Re: The wrong horse in evolution education

I think what you are saying here is exactly correct. I
also say good luck to you because I think the problems
with coming up with a model that meets your criteria,
without mythologizing the text, is an insurmountable
problem. Of course I am not fooling myself into thinking
that I am smart enough to be able to come up with such a
model, just honest enough with myself to understand that
there is no model that is going to work.

Take the federal headship of Adam as an example. If we
want to be concordist and put Adam in neolithic
mesopotamia, and make the story of Adam about the first
one chosen by God to have a personal relationship with
him, and a story about Adam's failure in that relationship
and that the rest of the old testament is about these
peoples, how can it be possible that Adam's curse extended
to the existing homo sapiens in Australia, Europe, and
Asia such that all people need redemption through Christ?

If you have a better answer than Genesis is just a
monotheistic retelling of pre-existing polytheistic myths,
I am all ears.

On Thu, 30 Mar 2006 20:16:18 +0200
  Peter Ruest <pruest@mysunrise.ch> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> a recent Science NewsFocus on evolution, C. Holden,
>"Darwin's Place on Campus Is
> Secure - But Not Supreme", Science 311, 769-771 (10
>Feb.2006) laments the lack
> of success in science education with respect to
>evolution: "Professors at many
> U.S. universities say their students are learning about
>evolution without
> abandoning their belief in some form of creationism."
>
> Unfortunately, much of current thinking in this area is
>still steeped in the
> antiquated belief in the warfare model of science vs.
>religion, or evolution vs.
> creation. In the article and the persons interviewed,
>there is hardly any
> attempt to distinguish YEC, OEC, ID, TE and other
>Christian models. Rather, one
> just tries to convince the students that evolution is
>correct and creation wrong.
>
> Of course, the main /pièce de résistance/ remains the
>common ancestry of humans
> and apes. But nobody seems to think that both evolution
>and creation could
> possibly apply.
>
> Now, confronted with their failure to convince a large
>percentage of the
> students that they were not created by God but descended
>from apes, some
> evolutionists are trying to convince them of the reality
>of "evolution" looked
> at in a much wider context, such as computer simulations
>of digital organisms,
> or in social and behavioral science.
>
> Will they succeed? I think they might face a sad
>disappointment. They are
> backing the wrong horse.
>
> The strongest evidence, by far, for the reality of
>evolution in the sense of
> common biological descent is found exactly in the case
>of the common descent of
> humans and apes, namely in the molecular genomics
>context, with the hundreds of
> cases of copied errors in nonfunctional sequences. But
>of course, no evidence
> for this will ever be accepted by Christian students, as
>long as the insidious
> lie of the warfare model with its implication of
>absolute incompatibility of
> evolution and creation continues to be perpetrated.
>
> On the other hand, digital organisms risk to be
>recognized as what they are:
> allegories of life, rather than realistic models of it.
>And "evolution" in
> social and behavioral sciences might risk to be
>recognized as having very little
> to do with biological evolution. In both cases,
>criticism of biological
> evolutionary thinking will be strengthened among many
>students, rather than
> diminished.
>
> YECs and some other Christians, as well as all atheists
>continue to emphasize
> the "creation _or_ evolution" warfare model. But the
>only way out of the impasse
> is to recognize the reasonableness of "creation _and_
>evolution" models.
>
> And these models must be consistent, in that they
>include human origins. If such
> models are to be successful in the longer run, and among
>all kinds of
> Christians, they have to recognize:
> 1) the theological significance of Adam as representing
>all humans (being a
> federal head, rather than a common ancestor);
> 2) the archeological and biblical evidence for Adam's
>placement in Holocene Sumer;
> 3) the genetic evidence for the biological relatedness
>of all existing humans
> and all their precursor fossil Homo sapiens back to at
>least about 60,000 if not
> 100,000 or more years ago;
> 4) the archeological evidence for early spirituality in
>humans (how early? this
> depends on very difficult interpretational judgements).
>
> The only possibility I see at present of conforming to
>conditions 2) and 3) is:
> a) to dissociate the biblical Adam (Gen.2:7) from the
>first humans created in
> God's image (Gen.1:27);
> b) to combine the biological and psychological evolution
>of the first humans
> with their spiritual creation "in God's image" at a
>given point in time (no
> requirement of the first humans to have no biological
>parents!).
>
> As you know, I am against too easy accommodationism and
>mythologizing of the
> Bible text - we need to take seriously all of it. So
>these questions are not
> irrelevant.
>
> Shalom!
>
> Peter
>
>
> --
> Dr. Peter Ruest, CH-3148 Lanzenhaeusern, Switzerland
> <pruest@dplanet.ch> - Biochemistry - Creation and
>evolution
> "..the work which God created to evolve it" (Genesis
>2:3)
>
>
>
Received on Thu Mar 30 14:28:01 2006