>But doesn't evolution effectively say "Genetics formed the animals by taking
>one animal and slightly modifying (through a genetic mechanism) to form
>another"? Sure, this explanation tells you a little more about the process,
>but there are no guarentees this process is correct. I could give you
>another process which could describe the event. Eg, God went along a DNA
>molecule, bit by bit, and changed the links as he saw fit to form a new DNA
>molecule - this was the basis for his new creature (the whole procedure of
>DNA modification taking less than a minute). This is no less a description
>of how God might have done it than the genetics one. But perhaps you will
>say to me: "why suggest a supernatural explanation when a perfectly good
>natural one exists". Well the answer is that I am yet to be convinced
>(though I might one day be) that the genetics explanation is "perfectly
>good". It is not perfectly clear to me that genetics is capable of
>producing the large transitions evolution requires it to produce.
>
Let's suppose that you can actually observe genes changing or being changed
in a population. You observe for a period of time, and you can see
variations in phenotypes resulting from the genetic changes. But if you
want to understand why the genes changed, that's a more difficult question.
All you saw was that the genes changed. You didn't see anything that owld
indicate that God did or did not directly manipulate them. You might
consider the possibility that cosmic radiation was causing mutations, and
suppose you were able to determine that it _had_ indeed caused some of
them. But does that eliminate God as the cause of those specific changes?
I think not. It does place an additional mechanism between God's causation
and the effect on the genomes, but it does not eliminate God.
Rightly or wrongly, science studies what we can observe with our senses and
the instrumentation we can devise, and tries to predict what will be
observed (again with senses and instrumentation) under postulated
conditions. That puts some real serious constraints on the universe
science can speak authoritatively about. I think we Christians sometimes
try to put science on a pedestal and make it do some things it's not
powerful enough to do: answer spiritual questions, or serve an an
apologetic tool. It's tempting, because when we as Christians observe the
heavens, for example, we _do_ see them telling the glory of God. But do we
see it because revelation is intrinsic in what we see, or because we know
the Creator? I'm not denying that there's such a thing as general
revelation. But I don't see it to be as specific as the revelation He's
provided us in the Scriptures and in the testimony of the indwelling Holy
Spirit.
Bill Hamilton | Vehicle Systems Research
GM R&D Center | Warren, MI 48090-9055
810 986 1474 (voice) | 810 986 3003 (FAX)