Reflectorites
[continued]
SC>You keep bringing up out of context quotes
Susan has *never*, despite me asking, ever provided any criteria by which
her claim that I post "out of context quotes" can be evaluated. It seems that
to Susan, an "out of context quote" is whatever she *declares* at any
particular moment to be so.
SC> and silly stuff like the reptile eggs as your "proof"
>that evolution isn't true
I don't use the word "proof" in the context of a scientific theory. I post
*evidence* to support my claims about evolution.
SC>or has "problems"
If Susan believes evolution is just a scientific theory, what is wrong with
me posting evidence that evolution has problems?
SC>but I think your entire
>skepticism is based on this false belief: "The necessary starting
>point of naturalistic evolution is that either there is no God, or
>if there is, He never intervened in the history of life to do any
>more creating."
Since "naturalism" is the philosophical position that "either there is no God,
or if there is, He never intervened in the history of life" then it follows that
the starting point of *naturalistic* evolution is that naturalism is true.
>>SC>I'd suggest you drop that line of debate
It is not just a "line of debate". It is the *absolute truth*. And I mean
*absolute*. Definitions can be absolutely true. If naturalism is defined as
above then it follows absolutely that: "The necessary starting point of
naturalistic evolution is that either there is no God, or if there is, He never
intervened in the history of life to do any creating."
SC>>>but that's the gist of
>>>all creationist arguments isn't it? "If evolution is true then my religion
>>>is destroyed, therefore evolution must be proved to be false at all
>>>costs."
>>SJ>See above. I never took that "line" in the first place.
>SC>yes you do: "The necessary starting point of naturalistic evolution
>is that either there is no God, or if there is, He never intervened
>in the history of life to do any more creating."
The above has *two* parts: 1) "either there is no God"; or 2) "He never
intervened in the history of life to do any more creating." If 1) "is true then
my religion (i.e Christianity) is destroyed.
But if 2) is true, then "my religion is" *not* "destroyed". I have always said
that it is *possible* that God could have created 100% through naturalistic
evolution. I even say it on my testimony page:
===============================================
http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones/testimn2.html
[...]
I would have no problem even if Darwinian evolution was proved to be
true, because the God of the Bible is fully in control of all events, even
those that seem random to man (Prov. 16:33; 1 Kings 22:34). But if the
Biblical God really exists there is no good reason to assume in advance that
Darwinian (or any form of) naturalistic evolution is true! " [...]
===============================================
In fact even Johnson says he could accept that God could have "chosen to
work through a natural evolutionary process":
"I am a philosophical theist and a Christian. I believe that a God
exists who could create out of nothing if He wanted to do so, but
who might have chosen to work through a natural evolutionary
process instead." (Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial," 1993, p.14)
Our objection to "evolution" is not that if it "is true then my religion is
destroyed" but rather that because our religion gives us an alternative (i.e.
God intervening supernaturally in natural history), then we are free to
consider if evolution is true.
In fact Susan's argument is incoherent. She says on one hand that "There
are s... many believing Christians who also believe in evolution ..." and
"Kenneth Miller is one of them" and moreover that "Christianity *requires*
naturalistic evolution". Yet in the same breath she says that "If evolution is
true then my religion is destroyed". So either she is contradicting herself or
she is saying that Miller and I have a different religion.
>>SJ>That is why almost every Biology textbook starts its
>>section on evolution
>>with a strawman debunking of the Christian doctrine of creation. There is
>>no other science that feels the need to do that.
>SC>"almost every"? I own several and none of them start that way. What
>are the odds!?!
I notice that Susan does not say what they are. Here are some examples
from my Biology books:
"In Judeo-Christian culture, the Old Testament account of creation
fortified the idea that species were individually designed and
permanent. In the 1700s, biology in Europe and America was
dominated by natural theology, a philosophy dedicated to
discovering the Creator's plan by studying nature. Natural
theologians saw the adaptations of organisms as evidence that the
Creator had designed each and every species for a particular
purpose. A major objective of natural theology was to classify
species in order to reveal the steps of the scale of life that God had
created." (Campbell N.A., Reece J.B. & Mitchell L.G., "Biology,"
1999, p.415)
This is deceptive in that it implies that the OT teaches "that species were
individually designed and permanent". The OT does not say anything about
"species" let alone that they "were individually designed and permanent".
That some creationists (not necessarily Biblical but
philosophical)*interpreted* the OT as teaching the fixity of species is not
the same as thing as the OT itself teaching it.
The other point is that this gives the idea that creationism ended in the
1700's, when in fact the Christian doctrine of creation has been developing
too, and today is becoming more sophisticated (e.g. Progressive Creation,
Mediate Creation, Theistic Evolution).
