The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

wolfsbane

Morbert said:

Wolfsbane... I have read "Darwin's black box"... have you? There is no theory of ID in that book. Or perhaps you haven't read the book and are hoping no one will notice your complete failure to present evidence for your assertions.

No, I haven't, as it would be a bit beyond me. But my Professor friend has and found it very persuasive. Many other scientists have said the same. So we are back at who to believe. I'm comfortable with the credibility of these men.

What evidence for my assertions can I offer, other than the case for irreducible complexity has been made by this respected scientist and is accepted by many others? I am not a biologist nor a mathemathican.

And you haven't presented any text which contradicts evolution. Please explicitly explain why such passages contradict evolution. let's see if this really is your field.

Have you read Genesis 1 and 2? Can you fit billions of years into it? 6 'evenings and mornings'? Can you square 'very good' with universal suffering and death?
Have you read Genesis 6-9? A world-wide flood that destroyed all but 8 people? Does evolutionist history fit this in?

Does evolution square with Adam being created first, then Eve, as the apostle says? 1 Timothy 2:13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve.

Evolution and the Bible are opposite accounts of history. I could go on, but you should get my drift. If you don't I'll be glad to expand in detail.

wolfsbane

John Doe said:

Wow. I really can't understand how people believe in Creationism. I mean, why? It's not as if it being wrong would even undermine the Bible or anything: it's still a good allegory.

The historical account being an allegory would then be just as readily applied to the other historical accounts; the virgin birth of Christ, His miracles, his teaching,the resurrection of Christ, the His ascension to heaven, the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, etc. Bishop Spong already has gone down that line.

But it is a fundamentally dishonest handling of the text. An honest liberal will reach the same conclusion as to the intent of the writer as will an honest conservative. And all are agreed that Genesis was meant to be taken at face value.

John Doe

wolfsbane wrote:

And all are agreed that Genesis was meant to be taken at face value.

All who?

wolfsbane

John Doe said:

All who?

Sorry for being unclear: all honest OT scholars.

Let me remind you of JC's telling quote:

Prof James Barr (Regis Professor of Hebrew, at Oxford University), has said
“so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer of Gen 1-11 intended to convey to his readers the ideas that:
(a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience.
(b) The figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the Biblical story.
(c) Noah’s Flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguished all human and animal life except for those in the ark.”

John Doe

Fair enough. That clears that up, and I see why people might want to believe in Creationism. Thanks! I still don't myself though. Just because the people who wrote the Bible wanted me to believe that doesn't mean that I can.

robindch

> [wolfsbane] it is important I show men that it is not the word of men but the word
> of God - infallible, inerrant.

Looking back on your last hundred posts or so, do you think that you have achieved anything in this direction?

Whiskey Priest

robindch wrote:

> [wolfsbane] it is important I show men that it is not the word of men but the word
> of God - infallible, inerrant.

Looking back on your last hundred posts or so, do you think that you have achieved anything in this direction?

Not on the vector, but quite a bit on the axis.

Scofflaw

robindch wrote:

> [wolfsbane] it is important I show men that it is not the word of men but the word
> of God - infallible, inerrant.

Looking back on your last hundred posts or so, do you think that you have achieved anything in this direction?

He's certainly outlined a clear position:

1. he's not a scientist (and doesn't claim to be)

2. he believes certain scientists and not others on evolution/creation : the scientists he believes are a tiny minority, but he finds their arguments 'more persuasive' than those of the majority

3. he believes that the majority of scientists are essentially atheistic, and therefore deny the truth accepted by his preferred minority

4. he believes that the scientific 'establishment' pretend that there is no debate, because they are unwilling to face the truth

5. he believes that this scientific 'establishment' conspire to suppress and hold down creationist scientists

6. all of this must be the case because the account of the world in Genesis is different from that presented by the scientific 'establishment'.

Does this do anything to persuade me that Genesis is the word of God rather than man? If anything, it persuades me of the opposite. It seems outrageous to have to swallow so many unlikelihoods about the motives of science and scientists, simply in order to settle a literary discussion one way rather than another.

If Genesis were the literally true word of God, it would be possible to reconcile it with all the evidence present in the physical world without resorting to the kind of tricks and dodges we've seen in this thread.

regards,
Scofflaw

John Doe

Good post, Scofflaw. I agree.:D

robindch

Just in case yiz all thought that Ken Ham confined his missionary activities to the fertile backwoods of Kentucky, then think again. Ken has decided to set up an outpost in Dublin, to "reach people with the saving gospel message" and, no doubt, to raise cash for his Creation Museum too:

http://info.answersingenesis.org/aroundtheworld/?p=581

Thoughts?

