The people at BioLogos have weighed in with a group reaction to the Ham/Nye debate on evolution. “Ham on Nye: Our take,” which gives the separate reactions of six associates.

BioLogos has always fascinated me because it’s an organization that has immense potential for cognitive dissonance. While dedicated to helping evangelical Christians accept evolution—an admirable task—they insist at the same time on adhering to evangelical Christianity. In other words, they promote science with one hand and promote superstition with the other. They don’t experience the discomfort of cognitive dissonance because they’re believers, and it always mystifies me how smart people can retain such primitive superstitions. (Yes, I know that reader Sastra tells us, via Michael Shermer, that smart people are better at deluding themselves!)

At any rate, I’ll summarize a few of BioLogos’s reactions. The first is from Jim Stump, the content manager for the site:

So no amount of evidence about the age of the universe will convince [Ham] otherwise. The argument instead needs to focus on his interpretation of Scripture before he’ll even consider the science. If Nye’s naturalism is accepted, then it isn’t reasonable to think that God has any role in the world today. So no amount of quoting Bible verses to him will be effective. Perhaps his concerns about suffering and Christian exclusivism need to be addressed before he’ll even consider a Christian view of creation. At BioLogos we are not just seeking to defend what seems reasonable to us, but we’re seeking truth from Scripture and from the natural world to form a coherent picture of God’s action in the world.

Here Stump falls into the same trap as did Ham, except the issue is not the age of the earth but naturalism. Stump, like Phillip Johnson and other Intelligent Design advocates, sees the enemy of religion not so much evolution, but materialism and naturalism—in other words, the rejection of the supernatural. So what evidence would it take to convince Stump that there is no evidence for the supernatural, aka God? And why would “concerns about suffering” move anybody towards Christianity? If anything, they should move people away from that faith, for no Christian God would allow such undeserved suffering.

In the second paragraph, Stump is acting precisely like Ham. While Ham’s a priori commitment is to Biblical literalism, Stump’s is to a theistic god (“God’s action in the world”). Science has no a priori commitment to any truths about the universe, and whatever “truth” Stump has managed to squeeze from scripture is countermanded by the “truths” wrung from the Qur’an by Muslims, or from the Book of Mormon by the Latter-Day Saints. In his whole critique of Ham, Stump seems oblivious to the fact that he is in fact behaving identically to Ham: evincing an unscientific commitment to an a priori religious belief, and then determining to hold onto that belief no matter what the facts may show.

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From John Walton, a “BioLogos advisor”:

The only comment that I want to make in that regard is that it was evident that Ken Ham believed that all evolutionists were naturalists—an identification that those associated with BioLogos would strongly contest.

Again, those BioLogos adherents who aren’t naturalists are aligning themselves here perfectly with the Wedge Strategy of Intelligent Design, which is to oppose materialism and naturalism as the true enemies of Christianity.

Walton also decries Ham’s Biblical literalism because Ham simply isn’t reading the Bible as it should be read: as a document reflecting the limited understanding of its writers:

I commend Ken Ham’s frequent assertion of the gospel message. His testimony to his faith was admirable and of course, I agree with it. I also share his beliefs about the nature of the Bible, but I do not share his interpretation of the Bible on numerous key points. From the opening remarks Ham proclaimed that his position was based on the biblical account of origins. But he is intent on reading that account as if it were addressing science (he truly believes it is). I counter by saying that we cannot have a confident understanding of what the Bible claims until we read it as an ancient document. I believe as he does that the Bible was given by God, but it was given through human instruments into an ancient culture and language. We can only encounter the Bible’s claims by taking account of that context. . . What appears to Ham as a “natural” reading, is extremely debatable if one attempts to read the text of Genesis as the (God-inspired) ancient document that it is.

So where, exactly, does Walton get the idea that he, and not Ham, knows that although the bible is written by humans, it was somehow “given by God”? What’s the evidence for that? And why is the story of Genesis so obviously wrong but the story of Jesus so obviously right? The reason is, of course, that science has disproved Genesis but not Jesus. But of course we have no evidence at all, save in that book, of any “Jesus” who was the son of God, worked miracles, and was resurrected. Other scriptures, like the Qur’an, are also reputed to be “given by God.” Why does Walton think they’re wrong?

