As I read across the spectrum of writings on creation and evolution, I often find a certain level of demonization of one’s opponents. Some Young Earth (YE) creationists ascribe to evolutionists an agenda of tearing down all that is good. Charles Darwin is portrayed as a cunning atheist, who devised his theory of evolution as a means to attack Christianity (see Was Darwin an Atheist? for my treatment of this subject). On the other side, the effectiveness of pro-evolution responses to YE creationists is blunted by bashing them as idiots and failing to address their underlying concerns. Since I have dwelt on both sides of this great divide, I hope by telling my own story here to provide some perspective on why YE creationists, Intelligent Design proponents, and evolutionists do what they do.
(A) Early Faith
My spiritual awakening began with a desire for wisdom, as distinct from knowledge. Acquiring plain knowledge was never a challenge for me. I was reading at an adult level by age 8, and was typically a top student in my classes. By age 12 I had a good grasp of applied science and was building electronic circuits and was making my own black gunpowder to fill my rockets.
My parents took me to church and Sunday school as a child, but I don’t recall much penetration from those teachings. I became basically an agnostic materialist, leavened by a bit of pagan feeling of being one with nature. This started to change in my early teens. I got a sense that there was more to life than a narrow materialistic worldview could accommodate, and started thinking outside of the reductionistic box. I became interested in the bigger questions, and looked for wisdom on how to live life well.
This was a time when my family started attending an evangelical church. I began to read the Bible, and found a lot of profound wisdom in the Old Testament book of Proverbs. That pulled me into giving the Bible as a whole some serious consideration. When I read the Gospels I was deeply impressed with Jesus’s wholeness and authority. At home one night, after hearing in a vacation Bible camp of God’s offer of forgiveness and fellowship through Jesus, I said “Yes” to him.
I can’t claim that I rigorously investigated many other religions or worldviews before deciding for Christ. It just seemed right at the time, and I have found no reason since to regret that decision. I later did some due diligence to check the historicity of Christianity. Since the earliest extant physical manuscripts of the gospels date back only to about 200 A.D., that opens the question of whether people just made up miracle tales about Jesus many years after he was gone. It turns out that Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth is well-attested as having been written around 56 A.D. (e.g., when Clement of Rome wrote to the Corinthians about 96 A.D., he refers to that letter as still being in their possession). In I Cor. 15:3-8 Paul reminded the Corinthians that when he had first come to their city some years earlier, he had preached to them the same gospel about the atoning death, burial, resurrection, and post-resurrection appearances of Jesus Christ that he had learned years before from the original apostles. If we work the numbers, we find that within 5-10 years of the Jesus-events of 30 A.D., Paul had met a diverse group of men who were all putting their lives on the line to testify that they had met with the risen Christ. While this will not convince a determined skeptic, it shows that the Resurrection was not some story devised decades later. (See Historicity of Jesus for in-depth treatment here).
Another encouragement to my early faith came in the form of some dramatic answers to prayer. I will not elaborate on my own experiences, but on this blog I have posted links (here, here, and here) to reports or videos of similar episodes, where there appear to be rapid, significant healings.
In my first few years of being a Christian, I did not encounter any controversy over the Genesis creation story. Knowing what I did about science when I read Genesis 1, it seemed clear that it was not literally correct, but somehow that did not bother me.
I remember being impressed with how close the story came to what we now know of the epochs of the earth’s creation, despite being written millennia before modern science. In Genesis 1, the creation of the universe starts with a blast of light. Well, that sounded a lot like the Big Bang which started with mainly photons and particles that were too hot to form matter. The Genesis story progresses with the formation of the land and water, with life-forms being created thereafter. Classes of animals were formed in several stages, with the last stage being the creation of humans. That is pretty good. The creations of plants and of birds are out of order, but, all in all, the creation narrative in Genesis 1 seemed much more realistic than the creation stories of other ancient near Eastern religions. Thus, my original intuition was that it was no big deal if the Genesis story were not literally accurate. It was still majestic and inspiring.
(B) Encounter with Young Earth Creationism
When I got to college in the early 1970’s I was exposed to dogmatic young earth creationism. There was a strongly conservative Christian fellowship at my university. During my freshman or sophomore year they brought in Dr. John Whitcomb as a speaker. He was a co-author of The Genesis Flood, which was a hugely influential book in the 1960s and 1970s. This book made a case for the literal accuracy of the six 24-hour day Genesis creation, and for Flood geology.
In this view, the earth is only 6,000-10,000 years old and most of the sedimentary rock layers were laid down during Noah’s flood around 2500 BC. Adam was specially created starting with dust, and later Eve was also specially created, using a piece of Adam’s skeleton. In this original creation there was no sin, no pain, and no death. All animals were vegetarians. Adam’s sin led to drastic changes in biological functions, to yield today’s biosphere which includes carnivory, fear, and death.
I was impressed by Dr. Whitcomb. He was a devout and learned man, who was very serious about what he was teaching. In his lectures and his book Dr. Whitcomb presented evidence which seem to show that the mainstream scientific understanding of the earth’s age was incorrect. This evidence included polystrate fossils, supposedly older rock layers resting atop supposedly younger rocks, and recent lava flows where radioactive dating methods gave spuriously old dates.
Regarding biological evolution, the young earth creationists pointed to a lack of transitional fossils, and also the lack of observed transformations from one major life form to another happening today. Much was made of fossil mistakes such as “Piltdown man” and “Nebraska man”. (Piltdown man was later discovered to be a deliberate hoax, and Nebraska man was an imaginary construct based on the finding of a tooth which was actually from an extinct pig.)
As a young Christian it was naturally appealing to me to believe that the rock layers and indeed the whole universe confirmed and demonstrated the truth of God’s revelation in the Bible. It did not occur to me to be skeptical of this teaching. Also, I was surrounded by smart, competent students in the Christian fellowship who took all this to be completely true. Therefore I became a believer in YE creationism as an undergraduate. I did not make it a big focus of my faith, but I did persuade my Christian roommate at the time that Genesis was literally true.
(C) Different Views of the Bible
During those undergraduate years I planned to become a minister, so in my coursework I concentrated on ancient Near Eastern history and the Hebrew language. After graduation I attended a relatively conservative, academically rigorous seminary.
Two episodes in the seminary classroom impacted my views on the Genesis story. I took an Old Testament class under Meredith Kline. Prof. Kline spent quite a bit of time on Genesis 1-3, noting the parallels with typical covenants between kings and subjects in the ancient Middle East. He considered that the two triads of the six creation days in Genesis 1 indicate a thematic, rather than chronological framework for revealing the creative acts of God. This “framework” view notes that days 1, 2, and 3 involve the formation/structuring of day/night, sky/sea, and finally water/land, while days 4, 5, and 6 provide occupants or rulers for these realms, in the same order: sun and moon (for day/night), birds and fish (for sky and sea), and land animals on day 6. The earth was initially (Gen. 1:2) “formless and empty.” These two deficiencies are corrected in the next six days, as the earth is “formed” (structured) in days 1-3, then “filled” in days 4-6. There is a pleasing, symmetrical logic to all this. In this view, the sequencing of the accomplishments in Genesis 1 is not expected to correspond to the actual physical order of events. This point of view offered me a way to acknowledge that the Genesis account is not chronologically accurate, while maintaining a high view of Biblical inspiration.
Another significant classroom interaction occurred in a New Testament exegesis course. I was comparing two Gospels and noted some events that I could not reconcile between them. I went to the professor to try to get some help on this, and noted that he did not have a nice pat answer. I finally asked him point-blank, “Do you believe that there are actual discrepancies in the Bible?” He looked at me and hesitated for a few seconds, weighing what to say. Finally he said, “Yes.” At the time I was scandalized, and did not want to accept this. Later I calmed down and reflected that this professor seemed to be as good a Christian as I, and maybe he knew something that I didn’t. That helped release me from the fear that my whole faith would go down the drain if there were any inaccuracy in the Bible.
