Re: Stereotypes and reputations

Glenn:

You raised basically 3 concerns with the idea that evolution could be false:

1. Extinctions
2. Species changeover
3. Long time periods.

In other words, God would not make species that would go extinct; He would not have the flora and fauna go through complete makeovers; and He would not be very very slow acting, using long time periods. Hence, evolution must be true. These are powerful arguments for evolution. They and several others like them have been around for centuries. #1 goes back to Wesley and Jefferson in the 18th century. How's that for bracketing the theological spectrum? A Wesleyan (literally) and a deist both making the same identical point, that God would not have species go extinct. These concerns cut across the spectrum and they can be found in a great many thinkers, from the highly influential to the more obscure. So when Darwin made his powerful arguments for evolution he was drawing from a rich tradition.

So while we have no idea how protein synthesis or the human brain could have evolved, they must have evolved. Evolution is a fact, the scientific details are the theory of how it happens. All those many evidential problems are really research problems, which reflect our current lack of understanding. Our science has not caught up with the truth.

You are making powerful theological arguments and I don't hold out much hope that I could soften your theological convictions. I can talk science, but I find religious convictions to be rigid and hence theological discussions to be less satisfying and fruitful. Rather than answer your questions about why God would take so long, allow extinctions, etc., I would prefer, for the sake of argument, to agree with you. Given your beliefs, which are popularly held to, evolution is a fact.

--Cornelius

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Glenn Morton
  To: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Sunday, July 31, 2005 5:12 AM
  Subject: Re: Stereotypes and reputations

  Cornelius Hunter wrote:

>Unfortunately this is always the explanation, and it makes common descent
>unfalsifiable. With every problem, one hears, "well, that doesn't mean the theory is
>wrong." So here we have all kinds of incongruities -- phylogenetic mismatches
>abounding. Non homologous development patterns that make utterly no sense on
>common descent. Detailed designs evolving independently over and over.

  And what I find utterly lacking on the part of ID and YEC is a coherent and credible explanation of why the species of life on earth have utterly changed many times over. If you look at the fossil record, you don't see what one would expect from reading the Biblical account. The problem is that only evolution actually explains the complete and total change of species over time. The oldest fossil of a living mammalian species is upper Miocene--around 7 million years ago. Prior to that, not a single living mammalian species can be found as a fossil. And if one goes further back one finds that every 7-15 million years the entire set of species rolls over--an entirely new set of species. This continues back through time for hundreds of millions of years.

  Can you please explain why this continuing total change of fauna over time occurs? The average lifespan of a mammalian species is 3 million years. (Steven M. Stanley, "Evolution of LIfe: Evidence for a New Pattern", Great Ideas Today, 1983, (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica,) p. 11)

  The Bible gives us no hint of why this happens so anything you say is totally extrabiblical. Some ID folks have said that God was preparing the world for us. If you hold this view, please explain why Man couldn't have eaten trilobites? Why did God require 200 million years for plants to appear on land? Why did God then require another 100 million before complex life to appear? What was he waiting for? Why did his genetic tinkerings take so long? Evolution fits that kind of time scale much better than have a very very slow acting God. Why couldn't mankind have appeared on earth in the Late Paleozoic--240 million years ago? What exactly was God waiting for? When you do explain this, please explain God's reasoning for this species change as well.

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Received on Sun Jul 31 14:22:55 2005