Scofflaw

Pray for the Laughlins as they leave a secure job, home and family to travel to a foreign land to reach people with the saving gospel message.

I say we sacrifice them to our heathen foreign gods, and then eat 'em.

slaveringly,
Scofflaw

Morbert

wolfsbane wrote:

Morbert said:


No, I haven't, as it would be a bit beyond me. But my Professor friend has and found it very persuasive. Many other scientists have said the same. So we are back at who to believe. I'm comfortable with the credibility of these men.

What evidence for my assertions can I offer, other than the case for irreducible complexity has been made by this respected scientist and is accepted by many others? I am not a biologist nor a mathemathican.

So can we conclude that you are incapable of forming an argument regarding this matter?

wolfsbane wrote:

Have you read Genesis 1 and 2? Can you fit billions of years into it? 6 'evenings and mornings'? Can you square 'very good' with universal suffering and death?
Have you read Genesis 6-9? A world-wide flood that destroyed all but 8 people? Does evolutionist history fit this in?

Does evolution square with Adam being created first, then Eve, as the apostle says? 1 Timothy 2:13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve.

Evolution and the Bible are opposite accounts of history. I could go on, but you should get my drift. If you don't I'll be glad to expand in detail.

Why take them literally?

J C

Quote Son Goku
JC, organic molecules are condensed matter systems and involve QFT, with its implications of quasi-particles e.t.c. What you are talking about does not apply.

If you still think it does apply, then please tell me how using the condensed matter Lagrangian.

Your options are to stop using "10E+130" or reject QFT.


Organic information systems such as DNA and it’s resultant biomolecular systems behave like any other information storage and retrieval system – and that is the basis after all, of Molecular Biology and Genetic Engineering. It is also the basis of heredity and indeed Population Genetics as well as Genetic Fingerprinting.

Undirected processes are incapable of generating semantic or useful information – they can only degrade semantic information to noise – otherwise you could ‘sack’ every ‘Disc Jockey’ in the country and use a ‘random noise generator’ instead.


Quote Son Goku
J C, information theory implies a significant difference between organic information and semantic information to the extent that one is not analogous to the other.

Again please show how they are analogous. I can easily demonstrate how they are not.

The information present in living systems IS semantic or useful information – it provides the mechanisms that keeps all living things alive and it is observed to be tightly specified and strictly ordered like all other semantic or useful information.

Noise, on the other hand is ALWAYS OBSERVED to result from syntactic or useless information or the degrading of semantic or useful information to syntactic information


Quote Robin
Why are you guys spending so much time posting here? Why aren't you out doing what your religion says that you should be doing, which is being nice to people, helping them, or out propagating the religion. To my knowledge, you haven't "converted" anybody here and you're not likely to, so why waste your time here? It's all a bit puzzling.

I cannot understand your puzzlement, this IS the Christianity Thread after all, and we are Christians.

Could I also remind you that the FIRST commission given by Jesus Christ to His Church was to go forth and TEACH all nations!!

Christians believe that ‘good works’ should be done as a RESULT of conversion and NOT as a MEANS of conversion (for either the converter or the converted).


Quote Robin
So, we can safely conclude that Behe produced no peer-reviewed evidence for creationism.

Now that you are aware that Behe himself knows this, why do you expect Morbert to find in Behe's work, what Behe himself cannot produce?

I will answer you ONCE AGAIN with the same answer that I have previously given to you.

There was actually ONE peer-reviewed ID paper published – but the scientist (Prof Richard Steinberg) who published it was severely reprimanded as a result.

For anybody who wishes to see this historically important document you will find it at the following address
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=2177&program=CSC%20-%20Scientific%20Research%20and%20Scholarship%20-%20Science

Prof Richard Steinberg is an evolutionist and research assistant at the Smithsonian Institute with two Ph.Ds, one in Molecular Biology and the other in Theoretical Biology.

The author of the peer-reviewed paper on ID Dr Stephen C Meyer, has a PhD in Philosophy of Science from Cambridge and therefore is qualified in a similar discipline to Professor Richard Dawkins at a sister University.

So please stop denigrating the qualifications and the intelligence of Creation Scientists and ID Proponents.

Creation Scientists fully respect the scientific qualifications of Evolutionists – it is only their ideas that we have a problem with.

Normal scientific convention and common courtesy demands that debate should concentrate on ideas and not on questioning the conventional qualifications of the scientists who legitimately hold these ideas.

