Re: Assurance of faith

Moorad,

Is anything that science does a thing that can be proven? One can prove a
mathematical theorem, and one can establish that a dinosaur bone is a
scientific datum, but theories are never "proven" in science.

The difference between Genesis and evolution is that the former is a sacred
text that offers a theological declaration, not a scientific statement,
while the latter, evolutionary theory is a scientific statement derived from
empirical research that has achieved a consensus of the relevant communities
of scientists as the best current explanation of the development of living
things on this planet, open to modification, even replacement, but so
solidly established at present as to merit the adherence of the scientific
community. Of course, both the theological text and the scientific datum
must be interpreted, but they are two different orders of knowledge to which
apply different hermeneutics. The Book of Scripture and the Book of Nature
must be read differently.

The "unproven assumption" that life is derived from non-life is not part of
evolutionary theory. Evolution accounts for the descent of lineages from
one or a few primal ancestral forms of life. That life is derived from
non-life is a reasonable hypothesis, with models developed decades ago
(e.g., I. Oparin's 1938 treatise on the origin of life), and research
continuing on it, but evolution either as a paradigm or as theory does not
stand or fall on this question.

While in biological evolution it is nature herself that sets the parameters
and provides the data--and granted one cannot repeat nature's/God's
activities, still, what nature teaches can provide testable hypothesis and
theories that can be affirmed by further discoveries. The work is science
is not confined to laboratory studies; in biology nature is the laboratory.

Bob Schneider

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alexanian, Moorad" <alexanian@uncw.edu>
To: "D. F. Siemens, Jr." <dfsiemensjr@juno.com>
Cc: <drsyme@cablespeed.com>; <pruest@mysunrise.ch>;
<samantha.gore@btopenworld.com>; <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2004 3:10 PM
Subject: RE: Assurance of faith

> Therefore the best we can do in evolutionary theory is to indicate some
> basic scientific processes that can be studied in the lab and say that
> with the aid of those processes all came to be. What is then the
> difference between Genesis and evolutionary theory? Quantum mechanics is
> a deterministic theory and indeterminism is a consequence of
> measurements. Theories in physics still can prescribe outcomes and
> attach unambiguous probabilities to all possible outcomes.
> Evolutionary theory can never achieve that owing to the complexity of
> the problem and so is replete with unproven assumptions, e.g. that life
> results from non-living matter, etc.
>
> Moorad
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: D. F. Siemens, Jr. [mailto:dfsiemensjr@juno.com]
> Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2004 2:51 PM
> To: Alexanian, Moorad
> Cc: drsyme@cablespeed.com; pruest@mysunrise.ch;
> samantha.gore@btopenworld.com; asa@calvin.edu
> Subject: Re: Assurance of faith
>
>
> On Thu, 25 Mar 2004 10:35:52 -0500 "Alexanian, Moorad"
> <alexanian@uncw.edu> writes:
> > It is plain and simple. Evolutionary theory fails in its ability to
> > make
> > predictions. Predictions and not mere explanations is the essence of
> > any
> > scientific theory. One, of course, can never know the future. But
> > theories created by man can make predictions and therein lies the
> > failure of evolutionary theory as a scientific theory.
> >
> > Moorad
> >
> >
> Moorad,
> I fear you are behind the times in your expectation of straightforward
> prediction from scientific disciplines. Going back to Laplace's
> /intelligence/ (usually mistranslated as "superman"), the expectation
> was
> simple deterministic prediction. But that expectation died a long time
> ago. Now we have to recognize deterministic chaos as an essential part
> of
> reality, even apart from the problems arising from quantum theory and
> more recent developments in string theory and M theory. Have you every
> heard of the Heisenberg indeterminism principle? How do you make it
> compatible with your requirement?
>
> In order to get the kind of prediction you demand for evolutionary
> theory, one will have to predict inexorably which chromosome or
> chromosome segment will be duplicated, which base in the genes contained
> therein will change, what the change will do to the folding pattern of
> the resulting protein and the consequent modification of structure or
> activity; which chromosome segments may be deleted, moved, etc., with
> the
> consequences of the changes; which of these will be enhanced or lost
> through drift, accident, change of environment, penetration of new
> environment, and a host of other random factors. In other words, you
> want
> from biology what is no longer expected in physics. This is the
> twenty-first century, not the eighteenth. Nevertheless, I keep running
> across more and more sophisticated results in various biological
> disciplines.
> Dave
Received on Thu Mar 25 16:56:42 2004