"Charles Darwin (fig. 2.9) was only twenty-two in 1831 when he
accepted the position of naturalist aboard the British naval ship
H.M.S. Beagle that was going to sail around the world (fig. 19.1).
The captain was hopeful that Darwin would find evidence of the
biblical account of creation. However, the results of Darwin's
observations were just the opposite, as you can tell by examining
table 19.1. Although it is often believed that Darwin forged this
revolution all by himself, biologists during the preceding century
were slowly beginning to accept the idea of evolution, that is that
organisms change through time." (Mader S.S., "Biology," 1990,
p.281)
This falsely implies that Darwin's voyage was to "find evidence of the
biblical account of creation." The fact is the Beagle was a British navy
survey vessel, and Darwin wasn't even the official naturalist, but the
Captain's companion. The items in Table 19.1 are not "just the opposite"
from "the biblical account of creation". And the definition. And the
definition of "evolution" as "that organisms change through time" is so
broad as to be meaningless because even YECs would then be
evolutionists:
"For this reason, the evolutionist likes to bootleg into the argument
a deficient definition of evolution. By defusing evolution as "change
or modification over time," evolutionists then feel free to introduce
any change in nature as evidence for evolution. By this definition
*all* of us are evolutionists, for all of us readily admit that there is
change in nature." (Lubenow M.L., "From Fish To Gish," 1983,
p.34)
"Until only two hundred years ago, it seemed self-evident that the
world and the animals that fill it have not changed: robins look like
robins and mice like mice year after year, generation after
generation, at least within due short period of written history. This
commonsense view is very like our untutored impression that the
earth stands still and is circled by the sun, moon, planets, and stars:
it accords well with day-to-day experience, and until evidence to
the contrary appeared, it provided a satisfying picture of the living
world. The idea of an unchanging world also corresponded to a
literal reading of the powerfully poetic opening of the Book of
Genesis, in which God is said to have created each species
independently, simultaneously, and relatively recently-a little over
six thousand years ago by reckonings based on Scripture. But
problems with the commonly held scriptural theory of creation
arose from many sources; scientists attempted first, quite naturally,
to discount the evidence and then, when that proved impossible, to
construct a new explanation. Let's look at the evidence for
evolution that confronted Darwin and his contemporaries." (Keeton
W.T., Gould J.L. & Gould C.G., "Biological Science," 1986, p.12)
This is bit better because it distinguishes between a "literal" and "poetic"
reading of "Genesis". But it is simply false that in Genesis 1 "God is said to
have created each species independently, simultaneously, and relatively
recently-a little over six thousand years ago by reckonings based on
Scripture." As Gould has pointed out, there is no way to work out the age
of the Earth based on adding up the Biblical genealogies.
"The idea of special creation of life, that living organisms were
created in their present forms at the beginning of time by a
supernatural force, has been shared by many myths and religions of
the past and present. Special creation was not an unreasonable
belief, for it was rooted in the everyday experiences of life. Cows
gives rise only to cows, dogs to dogs, and humans to humans.
Although slight variations in offspring enable individuals to be
distinguished, one never finds a cow or a dog in a cat litter.
Because one sees no marked change in individuals of a species from
generation to generation in the lifetime of human observers, or even
after many human generations, how can one reasonably expect one
species to change into another species? However, as science
uncovers the principles and patterns of nature, many commonly
held beliefs have been discarded. One such belief was that the world
was stationary, for, if the world were spinning as some astronomers
thought, wouldn't everyone be thrown off into the sky?... Before
the seventeenth century, little was known about biology or the
fossil record, and special creation was a scientifically reasonable
hypothesis. Advances in the young science of geology helped to
prepare the scientific community for evolutionary theory.
Nineteenth- century geologists were grappling with the age of the
earth. A popular idea, proposed by Archbishop Ussher, was that the
earth had been created at 9:00 A.M. on October 12, 4004 B.C. But
geologists found it difficult to correlate the short time span of this
biblical estimate with the great numbers and thicknesses of the rock
formations. " (Boolootian R.A. & Stiles K.A. "College Zoology,"
1981, p.664)
Apart from getting the date wrong :
"Even the verbs used to describe Ussher's efforts reek with disdain.
In one text, Ussher "pronounced" his date; in a second, he decreed"
it; in a third, he "announced with great certainty that ...the world
had been created in the year 4004 B.C. on the 26th of October at
nine o'clock in the morning! " (Ussher actually said October 23 at
noon-but I found three texts with the same error of October 26 at
nine, so they must be copying from each other.) " (Gould S.J., "Fall
in the House of Ussher," in "Eight Little Piggies, "1993, p.185)
and thus showing sloppy scholarship, again this sets up creation as akin to
the idea that "the world was stationary" and contrasts modern science with
Ussher's "biblical estimate". Nothing is said about other modern models of
creation (e.g. PC, MC, or TE). This perpetrates what Johnson calls "the
`official caricature' of the creation-evolution debate":
"The Weiner article [on his book "The Beak of the Finch"] and
book review illustrate what I would call the "official caricature" of
the creation-evolution debate, a distortion that is either explicit or
implicit in nearly all media and textbook treatments of the subject.
