An international symposium titled “Human Genetic and Reproductive Technologies: Comparing Religious and Secular Perspectives” and organized by the World Health Organization, Islamic Organization for Medical Sciences and Council For International Organizations Of Medical Sciences was held in Cairo, on 6 – 9 February 2006.
At the symposium Mustafa Akyol presented the following paper explaining how recent scientific discoveries challenge the materialist theories on origins.
Rethinking The ‘Secular Perspective’ On Biology
Going Beyond The Monopoly Of Materialism
ABSTRACT
Our ideas about the future of life are undoubtedly linked with our beliefs about its past. The way we explain the origin of life will have an impact on what we regard as right or wrong about it, and thus, bioethics.
As for the origin of life, Judaism, Christianity and Islam accept and assert a theistic view — that life is created by God. Modern science, on the other, has adopted the materialistic view that regards life as a product of the blind forces of nature. The clash between the two views has been a major bone of contention in the past two centuries. Hence comes the “science vs. religion” dichotomy.
But in the recent decades, unexpected scientific discoveries about the origin of the universe and life have led some scientists to reconsider the materialist paradigm and its core theories such as neo-Darwinian evolution. The overwhelming evidence for design in nature suggests that the a secular perspective on biology may well end up accepting the theistic view; that life is indeed intended and designed by an intelligent Being.
FULL TEXT
It is truly a wise decision for The Islamic Organization for Medical Sciences to bring together Muslim, Christian, Jewish and secular perspectives for this remarkable symposium. The wisdom is, of course, based on the obvious: We need to develop a common ethical standard, at least commonly accepted acceptables and unacceptables in the area of bioethics and you can build these only through dialogue. Yet I think through dialogue we can achieve something even further, even more fundamental: The reconciliation of the Muslim, Christian, Jewish and secular perspectives themselves.
Actually the first three are already quite “synoptic”: they are based on the common premise of theism
This looks very interesting. Any way to the transcripts of all papers presented?
It’s even hard to say that present science is secular. Atheism is the dominated belief in science. If we are supposed to disallow personal beliefs to interfere with science why atheism is allowed to go this far?
Do they have a proof to show us that spontaneous creation of life from lifeless matter is possible? Ofcouse not. All scientific evidences are againts this hypothesis. Ignoring the fact that Abiogenesis is impossible, They resemble us those 18th century scientists who believed in perpetual motion machines. Macro evolution is Darwinian way of believing in Perpetual Motion Machines.
British Astronomer Prof. Fred Hoyle stated:
“True, the problem is not discussed openly in the main stream of biological literature, but one comes on small fragments published in obscure corners by writers who have evidently perceived the problem and been acutely worried by it. Having made their protest against current dogma, such writers seem always to have been prepared to let the matter drop, as no doubt they encountered the same kind of opposition that Chandra Wickramasinghe and I have run into
I don’t see modern science as atheistic at all. It doesn’t concern itself with religious issues, but that is not the same thing. Contrary to what above commentator suggests, many scientists are actually very much religious and pious members of their respective faith. Finding out the mechanisms and rules the world we live in functions by is an entirely different thing from the question as to who, if anyone, drew the blueprint. Indeed, a lot of people, especially in biosciences, find the fact that the entirety of life as we know it, from the smallest bacteria to man function by common principles as so elegant as to very much support the belief in a creator. However, there’s a difference between that and taking religous creation stories as the literal record of the proceedings of creation. And in the end, to suggest that they should is to suggest that man can grasp the workings of the divine, which, thinking it through, is contrary to most monotheistic faiths.
Oh, and just to clarify the above: That is not to be seen as connect to intelligent design in any way. There’s a difference between artful elegance and intelligent design, which, more often than not, is neither intelligent nor design, nor, even though our host probably will not like to hear that, is it science. Science works along specific methods (not devised by natural scientists, but by philosophers), and unfortunately, the ID community consistently rejects the basic modus operandi.
As a person very interested in all sorts of science, though not a scientist myself, I’d like to make some comments on the contents of this article:
1. The apparent unlikelyness of our existence (be it the sizes of the basic forces, or the paths of evolution) does not point to some creator. That might only be the case, if our universe is the only “attempt” to form a universe, fitted for the existence of intelligent beings, or the only “attempt” of evolution to form an intelligent being (in all times, on any planet).
2. By all I know of it, “Intelligent Design” does not qualify as a “scientific theory”, as it is not falsifiable. It should be labelled a religion.
3. It is written above, that ID proponents mention “blood clutting” and “bacterial flagellum” as not being explainable by the theory of evolution. Instead, there seem to be several scenarios for these: http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/DI/clot/Clotting.html
http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/flagellum.html
4. The volatile statements by Antony Flew (some of them allegedly fakes) are presented here as based on “reasoned analysis of the latest scientific data”. But Richard Carrier comes to the conclusion that “Theists would do well to drop the example of Flew. Because his willfully sloppy scholarship can only help to make belief look ridiculous”, after interviewing and exchanging letters with Professor Flew. http://www.secweb.org/index.aspx?action=viewAsset&id=369
But as a consolation for theists, I am pretty sure that there will always be some only weakly explainable things in this universe, which you can attribute to some god(s). There have been many such things in the past, which believers had to withdraw from time to time (e.g. the age of the world). My point 1 might be such a thing at the moment, but only until we make contact with some other intelligent species
David said:
“3. It is written above, that ID proponents mention “blood clutting” and “bacterial flagellum” as not being explainable by the theory of evolution. Instead, there seem to be several scenarios for these: http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/DI/clot/Clotting.html
http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/flagellum.html“
There are lots of scenarios regarding this and that. There are also many scenarios of Abiogenesis but none of them ever have been proved. Any scientists can come up with an imaginary pathway to construct bactrial flagellum, but as long as he can not show the real genetic pathways and back it up with real calculations that proves those pathway is probable from a mutation/natural selection point of view, that model is only a hypothesis not an empirical fact.
It’s also funny to see that many of those scenarios are explicitly developed only to disprove ID claims not for purpose of a real scientific research. It seems if there was no ID movement, no biologists would care about those actual pathways and produce such scenarios.
Below you can find William Dembski’s reponse to one of your references:
http://www.designinference.com/documents/2003.11.Matzke_Response.htm
and also his reponse to Ken Miller regarding the improbability of evolutionary pathways leading to the flagellum:
http://www.designinference.com/documents/2003.02.Miller_Response.htm