply an argument from ignorance and that Darwinism will be shown to be true once more study is done. How do you respond to this?

A: The public was led to believe that Darwinism was already shown to be true! Saying that future work will eventually vindicate the theory is a very weak position and a significant retreat from what we had been led to believe.

Tell archaeologists that their discovery of ancient, designed cities is 'an argument from ignorance'. Tell astronomers that, if they discover what they think are radio signals from intelligent aliens, it would only be 'an argument from ignorance'.

Q: Is intelligent design verifiable?

A: Intelligent design is falsifiable. If an experiment showed that natural selection could make a system as complicated as the cell, design would have been shown to be untrue. To say the least, I don't expect that to happen.

Q: How has your discussion of irreducible complexity added to the debate over origins?

A: The concept of irreducible complexity shows there is a problem for Darwinism at the very foundation of life - the cell - which had been ignored. Recognising the problem shows that Darwinists don't know nearly as much as they had claimed, and that other explanations, such as design, are very much in the running.

Phillip E. Johnson recharged the Darwin debate with his landmark book, Darwin on Trial (Intervarsity). He is Jefferson E. Peyser Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. His new work, The Right Questions: truth, meaning and public debate (InterVarsity) is set for release later this year.

Q: What got you interested in origins? Did you expect that your work would create so much controversy?

A: Darwinism is the culturally dominant creation myth. It is the basis of the power of the liberal elites, and it thrives on the mystique of 'science'. Yes, I planned for a cultural struggle.

Q: Is Darwinism so dominant because many scientists see it as the core of biology - or because it can be used to explain away God's existence?

A: The latter. The whole point of Darwinism is to show that there is no need for a supernatural creator, because nature can do the creating by itself.

Q: Scientific American recently ran a feature, '15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense'. It boasted that 'methodological naturalism can push back ignorance' and that creationism 'adds nothing of intellectual value to the effort'. How do you respond to this?

A: The important question is whether Darwinism is true and materialists like the editors of Scientific American employ evasions to avoid confronting that question.

Q: You've written that in the wake of 9/11, Christians were seen by some in the media as 'fundamentalist' scapegoats, notably by Richard Dawkins. Is this sort of broad-brush smear a serious problem and how should believers respond to it?

A: Dawkins and his ilk believe that all religions are the same (evil fantasies), so they imagine that Christians and the Taliban are much the same. Our media and our educators contribute to these grotesque misunderstandings because they are so poorly informed about religion.

John Frame is professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological seminary in Orlando. His newest books are The Doctrine of God and No Other God: A Response to Open Theism (both Presbyterian and Reformed).

Q: Your new book addresses the problem of treating God as female. Beyond the clear-cut issues of heterodoxy, what are the implications of this view?

A: Culturally, feminist theologians present the female god as a model for an egalitarian human society in which (1) there are no gender-based role differences in the church or family, and (2) ultimately, nobody has 'power over' anybody else. Theologically, the idea of a female deity destroys the biblical images of God as Father and as Husband to his Bride, the church. This submission of the church to Christ as a godly wife to her husband seems to me to be a central concern of Scripture.

Q: You mention that many today seek a God who is non-threatening, non-hierarchical and non-patriarchical. How do you respond?

A: First, by making clear what Scripture teaches: that God is holy (and therefore can be threatening), that he is supremely authoritative as the Lord, and that he is the Father from whom every fatherhood is named (Ephesians 3.15). Second, by showing that if God is not truly supreme in authority we have no basis for determining what is true or right.

Q: How does one's understanding of God affect one's understanding of the outside world?

A: God created everything by his eternal plan. So the most important part of understanding anything in the world is understanding how that thing is related to God. If we don't understand the world in relation to God, the world becomes a chaos, without value or meaning.

This article first appeared as part of a longer piece in WORLD Magazine and is reprinted with permission.