A+

And of course the step from creating the universe out of nothing to managing the laws of physics out of your home office is not that big of one.

I agree with you that people sometimes get carried away with there conviction that evolution not only can, but must, explain everything that exists. I posted not long ago on one example of that (not exactly what you have in mind, but relevant nonetheless).

I should mention that Jeff G has pointed out elsewhere that CFW does not require evolution and people like AdamG almost certainly argue for CFW in the context of creationism.

My complaint is not that evolution isn’t an essential element in the explanation of any number of things, my complaint is that in the hands of biologists it so completely explains everything that anyone who suggests otherwise (reality of LFW perhaps) is treated like some sort of sub rational, anti-scientific heretic.

Haha. Just remember, you saw it here first.

The theory of natural selection is largely devoid of intellectual content.

In my mind it is foolhardy at best to take a concept that revolutionized a major branch of science and claim that it is tautological. Natural selection is a cornerstone of modern biology. It is just not plausible that something with such a history and place in modern science could turn out to be devoid of content. Luckily, your argument was advanced by Ann Coulter a couple of years back so there are lots of people who have already spilled a lot of ink responding to it (which means I don’t need to do it here).

That is an arbitrary constraint – certainly such replication is a highly effective method of propagating a certain species, but it is certainly not the only one.

Even in a strictly biological context, “survival of the fittest” is tautological. It is like saying “what survives, survives”. “Fit” has no other meaning.

The theory of natural selection is largely devoid of intellectual content. The main reason for that is that generally speaking it is not falsifiable.

No matter which species or properties of species survive, we always attribute survival to survivability. That doesn’t tell us anything. It is like saying, “Why did so and so get a higher score on the test?” “Because he was a better student.”

If your thoughts are determined, in what sense are they “yours”? They can be yours in the same way that your skin is white, or your beard is patchy. They are attached to whatever it is we are calling “you,” but you are not responsible in any way for them. That is the catch. If you never initiate them in any way, you should talk about your thoughts happening to you. When your white skin ends up in the causal chain, say, when you get a sunburn, it doesn’t mean you are free. The reason it seems like a break-through when you realize thoughts could be self-determining is that you are mentally jumping from that idea to the idea of self-initiating. Self-initiating is, of course, the key ingredient of freedom, and the actual property of our actual thoughts, which is the only reason you can make this jump without noticing. “Self-determination” is used casually to mean “self-controlling,” but if the “determination” is consistent with the philosophical definition, then self-determination does not lead to freedom. At least, if it does lead to freedom, then we should start talking about virtually everything as being free.