5 Common Objections to Evolutionary Creationism

Faith & Science Conversation
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There is some truth here, @Patrick, I’m afraid. I don’t have statistics to cite, but I know many people who started in the YEC camp and ended up as total unbelievers. Those are private stories that I won’t relate, but some of them are well known public stories, including my longtime friend Ronald Numbers (Ronald Numbers - Wikipedia). At the beginning of his book, The Creationists, Ron tells the story of a personal faith journey from being a Seventh-day Adventist (that’s where the YEC view came from) to being an agnostic, starting with the realization that “the earth was at least thirty thousand years old,” a conclusion he drew as a graduate student in history when he attended a lecture on the fossilized forests in the Yellowstone River Canyon. “I quickly, though not painlessly, slid down the proverbial slipperly slope toward unbelief.”

This happens. A lot. Are Ken Ham and company responsible? IMO, yes, to some extent–to the extent that they try to persuade Christians that no alternative understanding of early Genesis is acceptable, that everything else is the beginning of apostacy.

At the same time, there are lots of people who start somewhere else–even with a TE position–who also end up in unbelief, for various reasons. It’s complicated: each person’s story is unique. And, of course, there are people who go from unbelief to belief, for various reasons, including Francis Collins and C. S. Lewis and many others. In no case that I am personally aware of, however, did conversion from unbelief to belief involve someone being persuaded that the earth is “young.” Lots and lots of people have lost their faith after becoming persuade that the earth is “old.”

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@johnZ It sounds like you are saying that, in effect, Christians shouldn’t make use of theoretical models, or heuristics, or methods, or theories that have philosophical underpinnings that don’t fit our worldviews, because doing so will inevitably lead to conclusions that are antithetical to Christianity. This isn’t how people actually operate in a discipline though.

For example, in Bible translation, which is a pretty exclusively Christian application of linguistics, communication theory, translation theory, and cultural anthropology, we regularly appropriate models whose philosophical “base” is not all that compatible with a Christian worldview. A Bahktinian understanding of power negotiation and identity performance works really well for some discourse analysis and ethnography situations. We are trained in Frieran methods of literacy development. Both of those models came out of very Marxist worldviews. But, you don’t have to be a Marxist to find them helpful. Skopos Theory and Relevance Theory were major topics of presentations at the BT conference I just attended. Both are based on very postmodern notions of text, author/speaker, audience/hearer, and the negotiation of meaning. We can appropriate and apply some very useful aspects of those theories and models of interpretation without subscribing to the idea that there is no absolute truth.

Are you really saying that making use of the evolutionary model is inherently dangerous or antithetical to Christianity in some way, because of its philosophical base?

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Thanks Ted. I think this is a real shame for young people to completely lose their faith and trust in their loved ones because Ham and company bamboozled them in the name of Christianity. That why Biologos is important to get the message out that science (and scientists) are not anti-Christian. Although I lean strongly to the Dawkins, Coyne camp in science education, I see only positives in Biologos approach to harmonizing science with Faith.

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@Patrick, I wish you would get that message across to Jerry Coyne…https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2015/12/01/a-teaser-for-biologoss-big-story-i-e-more-toxic-mixing-of-science-and-faith/

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Brad,
I actually liked the teaser. It is well done for the intended audience. This would play well with Catholics and Mainline Protestant who want to know more about modern science and their faith don’t (or don’t have to) conflict. But I don’t know if it will persuade any YECs. They are so hard line. They will say it is an atheistic video because there is no room for the Fall, Original Sin, A&E, Noah and everything else.

As for Coyne, his biggest complaint is Biologos funding source specifically Templeton. He has a point there as I think Templeton money will better serve his goals at NCSE . But Biologos does good on the science education side although it is getting less than 50/50 here recently. ISn’t the mission to be harmonizing new science with Christian faith? Most of the time I watch debates about harmonize this Christian faith with that Christian faith with the science as a just minor complication that can be fiddled with. It is the science that is the eight hundred pound elephant in the room and it is growing fast.

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I’ve always felt that the work of BioLogos is not so much to convince the YEC’s as to prevent moderates and other ‘complex’ thinkers into falling all the way into the YEC pit… as well as to present a rational unity to everyone else.

George

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complex thinkers to YEC? In 2015 Millennials? I hope not. Millennials seem so informed these days. They google while texting to check things out in real time. They seem very skeptical about everything.