(D) Old Earth Creationism
After a year in seminary I changed my vocational plans. I went back to college for a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering and went on for a PhD. I picked up enough hard science along the way to realize that the earth was in fact several billions years old, and that the rock layers were laid down over millions of years, not in a single global flood. On closer inspection, all of the evidences I had been given for a young earth turned out to be false (see Evidences for a Young Earth ). I still could not stomach evolution.
By the 1990’s I was reading and agreeing with the publications of Hugh Ross, founder of the Reasons to Believe ministry. Ross staunchly defends the Big Bang as a singular, non-recurring event, seeing it as evidence for a Creator who lies outside of this universe. The Genesis creation story, more than most ancient creation narratives, is consistent with the Big Bang’s one-time (not cyclic) creation of the universe at some finite time in the past.
Ross also points out the many physical constants that are finely tuned to enable the survival of carbon-based life-forms like us, seeing this as evidence of purposeful design of the universe. He teaches a form of “old earth creationism,” where the “days” of Genesis 1 represent long geological ages, which are in correct chronological order. He has to put non-traditional interpretations on the various elements of the Genesis story, in order to make it fit what is known of the geological history of the earth. Given those interpretations, Ross can then claim that Genesis marvelously provides an accurate description of the formation of the earth and its biosphere. While endorsing the conclusions of mainstream astronomy and geology, Ross rejects macro-evolution. He sees Adam and Eve as supernaturally created, not descended from other primates.
In the late 1990’s I also read Phillip Johnson’s Darwin on Trial, which highlighted apparent challenges to evolution, such as lack of transitional fossils and some putative quandaries in genetics, while not disputing an old earth. Johnson claims that Darwinism constitutes a naturalistic philosophy intrinsically opposed to religion. This book helped initiate the modern Intelligent Design movement. I found Johnson’s book convincing, since that is what I wanted to hear at the time. I was not motivated to do the hard work required (for a non-biologist) to dig into all the technical arguments for and against evolution, or even to search out and weigh critical reviews of Darwin on Trial such as that written by Stephen Jay Gould.
A key question for the Old Earth/anti-evolution viewpoint is: If all those fossils in those old rock layers do not represent organisms that had slowly evolved over time, where exactly did they come from? The only consistent answer for this viewpoint is that God miraculously created hundreds of new species every million years or so, in a sequence which just happened to mesh with evolutionary expectations (then let them go extinct). That seems unpalatable. This issue is so awkward that anti-evolutionary old earth creationists (including today’s Intelligent Design proponents) typically avoid addressing it at all. It just never occurred to me to ask this question.
(E) Into the Fray
Sometime around 2004 I had an impactful conversation with a colleague at work. I had conceived of all genetic mutations being merely point substitutions at various spots along the DNA strand. That seemed to offer no way for the increase in informational content in the genome which would be necessary if life evolved from simple bacteria to full-fledged animals. I offered this to my chemist friend as a reason that I was skeptical about evolution. He listened to me politely, then informed me that there are other types of mutations that are known to occur, including ones where whole sections of DNA can undergo extra duplication and get inserted into the new DNA strand. For instance, an extra copy of a gene may get added to the genome. (I did not know about this, since my last exposure to genetics was a high school biology class in 1970.) It was immediately clear to me that gene duplication offered a viable pathway for an increase in genetic information. This dissolved my strongest mechanistic objection to evolution, though at the time I did not think very much about it.
I became more deeply engaged in the creation/evolution debate as a result of an encounter around 2008 at a church men’s retreat. A participant there offered a short workshop in creationism. He was a committed young earth creationist, with some knowledge of biology. He presented slides and handed out written material that claimed to show that all the evidence for the earth being very old was mistaken, and also that evolution was scientifically impossible. I was not prepared to counter the examples he gave, but I felt an obligation to stand up and say that there was more than one point of view among Christians on these issues.
This gentleman urged me to get on board with YE creationism. He recognized that I was a scientist and may have hoped that if I came around to his point of view, I could add my voice to the cause. We started corresponding back and forth, and sent each other some books.
With my background knowledge, and with a lot of help from web sites such as TalkOrigins and Old Earth Ministries (formerly Answers In Creation), I was able to point out where all the geological evidence being presented for a young earth was flawed. For instance, in The Genesis Flood is a photo of the “Lewis Overthrust”, where supposedly ancient Precambrian rock layers are resting on top of supposedly younger rock layers. This order of rock layers seems to contradict the normal geological model, where younger sedimentary layers are deposited atop older, pre-existing layers. Mainstream science explains this formation by claiming that the Precambrian rock layers were pushed over on top of the younger rock layers in a nearly-horizontal thrust fault. However, The Genesis Flood showed a picture taken by Walter Lammerts of the fault interface, and in that photo there is no evidence of the deformation and abrasion you would expect if one heavy rock layer were slid across the top of another rock layer. This looked bad for mainstream science – – – until I found a TalkOrigins article with a photo of the overthrust fault, showing the expected deformation and abrasion, and explaining that Lammerts’ serene photo was not a picture of the actual fault line.
Radioactive dating is science’s key method for assigning absolute dates to rocks, so YE creationists attack its reliability. The young earth evidence that had seemed most compelling to me were cases where recent flows of volcanic lava which were known to be only a few hundred years old were submitted for radioactive dating. These dating methods mistakenly reported the lavas as being many thousands of years old. In one of these cases the lava from a 200-year-old flow from a Hawaiian volcano was dated to be over a million years old. However, as I dug into the details I found that the YE creationists were not telling the whole truth on discrepant radioactive dating. For example, with that Hawaiian volcano, it turns out that it was little crystals of unmelted minerals within the lava that were dated as having solidified over a million years earlier, which is plausible; the main body of the lava itself was (accurately) dated as being very recently congealed. I later summarized many of my findings about the geological evidence for an old earth in this article on the Grand Canyon. TalkOrigins and Old Earth Ministries have collected rebuttals to most of the other YE claims.
Not having a current biology background, I was at a loss on how to respond to this gentleman’s claims that all known mutations are harmful, and that genomes are necessarily deteriorating with each generation. He sent me a detailed book, Genetic Entropy by retired Cornell professor John Sanford, which makes the case for the inexorable accumulation of deleterious mutations over time. The implication is that populations could not become more fit or even maintain their fitness for millions of years. Rather, all populations, especially humans, exhibit steady degradation from an earlier, better state. This fits with a perfect creation about 6000 years ago.
Having found that the panoply of arguments against an old earth were bogus and actually deceitful , I became motivated to settle, at least for myself, the question of evolution. In order to determine the truth about these matters, I spent hundreds of hours studying genetics and reading original papers in the field. Some helpful general resources were the Biologos website, “Evolution for Christians” by a professor at Berea College, and “29+ Evidences for Macroevolution” at TalkOrigins.
I found that all the objections advanced against evolution were unfounded. There are plenty of examples of beneficial mutations, and plenty of evidence within our genomes of common ancestry with chimpanzees. Furthermore, the fossil record is broadly consistent with evolution, if one looks at the fossils that have been found instead of merely complaining about those that have not been yet found. It is intrinsically unlikely to find fossils of the actual ancestral transitional forms, since (from elementary population genetics) a new species is most likely to develop in some small, isolated population.
