Re: [asa] TE/EC Response - ideology according to Terry

> And I am truly not being critical or cranky when I raise issues here on your posting.<

I'm pretty good at not being entirely clear. Raising issues is how I
know that, so it's a good thing.

>> Gravity is no more or less the real cause of planetary orbits than mutations and natural selection are of evolution.<<

> My belief is, yes,  the physical laws were contrived when they were made. So
> the gravitational constant, for example, was tinkered with, yes. But after
> the laws were created they have gone along on their own and go along on
> their own. No guidance is necessary.

This part would be a difference of theological perspectives-whether
anything "goes along on its own" or not. I would hold that nothing
really goes along on its own-everything is always totally dependent on
God's guidance, sustenance, etc. to exist and do things. Of course,
"guidance" versus "special guidance" might be an issue here. I hold
that God is no less involved in water turning to wine by means of a
grapevine, yeast, and time than in doing it instantaneously.

> As far as NS,  maybe I am naive, but I view it as needing something to
> select. And thus it is the creation of new information, well the question is
> whether this creative  process is all natural, or not - that alone seems to
> be the point of contention as I understand it.

This is a slightly different point from what I was trying to say. My
intended point was that the nature of God's making use of, e.g.,
gravity in maintaining orbits is not particularly different from His
use of mutation and natural selection in creating different types of
organisms. I wasn't thinking about the comprehensiveness of mutation
and natural selection.

In reality, the fundamental information in evolution is from the
environment. If genetic information in an organism conforms
adequately to the environmental information, the organism can survive
and reproduce. New genetic information is generated all the time by
any sort of mutation or reconfiguration; comparison with the
environment is what determines if it's useful. There's no big
obstacle to the generation of new genetic information.

-- 
Dr. David Campbell
425 Scientific Collections
University of Alabama
"I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"
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