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Vatican Rejects Intelligent Design?
typobox43 writes "A Vatican representative has expressed a defense of the theory of evolution, stating that it is "perfectly compatible" with the Genesis story of creation. "The fundamentalists want to give a scientific meaning to words that had no scientific aim," he said at a Vatican press conference. He said the real message in Genesis was that "the universe didn't make itself and had a creator"." Of course, it'd probably be best if fundmentalists actually talked to, say, the rabbis who wrote the whole thing down. The Orthodox rabbis I've spoken find it amazingly amusing that people take the creation story as literal truth, rather then a story about YHWH's power.
Let me preface this by saying that I am a scientist, a Bacteriologist for New York State to be precise.
(residents of New York State, you are paying me right now to post on Slashdot; thanks)
I went to a Catholic grammar school from 3rd to 8th grade (I'm 23 now, so you can get a reference as to roughly when I went to school), and I remember being SPECIFICALLY taught in my Religion classes, by nuns no less, that there is NO conflict between scientific evolution and the creation story, so long as you believe the soul was created by God. Since the soul cannot be touched by science one way or another (cannot prove or disprove), that's absolutely fine. There shouldn't be any conflict whatsoever; Genesis is a version of how everything got here, and evolution tells you how what is here changes. No problems, at least in theory; it seems that fundies just keep trying to drag up the old debates.
"It never got weird enough for me." - HST (RIP)
A great deal of man's dominion over nature has been shown in selective breeding. Now that we can experiement with genertic engineering (on a far more fine-grained scale than breeding alone allows), we have the opportunity to see all sorts of new variations of exiting plants and animals.
What evolution can not speak to, without getting into philosophy, is the actual origins of life. Eventually in the evolutionary timeline, yuo get back to a point where the question of 'where did the matter come from' pops up, and evolution comes alogn and says that matter is eternal: we've been in an unending cycle of compression and expansion of matter for eternity, and this time around humans popped up to figure it out.
What the Biblical creation account gives as the answer to that question is not that matter is eternal, but that there is a supreme being who is eternal, and He decided to make the world for His pleasure.
Intelligent Design is an alternative to the origins of life, not the continuing processes since that have shaped our world.
antipaucity
Overall, I'd wager that the scientific evidence would provide more "scientific" support for a polytheistic religion with humanistic/flawed dieties (such as the ancient Roman/Greek religions) than for an omnipotent monotheistic religion such as Christianity.
The bigger issues is that the allegedly religious ID people probably don't want to entertain hypotheses about designer(s) and would be especially uncomfortable letting school children even discuss these questions. Yet the entire purpose of science is to ask these questions and that is why it doesn't mix well with religion which is entirely based on faith. From a theological standpoint, I would suspect that Christians would prefer a separation between church and science.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
On the flip side, I had an English teacher in high school that went to Catholic schools and had never heard of evolution until she went to college. She said that she was completely caught off guard.
Assuming that we did teach ID in schools ... what would be the material?
... opposite of Void (God) do it?
"And so God created all the organisms on earth."
Little Johnny asks, "How?"
Teacher replies, "Well, he just created them. Poof! And there they were."
That's all ID would contribute to science.
If someone wants to believe now that the HOW is evolution, and the WHAT/WHO that started it all is God, then great, but it's not science. Science (apart from cosmology) makes no attempts at explaining the origin of Origin, just all the processes. In the end, to explain the origin of everything, you have to get axiomatic about something: everyone agrees that axiom to be some form of infinity, whereas some attribute consciousness to that Infinity and others, non-consciousness. Did Void spawn the Universe, or did the er
As someone who believes God exists, I think evolution is fine. I accept spiritual evolution as a necessity for myself, so I don't see why physical evolution would be a problem either.
random underscore blankspace at ya know hoo dot comedy.
"3. If you're going to mention Yahweh (aka YHWH, aka Jehovah, aka God of Israel) in proper Jewish context, you need to mark out some of the letters as a sign of respect. e.g. "Y-WH" or "G-d""
He shouldn't have written that, period. Observant Jews don't EVER pronounce or phonetically write that name. G-d will do fine, thanks.
Back on topic: Orthodox Jews can't take creation literally, because it anthropomorphizes G-d. How does G-d rest? He has no body, and, if you go for non-Maimonidean thought (popular these days in the yeshiva world), the world wouldn't exist without His constant divine intervention. Ergo, a literal account of creation cannot be true. The Orthodox question is more along the lines of just how allegorically should it be taken, and how to handle the calendar issues. There have been remarkable books written on both sides of the argument.