I wrote up my findings on geology and genetics in the form of several long letters to my creationist correspondent in the 2008-2009 timeframe. Having put all that effort into these letters, I later published them as “STAN 1” through “STAN 4” as the initial content on this Letters to Creationists blog.
[Continued in Part 2 , which describes the personal and theological aspects of working through the creation/evolution issue ]
Letters to Creationists 
http://kingdomrepublic.wordpress.com/g/
I asked an evolutionist once “who do you believe, Moses?, or Darwin? You cannot believe them both. Its pretty simple. Evolutionists are people of great faith, much more so than the Creationist. Evolution is a belief system.
It takes a lot of faith to believe one man’s opinion, a “theory.” Than a written text, penned by over 40 different men of integrity, that has stood, unrefuted, for 3000 years
From a legal standpoint, since Moses writings predate Darwin, the burden of proof is on the evolutionist, not the creationist. In a court room, he must first refute creation, and prove Moses a liar, before he can even begin to sell his “theory” to an objective party, or jury. Contrary to the evolutionists “opinion,” The LONGER a written text stands without rebuttal, the MORE credible it is. Apparently evolutionists ignore this universal rule of evidence.
The creationist has documentation, the evolutionist has, essentially, a fairy tale. A monkey turning into a man? Sounds like a frog turning into a prince. A fairy tale. The evolutionist cannot claim the liberty of fairy tales.
As for a Christian, seems to me that if a Christian accepts, without reservation, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 3 days after a horrible death, then a LITERAL, 6 24 hour day creation “(and the evening and the morning was the first day”) should not be a stretch. Genesis is VERY specific as to times. It gives the exact day of the flood. And the exact day Noah stepped off the ark, as well as other specifics. (Read it sometime.) Moses didn’t just dream all that up. My blog has more detailed information concerning the timeline as well.
While the Christian faith is founded on a verifiable, DOCUMENTED miracle, the evolutionist does not have the liberty of “miracles”, yet he must believe, by blind faith (no documentation) that somehow, someway, an atom appeared, and the space for it to dwell in also simultaneously appeared from nothing, and from that, everything just blew into existance, akin to blowing up a print shop to create a dictionary. And, additionally, that we are here for no reason, and no purpose.
If Such is the case, then I’d say the evolutionist believes in miracles as well, whether he admits it or not. The author of his faith? A man with a “theory”. The author of the Christian faith? Jesus of Nazereth, the most loved, worshipped, wrote about, most followed, and most remembered and celebrated man who ever walked the planet. His death? A DOCUMENTED fact. His resurrection from the dead?. A DOCUMENTED fact, that no reasonable scholar will debate. Whether one believes it or not, the Bible is the most historically accurate, VERIFIABLE text in existance. The credibility of its authors is above reproach. Many of its writers chose to die the most horrible death known to man, by crucifixion, than deny the Bible, or their witness of the Risen Christ. The integrity of the scriptures is unassailable in a courtroom.
Attacking the credibility of the Bible strictly as a historical text only serves to shine a light on its accuracy and verifiability. “Science” is the Bible’s best friend, archaeologists dig up more confirmation of it almost daily. Many are now using descriptions and locations given in scripture to locate and find ancient cities and ruins once thought to be “fairy tales”. The walls of Jericho is one example.
The only defense an evolutionist has is a good offense. But Denying the Bibles accuracy cannot make the “theory” of evolution any more credible.
Outside of a “evolution vs. creation” debate, the “theory” cannot stand on its own merits. Its a feeble attempt to divorce oneself from any moral laws, or accountability or responsibility to one’s fellow man. But the Bible is not the source of the moral laws of man, while they ARE written there, Our creator also wrote these laws on our hearts and mind, “conscience”. Conscience is the in escapable judge all men must answer to every minute, of every day. We stand without excuse.
Hitler, stalin, pol pot, and other mass murderers since Darwin loved his “theory,” and used Darwins “inferior race” opinion (page 178 “descent of man”) to justify the extermination of millions they deemed “inferior”, without remorse.
Many of the victims of Darwins belief system are the unborn. Untold millions of unborn babies murdered in the womb. “survival of the fittest”. Don’t drink the koolaid, investigate your beliefs, and research your convictions. Let God be true, and every man a liar.
Huckleberry.
People like Huckleberry make assertions but ignore the scientific evidence against young Earth creationism, Still at least he is reading this blog (I assume).
My “assertions” are verifiable. Excluding the obvious won’t make the obvious any less true. Do you believe Darwin? Or Moses? They are not compatable “assertions,” and as stated earlier, and in my blog. You must first prove Moses a liar before an evolutionists can even begin to present his case. As far as “science” goes, “scientists” once BELIEVED the earth was flat, and that the sun revolved around the earth. By itself, the “theory” will not stand logical and scientific scrutinity. Either Moses dreamed it all up, and lied to all humanity, and no one had the gumption in 3000 years to refute him, or his “assertion” is true, and Darwins “theory” is a fairy tale. Is Moses a liar? If so, prove it.
I’ve just read the new comments by Huckleberry2012. As I said yesterday, Huckleberry is making assertions (and asking questions or demanding ‘proof’) whilst ignoring the scientific evidence against young earth creationism including that described in this blog post.
No one “believes Darwin” (or if they do they are an idiot). People accept evolution because of the evidence, not because of what anyone says.
Do you believe in God because you believe Moses, or do you believe Moses because you believe in God?
They accept it because they believe it will give their gnosticism credence.
The need for the uncreated, uncontingent Prime Mover is absolute, and the evolution proponent thinks they can claim they are their own uncreated, uncontingent Prime Mover if they have the excuse of “well it took a long time to do it!”
No time to respond to all of what was said. But I would like to respond to a few points. And I think or hope, we can both agree that almost no one denies some type of evolutionary process occurred or occurs (i.e., changes in allele frequency over time Horses and zebras having a common ancestor etc) and that for the most part, the question really concerns (prokaryote to man and universal common descent) or what is referred to as the modern evolutionary synthesis. So it is in the latter reference I will use the term “evolution”
Gene duplication can also cause conditions like down syndrome and other negative conditions. And we “know” this, but yet from an evolutionary paradigm we, have to “assume” that it can be an evolutionary positive construct. If you duplicate anything, including a gene. Are you really adding novel information? My opinion is no. And I’m not alone in this.
Intelligent design is not the same as Biblical creationist, so ID theorist are not obligated to speak about theology. Only the scientific merits of ID. Secondly.
As for Sanford’s point. I don’t think he ever claimed that a mutation which gave an organism a functional advantage could not be a beneficial mutation, or that they never existed, but only that the rarity of such a mutation was miniscule compared to all the deleterious mutations. And that even this same mutation which could offer a functional advantage, still isn’t an example of adding new information. In fact it seems the observable evidence points to just the opposite, i.e., a truncation of information.
And yes, I also believe that he claims that even with what some refer to as neutral mutation, are still negative, in that they still represent an accumulation of errors which eventually add up over many generations. And that natural selection does not have the ability to compensate for this. And there seems to be evidence for this, as among other things, genetic diseases are at an all time rise and increasing with every generation.
And last but not least, the same modern synthesis/neo-Darwinian synthesis (that is still taught till this day as an unquestionable axiom) is not only being refuted by young and old earth creationist or ID theorist, but also by agnostic and atheist scientist alike, who are now publicly admitting that the modern evolutionary synthesis (which again is the accepted and taught theory) has indeed crumbled. And these are not just educated opinions, but are conclusions based on the observable scientific data.
Below is just a short list of evolutionist who admit the modern synthesis has failed. And some are even asking the question as to whether there will someday be a new synthesis. But in my opinion, as of now, we are selling our kids snake oil.