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@Patrick, I doubt Jerry Coyne would agree with this. He’s just as negatively inclined toward NCSE as he his toward BL: Truckling to the Faithful: A Spoonful of Jesus Helps Darwin Go Down – Why Evolution Is True

In the same manner, Coyne calls fellow unbelievers Michael Ruse and Elliot Sober “accommondationists” b/c neither of them thinks that religious people are just stupid to believe in God. Coyne’s goal, franky, is to use science–especially evolutionary biology–to drive everyone else to an extreme position on either end of the religious spectrum. Namely, to make them YECs who (in his view) believe crazy things purely on “faith,” where faith is understood (by him) as holding steadfast to things that are proven not to be true; or else, to make them aggressively anti-religious atheists like himself. That’s what Coyne is all about.

In other words, he wants people to be in this situation: heads I win, tails you lose.

The fact that a lot of smart, very well informed people don’t use that coin to determine their stances irritates the heck out of him. He wants to polarize, where we at BL seek to broaden the conceptual landscape. He assumes that he speaks authoritatively for science, and he seeks to “shame” scientists like Francis Collins or philosophers like Ruse and Sober into silence. The shame, frankly, is on Coyne. I certainly don’t know anywhere nearly as much as he knows about biology, He’s very smart, and I respect his knowledge of his field, but I don’t respect his attitude. I probably know a lot more about physics than he does (even though I’m no physicist), and I certainly know a lot more about religion, and “science & religion,” than he does. I’m fully entitled to have a different opinion about these things–and so are tens of thousands of religious scientists in this country, who know their fields as well as Coyne knows his. But, he tries to “shame” such people as these into silence.

I’m not silent. Not in the least.

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I agree with Coyne regarding YECs but disagree with him regarding TE (including Catholics and Mainline) who don’t see any controversy at all between science and faith. I also don’t see NCSE as accommodative. It is secular in everything I have seen. It has been my experience working in the science/engineering fields that most folks working are mildly TE or agnostic but cultural Catholic/Protestant/Jewish. Not many on the extremes as in Dawkins atheists and Ham YEC.

As for Francis Collins. I have to hand it to him, it is hard to work in government as a scientist. He is doing a great job and great service to the country in his role at NIH. I fully expect YECs to go away in the next 10 to 20 years if not sooner, with nones greatly growing but not none/atheist but none/Cultural Cath/Prot/Jewish.

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@Patrick… Loved your post … a beautiful road car … driving through the sunny streets of Italy… until you drove your Cadillac off the road into the rocks!

YEC’s are never going away. All we can do is increasingly marginalize them so they can howl at the moon at the appropriate times.

But after, what?, 80 years? , they are still well funded enough to support dozens of YEC-oriented Evangelical colleges.

George

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Those will be the first to dry up due to lack of donations and accreditation leading to a decline in enrollment. These are going to be the first colleges slammed by SSM accomodation rules for Federal Student loan support.

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Did you know that you are ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing’ according to this person?

(The first part of the same Bible chapter says something about judging people.)

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What were the Victorian-era “flat-earthers” ? They devoted their lives to teaching the world that God used the Bible to teach humanity that the earth was flat.

Were THEY wolves in sheep’s clothing too?

George

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@BradKramer
Brad, Thanks for your wonderful update on the growing influence of BioLogos among evangelicals. Your list of top five objections to evolutionary creation is both revealing and helpful. I really appreciate how you provided well thought out responses to persistent opposition! You must have been tired after the conference. (-:

@johnZ @Tony_and_Linda_Hinkl
After reading through the comments today, I see two repeated arguments that are frequently voiced to disregard evolutionary biology: (1) evidence for whale evolution (and all macroevolution by extension) “can’t be tested” and/or is based on too many assumptions, and (2) evolutionary theory is driven by an atheistic worldview or an “anti-creation evolutionary agenda.” As a conservative evangelical Christian with a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology, I can attest that both of these arguments have little merit. I urge fellow Christians to consider that the we must deal directly with what the natural world (God’s creation) reveals to us without characterizing the views of mainline scientists as blind or biased. I am deeply concerned about this, not because I idolize science, but for the health of the church and its witness for Jesus.