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
Yeah right.
This would have been over long ago if in every report about this "debate", the media would point this fact (that the Vadican supports evolution) do dispell this fact. I have to wonder how many Catholics even know this, and how many support evolution and think they disagree with their religion on that point.
This whole thing is rediculous. Atheists support evolution. The roman catholoic church supports evolution. Just about ever major religon supports it. A few nuts start a fuss though and all of a sudden there is a "religious war" between the "religous" (radial fundamentalists) and the "sane people" (everyone else).
This whole thing just confirms that old quote (paraphrased): "Evil triumphs when good men stand idly by."
Note that I don't think that the fundamentalists are evil. But you can't let that little group remove evolution from schools. The "good men" need to stop standing idly by. If even 10% of the "good men" were to stand up and say "No way," then this debate would end FAST. Pure supiriority of numbers.
-- A fed up Kansan Catholic.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I've always found it odd that "thinking people" and "people of faith" see their "theories" as the, pardon the pun, God's Honest Truth? I mean for goodness sakes, its a FSKING THEORY (both of them). Now, the good thing about Darwinism is that there is alot of evidence to suppor that theory. ID, most of it is circumstantial at best.
Being that I do believe in a Single creator (sorry multi-diety people), I've found that the Creator has a PROFOUND sense of humor. I mean, look at the freaking duck-billed platapus! But if the ID people take a step back and think about their religious teachings, they'll find something about being humble. And last I checked, claiming to know and understand God's plan is ANYTHING but humble.
Here's my humble little theory. The universe was created by "God". He set in motion all that is and has become life. Now in that creation, He also set in motion the ability for his creation to grow, adapt and become better that it's original creation.
I think I'll coin a term and call this theory "Intelligent Darwinism." The universe was created persuant to God's Plan, and then he allowed that creation free will to grow, evolve, change, and adapt in the way that Darwin has described.
To paraphrase from Babylon 5:
The truth is a triple edged sword. There is your side. There is my side. And, there is what really occurs.
Cliff Claven
K.E.G. Party Chairman
Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
I believe in the literal translation of the Bible. I believe that the Bible is God's words (penned by men who were moved by the Holy Spirit) and thus must be followed because it is what God wants for us.
/. has said - keep science in science class and religion in a theology class. Teach students boths sides then let them decide what to believe in.
If we say that it is open to interpretation because it only has some nice stories, then what parts do we follow and what parts are just there as example? This leaves a wide door open for man's imperfect interjection of man's own beliefs.
For me, I have faith in the Bible because (by faith) I have chosen to believe it is God's literal word. As such, I will follow its teachings the best I can. However, if I believed that the Bible had man's interpretation in it, then I would view it as any other book. For me it's all or nothing.
BTW, this doesn't forbid me from learning and understanding the theory of evolution. I commend your school for teaching both in their respective classes. As many people here on
Evolution isn't a theory about the start of life.
I suppose it depends what you mean by "start" and "life" :)
If you read Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, he argues that chemical compounds which replicate begin evolution, even if they aren't something that one would consider to be "alive". If the chemical can make a copy of itself, that chemical will quickly become quite common. A few of the copies won't be perfect, and a few of these imperfect copies will be better (faster, more stable, etc.), and will thus make more copies than the original.
The "start of life" need be only the random coincidence of an amino acid, perhaps one which attracts matching atoms until it is full, at which point it splits into two copies of the original. If you allow that, (and I seem to recall it's been done in a lab, but I can't find a reference right now), evolution will proceed from there.
It's worth noting that Gregor Mendel was a monk, obviously religious, and now is someone so important to our knowledge of basic genetics that we all learn about him in high school. Scholars of all kinds have come out of Churches and religions, so it's depressing how big a step back we're starting to take. If Mendel had been an IDer, he would have given up the moment he saw two different breeds of peas and declared the whole situation unknowable.
I've started to notice a different breed of religious person that I like to call the rational religious. I'm sure they've existed throughout the ages, but they seem to be scarce. Thankfully, they're becoming more populous. Of course, these are the people that understand not only science, but their faith and themselves. More and more, I've seen that people that don't understand science don't understand their church or themselves either.
