"...Scott and Branch say about Safarti's MO -- he agrees with the arguments of two evolutionists disagreeing with each other and uses this as evidence that evolution is wrong. If it's true, it's "parasitic science" indeed."
I have not seen this so far in his book. I have not seen that he uses the mere fact that evolutionists disagree with each other as evidence that evolution is wrong. His sense of logic is too strong for that. I don't know where you get "parasitic science" as a concept in this instance. Scientific conclusions almost always rely on other work, and Safarti gives credit, and even agrees with many experimental evidence and initial conclusions of evolutionary scientists. He agrees that there is natural selection within populations, for example, but does not agree that it is proof of evolution. I don't know if scott and branch are merely displaying their bias, but based on your comments alone, I would say that they are.
Norman, the latest reports indicate there is a five % difference. "But using percentages hides an important fact. If 5% of the DNA is different, this amounts to 150,000,000 DNA base pairs that are different between them."(David DeWitt). In addition, to get this 5% difference, many pieces of the DNA are not included in the calculation for various reasons. When you include everything, you tend to get a similarity of between 81 to 87%, according to other scientists(CMI). This is what an evolutionary mindset does; it assumes a great similarity and so refuses to consider obvious or potential dissimilarities. Other reported differences: ICR reports that chimp genome is 10% larger than human genome, the y chromosome is less than 70% similar.
The issue in this discussion is not the size of the difference. The issue is the evolutionary a-priori assumption of similarities even when only a small part of the genome was initially studied. The issue is ignoring obvious dissimilarities as if they are inconsequential. The issue is how the research is reported in terms of its bias. How often have you heard that the difference between the chimp and human y chromosomes is as different as between human and chicken? (J.F. Hughes - Nature 463)
Eventually, truth and significance is discovered. But it is in spite of the evolutionary paradigm, not because of it.
Of course, one would also expect genetic similarities even without evolution; that is something not so commonly considered. After all, why would morophological and physiological similarities not be caused by genetic similarities?
Excellent response. Our mission efforts should include muslims for sure! God and the angels in heaven rejoice much over the one in 100 who is lost when he is found! So do we. And we should pray!
The larger question is how we deal with our perceptions of muslim culture, the violence, beheading, shariah, etc., when we must as citizens make decisions about how to deal with it. This is not much different in some ways than how we deal with practicing homosexuals or fornication or abortionists, or adultery by unbelievers, while at the same time witnessing to them and showing Christ's love. Except that this also of course has more serious ramifications in terms of shariah, polygamy, death sentences for dress code violations, "consequences", terrorism, suicide bombing, etc. Well, maybe not more serious than abortionists, but you get the idea... If muslim culture gains more control over more countries, the opportunities to witness for Christ will decrease more and more, don't you think?
As human beings, we are often prone to looking at the problems rather than the opportunities. I wonder whether it is at least as valid for us in north america to look at potential opportunties that climate change might offer us, as well as the increased risks and costs of climate change. For example, we presently have three to eight months of winter in most of north america. Siberia also has long winters, which are costly in terms of heating needs , short growing season for crops, frost damage to roads and equipment, need for additional clothes and housing, etc. Longer summers in some of those areas will allow more crop production to take place, and will reduce heating costs. Other opportunities might be to increase housing in temperate climates, and to reduce winter vacation travel to warmer climates further south.
We are often inundated with the potential problems and hazards of climate change; but can you think of potential opportunities that climate change might offer us?
Rinsen, I do not reject out of hand the geological time scale. I merely question it. There are instances where dating of certain rocks and layers has huge ranges, and where dating is revamped to suit the fossils contained in the layers. I am not a conspiracist, but I have seen the impact of group think.
You said, "we are faced with a God who assembles creatures "as if" they shared the same genetic script but actually, they don't. This is supposed to be an explanation? Just like the various fossil strata appear to be extremely old, and predictably laid down in layers going from more simple to more complex "
Actually creatures do share genetic building blocks, yes. I did not say that they do not share the same genetic script in various parts. They obviously have some similarities and some differences. If they did not have differences they would be the same species, or even identical twins, etc.. What I did say was that these similarities in dissimilar organisms by themselves do not prove inheritance of origin. They may demonstrate a similarity of planning and design.
