Evolution

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Evolution
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Intelligent Design
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Leading Scientists

• Michael Behe, Darwins Black Box, The Edge of
  Evolution
• William Dembski, The Design Inference,
  Intelligent Design, No Free Lunch

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Behes Mousetrap
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Mathematism
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Principles of evolution

• Evolution Species undergo genetic change over
  time.
• Gradualism This takes many generations
• Speciation Ancestral lines can split into
  different species.
• Common ancestry We can always look back in time
  and find descendents joining at their ancestors.
• Natural selection Well-suited individuals
  survive to produce more offspring.
• Processes other than natural selection can
  produce evolutionary change.

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Monsignor Segur

• These infamous doctrines have for their only
  support the most abject passions. Their father is
  pride, their mother impurity, their offspring
  revolutions. They come from hell and return
  thither, taking with them the gross creatures who
  blush not to proclaim and accept them.

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Three dangerous ideas

• Suffering is a necessary part of creation.
• All living things share a common ancestry.
• Natural selection is random, algorithmic, not
  imbued with any purpose.

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Evolutionary Theology A Reading List

• Ian Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science
• Kieth Ward, Divine Action
• Arthur Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age
• Alister McGrath, Science and Religion An
  Introduction
• John Haught, God After Darwin

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William Paley and Natural Theology

• The existence of a watch implies the existence of
  a watchmaker.
• The appearance of design in nature implies the
  existence of a designer, i.e. God.
• The God-of-the-gaps argument
• Is the creation of the universe another gap?

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Evolutionary Theology

• Creation
• Eschatology
• Revelation
• Grace
• Divine Power
• Redemption