Without a cohesive theory all you have are an assortment of educated guesses and bunch of self serving interpretations of facts and figures.
Beyond neo-Darwinism—an epigenetic approach to evolution
M.W. Ho
We argue that the basic neo-Darwinian framework—the natural selection of random mutations—is insufficient to account for evolution. The role of natural selection is itself limited: it cannot adequately explain the diversity of populations or of species; nor can it account for the origin of new species or for major evolutionary change…….
The Origin at 150: is a new evolutionary synthesis in sight?
Eugene V. Koonin
Abstract
The 200th anniversary of Darwin and the 150th jubilee of the Origin of Species prompt a new look at evolutionary biology. The 1959 Origin centennial was marked by the consolidation of the Modern Synthesis. The edifice of the Modern Synthesis has crumbled, apparently, beyond repair……….
The new biology: beyond the Modern Synthesis
Michael R Rose1* and Todd H Oakley2
The last third of the 20th Century featured an accumulation of research findings that severely challenged the assumptions of the “Modern Synthesis” which provided the foundations for most biological research during that century. The foundations of that “Modernist” biology had thus largely crumbled by the start of the 21st Century. This in turn raises the question of foundations for biology in the 21st Century.
Soft inheritance: challenging the modern synthesis
Eva JablonkaI; Marion J. LambII
…….In view of the data that support soft inheritance, as well as other challenges to the Modern Synthesis, it is concluded that that synthesis no longer offers a satisfactory theoretical framework for evolutionary biology.
Themayan also seems to be trying to shift the debate by eg pointing out that the details of evolutionary theory have changed over time and may continue to do so.
No Ashley. That was not my point of dispute. My claim (based on the current scientific data) is that the “modern evolutionary synthesis” has crumbled beyond repair, and that as of now, we do not have a viable and cohesive theory. However and again, I whole heartedly agree that science is advancing. And while doing so, it is showing us just how obsolete the current theory actually is. Again, let me repeat the point. The fact that science will continue to make new discoveries is a given, and that was not what the subject was about. So it seems maybe it is you who is attempting to shift the debate by trying to use this argument.
Mayan,
Ashley is correct. You don’t seem to know what you are talking about. Before wasting our time on this, you should have at a minimum read the relevant Wikipedia article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_evolutionary_synthesis .It states there that the the “modern” synthesis or “neo-Darwinian” synthesis, was produced between 1936 and 1947. We are talking ~ 70 years ago, dude. A lot has been discovered since then. For instance, biologists now estimate that only about about half of the fixed mutations are beneficial or selective, the other half being neutral, i.e. not classically “Darwinian.” Epigenetic inheritance was also not part of the main neo-Darwinian synthesis. Etc etc etc etc.
None of this threatens common descent or the core Darwinian insight of natural selection acting on heritable variations or the notion that genetic variations can accumulation over millions of generations to produce new/different species.
The claim that the advances in biology since 1947 have overthrown evolution is as silly as claiming that the discovery of relativity (which obviated strict Newtonian mechanics) left physics “crumbled beyond repair.”
Scott, your problem is that you’re either a lazy reader, or you’re just ignorant. And why are you lecturing me about the modern synthesis? I whole heartedly agree the theory is outdated and obsolete. Unbelievable man! And that was my entire point. You should direct your criticism towards the NCSE or the ACLU who will sue anyone who teaches neo-Darwinsm from a critical perspective (as all other theories are allowed to be taught) And I might add, the NCSE is not supportive of those who are critical of neo Darwinsm even if they are tying to reformulate or extend the evolutionary synthesis. And even evo devo’s like Stuart Newman have discussed this problem.
And please don’t accuse me of not knowing what I’m talking about when you didn’t even understand the argument. My point was that the same modern evolutionary synthesis (which is still taught till this day as an unquestionable axiom) has crumbled beyond repair, as cited in these same peer review articles I posted. Neo Darwinism is the modern synthesis. They are not two different things. Secondly, I never said anything about classical Darwinism (which is not the same as neo Darwinism). So it seems that it is you who is confused. And you do not seem to understand, that the foundations and central tenants of the modern evolutionary synthesis themselves have crumbled.
This includes the now known limitations of natural selection and random mutation. Including the demise of old entrenched ideas and assumptions like gene centrism, gradualism and even the demise of biologies central dogma. Just to name a few. Other theories or paradigms that stemmed from the neo Darwinian paradigm like JUNK DNA have also been soundly and thoroughly refuted. This is not about simply updating a theory. This is about attempting (and still yet with out success) to reformulate a new synthesis from the ground up. And my claim stands. As of now, we do not have a cohesive evolutionary theoretical framework. And this has been made explicit in the current data.
PS. The reason why we still teach and use Newtonian physics is because it works. And it is three hundred years old.
We are in agreement that “modern synthesis” = “neo-Darwinian synthesis”. That’s what I meant by: the “modern” synthesis or “neo-Darwinian” synthesis, was produced between 1936 and 1947.
Much more about genetics has been learned since then (DNA itself, epigenetics, effectively neutral mutation fixation, etc.), so of course the 1940’s version is no longer viable. We now know that reality is much more complex than was assumed in the 1940’s. Learning, and healthy debate (e.g. Coyne vs. Newman) as to the relative importance of selection, is ongoing. This is still a young field, so it is true that there is not a formulation that completely explains every single data point. The reason scientists like me still have jobs is precisely because we do not yet know everything about everything.
It is possible that some high school or college biology teachers have not caught up with this, so you can probably mine some quotes that seem to show that old-style neo-Darwinism is still being taught. But in general you are not correct to state that the 1940’s modern synthesis “is still taught till this day as an unquestionable axiom.”
Some biologists may feel threatened by these developments and will debate their level of significance, but almost no active researcher would deny that that there is SOME role played by these newly-discovered factors, which were not part of the original neo-Darwinian formulation.
I assumed that you are so passionate about the shortcomings of the “modern synthesis” because you are trying to find grounds to cast doubt on evolution itself. To trash the “modern evolutionary synthesis” would be a rhetorical means to that end, if you or some readers did not already know that that this “modern” synthesis is (in terms of biological knowledge) not modern at all. As long as we are all clear that the “modern” synthesis you are bashing is a 70-year-old straw man, I am fine with that.
Caveat: sometimes people use the term “modern synthesis” or even “neo-Darwinism” to refer to the 1940’s version PLUS all the subsequent learnings layered on. So it is important to be clear what someone means if they are defending the “modern synthesis.”
It looks like I was being too generous to themayan yesterday… He’s a science denier.
No sir, I was not ‘shifting the debate’.
We know Darwin existed. I, personally, do not believe Moses existed. There is no record of him, nor of having a significant number of Hebrew slaves, in the records the Egyptians kept (which go back earlier than 6000 years without mentioning any flood), and his story does not make any sense. It reads like a badly-plotted novel. After the Hebrew’s god delivers 10 plagues (“hardening Pharaoh’s heart” so that the full ten are necessary, included murdering innocent first-borne sons) and parts the Red Sea (which should have left the Hebrews floundering neck-deep in the mud of the bottom, strangely unmentioned), Moses goes off for the two weeks necessary for their god to carve some commandments in stone (funny how he can part the Red Sea in an instant but takes longer to carve stone – maybe he hadn’t thought of lasers yet) and in the meantime, 30-40% of the Hebrews decide they can make a better god themselves by melting some trinkets. Think about that for a minute: one the one hand, ten plagues and parting the Red Sea; on the other hand, some melted trinkets in the shape of a calf. After which they are killed by Mose’s operatives, immediately breaking one of the commandments. Then they wandered the Sinai desert (which Lawrence of Arabia crossed on foot in two days) for 40 years, chasing dust devils.