It is also interesting when looking at genome size, that some fish and amoeba and some plants have a much larger genome than mammals (homosapiens). While other plants, bacteria, insects, and some fish have a smaller genome than homosapiens. For example one measured amoeba genome was 670Gb in size, one fish genome was 130Gb in size, two plant genomes were about 130Gb in size, and the human genome is 3.2 Gb in size. Some bacterium had a genome three times as large as the human genome, while others were much smaller or similar to human genome in size. From a genetic perspective, I'm not sure how that supports the simpler organism vs more complex organism theory.
The fact that some fossil layers are old.... but what is old? Is a thousand years old? Is ten thousand years old? Once a fossil layer is formed it does not visually look older. Neither do the fossils. So they are determined old because of fossils of strange animals we do not see anymore today, and because of radioactive dating.... but radio active dating is based on assumptions about parent rock materials. When carbon material is still discovered in rocks supposedly millions or hundreds of millions of years old, then the carbon dating method is deemed invalid for that rock layer, but.... the carbon 14 is still there in amounts much larger than it should be. When volcanic rocks less than ten years old are measured by Kr-AR methods to be millions of years old, then the method is deemed invalid, because the rocks are obviously too young to be measured.... but why does the method then not date them as young, instead of old? How can we prove the assumptions for radio-active dating are actually right, outside of the previous preconceptions about the age of the rocks.
It is interesting that fossils in the rock layers are generally also sequenced by size to some extent.
When we have fossils that transect layers of rock that are "dated" as millions of years difference between layers, then how do we justify or explain the existence or survival of these fossils (half exposed and half buried) during the layering process?
You also said, " The theory of evolution had NOTHING whatsoever to do with the findings of carban dating ..." Well, you are partly right. Without carbon dating, the theory of evolution was still orginally postulated. But the theory of evolution had difficulty with shorter time frames of time, since mathematically the probability of evolutionary processes based on what we see today, required ever increasing amounts of time. The radio-active dating methods began to give validity to these longer time periods. But, the radio-active dating methods were based on certain assumptions about uniformitarianism for earth processes. For example, one assumption is consistency in the rate of formation of C14 in the upper atmosphere over time.
You might find it oddly liberating if you were to really examine all the fundamental assertions of the E theory.
I assume you believe at least some of scripture. How do you decide when your perception of observable facts trumps scripture? How do you know that your interpretation of observable facts is correct? Would your observation of observable facts lead you to deny that Elijah, Elisha, Jesus and Peter raised someone from the dead? Would it lead you to deny that Elijah's prayer for three years drought was answered; was it going to happen anyway? Would it lead you to deny that Jesus made the lame walk, the blind to see, and deaf to hear?
Often Creation is referred to as a myth. Here is an Ian Juby youtube video, episode 11 or 12 showing how it is actually evolution that is more of a myth. youtube.com watch?v=UB0cjZMVjOo&list=UU23yiJV4Bkagj5dkH-UyHFA&index=1&feature=plcp
Well said, Bert. It reminds us of how all the commandments are so closely connected.
Marie, I would suggest that you try this for war, environmental damage, and poverty and see what happens. I could think of a couple of differences, however, depending on motive, knowledge, and responsibility. For example, war might be defensive to protect the innocent; how would that compare to agressive war to indulge imperialism? Or environmental damage from ignorance or to save lives, vs deliberate destruction with no purpose? Or poverty caused by others, vs poverty caused by sloth and sluggardly behaviour (as Proverbs mentions). Abortion is an action; war is an action; poverty is a result of actions; environmental damage is a result of actions. Hard to compare exactly.
No one, at least not me, is making light of it. But there are indications it has already happened. Growing seasons, frost-free period has already changed/increased in the last 100 years in western Canada. However, only concentrating on the negatives means we are not looking at opportunities. Besides which, our solutions will be found in the opportunities, and not by wallowing in the challenges/negatives.
