Re: MHC question

pdd@gcc.cc.md.us
30 Aug 1996 10:14:50 EDT

Glenn responded...

GR>Paul, my view is not a 2-Adam theory. A two adam theory has Genesis 1 man
GR>being sub human and genesis 2 man being like us. I don't believe that. You
GR>assumption here is wrong. I believe that Adam did not look like you or me.
GR>That does not make him sub-human. Adam had to be prior to the time that
GR>language formed. As you can see, I believe that that means Adam was AT LEAS
GR>prior to 1.5 myr ago. Otherwise, you have language possessing non-humans
GR>walking the earth.

On your web page you say...

GM>Genesis 2 is a separate event which occurred billions of years after 1.

and "The only way to fit the scriptural account with the scientificis to
have Adam and Eve be Homo habilis or Austrolopithecus.Bones of
Australopithecines are found as ago as 5.5 million years ago

Your web page does not say... "I believe in one Adam that was created as
a (fill in the blank... austrolopithecus?) at least x billions of years
ago. It is confusing and one can easily interpret your position as
2-Adam because you identify humans as being 5.5 million years old but
place Genesis 1 at x billion years BP.

GR>>Then we have theories built upon theories. Since you cannot test the
GR>>2-Adam evolutionary theory, it cannot be proven or disproven.

GR>Once again, I don't have a 2 adam theory. That is Stephen's theory.

The use of "you" was rhetorical. I should have used a general... "we".
Sorry.

GR>As to tests, if you read, as you must have, the post entitled "Jim's poor vi
GR>of the Neanderthal" you would see the predictions. Predictions are how
GR>theories are tested. My view is fully testable.

Dr. Gerald Holton, writing in "Concepts and Theories in Physical
Science", identifies several qualifications for theories. They correlate
many separate facts in an easily understood, logical order, they suggest
new relationships of those facts, and we should be able to deduce
predictions that check with experience by test. You are correct in your
assertion.

Hanging our hat on the predictive aspects of a theory do not make it
good. Holton noted that "assumptions should be plausable" and "A theory
which needs a separate mechanism for each fact that it wishes to explain
is nothing more but an elaborate and sterile tautology."

Einstein noted that truly good theories possess two additional
qualities... the external confirmation, or the external experimental
tests as you have noted... and the inner perfection, which judges its
"logical simplicity" or "naturalness".

Layered evolutionary theories of origins that require other theories as
a presumption fail the inner perfection test.

Paul Durham

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