Funny though the FSM thing is, it's tactics could work, though not the FSM theory itself. If the ID thing ever comes to the school district here, I'll be making a trip over to all the reservations and talking to any tribal leaders that will listen. I suspect I'll be able to get them to come and argue that fine, if Christian creation is taught, their creation has to be taught as well (and it varys per tribe). They can also play the all-powerful race card if people try to shut them down.
If there is an intelligent creator, then he could have designed us with a mind that cannot understand his infinite nature, or how His presence could be possible. Meanwhile the same is not true if the universe was formed by "random chance". Then you have to ask by the second law of thermo, if no energy can be created or destroyed, where did the energy in the universe come from? There's no valid explanation for that.
My personal take on ID supporters is that in their arrogance they believe that they should be able to understand everything that is not supernatural. As a result if they don't get it it must be God's work.
So they build up this God of the Gaps that is responsible for everything man cannot expain. Then once we get close to understanding something they get all upset, because we are removing some of God's power.
My blanket dismissal for all IDers is that they are limiting the power of their god to that which they don't understand. My God is more powerful than that and not subject to my arrogent limitations - If He wants to violate non-contradiction He can. I don't know what that means, but just because I can't imagine a world where something can both be and not be simultaneously dosen't mean that God can't do it.
No, they were never in that camp. They were, for a goodly long time, along with everyone else, in the geocentric camp, and that's where the embarassment that makes them far less willing to make grand pronouncements on science than certain religious groups in the US.
The problem lies in the fact that the Bible, when read by someone who has taken the theological blinders off, doesn't exactly read like any accurate historical document, and makes a number of rather extraordinary claims that should require something other than "It says so in the Bible" to be taken as evidence. Do you also think that Greek or Hindu mythology ought to be given similar weight?
Omphalism creates some pretty severe problems for the faithful, because it essentially makes God into a liar. On the emperical end of things, it's a meaningless statement. If the Universe was created last Thursday with the appearance of great age, then science could still function simply by accepting that age and leaving the theological Last Thursdayism claim out of the picture entirely.
Where you stumble, I'm afraid, is on the idea that somehow science is a quest for TRUTH(tm). It is a search for the best explanation for the evidence. If some uber-powerful being has made the Universe appear as it is by the proverbial snap of a finger, then yes, science cannot find that truth, because that truth could never be arrived at by any rational, emperical means.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Guys (and the occasional girl),
Picture this: your friend Tom comes to tell you about his friend "Bob". Now, you've never met Bob. For some reason Bob is never around, and Tom has never introduced him to you. But Tom tells you that Bob exists, and they hang out, and talk, and things like that. Frequently, Bob will have these amazing things that Tom doesn't, and Tom will excitedly tell you about them. Sometimes Tom relates things that Bob has told him, or opinions he has based on something Bob says.
Now, what kind of behavior is that? If Tom is 8, we call that "having an imaginary friend". If Tom is 30, he's probably hallucinating, or schizophrenic (or experiencing some psychosis). But....if Tom is 30, and we replace "Bob" with "God", and this is said in the context of "faith and community" then Tom is a fundamentalist christian who has a "personal relationship with God".
So, what's the difference? What's the difference between a serial killer who "hears voices in his head" telling him to go into McDonalds and let loose with an Uzi, and a drunk frat boy hearing the voice of God saying "You will be president", and staging a couple of wars? It's only a question of degree, yet the first is clearly a candidate for a white jacket and a padded cell, while the latter is the "Leader of the Free World (tm)".
Ladies and Gentlemen: There Is No God. None. Nada. He ain't there. Nobody home. Get it? Stop using your insecurity and inadequacy, and face the world for what it is - a harsh, brutal, and sometimes beautiful place. It's harder this way, but at least you are an adult human being, not a kid hiding behind an "imaginary friend". Any form of belief that starts out with "there's an invisible man who did X" is utter madness and self-dulsion. This is the 21st century! How did 300 years of progress and science and rational thinking pass you by? ID is crap not because it's not consistent, or because it's not a theory, but because it presupposes the existence of a god. Stop whining, get off your knees, and quit talking to yourself - no one's listening. Whipe your own butt and face reality like Monday morning - it's tough, and you're tired, but when you get up you are a Man.
My mistake. It is indeed in the fifth book, but still long before the end of the Torah.
The book goes on to describe Joshua and Caleb leading the next generation of Isrealites into the Promised Land, which Moses never got to see himself.