And while we're waiting for that explanation, I will just present a few "facts" that some people may not be aware of, at least as I understand them. Fossils have been discovered of dragonflies that have four foot wingspans, and huge reeds that are 120 feet tall, not something that we would see today. Some of these reeds, as well as tree fossils, transect many rock/earth layers which are dated by evolutionary methods to be millions of years old, and different in age from each other. A satisfactory answer as to how these reeds could survive long enough to be covered by so many different layers of different "deep time" ages has not been given. The catastrophic deposition of water formed layers with trees and reeds embedded within them gives a much more satisfactory answer.
I do not take for granted, the "of course" part of your first statement. There are some even within the crc who do not "of course" take every part of scripture as "true". In spite of their profession of faith. In spite of their signing a form of subscription. But I am glad you take every part of scripture as true.
You are right we should not miss the primary message of the creation story, that God is creator and maker and that what He makes he declared good. But earlier you said that "good" was more important than "true", (which while I understand you are refering to chronology and actual events as "true"), is misleading in the sense that truth is downplayed. You see if there is no truth, then there is also no good. Truth embodies both the realities of good and evil. God is as much true, as he is good. Jesus did not say "I am the Way, the Good, and the Life." He said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." Truth is good, even when it reveals evil. Especially when it reveals evil.
When we suggest that scripture's truth might be relativised, or that it is subjective, or that it is more important to be "good" than to be "true", then we are missing something about who God is. When God allowed Satan to subject Job to misery, we can only say that God is good, because we know first that God is true. And we know God is true through scripture, through His Spirit, through faith. A false scripture hinders the work of the Spirit, and weakens our faith. And that is not "good".
God wants us to struggle with Genesis 1, with Genesis 11. Not to toss it off as some allegory just because some quasi scientists (and real scientists) have decided that their world view does not permit Genesis 1 to be true.
The great difficulty in arguing that Genesis 1 is not true in a meaningful sense, that creation did not happen in seven days, that things were not created in that order, but yet that creation was "good", is to discover a true basis for that conclusion. If creation did not happen in seven days, then there is no basis for saying that creation was "good", since both conclusions are based on the same written word. The basis for describing our relationship to the creator is also lost, since why should that be more true than creation by fiat in seven days?
Thus you see that truth is more important; it is primary. Without truth, good does not exist.
Norm, I don’t think Magaret misrepresented anything about evolution. She has impaled herself on nothing. You seem to join with a common claim that evolution is misrepresented as if to say, “you don’t really understand it”, particularly when an anti-evolutionist makes a strong position. The fact is that for the present theory of evolution, random processes are foundational, along with natural selection and adaptations. It is by calculating apparently random processes that probabilities are derived and probable ages are attributed to various processes and to various turning points in the process. Furthermore, the idea of virtually unlimited time for these random processes to occur is also a foundational requirement for evolutionary theory to work. This is no misrepresentation at all. Whether Darwin was personally a nihilist or not is irrelevant to this. I note you did not state what in particular was misleading about it, nor did you summarize a contrary position.
If you think she is inaccurate, then do you think the processes are not random; that they are directed, and therefore the use of random probabilities are not appropriate? Do you think then that time is not an agent of creation, or a necessary requirement? Do you think nature does not point to random processes? And do you think that mainstream evolutionists would agree with you?
You make a comment about her bravado; I say she is entitled to her perspective, and it is really irrelevant to the validity of the theory. However, in what I have seen, it appears to be true that creationists often make undeniable and incontrovertible points and arguments about the science involved in “proving” or supporting this theory. Yes, often creationists do "win" the debates.
Todd Wood did not say that evidence for evolutionary theory have outstripped accumulations for creation science. What he said was that he felt there was a certain amount of evidence for evolutionary types of things happening, such as allele frequency changes, evidence of speciation, and universal common ancestry. But he felt there was another explanation for the evidence of common ancestry. So, evidence is just evidence. What is in dispute is what the evidence tells us, and how we understand the evidence. And Todd does not accept a universal common genetic ancestry.