According to the caricature, "evolution" is a simple, unitary process
that one can see in operation today and that is also supported
unequivocally by all the fossil evidence. Everyone accepts the truth
of evolution except a disturbingly large group of biblical
fundamentalists, who insist that the earth is no more than ten
thousand years old and the fossil beds were laid down in Noah's
flood. These baffling persons either are uninformed about the
evidence or perhaps choose to disregard it as a temptation placed
before us by God to test our faith in Genesis. There is no
conceivable intellectual basis for their dissent, because the evidence
for evolution is absolutely conclusive." (Johnson P.E., "Reason in
the Balance," 1995, p73)
Evolution is the process by which new species are formed from preexisting
ones over a period of time. It is not the only explanation of the origins of
the many species which exist on earth, but it is the one generally accepted
by the scientific world. Evolution is, in effect, the continuous change from
simple to complex organisms.
The following is my favourite:
"there are a number of theories on the origin of life: 1. Steady state
theory - This suggests that the earth and the species on it have
always existed. Life therefore had no origin. 2. Creation theory -
This is the belief that the earth and the species upon it were created
by a single event initiated by a 'super-being' or 'God'. 3. Cosmozoan
(Panspermian) theory - This theory states that life arose elsewhere
in the universe and arrived on earth by some means, e.g. UFOs. 4.
Spontaneous generation theory - This theory contends that life
arose from non-living material on a number of separate occasions.
5. Biochemical evolution theory - This theory suggests that life
arose from the combination of simple molecules into complex ones
and their evolution, via coacervates, into cells. Of these theories,
that of biochemical evolution is the most widely accepted by
present-day scientists." (Toole G. & Toole S., "Understanding
Biology for Advanced Level," 1987, p.203)
Comment superfluous!
Note how all the above are strawman caricatures of the Christian view of
creation. Either straight-out. or implied, falsehoods are taught about
creation, or it is contrasted as an old, outmoded view against a modern
view of evolution, as though no progress has been made in creation theory.
I do not claim that all these authors are being deliberately dishonest - they
are probably just ignorant and taken in by their own propaganda. But I do
claim they are all being *sloppy*. If they want to say something about
creation they should do their homework and find out the range of
creationist views there are *today*.
>>SJ>This is something curious that Berthajane, a non-Christian,
>>has pointed out.
>>The Christians try to talk about the evidence for evolution and the
>>evolutionists often counter with evidence against Christianity!
>SC>gosh, nobody mentioned Christianity in their refutation of your
>reptile egg post,
That's a pleasant change!
SC>just lots of science.
I haven't yet noticed much "science"! There were no quotes from the
scientific literature, for starters.
SC>Perhaps you should attack the evidence for evolution more often.
Susan needn't worry-I do and will! But why does Susan require me to
"attack the evidence for evolution". Why don't the evolutionists advance
positive arguments themselves for evolution? They hardly ever do.
SC>There might end up being a lot more science in the posts!
Why does it require me to "attack the evidence for evolution more often" in
order for there to be "a lot more science in the posts"? Why can't the
evolutionists post their own "science" in their posts? Why doesn't *Susan*
herself (and Chris too) start reading some scientific literature instead of
relaying on creationists like me to do it?
[...]
Thanks again to Susan for her posts on the Reflector over the years.
Steve
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Reductionists believed that, given enough time, we should be able to
understand the most complex human behaviour in terms of subatomic
physics. Darwinism is implicitly a reductionist theory because it suggests
that observations at many different levels of nature-from the mass
extinction of creatures over millions of years to the submicroscopic event
called mutation-may all be explained by reference to a single, unifying
principle: natural selection. The events of the fossil record are seen as the
result, on a large scale, of individual competition; and the changes in gene
frequencies which are seen as the underlying basis of evolution are the
result, on a small scale, of the same thing-individual competition and
survival. The philosophers are not in a position to say that this is wrong, or
that reductionism in general is mistaken, but there is a definite swing away
from this all-embracing view of science. There is a growing feeling that
perhaps we are actually missing something by this approach, that it is rather
naive and simplistic.." (Leith B., "The Descent of Darwin: A Handbook of
Doubts about Darwinism," Collins: London, 1982, p.32)
Stephen E. Jones | Ph. +61 8 9448 7439 | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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