Re: Special Creation

So the scientific evidence suggests that we have to abandon the idea that
our progenitor, whether it was 100k or 1.5 Ma, was created out of nothing
with no connection to the rest of the tree of life.

Jack -- another possibility: could Adam have been specially created out of
"something" -- "the dust of the ground" -- that included genetic material
(skin cells, hair, etc.; or stem cells?) from earlier hominids? There is no
"appearance of a connection" fallacy here -- there is a real connection, but
it is not the one evolutionary science suggests. The "clay" the master
potter used to form man was "genetic clay." Which seems to make sense to
me. When biotechnology today "creates" an organism -- say, a microbe that
digests oil wastes -- it doesn't do so ex nihlo, it clones existing microbes
and manipulates existing DNA to produce desired characteristics. If we
humans are able to "create" garbage-eating microbes within only fifty years
or so of learning about DNA, couldn't God have specially created a human in
a similar way?

I've been thinking about this alot over the past couple of weeks, and the
above is something that came to me. I don't want to suggest it's the
"right" view or even "my" view, but it does seem feasible and seems to have
been omitted from the conversation so far. I'm sure I got this from
somewhere. Does anyone know of a paper or book or recognized position that
takes this kind of approach?

On 3/1/06, jack syme <drsyme@cablespeed.com> wrote:
>
> In all of this discussion about geneologies, mtDNA, and Adam, an
important theological point is not getting pushed aside somewhat and that
is the idea of special creation. Was Adam created out of the dust of the
earth as a new creature or not?
>
> In the evolutionary model humans are part of the tree of life. We all
have a common ancestor that utlmately evolved into chimpanzees, gorillas,
and humans. So we are geneticall connected to primates, and mammals to a
lesser extent, and all vertebrates, etc etc. And in fact the scientific
evidence supports this. We have been focusing lately on templetons
autosomal analysis of human migration. But MHC loci, psudogenes, and
chromosomal banding patterns, clearly connect us to apes.
>
> So the scientific evidence suggests that we have to abandon the idea that
our progenitor, whether it was 100k or 1.5 Ma, was created out of nothing
with no connection to the rest of the tree of life.
>
> At this point, I am leaning towards Dick's view. If the creation of man
means nothing about his actual first appearance (in a biological sense)
then there is no reason to make Adam a homo erectus. I am concerned about
Glenn's argument against evidence for a substantial flood in neolithic
times, which I think is the strongest argument against Dick's view, (and
this would apply to Phil's view also).
Received on Wed Mar 1 09:23:24 2006