Norman, Margaret is completely right that if all material is presented with only one particular view, then children will be influenced by it. Therefore her comment is completely valid that laymen and children need answers, and need them explained and described in such a way that they can counter the prevailing undesireable way. I don’t think evolutionists go out of their way to hide their publications, or to advocate that no one buy them, or publish them in shoddy inferior ways. There is no reason why creationist scientists need to apologize for promotion of their materials either.
Wendy, I think to a large degree, we have already acknowledged that we probably won't know for sure all the details until heaven. If God wants to tell us. But human curiousity doesn't stop. We may not know exactly what Moses was thinking when he crossed the Red Sea, or when he couldn't enter the promised land, or what the people of Israel did while wandering in the desert for forty years, or what Methusaleh said to Noah. But if information comes that helps us to understand, we seem to appreciate it....
Examining the possibilities of whether the universe has a center or not, or is expanding or has expanded, or whether real time can change in different locations, or the impacts of the "red shift", are very interesting to some people. For other people, it is not interesting at all. But if we look at the world and the universe as a revelation of who God is, then discovering how some of these things work is part of discovering how God works, and how we relate to God. For example, the fact that the solar system is not geo-centric says something about our place in the universe, that we must rely on something other than ourselves for our physical existence. God sends us those messages in various ways, including how he created everything.
It's a bit like studying Greek or Hebrew in order to study scripture better. Is it really necessary? Does it really make much of a difference? Isn't the english translation good enough to get by? Well yes, but.....
Problem is when someone proposes a genesis that excludes God and contradicts scripture, and wants christians to buy into it; perhaps we could regard that the same way we regard theft, or abuse, or atheism, or neglect, or pornography, or materialism, or marxism, or ..... Should we then just cover our eyes and ears and ignore it?
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
"...Scott and Branch say about Safarti's MO -- he agrees with the arguments of two evolutionists disagreeing with each other and uses this as evidence that evolution is wrong. If it's true, it's "parasitic science" indeed."
I have not seen this so far in his book. I have not seen that he uses the mere fact that evolutionists disagree with each other as evidence that evolution is wrong. His sense of logic is too strong for that. I don't know where you get "parasitic science" as a concept in this instance. Scientific conclusions almost always rely on other work, and Safarti gives credit, and even agrees with many experimental evidence and initial conclusions of evolutionary scientists. He agrees that there is natural selection within populations, for example, but does not agree that it is proof of evolution. I don't know if scott and branch are merely displaying their bias, but based on your comments alone, I would say that they are.
Hope you enjoy your fishing.
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
Norman, the latest reports indicate there is a five % difference. "But using percentages hides an important fact. If 5% of the DNA is different, this amounts to 150,000,000 DNA base pairs that are different between them."(David DeWitt). In addition, to get this 5% difference, many pieces of the DNA are not included in the calculation for various reasons. When you include everything, you tend to get a similarity of between 81 to 87%, according to other scientists(CMI). This is what an evolutionary mindset does; it assumes a great similarity and so refuses to consider obvious or potential dissimilarities. Other reported differences: ICR reports that chimp genome is 10% larger than human genome, the y chromosome is less than 70% similar.
The issue in this discussion is not the size of the difference. The issue is the evolutionary a-priori assumption of similarities even when only a small part of the genome was initially studied. The issue is ignoring obvious dissimilarities as if they are inconsequential. The issue is how the research is reported in terms of its bias. How often have you heard that the difference between the chimp and human y chromosomes is as different as between human and chicken? (J.F. Hughes - Nature 463)
Eventually, truth and significance is discovered. But it is in spite of the evolutionary paradigm, not because of it.
Of course, one would also expect genetic similarities even without evolution; that is something not so commonly considered. After all, why would morophological and physiological similarities not be caused by genetic similarities?
Posted in: What Is the Real Impact of Muslim Relations?
Excellent response. Our mission efforts should include muslims for sure! God and the angels in heaven rejoice much over the one in 100 who is lost when he is found! So do we. And we should pray!
