Time/Cambrian Explosion part II

vandewat@seas.ucla.edu
Wed, 6 Dec 1995 21:41:37 -0800 (PST)

Greetings and Salutations,

Thomas Moore is sick of my empty rhetoric.

He writes:
>Gee, maybe it was because of lack of good data in geochronology and
>paleontology? If all this data is just now hitting the press, what data
>did these people have before? Not much.

Stephen Jay Gould writes that stasis in the fossil record was the
"trade secret of paleontology". How long did this evidence have to
accumulate before members of the evolutionary community began to
admit that "some other mechanism" besides "artifact theory" had to
be responsible for the gaps in the fossil record? By my reckoning,
about 120 years. Are you seriously suggesting that all of a sudden,
about twenty years ago, a flood of new fossils was found and PRESTO!
"artifact theory" was no longer tenable? That is simply ludicrous.
What happened was a new generation of evolutionists who were sufficiently
secure in their atheism no longer felt the need for a ready response
to those who might point to gaps in the fossil record as evidence against
evolution.

He continues:
>Divine intervention is still not an answer. "Artifact theory," as you
>put it, is a real problem. How data is analyzed for trends must account
>for these problems. To say that the earlier workers were somehow
>"dishonest" for not saying the raw trends were real is dishonest. Until
>the magnitude of these errors could be assessed, no trends could be
>established anyway. I think the early workers were absolutely correct in
>being concervative, and I think they rightly accepted the trends as the
>data came in. Divine intervention is rightly minimized in science, but
>if it is minimized outside science, that's religion's problem, not science's.

I object to evolutionists portraying "theory" as fact. When they said and
taught that life had originated in a "prebiotic soup", they were teaching
the "best naturalistic explanation available", not anything that was even
reasonably supported by the evidence. It IS dishonest to portray an idea as
fact. Especially if that idea is used in public schools as materialist
propaganda.

As a side note, Thomas here illustrates exactly what I mean by "lying" when
I talk about evolutionists. He says, "Divine intervention is still not an
answer". Does he support this with any evidence? No. All he does is
present a personal opinion as fact.

He continues
>Many athiest acknowedge the possibility of God and that they assume that
>God doesn't directly involve Himself in the natural world. It is a
>reasonable assumption. If God did directly involve Himself, what's the
>point of trying to understand the natural world? It can change anytime.
>You're more than welcome to invoke God at a philosophical point _after_
>the research is done, but not while you're doing it.

Again, I object to the presentation of theories formulated with
naturalistic asssumptions as fact. They are quite entitled to formulate
the best naturalistic theory they can, as long as they admit the problems
with validation and do not try and base public policy on these ideas.

He continues:
>Many "evolutionists" are Christian, are you saying that these people are
>arguing against the existance of God when, at the same time, they believe
>in God?

I have said many times that I think that theistic evolutionists are
contradicting themselves. They believe that Christianity is compatible
with strictly naturalistic evolution. I don't.

He writes:
>Hehe, I wouldn't call science a "truth."

Neither would I.

He continues:
>The "facts" stay the same no matter if you believe in God or not. In
>either case, science's job is knowledge about the _natural_ world. It
>isn't about making public policy. What is done with that knowledge is a
>matter of public policy. There is no rule set anywhere saying that if
>scientists think evolution is true, then public policy must set-up a
>system that acts evolution-like. If the system that set-up the moral
>behavior is failing because it can't handle the "facts," that is a
>problem. But it's a problem of that moral system, not the facts.

But when the "facts" are actually the best naturalistic explanation
available in disguise you are setting up a system which excludes
religious principle from rational discourse. As history has shown,
such systems have a tendency towards violence, anarchy and brutality.
(i.e. Nazi Germany, "Enlightened" France, communist Russia just to
name a few)

He writes:
>I think the deficiencies in the theistic explanations are much larger.
>They still explain nothing - just that God did it. God could have done
>it any way he wanted from the gambit of abiogenesis to special creation.
>If you have an infinite number of explanations (more so than evolution),
>is it really the best explanation?

The question here is: Who has the burden of proof when discussing the theory
of evolution? This is a subject I will be adressing in a post next week.

He concludes:
>You've convinced me that you or creationists don't have a track record that's
>any better. Along with all the other lies creationists have told - i.e
>human teeth at Paluxy, human tracks at Paluxy, Noah's Ark hoaxes, human
>fingers, etc etc etc, you should really re-evaluate your own views.

I disagree with young earth creationists. I wish they would just say
"you have to take it on faith" and leave it at that.

>Let me leave you with this thought. You, and all types of creationists,
>have an extra burden. You are arguing a moral code while you are arguing
>science. But creationists are just as bad, by your standards (much worse
>by mine), which makes the whole argument regarding the morals you're
>fighting for into a comical farce. As you argue for "Christian ideals"
>while violating those ideals, you defeat yourself. Worse, you defeat
>others who _are_ acting within the limits of those ideals (I apologize to
>the rest of the creationists on the reflector for my gross generalization
>of creationists above).

This doesn't seem very well thought out. If one believes and argues for
a materialist world view, then one must acknowledge that certain moral
propositions accompany this view. Moral relativism, for example, is
a straightforward consequence of believing in materialism. Atheists, then,
also argue a moral code. (I am here asserting that no moral code is a moral
code of a sort.)

in Christ,

robert van de water
associate researcher
UCLA