There have been numerous challenges to the 3000-year old record, by distinguished scholars; or you could just ask yourself if it makes any sense, that one small tribe in a time when every tribe had its tribal gods just happened to be specially chosen by the one true god.
We are all borne not knowing anything about the universe and how it works. My grandmother told me the moon was made of green cheese. I got over it. I believed in Paul Bunyon and his blue ox for a while too, but I learned that people like to make up and tell tall tales. (And no matter how strange they are, some will believe them. Ask the followers of David Koresh and “Reverend” Moon.)
As for signs and wonders, I asked the Christian god for a special sign dozens of times. (If you exist, make that crow fly over onto that fence.) Multiply that by millions of children trying long enough and some of them will receive signs by random coincidence. And people do have immune systems. At least one man has been found who is immune to the AIDS virus. Immune systems try to adapt and find cures, and his, out of perhaps billions of trials, was successful. Show me a miracle in a controlled, scientific experience – not just for my benefit, but to claim the Amazing Randi’s million dollar prize as well as a Nobel prize.
I’m just a layman in science, with an engineering degree, so I could be wrong in some of my details, But everything I have seen and continue to see each day convinces me that humans are just a natural part of the universe, not the special project of some god. Not that what I think matters a hill of beans in this crazy world, but since others have expressed their views above, why not me? Thanks for reading, if you did.
Jim, you are asking important questions here. Especially, why doesn’t God seem to answer prayers that seem to us legitimate and harmless (like you mention, “If You exist, make that crow flow onto that fence”), or prayers to avert some atrocity? I have not seen any solutions that fully scratch my itch on these problems.
I’ll offer a couple of random thoughts or observations, not claiming that they are full “answers.” Maybe you can relate to some of them, or not.
(1) When skeptics came to Jesus and asked for a sign, he was very clear that (at least normally) he (and by extension, God?) was not in the business of performing miracles on demand or to satisfy skeptics. So I doubt that He would, on principle, ever meet Randi on Randi’s terms.
(2) Even the leading practitioners of healing prayer will admit that most of their prayers are not answered. For instance, I went on a 2-week trip to Germany with Randy Clark. I posted a video link of him praying for an almost-deaf boy in Brazil here https://letterstocreationists.wordpress.com/2012/08/14/healing-of-nearly-deaf-boy-on-youtube/ . I wrote a longish report on my experience on this trip here https://letterstocreationists.wordpress.com/germany_mission/ . During that trip, Randy gave talks on how to pray for people. In those talks he admitted that many times he prayed long and fervently for someone, with no apparent results, and that that was heartbreaking for him. On that trip, only about 10% of the people I prayed for had significant relief of pain or disability. For some of my comrades it was more like 30-50%.
(3) As a purely practical matter, I’ve observed in my experience and with others that those who keep on praying in person for healing/blessing for others see more such healings materialize than someone who gives up and stops praying. So out of a desire to possibly help others, I decide to keep on praying for them even though my batting average is low.
(4) The most spectacular healings seem to be associated with the penetration of the gospel to relatively unreached people groups. e.g. in northern Mozambique, Heidi and Rolland Baker’s ministry (see https://letterstocreationists.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/study-healing-miracles-in-mozambique/ ) regularly sees healing of blindness and deafness. (My daughter traveled to Mozambique to check this out a few years ago, and reported that, as best she could tell, some people known to their fellow villagers to be deaf did gain hearing). I have seen Heidi Baker come to the U.S. to speak, without major miracles as far as I know.
(5) One of the most startling verses in the gospels to me is in Mark 6, where Jesus goes to his home town and they refuse to honor him:
” He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.” It seems that in God’s economy of things, faith or lack of faith makes a difference in whether things happen.
Like most people, I want to have proof, lots and lots of proof on my terms, before being asked to believe in something. But that is just not the way it is with God.
But actually, there are other things in life that are like that. There are other commitments that we enter into, like marriage or military service, without being able to know how it is going to turn out. These take courage and faith.
Enough for now. Best wishes in your journey.
Scott can you please cite your source for the following claim?….”For instance, biologists now estimate that only about about half of the fixed mutations are beneficial or selective, the other half being neutral”
It sounds to me like you may have misunderstood something you might have read.
Here is one such reference:
“In yeast and nematodes, the proportion of non-coding nucleotides that is conserved by natural selection has been estimated to be 10–20%. By contrast, in D. melanogaster, the available evidence suggests that at least 50% of sites in non-coding DNA are constrained by natural selection. In mammals, the proportion of the genome that is subject to natural selection is much lower, around 5%. It therefore seems likely that as much as 95% and as little as 50% of mutations in non-coding DNA are effectively neutral.”
from Eyre-Walker and Keightley, nature/reviews/genetics 2007 (8) 610
My point was not that it is exactly 50%, but that biologists now recognize that some significant fraction of fixed mutations in a population can be neutral or nearly neutral. This was not part of the 1940’s neo-Darwinian synthesis. (Note I said “fixed mutations”, not “all mutations”)
As for the way in which I use the term “evolution” it is posted in my very first comment. I described these caveats, terms and definitions at the very beginning. You should have read it before you responded.
I asked you to cite your claim that “biologists now estimate that only about about half of the fixed mutations are beneficial or selective, the other half being neutral”
We have known about neutral mutations for quite some time. And your citation does not even come close to what you boldly claimed earlier. In fact if you had bothered to read the first line it actually says this below. And especially take note of what it says about beneficial mutations being rare…..
“The proportion of mutations that are advantageous, effectively neutral and deleterious varies between species, and the DFE differs between coding and non-coding DNA. Despite these differences between species and genomic regions, some general principles have emerged: advantageous mutations are rare, and those that are strongly selected are exponentially distributed; and the DFE of deleterious mutations is complex and multi-modal”
“advantageous mutations are rare”
Did you get that? And this is from your own citation, and we have know this for fifty years.
Again, not even close to what you claimed.
“My point was not that it is exactly 50%, but that biologists now recognize that some…..”
If your point was not “exactly” what you claimed, then why did you make the claim?
Furthermore, this same outdated Neo Darwinian theory is the exact same theory that was up held at Dover as an unquestionable axiom as late as 2005, and it is exactly the same neo Darwinian theory that we still teach till this day. You seem to keep avoiding this point.
And by the way, the reason why we even understand the basic principles of genetics is because of an Augustine monk named Mendel, and not Darwin. Darwin new nothing of genetics. In fact, Mendel never accepted Darwin’s theory. Mendelian genetics was only piggybacked onto the modern synthesis long after Mendel’s death, as up until then, he was ignored for fifty years. And keep in mind, genetics per say is not what is in dispute as there is still a foundation to be built on that does not need to be reformulated from the ground up.
Epigenetics itself is a direct challenge to the modern synthesis. Yet epigenetics only helps us better understand biology, but has yet to to become a theoretical frame work in itself, and that is why the paper I cited makes the statement and ask the question…….
“The foundations of that “Modernist” biology had thus largely crumbled by the start of the 21st Century. This in turn raises the question of foundations for biology in the 21st Century”
And in addition, the paper you cited also demonstrates the limits of natural selection which reaffirms what I cited earlier concerning the work of John Sanford, and it is actually speaking about non coding DNA which evolutionist for many years (and in many cases still do in spite of the contrary evidence) referred to as junk DNA. And this was touted as one of the best pieces of evidence for evolution biology. This same junk DNA paradigm was also held up as a poster child for bad design, i.e., why would an intelligent designer create so much useless junk? Again this fallacy has been soundly refuted by the current data.