The larger question is how we deal with our perceptions of muslim culture, the violence, beheading, shariah, etc., when we must as citizens make decisions about how to deal with it. This is not much different in some ways than how we deal with practicing homosexuals or fornication or abortionists, or adultery by unbelievers, while at the same time witnessing to them and showing Christ's love. Except that this also of course has more serious ramifications in terms of shariah, polygamy, death sentences for dress code violations, "consequences", terrorism, suicide bombing, etc. Well, maybe not more serious than abortionists, but you get the idea... If muslim culture gains more control over more countries, the opportunities to witness for Christ will decrease more and more, don't you think?
Posted in: Climate Change - Wither Now?
As human beings, we are often prone to looking at the problems rather than the opportunities. I wonder whether it is at least as valid for us in north america to look at potential opportunties that climate change might offer us, as well as the increased risks and costs of climate change. For example, we presently have three to eight months of winter in most of north america. Siberia also has long winters, which are costly in terms of heating needs , short growing season for crops, frost damage to roads and equipment, need for additional clothes and housing, etc. Longer summers in some of those areas will allow more crop production to take place, and will reduce heating costs. Other opportunities might be to increase housing in temperate climates, and to reduce winter vacation travel to warmer climates further south.
We are often inundated with the potential problems and hazards of climate change; but can you think of potential opportunities that climate change might offer us?
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
Rinsen, I do not reject out of hand the geological time scale. I merely question it. There are instances where dating of certain rocks and layers has huge ranges, and where dating is revamped to suit the fossils contained in the layers. I am not a conspiracist, but I have seen the impact of group think.
You said, "we are faced with a God who assembles creatures "as if" they shared the same genetic script but actually, they don't. This is supposed to be an explanation? Just like the various fossil strata appear to be extremely old, and predictably laid down in layers going from more simple to more complex "
Actually creatures do share genetic building blocks, yes. I did not say that they do not share the same genetic script in various parts. They obviously have some similarities and some differences. If they did not have differences they would be the same species, or even identical twins, etc.. What I did say was that these similarities in dissimilar organisms by themselves do not prove inheritance of origin. They may demonstrate a similarity of planning and design.
It is also interesting when looking at genome size, that some fish and amoeba and some plants have a much larger genome than mammals (homosapiens). While other plants, bacteria, insects, and some fish have a smaller genome than homosapiens. For example one measured amoeba genome was 670Gb in size, one fish genome was 130Gb in size, two plant genomes were about 130Gb in size, and the human genome is 3.2 Gb in size. Some bacterium had a genome three times as large as the human genome, while others were much smaller or similar to human genome in size. From a genetic perspective, I'm not sure how that supports the simpler organism vs more complex organism theory.
The fact that some fossil layers are old.... but what is old? Is a thousand years old? Is ten thousand years old? Once a fossil layer is formed it does not visually look older. Neither do the fossils. So they are determined old because of fossils of strange animals we do not see anymore today, and because of radioactive dating.... but radio active dating is based on assumptions about parent rock materials. When carbon material is still discovered in rocks supposedly millions or hundreds of millions of years old, then the carbon dating method is deemed invalid for that rock layer, but.... the carbon 14 is still there in amounts much larger than it should be. When volcanic rocks less than ten years old are measured by Kr-AR methods to be millions of years old, then the method is deemed invalid, because the rocks are obviously too young to be measured.... but why does the method then not date them as young, instead of old? How can we prove the assumptions for radio-active dating are actually right, outside of the previous preconceptions about the age of the rocks.
It is interesting that fossils in the rock layers are generally also sequenced by size to some extent.
When we have fossils that transect layers of rock that are "dated" as millions of years difference between layers, then how do we justify or explain the existence or survival of these fossils (half exposed and half buried) during the layering process?
