Last night’s talk by Dave Woetzel was disappointing. His five questions for evolutionists are unconvincing, even to someone like myself who believes in God.
Two of Dave’s five questions concerned subjects outside the domain of science: “Where did it all come from?” and “Why do we have a soul?”
There’s evidence for the “Big Bang” starting off the universe, and of course a curious person would ask, “So where did the Big Bang come from?” In my view, this isn’t a science question because all the possible answers are highly speculative and don’t produce falsifiable hypotheses. The same goes for questions about the soul. These are interesting ideas to think about, but science isn’t the tool to address them. That admission doesn’t mean scientific information about the Big Bang or human evolution is wrong. It certainly doesn’t mean we have to literally accept the Genesis account of creation.
Another two questions were based on a fundamental misunderstanding: “How could life come from rocks?” and “How could biological systems assemble by accident?”
Both these questions essentially say that a complex, ordered system can’t emerge from simple building blocks without a central planning agency. He asked “If I had an explosion in a print shop, would I get a dictionary?” No, but that misses the point. The atoms and molecules that are the building blocks of living forms do not interact randomly; they follow the rules of chemistry and physics. It is well known that simple components interacting through basic rules can produce a complex system: look at economies or ecosystems.
The remaining question contains a logical fallacy: “How could a Big Bang create a fine-tuned universe?”
In discussing the question, he asked how the physical laws of the universe could be so perfectly adapted for our existence. In my view, this question is backward. The only life that can possibly arise in a universe must be adapted to the laws of that universe. It shouldn’t be a surprise, no matter what you believe about creation.
Finally, Dave implied that accepting the theory of evolution means accepting a worldview without compassion or morality. Again, science is not philosophy. Biology tells us that life arose in a progression through time, that biological forms are diverse, that some are better adapted to their environment than others and that the best-adapted survive while others go extinct. It is entirely possible to accept these facts and hold whatever ethics you please.