In fact, calling it non coding DNA is a misnomer, as even though it does not code for protein, it does indeed code for RNA and controls gene regulation and expression, and has been found to be extremely beneficial and in many cases even vital. And Keep in mind, ID theorist predicted the demise of the junk DNA paradigm years ago.
Jerry Coyne and PZ Myers are still in denial of these new findings. Also keep in mind Jerry Coyne is the same guy who criticized Newman and Pigliucci for even claiming publically that and extend evolutionary synthesis is even necessary. And he has even called for boycotts on publications that are critical to neo Darwinism. So it puzzles me why on one hand you admit neo Darwinism is outdated, yet you cite a staunch defender of neo Darwinism who is critical of others who are trying to extend theory.
“When New Scientist published its “Darwin was WRONG”
“Letter writing doesn’t seem to have sufficed — perhaps it’s time to boycott New Scientist (n.b., by “boycott,” I mean to refuse, as scientists, to write for them or have anything to do with them).
PZ Myers is picking up the boycott thread,
Jerry Coyne.
Mendel’s Opposition to Evolution and to Darwin
OXFORD JOURNAL OF HEREDITY VOLUME 87
Orchestrated Intron Retention Regulates Normal Granulocyte Differentiation-How ‘junk DNA’ can control cell development
1 AUGUST, 2013
in CENTENARY, MEDIA RELEASES
Aug. 2, 2013 — Researchers from the Gene and Stem Cell Therapy Program at Sydney’s Centenary Institute have confirmed that, far from being “junk,” the 97 per cent of human DNA that does not encode instructions for making proteins can play a significant role in controlling cell development.
DNA Found Outside Genes Plays Largely Unknown, Potentially Vital Roles: Thousands of Previously Unknown RNA Molecules Identified (June 26, 2013) — A new study highlights the potential importance of the vast majority of human DNA that lies outside of genes within the … > read more
Challenging Conventional Neo-Darwinian Theory
Published: Monday, Aug. 12, 2013 – 9:32 am
WACO, Texas, Aug. 12, 2013 — “This is by far the most rigorous and in-depth re-examination of the sufficiency of neo-Darwinian theory. Never have so many well-credentialed scientists, representing so many disciplines, united so effectively to look beyond the standard mutation-selection paradigm.” – The Editors
WACO, Texas, Aug. 12, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — World Scientific Publishing has just released the proceedings of a symposium held in the spring of 2011, where a diverse group of scientists gathered at Cornell University to critically re-examine neo-Darwinian theory. This symposium brought together experts in information theory, computer science, numerical simulation, thermodynamics, evolutionary theory, whole organism biology, developmental biology, molecular biology, genetics, physics, biophysics, mathematics, and linguistics.
http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/8818#t=toc
Quoting from an earlier post by themayan:
“either a lazy reader, or you’re just ignorant”;
“So it seems that it is you who is confused. And you do not seem to understand, that the foundations and central tenants of the modern evolutionary synthesis …”;
“Including the demise of old entrenched ideas and assumptions like gene centrism…”.
I have formed the impression that themayan (whoever he or she is) is MORE ignorant than Scott Buchanan. And I haven’t misunderstood him, I’ve merely quoted from some of his many words.
Or may have been rushing and simply ‘misspoke’.
Did that 2012 symposium themayan links to conclude that neo-Darwinian theory had crumbled and collapsed? I suspect not.
Scott has previously blogged about the claims of YEC John Sanford.
My mistake!
All those at that symposium (Sanford, Dembski, Behe etc) are either YECs or ID proponents. People with an AGENDA when it comes to ‘origins’ science.
Scott –
It’s Scott here as well. Nice name. 🙂
It’s nice to read of another who is both invested in the power of the gospel and the importance of scientific study. I am no student of any of the sciences. But I’ve been interested in engaging with various critical scholarship as a theologian and some perspectives on evolutionary biology (I’ve read Pete Enns, Denis Lamoureaux, BioLogos, and some others). I am a continuationist that believes in miracles, healings, prophecy, etc, today. People are always puzzled why I could believe in the miraculous and also consider evolution as the means by which God created.
Anyways, thanks for sharing your thoughts. Blessings.
Scott, I enjoyed some of the articles on your Prodigal Thought blog, especially on charismata in the early church. FYI here is a link to an article I found (embedded in a pretty conservative website) with good citations from early church fathers on the subject: http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/popp/091212
No cessationism in sight there!
Blessings…
Pingback: Evolution and Faith: My Story, Part 2 | Letters to Creationists
Smh. Ahh, the religion of the evolutionists. It takes more faith to believe the “theory” than it does to believe Genesis. The so called “science” he relys on once said the earth was flat, and the sun revolved around the earth. Just two of the many epic failures of “science.” Its pretty simple actually, who do you believe? Darwin? Or Moses? In darwins “descent of man” pg 178, he states the black man was inferior, and came down a different evolutionary line. (i guess TWO monkeys turned into men?). Since Moses account existed long before Darwins “theory”, under the rules of evidence, he must first prove Genesis a lie before he can begin to present his theory. Evolutionists turn the rules of evidence upside down.
As far as a Bible believer goes, seems to me, that accepting the Genesis account of a 6 day creation would be a much easier pill to swallow than Jesus rising from the dead after three days in the grave. Which is the foundation rock of the Christian faith. I’ve never understood how a Resurrection believer readily accepts the Biblical account, of the Resurrection, then chokes and strangles on a 6 day creation. Again, who do you believe? , Darwins “theory”? Or Moses? There is no reconciling the two. A monkey turning into a man sounds like a fairy tale. The evolutionist religion doesn’t have the liberty of fairy tales, or miracles, and has no documentation for his “theory” he so deeply, BY FAITH, believes in. Hence “the religion of the evolutionist”.
Pingback: Realistic Expectations for Transitional Fossils | Letters to Creationists
An exegesis of the entire Bible demonstrates that Genesis was understood by all other Biblical writers who refer to it as a literal historical account (it contains genealogies which the Hewbraic people have always considered actual history); Jesus is quoted several times referring to Genesis as legitamate historical literature. So to deny the historicity of Genesis is also to deny the fidelity of other Biblical authors and Jesus too.
Regarding the claim that there have been mutations that have increased an organism’ genomic information, this too is incorrect. I am unaware of any mutational event, a point mutation, gene duplication, chromosomal inversion, genomic duplication revealing either new information or enhanced function, (The investigators working with Lenski at MSU’s long term evolution study lab have claimed that the one of 12 original lines of identical E. Coli has “evolved” citrate uptake as an adaptation increasing its fitness over against 10 of the other 11 strains; the “evolved” citrate antiporter is the result of the E. coli strain duplicating its own citT gene, excised it from its original genomic position and reinserted the gene next to a promoter so that the citT antiporter is constitutively expressed under all ambient oxic conditions, thus allowing the E. coli syrain to use the abundant citrate present in its glucose growth-limited medium as an unlimited carbon energy and general resource substrate to improve its fitness; indeed this adaptation endowed the strain to be fitter than 10 of the other 11 strains, unfortunately the strain’s regulatory control over the citT gene and its product has been lost and the information for the latter was present to begin with – notice that the gene’s product is identical and has not changed through any form of mutation to perform some other function). The fossil record works against evolutionists’ claims just as well as it works in support of them; it has no value in the debate. Likewise, the geologic column is best explained by a world wide catastrophic flood in most geographic regions, and therefore a proper, historical interpretation of Genesis. Abiogenesis, a universe from nothingness originally displaying different laws of physics, numerous pliable cosmological arguments, and imagination neither proves evolution nor an old universe/Earth. Take God at His Word – Christ Jesus and the Bible.
