So are you then saying that you are fine with the idea that scientists restrict their investigations to using the scientific method to arrive at natural explanations for what they observe? (In other words, you are fine with science depending upon methodological naturalism.)
Please clarify if I am misunderstanding.
Yes I agree. Must use scientific method to explain observations, even biblical observations!
Back to Einstein and Bohr as an example. Einstein did not believe in the uncertainty principle even though it was observed. Even he as great a scientist as he was could not overcome his bias toward direct causation in spite of the evidence.
Scientists pick on creationists for their bias in spite of observation as they should. I suggest this same criticism now turns back on them if they remain atheists and try to explain gravity, dark energy, origin of big bang, creation of life, and other phenomena. The discovery of the HIGS BOSON led them to realize that they need a new physics. Yes they do.
Now you are writing some confusing things.
Didn’t you just say that it was quick in God’s eyes… but even then it Still took millions of years ?
So why do you think too many species were created in too short a time frame?
In fact, it is the YEC view that is hit by this problem: If God put a limited number of Kinds in the Ark, then that means once the animals left the Ark, millions of terrestrial kinds and species had to be created (in a new period of creation) in order to make sense out of what we see in the world today.
Old Earth scenarios are the only ones that make sense . . . you can see that, right?
George
From God’s time frame the earth is new, but from our time frame looking back it is old earth scenario - yes.
From the old earth scenario looking back based on our current time frame, I suggest that separation of species to creation of new species takes more time and is an entropy affect, while creating so many new species in the relatively short Cambrian period suggest design or ordering by a creative act. I suggest that this creative act was done by quantum tunneling which can be called evolution, by design by God.
What would it take to put some numbers to this? Like, the earth can entropically generate a hundred new species per million years, but if it’s more than that, it must have required an act of God?
Help me understand your position here in more detail, please? Have you looked at a lot of the specific animals from the Cambrian, and compared them to the animals alive before the Cambrian and after the Cambrian?
When people refer to the “short Cambrian period” i am always reminded that short is a geologic term and is currently assumed to be 20 to 25 million years. Not exactly short in the human time scale and sure seems like a long period of time if you are saying God designed the Cambrian animals.
It sounds to me like you should be in the BioLogos camp. There are several members “in the big tent” that have very interesting “twists” or “nuances”.
Your use of Quantum novelties as a mechanism of God’s miraculous work is certainly much closer to the mysteries of the view of Physicists than it is to the more “magical” thinking of Young Earth Creationists.
BioLogos encourages individuals to see God guiding evolution. I don’t see anything about your approach that stands in the way of that.
What are your thoughts regarding your views fitting in with several variants of BioLogos type thinking?
Here’s one of the many things I don’t understand about your viewpoint:
Are you saying that Genesis 1 says that God saw six solar-day cycles occur while he was creating----but in that same “time frame”, from a human perspective, MANY HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS of solar-day cycles occurred?
I understand what you are saying about time and relativity (sort of) but how can God see six sunrises while a human earth-sided observer would have counted billions of years of solar-cycles? The counts should be the same even if “experienced” at different rates. That doesn’t make sense to me.
Easy. God just had to be traveling around the earth once every 24 hours (or so) from east to west. Things we think of as difficult are no problem for Him!
In the beginning there was no earth (it was without form and void) so the dry land earth was not created until the third day. But to further explain, let’s take the space traveler that gets in his rocket ship and takes off at the acceleration of gravity and assuming he has enough of an energy source, can keep accelerating for 10 years and then turns around and comes back de-accelerating at the same speed. He arrives in earth after 20 years, and yet on earth 200 years or so have past. Was the space traveler gone 200 years or 20 years? If he was gone 200 years than he should be dead but isn’t. So obviously he was gone 20 years. Replace space traveler with God, make it 6 days and a heck of a lot faster, and yes there would have been a lot more than 6 sunrises but to God it was 6 days. I might suggest that the Holy Spirit would have seen 6 days, as God the Father exists in all times, and yet they are one and totally connected.
I guess you are thinking of the “evening and morning” the first day when dealing with the number of sunrises. I suggest that evening and morning is a metaphor for a day.
So far, I don’t see any conflicts but admit I have not studied most of the Biologos concepts. Sounds like I have some homework to do.
Good point. Still I wonder why then, and not more evenly distributed over a longer period. And why just as many in later periods. Perhaps someone has a theory on that.
Below is a quote of Wiki. One answer to the debate discussed in 2nd paragraph is design. That is what I am suggesting.
The Cambrian explosion or Cambrian radiation[1] was the relatively short evolutionary event, beginning around 541 million years ago in the Cambrian period, during which most major animal phyla appeared, as indicated by the fossil record.[2][3] Lasting for about the next 20[4][5]–25[6][7] million years, it resulted in the divergence of most modern metazoan phyla.[8] Additionally, the event was accompanied by major diversification of other organisms.[note 1] Prior to the Cambrian explosion,[note 2] most organisms were simple, composed of individual cells occasionally organized into colonies. Over the following 70 to 80 million years, the rate of diversification accelerated by an order of magnitude[note 3] and the diversity of life began to resemble that of today.[11] Almost all the present phyla appeared during this period,[12][13] with the exception of Bryozoa, which made its earliest known appearance later, in the Lower Ordovician.[14]
The Cambrian explosion has generated extensive scientific debate. The seemingly rapid appearance of fossils in the “Primordial Strata” was noted by William Buckland in the 1840s,[15] and in 1859 Charles Darwin discussed it as one of the main objections that could be made against the theory of evolution by natural selection.[16] The long-running puzzlement about the appearance of the Cambrian fauna, seemingly abruptly, without precursor, centers on three key points: whether there really was a mass diversification of complex organisms over a relatively short period of time during the early Cambrian; what might have caused such rapid change; and what it would imply about the origin of animal life. Interpretation is difficult due to a limited supply of evidence, based mainly on an incomplete fossil record and chemical signatures remaining in Cambrian rocks.
Clifford, What appears to be dishonesty might be sincerely held erroneous convictions due to ignorance of some of the subject matter. Such things require gracious communication and respectful debate - with prayer.
I read a book (it’s around here somewhere) that had a theory that the Cambrian explosion was due to the development of eyes. This gave predators an advantage that the prey responded to by developing hard external body parts. The hard parts tend to be preserved as fossils whereas a completely soft body animal doesn’t leading to a sudden increase in the number of fossils found. It was described as a type of “arms race.”
You may be correct. I hope you are. I actually enjoyed and appreciated most of The Truth Project. Very well done. It is precisely the high caliber of the overall presentation, and the obvious depth of research reflected in all the other sessions, that leaves me dubious that the producers would not have known that Behe is essentially an evolutionist with a I.D. twist … that he accepts much of the narrative of life on earth which he was being used to vilify.
In Lee Strobel’s book a Case for a Creator, he makes a point how science leads to a discovery of God. Our position in the galaxy allows us to observe the universe and leads to discoveries such as dark energy, and a huge growing void in the center of the universe. Along with the Cambrian explosion of life, this is how some day scientists will finally bow their heads and say"“But God!” Why would he do it? In order that we may glorify Him, and follow His son Jesus to eternal life.
I don’t believe this will ever happen. I think if Science was ever able to prove the existence of God mankind would begin to worship Science and not God. God will always remain hidden except to the eyes of faith.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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