From: richard@biblewheel.com
Date: Tue Sep 16 2003 - 11:44:54 EDT
Re: Evolution and SalvationHoward asked:
> If we are comfortable with this lack of discontinuity
> in our own gradual and natural developmental history
> from fetus to adult, why should we be uncomfortable
> envisioning a similar lack of discontinuity in the history
> of the species?
There seems to be a discontinuity between the two kinds of continuity you are comparing, if I may play a bit with the words. :-)
In the process from fetus to adult, we do not have a transformation in *kind* - the fetus is every bit as human as the adult. Quite the opposite is true in the transformation from dead dirt to human, which involves multiplied thousands of transformations from one species to another, as well as the transformation of inanimate to animate! How anybody could accept the latter proposition with anything less than conclusive evidence would be the question I would pose. It certainly *seems* highly improbably, if not impossible, given our present knowledge.
Another important difference is that all the information required for the natural development from fetus to adult already is present in the fetus. Its end is essentially determined. Evolution is nothing like this. There is no specific "end result." There is nothing that compares to the "adult" in fetal development.
Howard, I would be interested in some further details of your robust formational principle. Do you envision specific species like humans as somehow "programmed" into the laws of nature + initial conditions, or do you think that God simply ensured that "something" intelligent would evolve?
Richard Amiel McGough
Discover the sevenfold symmetric perfection of the Holy Bible at http://www.BibleWheel.com
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