Robert,
Re: “An exegesis of the entire Bible demonstrates that Genesis was understood by all other Biblical writers who refer to it as a literal historical account”. I agree. Does that mean it was actually a literal historical account? No.
An exegesis of the Bible would also show that its authors, and essentially all early Christians and Jews, saw the earth as stationary, with the sun moving past it. (e.g. Psalm 104:5 (“He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved”), as well as I Chron. 16:30, Isa. 66:1, Eccl.1:5, and Josh. 10:13.). Galileo’s inquisitor Cardinal Roberto Bellarmine (1615) put it clearly: “…to affirm that the sun is really fixed in the center of the heavens and the earth revolves swiftly around the sun is a dangerous thing, not only irritating the theologians and philosophers, but injuring our holy faith and making the sacred scripture false.” Does that mean the earth really is stationary? No.
An exegesis of the Bible would also show that the firmament of Gen 1:6-7 is a solid dome, “hard as a mirror of cast bronze” (Job 37:18), with liquid waters above it.[ see https://letterstocreationists.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/was-the-expanse-overhead-in-genesis-1-a-solid-dome/ ]. Luther vigorously defended this traditional, literal interpretation against the natural philosophers of his day who would “wickedly deny” the existence of liquid waters above the heavenly dome:
“Scripture simply says that the moon, the sun, and the stars were placed in the firmament of the heaven, below and above which heaven are the waters… It is likely that the stars are fastened to the firmament like globes of fire, to shed light at night… We Christians must be different from the philosophers in the way we think about the causes of things. And if some are beyond our comprehension like those before us concerning the waters above the heavens, we must believe them rather than wickedly deny them or presumptuously interpret them in conformity with our understanding.”
An exegesis of the Bible would also show that Jesus taught that the mustard seed was the smallest of all seeds (“What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. Mark 4:31). Naturalists have now found seeds that are much smaller than the mustard seed. Does this mean that the mustard seed really is the smallest of all seeds? Or that Jesus taught error? No and no.
As with the Genesis creation story, all these instances show that God wisely and graciously communicated vital spiritual truths using both the language and the existing “science” of the ancient Israelites. The people of that day had an existing physical understanding (stationary earth, dome overhead, fixed species). God could have corrected all that, but chose not to. See
for more on this.
In contrast, the gospel stories of Jesus and his saving work do not depend on ancient cosmology, so the fact that the Genesis story is not literally accurate gives no reason to doubt the gospels.
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Re Lenski citrate mutation: All indications are that evolution proceeds relatively slowly (over millions of year time scales) , so it would be surprising to see some huge new function emerge in a decades-long lab experiment. That said, here is what Zachary Blount, the researcher who mainly discovered this citrate mutation had to say about creationists’ efforts to minimize it:
“True, the duplication responsible for Cit+ did rearrange components that were already there, but that rearrangement generated a new association between components that did not previously exist, and it produced a new function that also did not previously exist. To argue that rearrangements cannot produce innovation is akin to arguing that a novelist has done nothing creative in writing her novels because she only used words that already existed.”
For this strain of E. Coli, to metabolize citrate under aerobic conditions was a new function, no matter how hard you try to spin it otherwise.
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Re: “The fossil record works against evolutionists’ claims just as well as it works in support of them; it has no value in the debate. “ You don’t seem to be acquainted with the facts. The fossil record is just what it should be if evolution is true. See https://letterstocreationists.wordpress.com/2014/04/02/realistic-expectations-for-transitional-fossils/
Re: “Likewise, the geologic column is best explained by a world wide catastrophic flood in most geographic regions”. Proposal: Go tell this to the petroleum geologists who are currently finding oil by modeling basin deposition using old-earth principles.
“ If the geologic column is flawed, then one might wonder why oil companies and mineral exploration companies feature it so prominently in their exploration research. One test of scientific validity is to examine how utilitarian the science is. Companies who stake their livelihood on the science of geology would certainly abandon the notion of Geologic correlation were it so useless as [creationist] Woodmorappe/Peczkis believes… I also challenge ANY CREATIONIST to demonstrate a global flood stratigraphy that is not only useful in correlating strata, but also of economic importance.” – Joe Meert http://gondwanaresearch.com/hp/paleosol.htm
Here http://www.oldearth.org/whyileft.htm is an essay by former YE creationist Glenn Morton, who went to work for an oil company and eventually found that the data he worked with every day just could not be reconciled with Flood geology. He took a poll of YE creationist friends who also worked in the oil industry, asking them this question: “From your oil industry experience, did any fact that you were taught at ICR [a YE creationist institute], which challenged current geological thinking, turn out in the long run to be true? ” Not one of them could name any such “fact”.
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re “Abiogenesis” – I agree, despite some hints of RNA replication, no credible path from chemicals to life has been demonstrated.
Re “old universe/Earth” — Over and over again, different methods of dating agree on old earth. See https://letterstocreationists.wordpress.com/2014/09/07/some-simple-evidences-for-an-old-earth/
Creationists strive mightily to demonstrate otherwise, but they distort or ignore key information. I have chased down a number of creationist claims of “problems” in old earth dating, and found them all to be bogus. See e.g. here on Grand Canyon geology https://letterstocreationists.wordpress.com/grand-canyon-creation/ and here on other supposed evidence for a young earth : https://letterstocreationists.wordpress.com/2015/01/03/evidences-for-a-young-earth/
Re “Take God at His Word – Christ Jesus and the Bible.” Amen! I do that, sticking to the Bible’s definition of its purpose, which is “to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” and for “teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (II Tim 3:15-27). What I do not do is subscribe to the notion that the Bible is ALSO supposed to teach geology and biology – that notion is merely a tradition of man, adding to the Word and diverting focus from the Father’s business.
Best wishes as you consider these matters.
After one reads Genesis, it becomes abundantly obvious that it was written as and meant to be understood as literal history; and this is precisely why subsequent biblical authors, the apostolic fathers and most interpreters of the subsequent 2000 years recognized it to fall within the historical genre. The driving hypothesis behind the documentary hypothesis was that Genesis was created by abstracting from cultural myths that seem to assist the Babalonians as one example to cohere as a national people to provide a similar sense of nationhood among the Isrealites through the creation of a narrative outlining historical antecedents of the Israelites. I reject the documentary hypothesis, but it highlights the fact that those involved in the high criticism during the the late 19th century regarded Genesis as (fictive) literal history as it was understood to the vast majority of Jews and Christians. For what reason would humanity have any need for the Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth, to be tortured and murdered on our behalf? Is it because some hominid sweethearts “sinned” in some way after having the Breath of God breathed into their nostrils? Or does sin not exist? Or does it exist because each of us are in an allegorical sense Adam and Eve? At what point during the evolution away from the Human-Chimp LCA did sin enter humanity? Surely not while we were still Australopithecine apes? Perhaps on the road to Homo habilis [or is this a hodgepodge of ape and H. erectus bones]? H. erectus and neanderthalensis – which many evolutionists will slate into a polytypic H. sapiens taxon? Since such macroevolution is fantasy, being demonstrated six ways to Sunday is a natural impossibility, Jesus becomes our kinship redeemer because there were two human beings living in aright relationship with God who decided to become Gods themselves; I am referring to the first two human beings living roughly 6000 years ago in Eden, Adam and Eve. (By the way, Luther got a lot wrong and he was a very flawed man and intellectual. Many people are unaware of his unmitigated antisemitism, for instance.)
