Distinctions: Randomness

In our first video from the "Distinctions" series -- featuring biologists Sean Carroll and Kerry Fulcher, Smithsonian Human Origins Program director Rick Potts, and Old Testament scholar John Walton -- we look at the concept of randomness. While it is understood by many simply to mean blind, undirected and purposeless, in truth, randomness is far more complex and awe-inspiring than this overly-simplified definition.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• VIDEO5
• Randomness

[ubi2002]

I do not understand why Dr. William Lane Craig was mentioned here... his statements were irrelevant to evolution. What he was talking about was the initial conditions of the universe and the fine-tuning of the constants, which is essential for biological evolution to take place. He seems misplaced with Meyer and Behe (as they are actually talking about biological evolution).

[Drgamedood]

@AegeanKing I have listened to his podcasts. Check out his podcast called "Evolution and Skepticism". It confirms what I've claimed.

[AegeanKing]

@Drgamedood Actually, that is not what he has said. Craig has said on multiple occassions, if you listen to his podcasts, that he is open to the evidence and the evolution does not bother his theism in the least because ancient Christians interpreted genesis in many ways and that any objections he might have against evolution were scientific and not religious in nature.

[Drgamedood]

@ubi2002 Craig is a member of the intelligent design movement and is a fellow of the discovery institute, He has made statements where basically make the same claims that Meyer and Behe do. That he accepts "microevolution" but thinks "macroevolution" has not been proven. Which is obviously false.

[Limbsy]

@Limbsy And in regards to my critique of Sean Carroll's analogy, my argument is that his argument makes sense, but doesn't defend randomness as a process that creates beautiful things. Randomness create disorder. That's common sense. If evolution was directed, then it's not random. You can't expect order and functionality without intelligence and intentionality. But then again, to do that you need an intelligence or God in the picture, in which case, you've left science. Problem lol.

[Limbsy]

@Limbsy is not isn't* anything but random***

[Limbsy]

Randomness or not. Irrelevant. The question is: Intentionality, or a lack thereof. And if there is intentionality, then there is not randomness lol.

God Bless Sean Carroll, but I disagree lol. The birth of a child isn't anything but random. It's random in the sense of who is born, perhaps, but the process is clearly a designed, and intended process, which isn't random.

[randomdesign1]

It is good that the value and amazing potential/promise of random processes in biology are beginning to receive their just recognition. The randomness of evolution is redemptive to life; not corrupting or destructive! So long as Christian theology continues to expound the inaccurate interpretation that randomness equates to some sort of purposeless/Godless scheme, compatibility of the realities of physical life with Christian faith will be difficult, if not impossible.