It does not surprise me that no more peer-reviewed ID papers have been published - but I have equally no doubt that such papers WILL be published in the future.

I can also tell you that there are HUNDREDS of peer-reviewed Creation Science papers published, to say nothing of the writings of practically all of the ‘Fathers Of Modern Science’ including Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Kelvin, Boyle, Dalton, Linnaeus, Mendel, Pasteur, Halley, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Pascal who were all Creationists.

And we are NOT 'voting the graveyard' with this list, but merely pointing to the long and distinguished parentage of Creation Science.

For those who claim that Creation Scientists are a very small minority, Dr. D. Russell Humphreys, (B.S., Duke University, Durham, NC, 1963 and
Ph.D., Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, 1972) gave the following answer when he was asked how many professionally active scientists would also hold to Genesis creation?

"I’m part of a fairly large scientific community in New Mexico, and a good number of these are creationists. Many don’t actively belong to any creationist organization. Based on those proportions and knowing the membership of the Creation Research Society, it’s probably a conservative estimate that there are in the US alone around 10,000 practicing scientists who are Biblical creationists. "

Son Goku

J C wrote:

Organic information systems such as DNA and it’s resultant biomolecular systems behave like any other information storage and retrieval system – and that is the basis after all, of Molecular Biology and Genetic Engineering. It is also the basis of heredity and indeed Population Genetics as well as Genetic Fingerprinting.

Undirected processes are incapable of generating semantic or useful information – they can only degrade semantic information to noise – otherwise you could ‘sack’ every ‘Disc Jockey’ in the country and use a ‘random noise generator’ instead.

JC quit with the analogies, particularly when the two things are not analogous.

Explain to me how the concept of "useful information" works in a general condensed matter system, because I know I certainly can't see how.

Scofflaw

JC wrote:

For those who claim that Creation Scientists are a very small minority, Dr. D. Russell Humphreys, (B.S., Duke University, Durham, NC, 1963 and
Ph.D., Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, 1972) gave the following answer when he was asked how many professionally active scientists would also hold to Genesis creation?

"I’m part of a fairly large scientific community in New Mexico, and a good number of these are creationists. Many don’t actively belong to any creationist organization. Based on those proportions and knowing the membership of the Creation Research Society, it’s probably a conservative estimate that there are in the US alone around 10,000 practicing scientists who are Biblical creationists. "

US statistics:

"DPE [Dept. of Professional Employees, AFL-CIO]: Programs &
Publications: DPE Analyses: Scientists, Engineers and Technical
Workers"
http://www.dpeaflcio.org/programs/analyses/2002_sci_eng.htm

"Reflecting the importance of advanced technologies to an expanding
global economy, employment in science and engineering dramatically
increased during the second half of the twentieth century. According
to government sources, the number of scientists increased from 150,000
to 2,685,000 between 1950 and 2001" [so the general, overall number
didn't quite double]; however, "the number of engineers increased from
400,000 to 2,122,000. By 2001, scientists and engineers accounted for
more than 23% of the professional labor force."

(10,000/2,685,000)x100 = 0.37%

(I've left out the engineers, and taken Dr Humphrey's estimate at face value, because, although he is a 'Creationist physicist', I am sure he wouldn't be biased...).

Hmm. 0.37% - would I call it a 'tiny minority'? Ooh, that's a hard one. And that's in the US, pretty much the home of 'creationist science'...

As a bonus, we have on the one side a completely personal and self-serving piece of wild estimation, and on the other some hard fact! It's almost iconic.


amused again,
Scofflaw

Excelsior

wolfsbane wrote:

Prof James Barr (Regis Professor of Hebrew, at Oxford University), has said
“so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer of Gen 1-11 intended to convey to his readers the ideas that:
(a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience.
(b) The figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the Biblical story.
(c) Noah’s Flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguished all human and animal life except for those in the ark.”

I am reading two books at the moment written by evangelical scholars. One is about Genesis and the other is about the creation of the Hebrew canon. Both authors, world renowned evangelical scholars, would disagree to some extent with all 3 of those points. The scholars are Walter Bruggemann and Tremper Longman.

But more relevant to my own interaction with this thread, James Barr also wrote:

James Barr, Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at Oxford wrote:

"The real and fatal cost of fundamentalist doctrine and ideology, as a
system of life. . . is its personal cost: it can be sustained as a
viable way of life only at the cost of unchurching and rejecting, as
persons, as thinkers or scholars, and as Christians, all those who
question the validity of the conservative option. The presence of the
questioner breaks down the unnatural symbiosis of conflicting elements
which makes up the total ideology of fundamentalists. We can thus
understand why ‘liberals’ and other non-conservative persons have not
only to be disbelieved, discredited and overcome in argument; they have,
still more, to be eliminated from the scene altogether.”