Then there's the problem of Numbers 12:3...
"Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth."
If Moses wrote that himself, it's hard to make a strong case for his humility, isn't it?
Deuteronomy 34:10 makes it even tougher...
"There has never been another prophet like Moses"
Since most of the Hebrew prophets came after Moses, it seems strange (assuming that it was divinely revealed to Moses what the prophets would be like) that this line would be written in the past tense... unless it was written by somebody else after the time of the prophets.
So, in spite of my getting mixed up on whether his death is recorded in Exodus or Deuteronomy, there's no debate that it happened before the end of the five books, which means that he either recorded his own death (after failing to see the Promised Land himself) and the events which followed (not to mention constant references of things which stand "to this day"), or that somebody else picked up where he left off (some scholars like to say Joshua filled in the gaps), or else it was written by some other person(s) entirely.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
When those who believe in Evolution present it and mandate it as a fact in schools, it is an affront to those who believe in Creation
No, it is in fact not. Evolution isn't a belief, but a matter of observed fact, and as such we should teach it in school. Evolution as the method at which humans appeared on the planet is a scientific theory based on the observed realities. As a scientific theory it should also be taught in school, in science class. ID and Creationism are, along side with Astrology, belief in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, belief systems with no basis in any observed reality. As such they should be taught in school too, but not in science class.
There are many scientific examples of data that contradict the theory of evolution that are not explained.
Eh, no, there isn't. There is in fact not a single piece of scientific data that contradict the theory of evolution. There are parts of evolution process that we do not fully understand, but none of them contradict the theory of evolution.
It would be best to present multiple theories and state that is what they are.
I agree completely, and to my knowledge that is currently what happens. In science class all available theories that describe the creation of humans are taught. Alle one of them. ID and Creationism are not scientific theories, they never have been and they never will be, and as such don't belong in science class. If you do not know what a scientific theory is I would recommend you read up on it.
Still, a heck of a way to end a five book trilogy. "Perhaps he was dictating."
You were being funny, but that's not far off from the traditional Fundamentalist view (both among Evangelical Christans and some Orthodox Jewish sects.) The idea is that Moses was simply writing down exactly what God told him to write down.
There are at least a few lines in there which can be used to argue that this is how the Torah is meant to be read.
To me, it's not terribly important. I come at Old Testament validity from the opposite angle: Since I happen to believe in the divinity of Christ, and consider Him to also be the greatest Rabbi in history, the fact that He taught from those same scriptures instructs me that they are worth reading and trying to understand.
As a non-Jew, the issue of whether Moses wrote them or not matters about as much to me as the instructions to never eat shellfish, never cut my earlocks, and always wear tassles on the corners of my cloak.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Evolution cannot be true as it contradicts the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Using the same logic as you have used here, it is impossible to separate gold from sand simply by swirling them in a pan full of water, because this would be an increase in the orderliness of the mixture of gold+sand. The mistake that you are making in applying this argument is that you are not looking at the whole system. For every bit of the world that becomes more orderly, a bunch more becomes more disorderly - a lot of chemical energy gets turned into heat in the process of panning for gold.
However, the theory of Evolution has the basic principle that everything is getting more organized and more complex.
A lot of people make this mistake. Only the *organisms* are getting more complex and sophisticated... on the other side of the energy ledger is all of the food they eat and energy they expend. Of all the billions of terawatts the sun has shined down onto the earth over the last 4.5 billion years, some dinky proportion was captured and stored as chemical energy, which was then liberated and used by the metabolism of some organism to do something productive, creating heat in the process.
The organisms are only one small part of the sunlight-into-heat progression. When you consider the whole system, there's no violation of any thermodynamics. Most people who use this argument are operating from an incomplete understanding of thermodynamics, evolution or both.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
I have two thoughts on ID and Genesis, but since I'm posting on the thread late, they'll probably get buried.
1) The label "Inteligent Design" was hijacked by the Young Earth Creations (those who believe that the years is no more than 10k years old and was created in a six literal 24 hour days. Inteligent design has its roots in Michael Behe's book, "Darwin's Black Box". Behe's purpose in this book is to provide counter examples to current evolutionary theory at the biochemical level. I think it's a great book and asks the right questions, scientifically, about evolutionary theory. Though I think his answers are weak. Basically his answer is: if current evolutionary theory can't explain a biochemical system, then God did it. Luckly, the book is mostly questions and counter-examples to evolution and a little of his answers. It is a very good read.