Here are some of the things we know about hoofed animal to whale evolution (stated with no underlying assumptions): (1) whales have small bones in their pelvic region that serve no apparent function but are located right where the pelvic girdle would be in a mammal with hind legs, (2) baleen whale embryos develop teeth (like all fossil whales) that are never used, but later get reabsorbed and replaced by baleen, (3) whale embryos start with nostrils at the front of the snout (like the oldest fossil whales and most mammals) but changes in the size and shapes of facial bones move the nostrils to the top of the skull where they serve as the “blowhole” in the adult whale, (4) there are whale-like fossils (based on anatomy of skull and skeleton - no weird assumptions here) with limbs that end in hooves, (5) there are whale-like fossils with a “double-pulley” astragalus bone in the ankle, a bone that was before these discoveries absolutely diagnostic for even-toed hoofed mammals and found in no other animal group, (6) genetic comparisons of many genes shared among living mammals show that whales are more similar to even-toed hoofed mammals than to any other mammals, and most often closest to the hippopotamus.

When Christians argue that evolution can’t be valid because of underlying assumptions, or because it’s just not believable that animals could change like this, or any other objection, they are diverting the discussion from these plainly stated observations about living and fossil mammals. Please note that there is nothing in this list that is debatable based on assumptions or atheism. I fully acknowledge that there are extreme atheistic sentiments among most biologists (a critical issue for Christians), but the natural observations need to be evaluated independent of this worldview that did not generate them. Instead, I believe followers of Jesus must face these observations head on.

From my years of experience in the church and among scientists, there are really only two options: (1) God created deceptive features in hoofed mammals and whales (the above features) that most assuredly would be interpreted by modern scientists as evidence for evolution, or (2) these natural observations in God’s creation reveal something real about the biological (evolutionary) connectedness of hoofed mammals and whales. Most Christians readily see the difficulties of claiming that the God of Truth has intentionally deceived us.

What I have outlined here for whales could be repeated over and over again across many macroevolution transitions (e.g., bipedal dinosaurs with feathers to birds, aquatic green algae to primitive plants).

The key point is that no matter what concerns Christians may bring to evolution (it doesn’t fit my theology, they can’t explain where the first cell came from, etc.), we must face the mountains of positive evidence that points to a very old earth with intricate (and marvelous) ancestral connections among living things. I wholeheartedly believe the church will eventually embrace evolutionary creation as a full witness to God’s creative majesty in the same way as it has incorporated our modern understanding of a sun-centered solar system. I’m thankful that BioLogos is so graciously communicating this message.

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hi dr gary. ok. lets check your points from a scientific prespective. if we will see that we have a better explanation then we should accept the id position.

you said:

" (1) whales have small bones in their pelvic region that serve no apparent function but are located right where the pelvic girdle would be in a mammal with hind legs, "-

true. but now we know that this structure is actually a part of the whale reproduction system :

so there is no evidence for evolution here. actually- its a fasle prediction of the evolution theory.

" (2) baleen whale embryos develop teeth (like all fossil whales) that are never used, but later get reabsorbed and replaced by baleen,"-

first- human ebryo also have a gills-like structure. but we know that this stucture never develop into gills but a part of the human throat. even more- some scientists claim that this whale stucture is a part of the whale depelopment process:

"But Louis Vialleton (1859–1929), who was Professor of Zoology, Anatomy and Comparative Physiology at Montpelier University, southern France, argued:

“Even though the teeth in the whale do not pierce the gums and function as teeth, they do function and actually play a role in the formation of the jaws to which they furnish a point d’apui on which the bones mold themselves.”"-

so again- no evidence for evolution here.

" whale embryos start with nostrils at the front of the snout (like the oldest fossil whales and most mammals) but changes in the size and shapes of facial bones move the nostrils to the top of the skull -

its very similar to the common similarity argument. airplane and car both have wheels (even in the same place). but it doesnt prove a commondescent but a commondesigner.

, "(4) there are whale-like fossils (based on anatomy of skull and skeleton - no weird assumptions here) with limbs that end in hooves, (5) there are whale-like fossils with a “double-pulley” astragalus bone in the ankle, a bone that was before these discoveries absolutely diagnostic for even-toed hoofed mammals and found in no other animal group, "-

if it have a legs- then its not a whale. very simple.

“(6) genetic comparisons of many genes shared among living mammals show that whales are more similar to even-toed hoofed mammals than to any other mammals, and most often closest to the hippopotamus.”-

even if its true so what? chimp is the closest to human then any other ape. but from morphological prespective actually the orangutan is the closest to human. so what is the real phylogeny then?