Your advocate has some harsh words to say about how you treat us.

And as a lesson to the Creation Scientists, here is a citation to support my quote: James Barr, Fundamentalism (London: SCM, 1977, pp. 314-15)

Morbert

J C wrote:

Quote Son Goku
JC, organic molecules are condensed matter systems and involve QFT, with its implications of quasi-particles e.t.c. What you are talking about does not apply.

If you still think it does apply, then please tell me how using the condensed matter Lagrangian.

Your options are to stop using "10E+130" or reject QFT.


Organic information systems such as DNA and it’s resultant biomolecular systems behave like any other information storage and retrieval system – and that is the basis after all, of Molecular Biology and Genetic Engineering. It is also the basis of heredity and indeed Population Genetics as well as Genetic Fingerprinting.

Undirected processes are incapable of generating semantic or useful information – they can only degrade semantic information to noise – otherwise you could ‘sack’ every ‘Disc Jockey’ in the country and use a ‘random noise generator’ instead.

To anyone who has just started reading this thread: Let it be known that JC has been corrected many times regarding his concepts of information. His inability to define his terms and apply them to molecular biology, coupled with his unwillingness to understand even the basics of information theory when applied to biological systems is a testament to his ignorance in the matter.

JC is, in fact, parroting a bunch of unsubstantiated claims he cannot defend. He hopes to hide the shallow nature of his viewpoint by barking the same meaningless claims over and over.

My own responses to his concepts of information can be found in posts # 634 and 635

Quote Son Goku
J C, information theory implies a significant difference between organic information and semantic information to the extent that one is not analogous to the other.

Again please show how they are analogous. I can easily demonstrate how they are not.

The information present in living systems IS semantic or useful information – it provides the mechanisms that keeps all living things alive and it is observed to be tightly specified and strictly ordered like all other semantic or useful information.

Noise, on the other hand is ALWAYS OBSERVED to result from syntactic or useless information or the degrading of semantic or useful information to syntactic information

Again, JC decides to ignore the facts.

J C wrote:

I will answer you ONCE AGAIN with the same answer that I have previously given to you.

There was actually ONE peer-reviewed ID paper published – but the scientist (Prof Richard Steinberg) who published it was severely reprimanded as a result.

For anybody who wishes to see this historically important document you will find it at the following address
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=2177&program=CSC%20-%20Scientific%20Research%20and%20Scholarship%20-%20Science

Prof Richard Steinberg is an evolutionist and research assistant at the Smithsonian Institute with two Ph.Ds, one in Molecular Biology and the other in Theoretical Biology.

The author of the peer-reviewed paper on ID Dr Stephen C Meyer, has a PhD in Philosophy of Science from Cambridge and therefore is qualified in a similar discipline to Professor Richard Dawkins at a sister University.

So please stop denigrating the qualifications and the intelligence of Creation Scientists and ID Proponents.

Creation Scientists fully respect the scientific qualifications of Evolutionists – it is only their ideas that we have a problem with.

Normal scientific convention and common courtesy demands that debate should concentrate on ideas and not on questioning the conventional qualifications of the scientists who legitimately hold these ideas.

It does not surprise me that no more peer-reviewed ID papers have been published - but I have equally no doubt that such papers WILL be published in the future.

I can also tell you that there are HUNDREDS of peer-reviewed Creation Science papers published, to say nothing of the writings of practically all of the ‘Fathers Of Modern Science’ including Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Kelvin, Boyle, Dalton, Linnaeus, Mendel, Pasteur, Halley, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Pascal who were all Creationists.

And we are NOT 'voting the graveyard' with this list, but merely pointing to the long and distinguished parentage of Creation Science.

For those who claim that Creation Scientists are a very small minority, Dr. D. Russell Humphreys, (B.S., Duke University, Durham, NC, 1963 and
Ph.D., Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, 1972) gave the following answer when he was asked how many professionally active scientists would also hold to Genesis creation?

"I’m part of a fairly large scientific community in New Mexico, and a good number of these are creationists. Many don’t actively belong to any creationist organization. Based on those proportions and knowing the membership of the Creation Research Society, it’s probably a conservative estimate that there are in the US alone around 10,000 practicing scientists who are Biblical creationists. "

As you can see, JC's posts amount to little more than handwaving. Evolution is *not* disputed within the scientific community. And JC has been asked many times to produce references to a testable hypothesis of ID that is up to the standards of science (i.e. provided a predictive framework). He has failed to do so. Why? Because there is no theory of Intelligent design, and *that's* why there are no peer reviewed papers. His excuses are just that.... excuses.