Where do petrologist look for oil and gas; exactly where one would be likely to find it. There is absolutely no entailment that one must find under rock that are dated hundred of million of years old for though these geologic features are dated old (by nearby volcanic rock using isocheonic dating, a method that has error bars that would never be accepted in say medicine for example; and also demanding that the petrologist accept unprovable assumptions) the criteria ultimately is based on structures under which it is believed the right extremes of temperature and pressure existed and have been exerted on massive quantities of buried organic matter (these are said by evolutionists to be prehistoric bogs – bloody massive bogs I’ll say!).
Look:
1) everything and its universe from nothing (quantum fluctuations do not occur out of nothing, if they do then these cosmologists are a queer idea of what nothingness really is
2) abiogenesis is impossible and so is macroevolution
3) as mentioned previously, the fossil record is an embarrassment and will continue to be so for evolutions, especially paleontologists
4) the argument for a recent global flood is a strong one; the strata, sediment, geomorphology, petrol product deposition, soft tissue in “old” bones, etc.
5) I concede that fossil assemblages are difficult to make sense of, but that anything could fossilize at all according to long age Earthism is a far greater leap of much more blind faith.
Hi Robert,
Well, it doesn’t look like either of us is about to change our minds here. It does not seem that you read the link I gave you on fossils.
I’d just like to address your concern over whether we need a Savior if there was no literal Adam. As I see it, of course I need a Savior, since I am a sinner. It makes no difference at all to me whether some guy 6000 years ago sinned or not. I am responsible before God for my choices and actions made within the framework of my life situation.
Paul develops the universality of sin in Romans 1-3 with no mention of original sin. He moves from, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness… although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him” (1:18-21) to “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (3:23) quite apart from Adam. In all the gospel proclamations to both Jews and Gentiles recorded in the Book of Acts, there is not a single reference to Adam’s sin. The Fall is never mentioned in the sayings of Jesus. On the contrary, Jesus directed people away from religious speculations or blaming others, and towards a consciousness of their own shortcomings and their personal need for mercy.
See here https://letterstocreationists.wordpress.com/2011/08/21/adam-the-fall-and-evolution-christianity-today-and-world-get-it-wrong/
for more on Adam, the Fall, Romans 5, etc.
Best wishes…
Hi Scott,
If you are legit, and there are few blogs and other sites I trust any longer because it is terribly difficult to sort out the trolls from sincere believers, then I commend you on holding firm to the truth as you know it (though of course there is only one objective truth, the measure of which is God’s very character generally and his special Word specifically).
Obviously we can’t both be correct. At one time I was an evolutionist, a theistic evolutionist. But then after closer study of the scriptures I was overwhelmed by the inconsistency of my belief, classic cognitive dissonance. Something had to give, it was either my faith or evolution. I suppose all the while I remained in crisis I had to be Christian still because I was led by the Lord to my first inkling that the evolutionists were keeping something from me, in a sense (I am definitely not implying a conspiracy, rather that they have themselves permitted a lie to percolate their entire thought pattern, “frame”, schema, lens, whatever metaphor you prefer for the manner by which information is perceived, processed, and then disseminated).
I was, and continue to be, very “educated”, earning an MD from one of the world’s most prestigious medical schools – I even practice for several years after completing my residency training, but lurking in the back of my mind were the impossibilities, the logical incoherences of evolution, and an increasing sense that maybe, just maybe this Earth, its solar system, and the universe in which they reside are very young, six thousand years young.
Well, if starlight traveling down a telescopes set of lens and mirors is from a star 10 billion light years away, then does not prove an incredibly ancient universe, and solar system, and Earth, I asked myself. Well I’m grappling with this “problem”, and though there are several resolutions, I may never settle on any one of them: but without a doubt in my mind is the utter folly of a Big Bang during which the first 300 000 years or so are unavailable to empirical inquiry, the early stage of which the descriptive laws we have discovered to manage our cosmos did not apply, that motion of certain moons and galaxies are anti-counterclockwise, that antatter or dark matter or dark energy or hyperspace, that two dozen inventions have been introduced over the years to save the theory, that any cosmological theory can be created to explain our universe so long as it may be morphed, patched-up, reconstrued, or adjusted according to purely fictive invention beyond any hope of our senses to ever confirm or reject even as we employ instruments that impressively extend our sense possession in ways I can’t even imagine. Something, indeed everything, from nothing is indubitably God’s imprimatur of the cosmos coo responding to “At the beginning…” (I’ve added a slightly more accurated Hebrew rendering of the Bible’s first verse.
As we scale down to size encpassing our own panet, there isn’t a hint of doubt in my mind that from non-life arises life. The argument is not merely that it seems improbable, rather it is a physical and logical impossibility for reasons I could itemize but they are well known. (As an aside the citT rearrangement was not random, this was programmed but has led to problems with excessive loss of carbon products antiported in exchanged for citrate for which new genomic-phenotypic adaptations have occurred to claw back these carbon rich substances in a hyper mutating cell lineage slowly loosing greater and greater control over its metabolomic function – still a brilliant display of adaptation, even though it is running out of control, not some step in macroevolutionary phylogenetic development.)
What is left? The old Earth and the fossil record. Most assuredly there is nothing of what ought to be best construed as evidence of human or whale or bird from saurischian dinosaurs – the burden of evidentiary proof is scant, if each item of bone, embryology, anatomic “homology”, the reasoning cohereing the story were presented to any other jury besides fellow paleontologists and those who report evolutionary “fact” as a philosophical commitment (to materialism/naturalism/scientism etc.) it would be dispatched with summary.
The radiometric dating methods for strata deploy assumptions that caste serious doubt upon this fidelity of this method for measuring time – for now at least it cannot be trusted ( for example we know from impirical methods that the rate of radioisotopic decay varies, albeit ever so slighyly, according to seasons at mid latitudes; this in itself is cause for concern). Flood geology has much explanatory power, but so does any nascent studies that comprise unsubstantiated hypotheses; it absolutely warrants further study.
I can’t wrap my head around the assemblages that exist in the geologic column; this is my greatest difficulty – I am no more concerned about how seeds spread during and after the deluge that an evolutionist is about the method of Old World monkeys “island hopping” to the New World (there is no string of islands that have existed to allow this impressive oceanic transmigration to be possible, even at the lowest sea levels evolutionists will allow – and as a group, they have rather elastic, pliable imaginations).
I appreciate that you do not simply imbibe much of the received tradition i within Christian exegesis, interpretation. I often cringe when I read much of modern evangelical eschatology. But I feel confident that CMI and AIG and ICR and a host of other organizations have got it right. If I concede your point of original sin with which all persons are conceived at the instant of conception – something I would very much like to disaver, the reality of sin remains and so does the reality of each of us offending God through sin thought and behaviour requiring the demands of just punishment that only Jesus can bear on our behalf. The historicity, archaeological discoveries are so impressive that to deny the authenticity of the Bible is to deny the works accredited to Shakespeare.
Humans were created as they are, though our sin burden is reflected by our genetic burden marring what had been “very good” as we become more liable to illness, frailty, and death ( we don’t live near as long as say even Noah whose skeletal remains would demonstrate a very old man who once possessed superior physical and perhaps cognitive features attributed to what evolutionists today refer to as Neanderthal or H. erectus; just post flood human beings who lived 300 – 500 years of age as the Bible clearly indicates). We sin. Each and every one of us. We need to be redeemed from this blight that separates us from God. Jesus did the work necessary for the restoration we need to be placed back into our right relationship with our Heavenly Father. I am convinced if this. I am thoroughly unconvinced by what the evolutions proffer as indirect evidence against this. I don’t think I’ll be able to work out every confounding issue, but enough has been revealed do that not one of us will be excused for denying God’s creative power and most crucially, literally, His blood avengence taken out on His own Son for our eternal benefit.
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