Oh boy. Just another article parroting the line that “assumptions” is some kind of magic shibboleth that lets you make things up and invent your own alternative reality.
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It’s interesting to me who they name when they quote and who is just “the author.” Deb Haarsma, MIT trained astrophysicist and president of BioLogos doesn’t get named. J Richard Middleton, President of the Canadian Evangelical Theological Association (2011–2014) and President of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies (2019–2021), professor of Exegesis and Biblical Studies doesn’t get named, he just gets lumped in as basically the same as Bart Ehrman, who gets a hyperlink, of course. Jim Stump, vice president of BioLogos, philosophy phD, and recognizable author doesn’t get named. Keith Furman, phD in biology with expertise in molecular genetics and biochemistry doesn’t get named. Bethany Sollereder, a theologian who teaches at Oxford, is just “the author,” even though Smith interacts extensively with her ideas.
Pastor Leonard J. Vander Zee gets a name.
They do not pass on the chance to name that false teacher tool of Satan Pete Enns, so of course, he gets credit for what he said.
And I, forum moderator extraordinaire get a name this time for authoring such a fine comment on a comment board, though I didn’t get cited at all when Bryan Osborne wrote a whole article on something I actually composed with care.
It’s all just very strange to me.
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So now it’s historical and “operational” science? It used to be “observational.” But I guess when you try to split science into arbitrary categories you can call them whatever you want.
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In response to my contention that YECs equate science with “human wisdom,” Calvin Smith says,
Now while some biblical creationists may have said such things, I know of exactly zero professional creation apologetics organizations (certainly not the Answers in Genesis ministry) that have made such a claim (i.e., it’s a strawman argument).
Well, that’s why I put a link to the ICR article making those claims right there, because I link to the articles I am referencing so people can read the context for themselves. It’s a good editorial practice. (Hint, hint)
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The answer to their magic shibboleth is, of course, that assumptions are constrained by basic rules of honesty and accuracy, and so too are challenges to those assumptions. Just because something is “historical science” rather than “operational science” or “observational science” or whatever they call it this week doesn’t justify exaggerating or downplaying error bars, or claiming that rock formations aren’t fractured when in reality they are.
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Their arguments quickly fall apart in their articles on flood geology where they use the very same assumptions. You can’t reject radiometric dating because you refuse to accept the constancy of radioactive decay and then turn around and accept the constancy of other physical features like the density of water and rocks. Could you imagine the look on their faces if you refused to accept flood geology because they ASSUMED rocks were denser than water in the past? Every attempt they make at a science-ish article is filled with the very same assumptions that are used for such things as radiometric dating.
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Also, “historical science” is observational science, just usually not where you can directly replicate it. You also can’t replicate any of the following: a global flood, miracles, changes in fundamental constants, creation of organisms, or past climate; at least not if your IRC finds out. I still have yet to come up with a definition beyond “historical science is the stuff I don’t like”.
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The reason you don’t understand your brothers and sisters who accept the science of biology is that you think secular science and Christian science are two different things.
Ask 1000 Ph.D. scientists, and at least 999 will say that there is only science. Having a common set of rules for doing science allows people of every belief (or none) to contribute, as those who bear the image of God, to understanding the universe God created. (Even if they don’t always understand that they bear the image of God and that God created the universe.)
This is not in the least what is happening.
If you were a Ph.D. scientist, you would understand this.
Are you a Ph.D. scientist? What qualifies you to speak authoritatively about whether YEC authors are using the exact same observations as other scientists? You have an awful lot of confidence in your own ability to parse the fine points of scientific discourse, so I am interested in learning what Ph.D. program(s) you have pursued.
This is a great point. John Calvin was 100% convinced that the Scriptures clearly taught that the sun revolves around a fixed earth, for example.
Are you a better scholar of the Bible than John Calvin, @adamjedgar? If not, what makes you think that you cannot possibly be wrong about the Bible’s teaching about the age of the universe, when Calvin turned out to be wrong about the solar system?
Grace and peace,
Chris Falter
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Finally, found the time to watch this video - a very enjoyable 2-hour rabbit hole! Thanks for sharing, @Beaglelady!
Firstly, the video itself is excellent and Erika is super knowledgeable and very funny. The museum content on the other hand is sometimes funny, but often tragic bordering on the horrifying. My big takeaway was that the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter are interested in 3 things - money, indoctrination, and peddling lies (I use those last two words purposefully and intentionally).
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Thanks so much for watching! Erika (Gutsick Gibbon) is well on her way to being a great science communicator. She will be getting a PhD in paleoanthropology.
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Absolutely, I’ll be watching (and watching) her channel with great interest.
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While public identification as homosexual has certainly increased in the past few decades, there is no reason to think that homosexual behavior has changed in frequency during that same period.
