You Say You Want An Evolution!

[rogue06]

I still contend that those who feel that evolutionary theory is at odds with Scripture are making the mistake of conflating a particular reading or interpretation of Scripture with Scripture itself.

They. Are. Not. The. Samething.

[The Remonstrant]

I didn't mean for it to be loaded, so you believe that Science (or evolutionary theory) is at odds with Scripture. I suspect that you are correct, but I haven't come to a firm conclusion on this issue yet.

[rogue06]

Due to the constant challenging it has been subjected to evolutionary theory is perhaps the most robustly attested and supported scientific theory in science.

[seer]

I still contend that those who feel that evolutionary theory is at odds with Scripture are making the mistake of conflating a particular reading or interpretation of Scripture with Scripture itself.

They. Are. Not. The. Samething.

Then I'm not sure rogue where you come up with your novel reading of Scripture that conforms to the theory of evolution.

[KingsGambit]

Then I'm not sure rogue where you come up with your novel reading of Scripture that conforms to the theory of evolution.

Not to speak for him but I believe he maintains that there is no contradiction in the sense that Scripture is silent on the issue. That is what I personally maintain in any event.

[seer]

Not to speak for him but I believe he maintains that there is no contradiction in the sense that Scripture is silent on the issue. That is what I personally maintain in any event.

Well Scripture is not silent, God created species after their own kind (not a dog like creature that turned in whales), and that Adam is the biological father that all humans who live on earth. I think evolutionary theory would disagree with both.

[rogue06]

Then I'm not sure rogue where you come up with your novel reading of Scripture that conforms to the theory of evolution.

The same place I found one that conforms to Heliocentrism and meteorological theory.

[rogue06]

Well Scripture is not silent, God created species after their own kind (not a dog like creature that turned in whales), and that Adam is the biological father that all humans who live on earth. I think evolutionary theory would disagree with both.

Where exactly does it say that?

This notion of fixity of species (or "kinds") is actually based on the ideas of the pagan Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle, who taught that the world is eternal and that species are fixed and nothing new could arise. This philosophy was brought into Christianity thanks to some of the Church Fathers -- primarily via Augustine and later through Thomas Aquinas and Peter Abelard -- but is nowhere to be found in the Bible.

IOW, the concept of fixity of nature including the flora and fauna originates not from Scripture -- Genesis does not say that species were created with forms fixed for all time -- but comes instead from Greek philosophy and was incorporated into Christianity.

Why even AnswersinGenesis (AiG) has begun to recognize that the concept of fixity of species is based on Greek philosophy and that "not contradictory of evolutionary theory which agrees that the child is always the same species as the parent. By any test of speciation (reproduction or morphology), the parent and the immediate child are the same species. It is only after many generations that we will notice a substantial change in the Biblical "kind."


I should probably note that obviously Genesis 1 is merely a very abbreviated description of God's creation, and nobody should expect it to exhaustively chronicle the biological changes that take place over periods of time much longer than any human lifetime. Genesis 1 is a hymn of glory to God's mighty works and a polemic against the cultures and pagan practices -- not a technical manual or science textbook. And it is a grave mistake (as history has shown us) when we insist on treating it like it is.

[seer]

Where exactly does it say that?

This notion of fixity of species (or "kinds") is actually based on the ideas of the pagan Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle, who taught that the world is eternal and that species are fixed and nothing new could arise. This philosophy was brought into Christianity thanks to some of the Church Fathers -- primarily via Augustine and later through Thomas Aquinas and Peter Abelard -- but is nowhere to be found in the Bible.

IOW, the concept of fixity of nature including the flora and fauna originates not from Scripture -- Genesis does not say that species were created with forms fixed for all time -- but comes instead from Greek philosophy and was incorporated into Christianity.

Why even AnswersinGenesis (AiG) has begun to recognize that the concept of fixity of species is based on Greek philosophy and that "not contradictory of evolutionary theory which agrees that the child is always the same species as the parent. By any test of speciation (reproduction or morphology), the parent and the immediate child are the same species. It is only after many generations that we will notice a substantial change in the Biblical "kind."

Where is your Biblical justification for kinds changing?

I should probably note that obviously Genesis 1 is merely a very abbreviated description of God's creation, and nobody should expect it to exhaustively chronicle the biological changes that take place over periods of time much longer than any human lifetime. Genesis 1 is a hymn of glory to God's mighty works and a polemic against the cultures and pagan practices -- not a technical manual or science textbook. And it is a grave mistake (as history has shown us) when we insist on treating it like it is.

Where does Genesis claim to be merely a polemic? And I noticed you did not touch Adam being the biological father of all living humans, which I suspect that evolutionary theory would disagree with.

[rogue06]

Where is your Biblical justification for kinds changing?

transitional between lizards and snakes should not be a problem since both are reptiles. And since birds are considered a sub-group of reptiles, there should be no complaints about them descending from dinosaurs either.

Now returning to the topic of "kinds" in general and what YECs consider they are at any given moment, segmented worms (Annelida) represent an entire phylum (the taxonomic ranking immediately above Class), yet are called worm kind by some and Jonathan Wells, who wrote the anti-evolutionary screed "Icons of Evolution," has also claimed in an interview that phyla might represent the original kinds.

Just to give you a hint at how asinine this is, humans, along with all other mammals along with reptiles, birds, amphibians or anything else with a spinal cord, are all members of the phyla Chordata. In fact vertebrates constitute only a subphyla within Chordata.

