From: George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Tue Jul 29 2003 - 07:42:11 EDT
richard@biblewheel.com wrote:
>
> This is a resend. The first didn't appear in the list.
>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>
> Hi George. In post http://www.calvin.edu/archive/asa/200307/0541.html you
> wrote:
>
> 1) The best evidence indicates that there was no life on earth ~ 4 x 10^9
> years
> ago and that there was life ~3 x 10^9 yrs ago. Therefore (barring panspermia
> which doesn't settle any fundamental questions) biogenesis took place. The
> question is how.
>
> This seems to be a continuation of the oversight I mentioned. The question
> is not if biogenesis occurred. Obviously we know Life is here now and wasn't
> then. The point is that naturalistic biogenesis is *purely hypothetical.* If
> someone wants to claim it is a natural phenomenon, then fine, let them share
> their scientific observations of it. But there are consequences to such an
> assertion. For example, most natural phenomena that happened in the past can
> be readily observed today - the only big exception being historical one-time
> events like the formation of our galaxy and what not - though we still can
> observe the formation of other galaxies and so get a pretty good idea of
> what happened here. Nothing like this is available for biogenesis.
>
> My point is this - if naturalistic biogenesis is an "ordinary" physical
> process why can we not observe it happening around us? If you say because
> the conditions are incorrect, then you need to explain why the lab can't
> produce correct conditions, since we have a pretty good idea of the general
> properties of the ancient world.
>
> The problem is not that there is a phenomenon that Science can't explain -
> the problem is the absence of the phenomenon!
>
> This is the basis of all science - observation, and it is scientific
> observation that supports the claim that biogenesis is certainly not a
> normal, and probably not a natural, physical process.
The "phenomenon that Science can't explain" is the emergence of terrestrial life
between ~ 3 & 4 billion years ago.
It may be worth adding that the argument for chemical evolution would be
strengthened, even without giving us an understanding of the "how", by discovery of life
on other planets independent of the earth. But of course I don't present that as an
argument now.
> You then wrote:
>
> 2) If we're going to talk about basic assumptions I'd prefer to argue for my
> own rather than Howard's. In particular, I think it's important to give some
> attention to basic _theological_ assumptions - something most people in this
> discussion, & especially the IDers, avoid. While my approach has some
> important things in
> common with Howard's, it differs from it in crucial (pun intended) ways.
> Thus I'm not
> going to argue for RFEP.
>
> Excellent. There is much I would like to discuss. I gave a first read to
> your Chiasmic Cosmology article and am really pleased to say that I think it
> was well argued and that I agree with most of the theology (which at first
> glance seems related to the incarnational theodicy of the Greek Orthodox).
> But I must give it more thought before commenting more.
Glad you like it. There is a good deal of resemblance with Orthodox thought,
but they tend to be plagued by philosophical ideas about divine immutability &c which
weaken a theology of the cross.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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