And his refrence to people like Newton etc. is ridiculous, as not one from the list has ever researched "creation science". They are instead known for their excellent work in classical mechanics, electromagnetism etc.

Oh, and regarding his example of an ID paper, it turns out that it should not, in fact, have been published. The following is a statement from "Proceedings", the journal in question.

"The paper by Stephen C. Meyer in the Proceedings ("The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories," vol. 117, no. 2, pp. 213-239) represents a significant departure from the nearly purely taxonomic content for which this journal has been known throughout its 124-year history. It was published without the prior knowledge of the Council, which includes officers, elected councilors, and past presidents, or the associate editors. We have met and determined that all of us would have deemed this paper inappropriate for the pages of the Proceedings.

We endorse the spirit of a resolution on Intelligent Design set forth by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (www.aaas.org/news/releases/2002/1106id2.shtml), and that topic will not be addressed in future issues of the Proceedings. We are reviewing editorial policies to ensure that the goals of the Society, as reflected in its journal, are clearly understood by all. Through a web presence (www.biolsocwash.org) and contemplated improvements in the journal, the Society hopes not only to continue but to increase its service to the world community of taxonomic biologists."

robindch

> There was actually ONE peer-reviewed ID paper published – but the
> scientist (Prof Richard Steinberg) who published it was severely
> reprimanded as a result.

His name is actually 'Sternberg', not 'Steinberg' and in the Washington Post article, Sternberg says "I am not convinced by intelligent design" and, as you're aware, the article was subsequently repudiated by the board of the journal, when they were made aware of it. Hardly the most successfully peer-reviewed paper ever produced, you'll agree!

> [1972] a conservative estimate that there are in the US alone around
> 10,000 practicing scientists who are Biblical creationists.

So let me get this straight. This guy says that there's been 10,000 "scientists" who agree with you working for 33 years. Assuming that they're working on validating creationism for one third of their time, that's still over one hundred thousand man years to produce one paper which was ultimately withdrawn and anyway, which was not written by a biologist, but a man with a phd in History and Philosophy of Science. Who paid for these one hundred thousand man years? At EUR30k salary, that's 3 billion euro spent on creationist reasearch for one worthless piece paper! Bloody hell, I can see why you're interested in this!

Anyhow, wouldn't most reasonable people would conclude that either this guy pulled this fantasy figure out of his donkey, or creation "scientists" are monumentally unproductive. Or both.

wolfsbane

Scofflaw said:

He's certainly outlined a clear position:

You then outlined that. Sincerely, I want to thank you for a fully accurate description of my position; refreshing.

If Genesis were the literally true word of God, it would be possible to reconcile it with all the evidence present in the physical world without resorting to the kind of tricks and dodges we've seen in this thread.

Of course, that is the case creationism is making. But the tricks and dodges are in your imagination.

wolfsbane

Morbert said:

So can we conclude that you are incapable of forming an argument regarding this matter?

The mathematics of probability and the intricices of biology? Definitely not. My argument is that there is an argument, mounted by credible scientists.

Why take them literally?

For the same reason I take your question literally. It is presented as such. Also, those committed to the Bible and responsible for its transmittion down the years - the people of God of both the Old and New Testaments - took it to be so.

If it can be treated as metaphor, there is no part of the Bible that cannot also be treated as such. It all becomes unknowable - just as your posts would be if we conceded your present question should be understood metaphorically.

Morbert

wolfsbane wrote:

The mathematics of probability and the intricices of biology? Definitely not. My argument is that there is an argument, mounted by credible scientists.

Where are the arguments?

Remember what I said? You must back up your claims.

For the same reason I take your question literally. It is presented as such. Also, those committed to the Bible and responsible for its transmittion down the years - the people of God of both the Old and New Testaments - took it to be so.

If it can be treated as metaphor, there is no part of the Bible that cannot also be treated as such. It all becomes unknowable - just as your posts would be if we conceded your present question should be understood metaphorically.

Why does it all become unknowable?

wolfsbane

Excelsior said:

Both authors, world renowned evangelical scholars, would disagree to some extent with all 3 of those points. The scholars are Walter Bruggemann and Tremper Longman.

Would this be the Walter Bruggemann described as a "post liberal" theologian. He is in the same boat as Richard Foster and Dallas Willard except that, as my friend Thomas says, he's on the far left side of the boat.? http://dixonkinser.blogspot.com/2004_10_01_dixonkinser_archive.html
'Evangelical' is a very elastic term now-a-days. But, OK, postmodernism may well have dated the Barr quote.