2) On the book of Genesis. Christian fundamentalists try to view Genesis from a western, scientific perspective. Which is why they try to see it as a scientific text. This view and culture is so different from the original intended audience that their interpretations are laughable. 15th century BC nomadic herbrew tribes were certainly not a scientific, post-enlightenment culture. The stories recorded in Genesis were intended, in my opinion, to give the hebrew tribes a perspective on who they were, who thier God was, and how they were different from the people around them. Whether the creation story in Gensis is literal or mythical isn't really knowable, and doesn't really matter. What mattered was what it meant spiritually to the ancient hebrew tribes. Anything more than that is speculation.
"You never know when some crazed rodent with cold feet might be running loose in your pants."
-Calvin
Intelligent Design contradicts evolution on the variability between and among species. ID says that at least some of the variability between species arises from the intervention of a designer; evolution says there's no. So the argument isn't really about the origin of life, but the origin of species.
Actually, one of the reasons why ID does not qualify as a theory is that it is vague about what did happen. Basically, ID boils down to "Evolution can't explain everything."
Behe--who's virtually the only real biologist in the ID camp--clearly believes that something like a microorganism was created and everything evolved from there, possibly with some supernatural tweaks along the line. But the ID guys keep this pretty quiet, because if they actually advocated this view as part of their "theory," they'd lose the bulk of their support, which comes from fundamentalist Christians who aren't concerned with how the flagella evolved; they want to be reassured that there isn't an ape in their family tree. Behe was very amusing in the recent trial; the opposition kept quoting him passages from the ID tract "Pandas and People," which he supposedly co-edited, and which makes claims such as "various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact," and Behe would have to admit that he didn't agree.
Never mind the fact that it (The Pentateuch) ends with Moses' death.
A preacher I know once told me that the Bible doesn't have to be literally true for us to have faith in God. He believed that those who hinge everything on the absolute truth of every word of Scripture are those who really lacked faith. They need something outside themselves to justify what they believe.
The Bible tells us about God, in the best way the authors knew how, and it represents an evolving view of our relationship to him. The creation story tells of God's ultimate power, and doesn't imply a final result. The ideas of justice evolve throughout the Old Testament. In several place in the Hebrew Scriptures, it is stated that God's judgement would pass to the third generation. In Ezekial, the prophet proclaims that we were each responsible for our own actions, and that a son would not be held responsible for his father's actions. If nothing, this shows that we still have a lot of room to grow as a species, and that God's not done with us yet.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
Actually, thats incorrect.
The Jewish calender is counted from the creation of Adam - the first man/creature with a divine soul.
There is no counting before then (what some would refer to as the 6th day), so Genesis doesn't really comment in any way on how long the creation of the universe itself would have taken
If you look to the clergy to settle the matter you are no more scientist than Reverand Jimmy in his Waco Texas megabox church. He is just as convinced that the bible is infallable. He makes blind assertions too.
/* Rant
The difference is this: while there is no concrete or "rigorous formulation", every observable fact leads to this conclusion. It's not called the Theory of Evolution because some guy just thought it up, it's called such because it has not yet been authoritively proven. That doesn't discredit its merit; every field of science generally agrees that all life evolved from single-celled organisms. But since there are still a few holes to be patched up, scienctists refer to it as a theory.
Now, in my opinion, there's nothing wrong with Intelligent Design inherently. I'm an agnostic (who leans towards atheism) who believes in and supports the theory of evolution, but I also believe ID is a possibility, just not a probability. The problem I have with Intelligent Design is that there is NO EVIDENCE to support it, as opposed to MUCH EVIDENCE for evolution. Just because they are both technically "theories" does not put them on the same footing, as ID supporters claim.
Regardless of whether you believe in evolution or ID, god or God or gods or no god, I think there is one fact that no human being can honestly deny: Human beings are logical. Whether we were designed this way or evolved into it, we are a species that possesses a great capacity for logic and rationality (regardless of how or if we choose to use it...). If god/God created us, it would be wrong of it/Him to expect us to forgo our logic -- the very thing which makes us human-- to believe something for no reason. And if we evolved this way from nothingness, it would be wrong of us to stop evolving by not utilizing our abilities.
