LINK: Mikael Stenmark on Evolution, Purpose, and God

[This post was originally published on The Secular Outpost on October 21, 2011. It was republished here on November 9, 2021 with the date manually adjusted to reflect its original publication date.]

Abstract

A number of biologists maintain that the recent developments in evolutionary biology have profound implications for religion, morality and our self-understanding. The author focuses on the issue whether evolutionary biology has any relevance for a religious understanding of the meaning of life. First, the question about the meaning of life is clarified. Second, the argument of biologists such as Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould and Edward O. Wilson, that evolutionary theory undermines the religious belief that there is a purpose or meaning to the existence of the universe and to human life in particular, is evaluated. The author maintains that this argument has some merit, but that it nevertheless fails both to be a purely scientific argument and to establish the intended conclusion.

LINK

Addendum (October 21, 2011): Stenmark identifies and criticizes the following argument.

(1) All individual species that come into existence through the process of evolution are random (that is, have a low probability) with respect to what evolutionary theory (or more broadly, the sciences) can predict or retrospectively explain;

(2) Therefore, the existence of human beings lacks an ultimate meaning, in particular, their existence is not the result of a divine purpose or intention.
(3) The only things that we can know anything about are the ones science can discover.

(4) The existence of Homo sapiens is planned by God only if the species’ existence is intended by God and it is likely that its emergence will take place for that reason.

(5) But all individual species that come into existence through the process of evolution are random (that is, have a low probability) with respect to what evolutionary theory (or more broadly, the sciences) can predict or retrospectively explain.

(6) Therefore, the existence of human beings lacks an ultimate meaning; in particular, their existence is not the result of God’s purposes, intentions or plans.

Link: 15 Lines of Evidence for Evolution

[This post was originally published on The Secular Outpost on January 1, 2009. It was republished here on November 7, 2021 with the date manually adjusted to reflect its original publication date. The link was also updated to its current location.]

Nature just published a resource "for those wishing to spread awareness of evidence for evolution by natural selection."

From the article's introduction:

Most biologists take for granted the idea that all life evolved by natural selection over billions of years. They get on with researching and teaching in disciplines that rest squarely on that foundation, secure in the knowledge that natural selection is a fact, in the same way that the Earth orbits the Sun is a fact.

Given that the concepts and realities of Darwinian evolution are still challenged, albeit rarely by biologists, a succinct briefing on why evolution by natural selection is an empirically validated principle is useful for people to have to hand. We offer here 15 examples published by Nature over the past decade or so to illustrate the breadth, depth and power of evolutionary thinking. We are happy to offer this resource freely and encourage its free dissemination.

From the table of contents:

Gems from the fossil record
1 Land-living ancestors of whales
2 From water to land
3 The origin of feathers
4 The evolutionary history of teeth
5 The origin of the vertebrate skeleton

Gems from habitats
6 Natural selection in speciation
7 Natural selection in lizards
8 A case of co-evolution
9 Differential dispersal in wild birds
10 Selective survival in wild guppies
11 Evolutionary history matters

Gems from molecular processes
12 Darwin’s Galapagos finches
13 Microevolution meets macroevolution
14 Toxin resistance in snakes and clams
15 Variation versus stability