But more relevant to my own interaction with this thread, James Barr also wrote:...Your advocate has some harsh words to say about how you treat us.

First, Barr's comment on Genesis showed the weakness of the metaphor argument. His opinion on Fundamentalism is another matter.

Second, I am NOT a Fundamentalist. I am a Calvinist, not the flavour of the century with Fundamentalists. I have many disagreements with American Fundamentalism: their devotion to tradition being one of them.

But with them and all historic Evangelicals, I reject as Christian all who reject any fundamental doctrine of the faith. Liberals are not Christians: they have therefore no place in the Church. Are you saying Bishop Spong is a Christian?

wolfsbane

Morbert said:

Where are the arguments?

Remember what I said? You must back up your claims.

Sigh. See, for example, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2005/07/newsweek_letter_id_arguments_are_testabl.html and follow it up.

Why does it all become unknowable?

OK, lets forget the Bible for a moment and look at ANY communication. This thread, for example. I say Morbert's rebuttals of JC should not be taken literally, since we know JC has the facts on his side. Rather, Morbert meant to convey the message of creation in a metaphor. His arguments were actually highlighting how the marvellous complexities of nature flowed from one source. The flow he called evolution, but this should be understood not as a crass literal event lasting billions of years, but as the seamless creation that began some 6000 years ago, lasted for 6 days and has been upheld by God's power since.

Would you not say I'm making a nonsense of any understanding of language? That if what I claim is true, nothing said on this thread can be known for sure - it is all open to a myriad of meaning. You would insist on the normal rules of interpretation.

That's all I'm asking regarding The Biblical account of Creation and the Flood. Whether one takes the history as accurate or invention, it is presented as history and no one has the right to cast it in any other light.

wolfsbane

I just came across a couple of interesting quotes/sites:

1. http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/topic/creation.htmlThis gives many articles on the theological argument on the debate.

2. http://www.churchsociety.org/publications/leaflets/Leaf_Andrews_Teaching.pdf. Note the following:
Now you might say ‘he would say that wouldn’t he’ so let me quote a very
famous evolutionist, a man called Ernst Mayer. He writes:
‘The nature and cause of trans specific evolution (macro evolution)
has been a highly controversial subject during the first half of this
century (20th Century). The proponents of the synthetic theory (neo
Darwinian theory) maintain that all evolution is due to the
accumulation of small genetic changes guided by natural selection,
and that macro evolution is nothing but an extrapolation, a
magnification of the events that take place within populations and
species. A well informed minority however, including such
outstanding authorities as the geneticist Goldschmidt maintained
until the 1950s that neither evolution within species nor geographic
speciation could explain the phenomenon of macro evolution. These
authors contended that the origin of new types and of new organisms
could not be explained by the known facts of genetics and
systematics.’
Although this was written 40 years ago, nothing has changed. If you read
the serious evolutionary literature you will find many comments of that
kind. You will find the admission that whilst micro evolution is an
established and scientific fact, macro evolution is still a tentative concept. I
had an interesting experience in this respect, about a year after the so called
revolution in Czechoslovakia. I was invited by some people over there to
go on a lecture tour of Czechoslovakia to speak on this subject. Evolution
was a dogma subscribed to by the communist regime of course, and my
hosts felt it would be good to have some biblical creation injected to show
people that there were alternatives. At one of the meetings I was fixed up
to speak to the faculty of the institute of biological evolution, an institute in
Brataslava, which was entirely devoted to the study of evolution. Up to a
year previously no one would have had a job there who was not approved
by the communist regime and was not a thorough going atheistic
evolutionist. I don’t think my host knew what they were letting themselves
in for when they booked this meeting. Anyway I went along and I spoke to
them feeling very much like Daniel in the lions den, but I was absolutely
amazed that, when I had finished speaking, one of them said ‘we can’t
disagree with anything you have said, for us evolution (macro) is simply a
working hypothesis, we know it’s full of flaws and claims that cannot be
proven, but we haven’t got anything else, it is a framework, something for
us to work with.’ I was very encouraged by that, because it is one thing to
have creationists with a religious axe to grind tell you these things, but to
have atheistic communistic academics humbly confirm what I was saying
is something we don’t see in our present society. We do not see this
humility on the part of those who advocate a blind process of chance, of
evolutionary progress that has given rise to mankind.

bmoferrall

Prompted by Wolfsbane's nice link on the 'mighty cilium', inter alia, and by this poster's shock at the folly of creation scientists, I thought I'd post some short articles I recently came across in a magazine.