End Rant */
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Having read "Bresheet" (Most English speakers call it the Book of Genesis) for many years in the original Hebrew, and having been through the experience of a technical education, these are my opinions:
1) The Catholic Church isn't stupid about this issue. They've learned a thing or two since they contradicted Galileo. Basically, The Bible is not a text to tell us what we can figure out for ourselves. It is a text for the purpose of telling us the appropriate morals upon which we can build a lasting society. To assign it a purpose other than that would denigrate the human race's image in God's eyes.
2) The real miracles are not physical. They are social. The miracles we should be thankful for are when a criminal develops a concience and turns him/her-self in; when a person finds a large sum of unmarked money and returns it to the owner; or when a person reveals the truth on the witness stand in a court of law. Those are the acts of faith that we should all take note of and be thankful for. If they didn't exist, our societies would not last long.
3) Many people are happy with a very childish God-in-Sky view of things. But for those who seek it, there is plenty more to study in most religions. I am quite content and clear minded about my beliefs. I also don't think those beliefs have anything to do with Science except in an extremely abstract way.
4) Fundamentalists and cults of all faiths attempt to install a denial of surrounding community in their followers so that they can wrench their flock from the communities and build one of their very own. It's a power trip. There are plenty of wide eyed people who are willing to follow because they do not understand the nature of religion. I fault the leaders of these movements, but I also fault the followers just as well. We all have a responsibility to understand the world around us better. You can't get that veiwpoint from inside a cult, a fundamentalist movement, or even from a nebulous bit of philosophical quackery called Intelligent Design.
Nearly fifty percent of all graduates come from the bottom half of the class!
By the way, I asked an Orthodox priest once what the Orthodox think about Evolution and Genesis and he said "If the science found that it took place, then it took place and we believe that is how God worked". I was expecting he would say that "The world was created in 7 days" and then I would start an argument with him about it, but his answer left me speechless.
Hard to dispute without knowing what criteria use based these rankings on. What exactly do you mean by "predictive ability"?
To me the "predictive ability" of evolution is pretty amazing. On one hand is idea of common decent. We know "Animal A" exists and we believe it evolved from known "animal C". For this to be true, some unknown "Animal B" would be quite likely as a transitional specices. Some of these hypothosis, and later discovery of fossils which match this expectation shows there is cetainly some pretty decent predictabilty. Now I don't think there has ever been a 100% match to "expected" Animal B, but there would be no reason to ever think such an animal could even roughly be predicted without evolution.
Another example would be genetic diagnosis. If you have genetic marker X then you will have disease Y. Some of these "predictions" based on evolution are 100% while others have a VERY strong corrilation and this will only increase as our knowledge of these topics increase.
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
I could say that Nietzsche believed in the idea of the overman, and the greek gods are over man, therefore belief in the greek gods is supported by Nietzsche. Nothing, however, makes this statement true. Even if he HAD believed in greek gods, however, doesn't mean that it's true. He'd have to present a coherent, logical arguement backed up by empirical facts to make a claim and be taken seriously. Newton, for example, believed strongly in alchemy, and wrote more than a million words on the subject. Modern man understands chemistry and nuclear physics to the point where alchemy can be proven to be wrong.
In this case, you unfortunately seem to miss the nature of this science while trying to create an arguement against it. The reason that dynamics can be used in the case of inert matter is that it is just that -- inert matter. You can reduce inert matter to the forces and counterforces which are situationally as perfect as your instrumentation will allow.
In the case of evolution, you simply cannot reduce the system to such a simple set of dynamics. How do you tell which viral strain will survive the onslaught of drugs and the human immune system? You cannot do this in practice, for the same reason you cannot determine who will become a serial killer in society -- the systems have simply become far too large to model effectively.
In the case of evolutionary systems, it is important to remember that there is no inherent superiority in any given genetic at T0. Unlike energy levels, where you can see that one part of a system has X joules of energy in a certain potential/kinetic configuration, evolutionary traits cannot be effectively reduced to numbers. To do so is like trying to decide a basketball game between two sides of the same team -- there are so many subtle factors, that the decision is goes beyond a simple numerical dynamic of "This virus is superior to this virus by 10%".
A piece of DNA which would be beneficial against all other species in one situation may prove deadly in another situation with the same species. A fish growing lung analogues may survive more effectively near the shore because it can climb onto land and get food there. The same fish far from shore, however, is at a disadvantage beacause it has a large, useless organ increasing it's mass and bulk.
It's been a long time.