RE: [asa] Advice for conversing with YECs - attn Steve

Steve wrote:

James, just two responses. You asked me to "see your point," and I'll say to you what I've said many times before: I don't have any problem with the choices people make about what to *believe* about origins. You prefer to believe in lots and lots of miraculous intervention. I don't, but I'm not going to criticize you for that. My problems with you and with RTB have to do with your disheartening failure (or inability) to accurately portray the science you claim to reject.

First, you claim to be unconvinced by the evidence undergirding the tree of life. I will not try to convince you, but I will say that I do not take seriously your dismissal of the science or your mocking suggestion that phylogenetic inferences are "made up in the minds of Darwinian evolutionists." Rather than be offended by such talk, I merely assume that the person uttering such banalities is ignorant, and your further comments demonstrate that you have made no serious attempt to understand evolutionary science.

James replies:

Your dismissal of my experience and intelligence is misplaced. I have a bachelor’s degree in Biology, and a PhD in neuroscience, spent doing cellular biology. I also have an MD, but that’s beside the point. I understand evolutionary science. You can choose to believe that, or not, that’s your choice. I would greatly appreciate you trying to convince me, as I would love to see someone who could explain the examples I have given in previous posts. Stating that I am ignorant doesn’t cut it, stating that I “haven’t attempted to understand it” won’t do, and stating that you don’t take my dismissals seriously do NOT exempt you from having to defend a model that does not even adequately support the objective evidence.

Steve wrote:

You reveal this in your comments on Neanderthals. If you had read anything from the scientific literature since at least 1997, you would know that the hypothesis of direct ancestry of humans from Neanderthals was never more than a speculation (based on morphology) and that there were competing hypotheses from the beginning.

James replies:

I know that. So tell me, why is it that Nat Geo is still trying to convince us all otherwise? Because that’s all they’ve got. That was my point.

Steve wrote:

I know of one place where one might acquire this confusion about Neanderthals. It's RTB. Their pervasive mishandling of biology, and especially of evolutionary biology, is typified by their strawman-based discussions of the Neanderthal ancestry, not to mention their outright dishonesty regarding "junk DNA" and convergent evolution.

James replies:

I’m just gonna have to say it: put up or shut up. Show me what you’ve got. How exactly does RTB typify outright dishonest regarding junk DNA and convergent evolution?

Steve wrote:

James, you were quite unwise to go to RTB in search of knowledge about evolution. I recommend you start anew, as various former RTB devotees here have done, seeking understanding from the scientific literature and not from the propagandists in Glendora. (Heck, at the same time, you could join me and others in urging RTB to adopt reforms that could still rehabilitate their intellectual integrity.)

James replies:

I will happily read the scientific literature. Do you have any suggested reading that actually touch on the integration of science and faith that point towards God, published in perhaps Science or Nature, or maybe the Journal of Human Evolution, Journal of Molecular Evolution, or Journal of Mammalian Evolution? Every single one of these publications is atheistic. The only time a potentially non-atheistic manuscript was published, the publisher was ran out of office (see Expelled). However since we are on this topic, I am interested in getting back copies of ASA’s PSCF.

In my opinion, the TE position damages the cause of Christianity to insist that neoDarwinian evolution is the only mechanism, because (once again, ad nauseum) it does not address the objective data. Convergent evolution is one of the bits of objective data, so once again, show me what you got instead of calling me (RTB) a liar. It appears to me that you and others seem to think the only way to reach the science community is to adopt some sort of evolutionary worldview. This isn’t the case. RTB scholars repeatedly present the TCM before secular university professors and others, and do reach some people, with some acceptance. I truly worry that the TE position is in some since similar to that of the ID camp, trying to gain acceptance by making compromises. In this case, the compromise is blind acceptance of neoDarwinian evolution. This is a trap of the world, explained pretty clearly in John 12:42-43.

Steve wrote:

Second, you claim to have offered an "explanation" for broken genes in extant genomes. What I gather is that you picture God fashioning a human body from a non-human "precursor." And so you seem to expect characteristics of the precursor to show up in the final product. This looks to me like common descent, and you seem to agree, calling it descent with Modification (which you identify as miraculous). I find this explanation to be useful in only one way: it gives comfort to people who want to reserve space for "miracles." That's all it accomplishes. Oddly, you (like all RTB apologists) *attack* common descent, even though you just embraced the idea of a non-human "precursor" for human beings. So you're perfectly fine with all sorts of biological continuity between humans and primate ancestors, you just don't want an actual phylogenetic link between them. This is, in my view, utterly foolish.

James replies:

Then your view needs some revision, in my opinion. It isn’t that I do not want an actual phylogenetic link. It is that there is none, or at least to date, there is not one. What is evident from this statement is that you WANT there to be an actual phylogenetic link, despite the actual lack of said link. And so you support neoDarwinian evolution, which in my view, is incorrect. I will not call it foolish, or you a fool; I think we can get by without that sort of language.

Steve wrote:

At the end of the day, all you're fighting for is miracles, and your main tactic is the ill-conceived manufacture of explanatory gaps for miracles to fill.

James replies:

I clarify here again, that the “nature” (pun intended) of providence vs the supernatural is still not clear to me. I don’t manufacture gaps – I don’t have to. I don’t think the gaps are ill-conceived; rather, they simply are gaps, and lots of them, in the neoDarwinian model. I think those gaps are better addressed by the TCM than by TE. Once again, show me what you got.

Steve wrote:

I find this approach to be theologically bizarre and intellectually disreputable. Even if Hugh Ross showed exemplary intellectual integrity -- and he doesn't -- these behaviors would raise serious doubts about scholarly and scientific integrity.

James replies:

The integration of science and faith can be done with or without the God of the Bible, and with or without the Bible. I choose to come to an integration of science and faith that includes both God, and the Bible. I believe the Bible to be true in what it touches (inerrant) and true in what it teaches (infallible). It sounds to me as if you don’t agree with this position, and your language and semantics support this. If so, our further discourse here may lack utility. If I am wrong, I apologize, but please clarify your position here.

Steve wrote:

Let me make something clear, James. I want the ASA, and this email list, to be a place where Christians can feel free to adopt various stances toward creation. This should not be a place where one should be ashamed to express a preference for a certain frequency of miraculous intervention, or where one should be afraid to express skepticism about particular scientific explanations. So I repeat: it is NOT foolish or disreputable to suggest that God accomplishes his goals in creation through frequent miraculous interventions. It is NOT dishonest or obnoxious to admit to being unconvinced by one's current understanding of neo-Darwinism, or to criticize scientific apologists for arrogance, overstatement, religious fervor, etc. But in my opinion, this SHOULD be a place where the casual and ignorant dismissal of scientific theories is met with sharp criticism and an exhortation to avoid such intellectual malpractice.

James replies:

Agreed. And the blind acceptance of neoDarwinism is therefore what? Religious fervor? J

Once again. Try and convince me of the truth of TE. This is why I am here. I say, and continue to say, without ignorance, and not causally, that the neoDarwinian evolutionary (I am going to start using NDE for neoDarwinian evolution) model does not adequately support ALL the objective evidence. I realize that there is quite a bit of evidence in support of NDE, I accept (as does RTB) some forms of evolution, even macroevolution. But it is incorrect (in my opinion) to force all the data to fit this model, when all the data do NOT.

Show me what you got.

James Patterson

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Sat Nov 1 11:57:28 2008