By MARY MIDGLEY - GUARDIAN.CO.UK
Added: Sat, 12 Jun 2010 13:37:55 UTC

Thanks to Miranda for the link
Original link

Is the evolutionary argument against God's existence any stronger than Isaac Newton's in favour?

Science really isn't connected to the rest of life half as straightforwardly as one might wish. For instance, Isaac Newton noted gladly that his theory of gravitation gave a scientific proof of God's existence. Today's anti-god warriors, by contrast, declare that Darwin's evolutionary theory gives a scientific disproof of that existence and use this reasoning, quite as confidently as Newton used his, to convert the public.

In both cases the huge prestige of science is being used not for scientific purposes but to defend an existing general world-view. In both cases that defence is found necessary because this world-view, though prevalent and respected, has been coming under attack. And in both cases the supposedly scientific argument provided is weak. It only convinces people who already share that world-view.

Naturally, Newton's arguments scarcely need refuting today. Though he was not a Christian, he reasoned that gravity cannot be physically caused because it acts at a distance and material causes were believed always to work by contact, leaving God – a "god of the gaps" – as the only possible cause. Nobody thinks like this now. But is today's evolutionary argument – which is often treated as fatal not just to Christianity but to religion generally – actually any stronger?
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TAGGED: COMMENTARY, EVOLUTION, IRRATIONALITY