TOO HOT, TOO COLD...AH, JUST RIGHT
A thermostat is an example of a mechanical feedback loop. When set to a particular temperature, it senses changes in air temperature and reacts to defend the setpoint temperature by turning the heating or cooling system on or off.

Living things use the same principles to maintain body temperature, blood pressure, blood sugar, adequate blood calcium levels, to control bone growth and regulate the supply of energy in cells - just to name a very, very few.
In many cases, the regulation of enzyme activity or level of minerals is exquisitely controlled within a very small range. Intelligent people designed and built the thermostat and the cruise control in an automobile. People also determine the setpoint of the mechanism. But where did biological feedback loops come from, and who or what determined their setpoints? Did the loops just design themselves by evolution?

Describing a feedback loop in a living cell or organism is simple. It is much harder to understand exactly how nonliving chemicals sense a condition, compare it to a preset level and then react to bring the condition back to where it should be. How do mere chemicals know what should be? We speak about how the body "controls" blood sugar by directing the liver to make and release sugar at night and by releasing insulin after we eat, causing muscle cells to pick up sugar from the blood. But people understand why keeping blood sugar in a certain range is good and what specifically the range of blood sugar should be. This is a type of understanding that chemicals themselves just do not have.

Partial feedback loops are of little to no benefit. If the body could sense high blood sugar or high blood pressure and yet not be able to react to change, it is of little survival value. In fact, when feedback loops don't work, we call it "disease"-like diabetes or hypertension. These diseases decrease rather than increase survival. According to evolutionary doctrine, each small change in structure and function must be of survival value to be passed on to future generations. Yet for a feedback loop to function and be of survival value, all the parts must simultaneously exist in the same living cell or body. So how could an entire feedback loop ever evolve when partial loops actually decrease survival?

Evolution requires adherents to believe by faith, without proof, that the thousands of biological feedback loops evolved independently and sequentially over time with no intelligent input. In essence, to believe that the spring designed the thermostat. This is not what happens. Mechanical and biological machines just don't make themselves. If feedback loops did not make themselves, and people didn't make them, isn't it more reasonable to believe the biblical statement that "all things have been created by Him," that is, God the Son (Col. 1:16)? He is the only one who has the intelligence to design, the power to make and the understanding to determine the setpoint of living feedback loops. "Honey, can you turn the heat up?"

MICHAEL G. WINDHEUSER, (highly reputable) Ph.D

As a humble layperson, phenomena like this (and the cilium/blood-clot examples) make it very difficult for me to believe in (macro)evolution.

"For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever." (Romans 1)

bmoferrall

THE WEB OF LIFE

By early Fall in the "sunflower state" of Kansas where I live, millions of tons of wheat, com, beans, and yes, sunflowers, have been produced by the incredible biological machine called a green plant. Peter Ray of Stanford University describes a plant in engineering terms as a "device for capturing the energy of sunlight and using it through the process of photosynthesis, to convert carbon dioxide into organic carbon compounds [sugars] from which the substance of life can be manufactured." The root, stem and leaves are just "the equipment necessary to make photosynthesis successful" in that they absorb water and minerals from the soil and provide a place, within the leaves, for the finely tuned biochemistry of photosynthesis to happen.

Since the late 1700s it has been known that the actual organic substance of the plant comes, not from the soil, but from carbon dioxide which is part of air. Incredibly then, the millions of tons of wheat, corn and other crops made of carbon-containing chemicals appear in the fields each year literally out of thin air. But plants don't just absorb sunlight and chemically trap atmospheric carbon; they also release molecular oxygen (02) as a byproduct of photosynthesis and serve as a food source for animal;, and humans. Indeed, animal and human life on earth would not be possible without photosynthesis. So the plant is the foundational machine in a larger web of living machines which depend on each other to sustain life on earth.

Plants take in sunlight, carbon dioxide and water, producing organic sugars and oxygen. Animals and humans consume plants and use oxygen to "burn" the organic sugars as fuel. They also exhale carbon dioxide, the very molecule needed by the plant as raw material for its life and growth. Although oversimplified, this example is still sufficient to illustrate that the "web of life" is not a random development. It is not only that each part of the web is a complete, functioning device that is compelling and astonishing, but that each part has a purpose to sustain a larger, integrated and co-dependent system. The existence of purposeful relationship and interdependence between parts in a larger system is evidence of conscious, rational design and not unconscious chance.

