>I see two issues to discuss; (1) the ethical issues involved in transgenic
>research and field testing, and (2) the impact on evolution/creation thought.
Of 1) I am probably the worst person to offer anything about the ethics of
this. But, one thing seems certain to me. There will be benefits and
unexpected consequences.
of 2) Some PC people deny even the existence of such data. Some Special
Creationists like Paul Licata say that speciation doesn't occur today. He
writes in a table and not
in complete sentences, that,
"No change between species ever seen. If different species
mate the offspring, if any are sterile. .... None changed to
other species. ... Not one genus observed to change in
history." Hugh Ross actually beleives that today's speciation rate is
zero. "
David Paul Licata, "A Unit on Biological Origins for the Secular
Classroom," Creation Research Society
Quarterly, 16:1, June, 1979, p. 61.
Hugh Ross is also a special creationist but an old earth variety. He said,
"Research indicates that natural evolutionary processes, the observable
microevolution, occurs at roughly the same rate today as it did before
humans. Science offers no explanation, as yet, for the sudden change in
the speciation rate, but the Bible offers one: the difference comes from
the change in God's level of creative activity. Before Adam and Eve, it
was high. After Adam and Eve, it dropped to zero."(The Genesis Question p.
65)
So at least for this PC and the earlier YEC the data doesn't exist. What is
the problem?
For the more reasonable PCs, they must explain why God goes to all the
trouble to make each species/genera miraculously but then makes those
species in such a fashion that they can cross generic bounds and hybridize?
It seems to me that if God can create species which then hybridize or
mutate on their own, He has an easier job of things, not having to intevene
everytime a species goes extinct.
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
http://www.flash.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm
lots of other creation/evolution data