You also said, " The theory of evolution had NOTHING whatsoever to do with the findings of carban dating ..." Well, you are partly right. Without carbon dating, the theory of evolution was still orginally postulated. But the theory of evolution had difficulty with shorter time frames of time, since mathematically the probability of evolutionary processes based on what we see today, required ever increasing amounts of time. The radio-active dating methods began to give validity to these longer time periods. But, the radio-active dating methods were based on certain assumptions about uniformitarianism for earth processes. For example, one assumption is consistency in the rate of formation of C14 in the upper atmosphere over time.
You might find it oddly liberating if you were to really examine all the fundamental assertions of the E theory.
I assume you believe at least some of scripture. How do you decide when your perception of observable facts trumps scripture? How do you know that your interpretation of observable facts is correct? Would your observation of observable facts lead you to deny that Elijah, Elisha, Jesus and Peter raised someone from the dead? Would it lead you to deny that Elijah's prayer for three years drought was answered; was it going to happen anyway? Would it lead you to deny that Jesus made the lame walk, the blind to see, and deaf to hear?
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
Often Creation is referred to as a myth. Here is an Ian Juby youtube video, episode 11 or 12 showing how it is actually evolution that is more of a myth. youtube.com watch?v=UB0cjZMVjOo&list=UU23yiJV4Bkagj5dkH-UyHFA&index=1&feature=plcp
Posted in: The Law of God and Abortion
Well said, Bert. It reminds us of how all the commandments are so closely connected.
Marie, I would suggest that you try this for war, environmental damage, and poverty and see what happens. I could think of a couple of differences, however, depending on motive, knowledge, and responsibility. For example, war might be defensive to protect the innocent; how would that compare to agressive war to indulge imperialism? Or environmental damage from ignorance or to save lives, vs deliberate destruction with no purpose? Or poverty caused by others, vs poverty caused by sloth and sluggardly behaviour (as Proverbs mentions). Abortion is an action; war is an action; poverty is a result of actions; environmental damage is a result of actions. Hard to compare exactly.
Posted in: Climate Change - Wither Now?
No one, at least not me, is making light of it. But there are indications it has already happened. Growing seasons, frost-free period has already changed/increased in the last 100 years in western Canada. However, only concentrating on the negatives means we are not looking at opportunities. Besides which, our solutions will be found in the opportunities, and not by wallowing in the challenges/negatives.
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
And while we're waiting for that explanation, I will just present a few "facts" that some people may not be aware of, at least as I understand them. Fossils have been discovered of dragonflies that have four foot wingspans, and huge reeds that are 120 feet tall, not something that we would see today. Some of these reeds, as well as tree fossils, transect many rock/earth layers which are dated by evolutionary methods to be millions of years old, and different in age from each other. A satisfactory answer as to how these reeds could survive long enough to be covered by so many different layers of different "deep time" ages has not been given. The catastrophic deposition of water formed layers with trees and reeds embedded within them gives a much more satisfactory answer.
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
I do not take for granted, the "of course" part of your first statement. There are some even within the crc who do not "of course" take every part of scripture as "true". In spite of their profession of faith. In spite of their signing a form of subscription. But I am glad you take every part of scripture as true.
You are right we should not miss the primary message of the creation story, that God is creator and maker and that what He makes he declared good. But earlier you said that "good" was more important than "true", (which while I understand you are refering to chronology and actual events as "true"), is misleading in the sense that truth is downplayed. You see if there is no truth, then there is also no good. Truth embodies both the realities of good and evil. God is as much true, as he is good. Jesus did not say "I am the Way, the Good, and the Life." He said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." Truth is good, even when it reveals evil. Especially when it reveals evil.
When we suggest that scripture's truth might be relativised, or that it is subjective, or that it is more important to be "good" than to be "true", then we are missing something about who God is. When God allowed Satan to subject Job to misery, we can only say that God is good, because we know first that God is true. And we know God is true through scripture, through His Spirit, through faith. A false scripture hinders the work of the Spirit, and weakens our faith. And that is not "good".
God wants us to struggle with Genesis 1, with Genesis 11. Not to toss it off as some allegory just because some quasi scientists (and real scientists) have decided that their world view does not permit Genesis 1 to be true.