Even worse some YECs even speak of "plants" (an entire Kingdom - the taxonomic rank above Phyla) as a "kind" and I've seen numerous folks declare that bacteria (an entire Domain - the taxonomic ranking above Kingdom) as a "kind" as well^[1]

Over at AnswersinGenesis (AiG), in an article called "Creation Scientists and Teachers Comment," a "M.H., College Professor, Mathematics; MA in Math and English as a Second Language; BA in Computer Science; High School Teaching Credential in Chemistry, Physics, and General Science" informs us that "I usually hear about the usual bait-and-switch techniques such as bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics (they are and were still the bacteria kindneither do I mean bacteria that changes into bacteriaThere has been no change of 'kind.'"

On another board a poster who also has posted here from time to time, "rossum," highlighted the utter ridiculousness of asserting that bacteria are a "kind":

By allowing bacteria as a kind, you have also allowed "eukaryote" as a kind. Sunflowers are eukaryotes; humans are eukaryotes. All plants, all animals and all fungi are eukaryotes. Amoeba are eukaryotes.

^[2]. This should definitely not be the case in a world where "kinds" are distinct but comes as no surprise in a world where every living thing has descended from a common ancestor.

Where does Genesis claim to be merely a polemic? And I noticed you did not touch Adam being the biological father of all living humans, which I suspect that evolutionary theory would disagree with.

I have no reason to doubt that Adam and Eve existed. I'm a theistic evolutionist (or evolutionary creationist if you prefer).






1. During discussions concerning Richard Lenski's E. coli long-term evolution experiment (LTEE) back in pre-crash Tweb days it was not at all uncommon for objections to be raised that since E. coli bacteria still remains a bacteria then there was no change in kinds.

2. Another example would be sea anemones (a type of cnidarian)

Source: Sea Anemone Is Both Animal and Plant

Sea anemones are classified as being animals, but two new genetic studies have found that these water-dwelling creatures are technically half plant and half animal.

The discovery does not change the classification of sea anemones, but the studies -- both published in the latest issue of the journal Genome Research -- reveal just how interconnected life on Earth is.

"All animals living now, including humans, are equally distant (i.e. distantly related) to plants," project leader Ulrich Technau told Discovery News. "However, the sea anemones are representatives of an animal lineage called the cnidarians (corals, sea anemones, jellyfish and hydras), which branched off very early and appear to have retained many ancestral traits."

Technau, an evolutionary and developmental biologist at the University of Vienna, and his teams determined that, remarkably, cnidarians use a plant-like system to control animal genes.



Source

© Copyright Original Source

Essentially, while its genes more closely resemble those of animals the regulatory code that determines whether those genes are expressed look more like those found in plants. And sea anemone posses a second level of regulation, short regulatory RNAs (microRNAs) that far more closely resemble one found in plants than in animals. Since plants and animals have microRNAs that both look and act very different, researchers had previously assumed they arose independently in the two kingdoms. This new discovery brings that assumption into question since it indicates that these microRNAs evolved before plants and animals diverged long ago, and provides an evolutionary link between plant and animal microRNA.

The papers can be found here: Evolutionary conservation of the eumetazoan gene regulatory landscape and Cnidarian microRNAs frequently regulate targets by cleavage

[seer]

I have no reason to doubt that Adam and Eve existed. I'm a theistic evolutionist (or evolutionary creationist if you prefer).

So you believe that all living humans come from one set of parents. Would evolutionary theory agree?

[rogue06]

So you believe that all living humans come from one set of parents. Would evolutionary theory agree?

So I see you aren't really interested in defining what "kinds" are. Without one it would appear that your objection is baseless.

As to your question, personally I think evolutionary theory is silent on this since there are several possible ways for it to take place. I kinda think it has a lot to do with how one defines "human" and suspect that the Biblical definition may not be in complete accord with the scientific one.

I've been noodling out a way to best explain this much like I have with the differences between appearance of age v. appearance of history and the polemic nature of Genesis 1 but have yet to fully flesh it out.

[seer]

So I see you aren't really interested in defining what "kinds" are. Without one it would appear that your objection is baseless.

Kinds are really not that important to me, Adam is.

As to your question, personally I think evolutionary theory is silent on this since there are several possible ways for it to take place. I kinda think it has a lot to do with how one defines "human" and suspect that the Biblical definition may not be in complete accord with the scientific one.

I've been noodling out a way to best explain this much like I have with the differences between appearance of age v. appearance of history and the polemic nature of Genesis 1 but have yet to fully flesh it out.

Well Scripture is pretty clear, Adam is the biological father of humankind. That is either true or not. And even if you stretch out the the biblical genealogy you are not going to get past 15,000 years. And that pair is the biological parents of all living humans today. I think rogue that flies in the face of evolutionary biology.

[tabibito]

So I see you aren't really interested in defining what "kinds" are. Without one it would appear that your objection is baseless.

As to your question, personally I think evolutionary theory is silent on this since there are several possible ways for it to take place. I kinda think it has a lot to do with how one defines "human" and suspect that the Biblical definition may not be in complete accord with the scientific one.

I've been noodling out a way to best explain this much like I have with the differences between appearance of age v. appearance of history and the polemic nature of Genesis 1 but have yet to fully flesh it out.

Given that Eden* is not on Earth (though contiguous with Earth), I have no problem with the idea that Adam and Eve were actual people, and find no conflict with evolutionary theory. Noah gives us much greater difficulty than do Adam and Eve.

*Tree of Life is in the midst of Eden, of Sheol, of Paradise.

[KingsGambit]

Noah gives us much greater difficulty than do Adam and Eve.

Yes. Concordists who think that a local but universal flood solves most of the problems overlook that the "universal" aspect of the flood would still basically require Noah to be a universal ancestor. So they may calculate how people could have plausibly ended up in Alaska or Tasmania based on a proposed date for Adam, but will not have solved the problem at all.

Incidentally, I posed a similar question to Reasons to Believe 12 years ago and they admitted they were simply unable to answer it.