Those like Walton who cherry-pick the Bible, winnowing what they see as truth from metaphor, need to tell us on what basis they’re proceeding. If they argue that anything in the Bible not disproved by science is true (like the story of Jesus), then they’re on very shaky—and unscientific—ground. For one thing, they’d have to accept all kinds of dubious stuff like Lot’s wife being turned into a salt pillar, and the remarkable longevities of Moses and his peers, as being “true.”

Finally, Walton admits, that he, too, could never change his mind about certain foundational truths of the Bible; they’re just different truths from the ones accepted by Ham:

When Ham was asked what it would take to change his mind, he was lost for words because he said that he could never stop believing in the truth of the Bible. I would echo that sentiment, but it never seemed to occur to him that there might be equally valid interpretations of the early chapters of Genesis, or maybe even ones that could garner stronger support.

Right there Walton has lost all his credibility as a supporter of science.

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Dennis Venema is BioLogos’s “Fellow of Biology,” which I think means he’s the guy in charge of all the biology at the site. And he makes some good points about what ammo Nye could have used against Ham. Venema says, for instance, that Ham should have been challenged with the observation of “vestigial genes”: genes that aren’t functional in a species because they’re inactivated, but are functional in relatives. The inactive genes for making yolk proteins in humans, an example Venema cites, is in fact something I mention in my book. It would be hard for creationists to deal with these, as they clearly show evolutionary transitions between “kinds.” (A bird is certainly in a different “kind” from a human!) Venema might have added that transitional fossils like Tiktaalik and the feathered theropod dinosaurs are just as hard for creationists like Ham to explain, for they also show transitions between “kinds,” however broadly one defines that term.

Venema also mentions how Ham dismissed the work of Rich Lenski and his colleagues showing the evolution of new functions in the bacterium E. coli. But Ham and other creationists (though not IDers, who argue that evolution can’t produce “new information”) might accept that work as showing mere “evolution within kinds.” Reader Jim has informed me that both Lenski and his colleague Zachary Blount, who did the citrate-evolution studies, have published rebuttals of Ham’s assertions; you can find them here, here and here.

Finally, Venema gives us his recipe for converting evangelical Christians to evolution:

. . . overall I had the general feeling what is really needed for the conversation on evolution among brothers and sisters in Christ is twofold. First and foremost, evangelicals need a deeper understanding of the Bible, especially the Ancient Near Eastern context and setting of the original audience of Genesis (for which I am glad for the work of others with expertise in that area, such as my colleague John Walton). Secondly, evangelicals need a deeper understanding of how science works in general, and specifically how the lines of evidence for evolution converge on a robust picture of how God used this means to bring about biodiversity on earth.

I’m amazed that Venema thinks this will work. He wants to tell evolution-rejecting Christians that a). the Bible is a human document and doesn’t necessarily convey scientific truths, since those weren’t known when it was composed; and b). that there is lots of evidence for evolution, evidence that denies the story of Genesis and—though BioLogos won’t admit it—the historicity of Adam and Eve. But BioLogos has been doing these things since its inception. It hasn’t worked, and won’t, for Christians have already heard that stuff and rejected it.

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Finally, the new president of BioLogos, Deb Haarsma, weighs in, and in an unfortunate way. Among other things (which include praising Ham for pointing out that “the scientific method grew out of the Christian context of medieval Europe”), she says this:

Our belief in the Bible and Jesus is more fundamental than our views on science. When Bill Nye referred to religion as a source of social connection and comfort for millions, I wished that he had a deeper understanding of what Christianity is all about. Our faith is much more than a social club; it’s about absolute truth and salvation from sin through Jesus Christ.

What does “more fundamental” mean? Does that mean that if evidence cropped up showing that there was either no historical Jesus or that Jesus was really an apocalyptic preacher who was neither divine nor the son of God, she would reject her Christianity? I doubt it. Her Christianity, like that of BioLogos itself, is a given that no evidence could dispel. And yet it’s certainly evidence-based, for she says that her religion is “about absolute truth.” It’s the way that people like Haarsma find that truth, through dogma and revelation, that make science and religion incompatible.

If Haarsma’s statement means what I think (I’d love to ask her to explain it), then she, too, has no credibility when pronouncing science and religion compatible.

h/t: Lou Jost