" Please note that there is nothing in this list that is debatable based on assumptions or atheism."-

again- we need to assume that the evolution is true to accept those points above. but if evolution isnt true- then they are not valid.

now- we actually can show that the evolution of whale is impossible. for example: some whales species has a sonar system. we know that a minimal sonar need at least 3-4 parts for its function. so the sonar cant evolve step wise from non sonar. therefore we know that a whale sonar cant evolve from a whale without it.

so- 1) we dont have any scientific evidence that the whale evolved from a non whale and 2) we know that this evolution is impossible step wise.

yours sincerely

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@dcscccc

For those Christians who believe in God AND Evolution, it’s a good thing that BioLogos believes God BRIDGES the evolutionary gap for very tricky evolutionary developments!
Your disputations about this or that species is really aimed at Atheists, wouldn’t you say?

Agreed?

George

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@dcscccc
Thanks for your reply. It is clear to me (and I hope you will agree) that you are wholly committed to rejecting any evidence for evolution no matter what might be presented. I suggest that we should be honest with each other and acknowledge that our disagreements are not really about natural observations at all, but what we believe are allowable natural discoveries based on biblical interpretations and theology. If you have predetermined that evolution cannot be valid, then I understand that you will always have some kind of counter to every bit of evidence. But this is, of course, a non-productive merry-go-round.

Part of my intent in presenting the list of evidence for ungulate-to-whale evolution (a very abbreviated list at that) was to show how many diverse observations point to an evolutionary creation scenario that are not explained under other creationist proposals. At some point, I believe we need to acknowledge that the overall weight of different evidences is what is so compelling as support for evolution, even if you can dismiss one item or another. But I must say that most of your quick dismissals don’t directly address what the evidence is implying.

Before I go on, thanks for the reference on the function of whale pelvic bones in penis support. I had heard that suggestion before, but not seen this new study. I applaud you for providing a function for the whale hip bone. The thing is that the whale pelvic bone is STILL evidence for evolution. The penis in all male mammals with hind limbs is anchored to the pelvic bone that also supports the limbs. Is it just coincidence that whales have a comparable bone precisely in the region of the body where hind limbs are present in fossil whales?

You missed the point about embryonic teeth and nostril migration in whales. The real question is why do teeth develop AT ALL in an animal that that will only need baleen as an adult? The presence of temporary teeth is explained under an evolutionary scenario, but makes no sense in a specially created or designed animal. Likewise, why don’t the nostrils of whales develop directly at the location of the blowhole rather than begin at the tip of the snout where they are located in older fossil whales and other mammals?

I am very surprised at your simple suggestion that if it has legs, then it’s not a whale. This reminded me that years ago Duane Gish used to argue that since Archaeopteryx had feathers, it was simply a bird. But the skeleton of Archaeopteryx is unmistakably a bipedal, thecodont reptile by almost all of its features - it’s a dinosaur with feathers. In the same way, the limbed whale fossils I mentioned are unmistakably whale-like by criteria of their teeth and skull (included a reduced zygomatic arch, and large poorly attached tympanic bullae). Especially important, the presence of HOOVES and a double-pulley astragalus bone are remarkable confirmations of evolution because they wonderfully fit previous stated predictions that whales evolved from hoofed ancestors.

Finally, comparisons of genetic sequences are particularly powerful evidence for an evolutionary past, as they have, in most instances, confirmed evolutionary phylogenies that were developed previously from other criteria. Humans are not morphologically closest to orangutans, and the genetics confirms that humans are closely linked to chimps and bonobos. But here is the real point: why should humans be extremely close in genetic sequences to any of these particular primates if it is not due to an evolutionary ancestry? It is not sufficient to say it is because they are all primates. I fully believe God knew we would discover these things. Can we really quickly dismiss the information?

I conclude with a repeated exhortation: There is so much positive evidence for evolution in God’s natural creation that I believe we must engage it head on as a real aspect of God’s creative artistry – for His glory, for the health of the church, and for an effective witness for Jesus.

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26 posts were split to a new topic: Is evolution inherently atheistic?

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hi dr gary. i will response to you later. by the way- what is the names of the fossils you are talking about(ambulocetidae?)?

thanks…

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Brad,
Is this latest from AIG on topic? It is a little silly scientifically but there might be some deep theology questions in it for you and Jim.