The great difficulty in arguing that Genesis 1 is not true in a meaningful sense, that creation did not happen in seven days, that things were not created in that order, but yet that creation was "good", is to discover a true basis for that conclusion. If creation did not happen in seven days, then there is no basis for saying that creation was "good", since both conclusions are based on the same written word. The basis for describing our relationship to the creator is also lost, since why should that be more true than creation by fiat in seven days?
Thus you see that truth is more important; it is primary. Without truth, good does not exist.
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
Norm, I don’t think Magaret misrepresented anything about evolution. She has impaled herself on nothing. You seem to join with a common claim that evolution is misrepresented as if to say, “you don’t really understand it”, particularly when an anti-evolutionist makes a strong position. The fact is that for the present theory of evolution, random processes are foundational, along with natural selection and adaptations. It is by calculating apparently random processes that probabilities are derived and probable ages are attributed to various processes and to various turning points in the process. Furthermore, the idea of virtually unlimited time for these random processes to occur is also a foundational requirement for evolutionary theory to work. This is no misrepresentation at all. Whether Darwin was personally a nihilist or not is irrelevant to this. I note you did not state what in particular was misleading about it, nor did you summarize a contrary position.
If you think she is inaccurate, then do you think the processes are not random; that they are directed, and therefore the use of random probabilities are not appropriate? Do you think then that time is not an agent of creation, or a necessary requirement? Do you think nature does not point to random processes? And do you think that mainstream evolutionists would agree with you?
You make a comment about her bravado; I say she is entitled to her perspective, and it is really irrelevant to the validity of the theory. However, in what I have seen, it appears to be true that creationists often make undeniable and incontrovertible points and arguments about the science involved in “proving” or supporting this theory. Yes, often creationists do "win" the debates.
Todd Wood did not say that evidence for evolutionary theory have outstripped accumulations for creation science. What he said was that he felt there was a certain amount of evidence for evolutionary types of things happening, such as allele frequency changes, evidence of speciation, and universal common ancestry. But he felt there was another explanation for the evidence of common ancestry. So, evidence is just evidence. What is in dispute is what the evidence tells us, and how we understand the evidence. And Todd does not accept a universal common genetic ancestry.
Norman, Margaret is completely right that if all material is presented with only one particular view, then children will be influenced by it. Therefore her comment is completely valid that laymen and children need answers, and need them explained and described in such a way that they can counter the prevailing undesireable way. I don’t think evolutionists go out of their way to hide their publications, or to advocate that no one buy them, or publish them in shoddy inferior ways. There is no reason why creationist scientists need to apologize for promotion of their materials either.
John z
Posted in: Creation vs Evolution: Impact on Witness and Faith
Wendy, I think to a large degree, we have already acknowledged that we probably won't know for sure all the details until heaven. If God wants to tell us. But human curiousity doesn't stop. We may not know exactly what Moses was thinking when he crossed the Red Sea, or when he couldn't enter the promised land, or what the people of Israel did while wandering in the desert for forty years, or what Methusaleh said to Noah. But if information comes that helps us to understand, we seem to appreciate it....
Examining the possibilities of whether the universe has a center or not, or is expanding or has expanded, or whether real time can change in different locations, or the impacts of the "red shift", are very interesting to some people. For other people, it is not interesting at all. But if we look at the world and the universe as a revelation of who God is, then discovering how some of these things work is part of discovering how God works, and how we relate to God. For example, the fact that the solar system is not geo-centric says something about our place in the universe, that we must rely on something other than ourselves for our physical existence. God sends us those messages in various ways, including how he created everything.
It's a bit like studying Greek or Hebrew in order to study scripture better. Is it really necessary? Does it really make much of a difference? Isn't the english translation good enough to get by? Well yes, but.....
Problem is when someone proposes a genesis that excludes God and contradicts scripture, and wants christians to buy into it; perhaps we could regard that the same way we regard theft, or abuse, or atheism, or neglect, or pornography, or materialism, or marxism, or ..... Should we then just cover our eyes and ears and ignore it?