From: richard@biblewheel.com
Date: Thu Jul 24 2003 - 13:45:04 EDT
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.
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.
Enjoy the ASA meeting!
In service of Christ our Biogenesis,
Richard Amiel McGough
Discover the sevenfold symmetric perfection of the Holy Bible at
http://www.BibleWheel.com
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