Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Barr vs Behe at Wheaton College

This debate between two Christian biologists is nothing worth writing home about. Behe makes the argument of the creationists cdesign proponentsists that if something is complex and functional and difficult to explain naturally that it is time to stop trying to find a natural explanation and start looking for a supernatural one. Barr, to his small credit, points out that this is a terrible idea and would have prevented all manner of scientific breakthroughs. No one, however, makes the case that methodological naturalism is a useful approach because metaphysical naturalism happens to be true, and thus the debate fails to get off the ground as a true clash of worldviews. Instead, what we have here is a debate between one Christian who argues that we should make the leap of faith to supernatural explanations as soon as we get stuck on something complex and functional, and another Christian (not even a biologist) who argues that we should make the leap of faith to supernatural explanations after doing a bit of science first. My advice is to take a pass on this giant mug of lukewarm weak tea.

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