Consider an electric razor. It must have a means to capture, transform and transmit energy to the cutting blades. Integrated within the housing along with circuits and various gears, shafts and brushes, is an assembly of individual machines functioning in a system for a specific purpose, created by conscious intelligence. So it is with the biological world and the web of life. This is exactly why Peter Ray cannot help but use engineering terms and examples when describing the plant and why even staunch evolutionary believers cannot keep from using the word "designed" when describing living things. One must concede that the biological world appears to be designed because it is designed, or else bear the burden of proof as to why the web of life even exists at all.

MICHAEL G. WINDHEUSER, Ph.D.

bmoferrall

AVIAN OLYMPIANS

Every four years, athletes from all over the world compete to represent their nations in the Olympic Games. The games originally began in Greece where athletes competed in events such as boxing and wrestling. The modern Olympic Games have today become a forum for national pride in addition to a celebration of athletic achievement. The winners of the Olympic Marathon race set the standard for endurance and dedication for all Olympic athletes. Running the 26 miles 385 yards takes incredible determination and aerobic conditioning. Such top Olympic runners must train for years to reach this elite level.

As impressive as human athletic achievements are, one does not have to look very hard to find examples of incredible endurance among the birds, feats no human could match. Take, for example, the Pacific Golden Plover1. This small bird sets out each winter on an 88-day non-stop migration from the Arctic Circle to Hawaii. It is a non-swimmer and does not rest or sleep during its migration, losing 50% of its body weight during the journey. Even more incredibly, the Plover's chicks mature in the Arctic and make exactly the same migration after its parents, but without instruction in navigation over the open ocean where an error of only one degree would cause them to miss their destination. Whether the Plover uses the sun or stars or both to guide it is not known.

The Robin covers about 40 miles a day during its migration, a distance few people could cover in one day unassisted, let alone for 78 days in a row as the Robin does. In experiments with homing birds taken from their home range and released, the Lesser Yellowlegs covered the 1900 miles between Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and their island home of Martinique in just six days. An average of 316 miles per day!

The physical stamina and aerobic efficiency of birds that migrate up to seven thousand miles is impressive enough. But add to this the ability to navigate to precise locations over unfamiliar ground, or "home in" on a familiar location from thousands of miles away. One begins to wonder how an evolutionary process could "create" these abilities. It stretches the limits of credibility to believe that undirected chance mechanisms of evolution produced the organs and systems which birds need for long distance migrations, let alone the pre-programmed knowledge of how to use the sun, stars or landmarks to navigate to a place they have never seen before. Since birds don't acquire the physical or navigational abilities for migration by practice and learning, isn't it more plausible that these abilities are a result of intentional, conscious design rather than undirected chance?

In bird migration we come to appreciate that God understands distance, time, and physical needs for survival, as well as how to use the sun, moon and stars as navigational signs. If He programs birds to fly with such endurance, can He not also help us to "run with endurance the race set before us"? (Heb. 12:1).

MICHAEL G. WINDHEUSER, Ph.D

Scofflaw

wolfsbane wrote:

Sigh. See, for example, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2005/07/newsweek_letter_id_arguments_are_testabl.html and follow it up.

Sigh. No, this is suggesting that if evolution can come up with an evolutionary pathway from ancestral form to flagellum, then the design argument for that particular example used by creationists is knocked down. Unfortunately, that is not a test of the predictive powers of creationism. It is a test of the predictive powers of evolution, and you know as well as I do that creationists will no more accept it than they accept the many already-predicted pathways (see JC on the subject of whales).

Nor, to a scientist, does the proposal that such-and-such an evolutionary pathway exists mean that the argument is settled. I've said this before, but there is no proof that things were not designed. My argument is that because it is not possible to disprove design (because something may be cunningly designed to seem not designed), design is not a useable scientific perspective.

cordially,
Scofflaw

BrianCalgary

bmoferrall wrote:

As a humble layperson, phenomena like this (and the cilium/blood-clot examples) make it very difficult for me to believe in (macro)evolution.

We were just talkimg last night about our favourites. I like the plover/croc, the bombardier beetle, giraffe and sea slug as creatures that could not have survived the evolutionary process. My friend mentioned a flower that opens at night and smells like dead mice so that bats attack and then end up pollinating.

These activities as the birds mentioned above defy evolution. As I watch the Canada Geese fly overhead adn pray they don't poop.

robindch

> I like the plover/croc, the bombardier beetle, giraffe and sea slug as
> creatures that could not have survived the evolutionary process.

"survived the evolutionary process" -- what on earth do you mean by this?

> These activities as the birds mentioned above defy evolution.

In honesty, brian, do you ever consider that you may not actually understand evolution?