Homosexual behavior has been noted in countless human societies over the past several thousand years.
In addition, it is common elsewhere in the animal kingdom (bonobos, ducks, penguins, bison, walruses, elephants, and the list could grow far, far longer).
I am not arguing that the behavior is morally permissible for anyone; just because a human may have a particular urge does not mean that acting on it in a particular way is moral, ethical, or spiritual.
(I do care about my brothers and sisters who may feel such an orientation, though, and want to hear them out and let them know they are loved and appreciated.)
NO. The fact that you are making this argument show that you have some serious misunderstandings about biology.
Altruistic behaviors by definition do not fit your narrow definition of survival optimization, yet they occur widely in the animal kingdom. Cross-species adoptions or fostering is just one example. A hypothesis popular among biologists is that the altruistic behaviors are the side effect of instincts that ultimately do promote the propagation of the genetic code.
Grace and peace,
Chris Falter
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Dr. Erika is hysterical! I can’t get enough of her content.
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I think she could one day become one of our top science communicators! I just found out that she did her own animation for the opening sequence of her videos.
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She seems to have good relationships with YEC’s as well. Other science content creators, as well as general atheistic YouTubers, always graciously specify their subject to distinguish the different views that Christians have. It’s a far cry from the generalized, evil, Other that some Christian groups create.
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{note: I’m reviving this because I got a notification that there were new posts since my last visit}
It starts with the original-language text of the scriptures for many people: bluntly, AiG refuses to acknowledge that Genesis is ancient literature, and that the opening is not written as history. Not only do they lie about science, they lie about the Bible.
This assertion gets made but never substantiated. Are you claiming that we are somehow perfect beings if we evolved?
Ah – you consider yourself competent to judge God! If God calls something “good”, then it is good.
And BTW, “good” does not mean “nice” or “comfortable” in ancient Hebrew; in the context of Genesis it means “working well”.
Human death – don’t read into the text what isn’t there.
So you think God was obliged to force ancient writers to ignore their actual audience and write to satisfy the curiosity of modern humans?
There’s no “Biblical proof” for germs, flight/lift, ballistics, atoms, electromagnetism, plate tectonics, volcanism, or meteorology. By your reasoning, we should throw all that out.
Again you think God was obliged to force ancient writers to ignore their actual audience and write to satisfy the curiosity of modern humans.
How things were created is irrelevant to the relationship between God and humans, which is the topic the Holy Spirit is interested in. Why would He bother putting in things unrelated to the Gospel?
That’s not in the scriptures.
… and neither is that.
I don’t either, I care about the text – and you play fast and loose with it, adding what isn’t there and asking for things the Holy Spirit had no reason to include.
Hang on – you’re the one claiming that because Adam sinned God punished all the animals too!
Besides which, Genesis tells us that God put death in the world: without death there is no food for animals and even for many other creatures.
Huh? Are you claiming that Creation doesn’t exist? Scripture certainly says it does, as well as that it speaks to us about God!
You have a very strange view of scripture and thus of the Holy Spirit!
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And there have been more than a few cults who have used it exactly that way!
At least not the way it is meant here. In terms of the laws of physics, which are foundational to everything else, it would be contrary to scripture to claim that things haven’t continued “as they were from the beginning”, because if they hadn’t it would make God unfaithful.
So the scripture doesn’t mean what it says? You’re picking and choosing what to rad literally and what not to.
How about evidence from scripture that the Holy Spirit even cares about “theistic evolution”?
Whoa – I knew Ham was arrogant and devious, but after reading this I see he’s deceptive, manipulative, vengeful, underhanded, and self-righteous!
My version is “science can’t concern itself with God, because there is no instrument for detecting divine presence or activity”.
I believe that arguing between these two declarations constitutes talking past each other because within their perspectives both are correct: what the biblical statement indicates is that the land (think upper continental crust, i.e. the parts humans ordinarily interact with) cannot be knocked off its foundations – something any earth scientist would agree with (barring bizarre circumstances).
You need to make a case that theological evolution impacts the Bible, something I’ve never seen attempted, just claimed.
How? It doesn’t say humans aren’t sinners in need of redemption, so what’s the problem?
It sounds like you mean something more than that Creation shows us things about God. What would that be?
Here are some things to ponder: A millennium or so ago, scholars explained how the Bible agreed with science that everything is made from four elements, that the Sun goes around the Earth, and more. About the same time, purely from the text of Genesis 1, Hebrews scholars concluded that the universe started out smaller than a grain of mustard and was filled with fluid, that it expanded incomprehensibly rapidly, that at some point the expansion thinned the fluid enough for light to shine and so God commanded light to exist, that the universe is ancient beyond human counting and that the Earth itself is immensely ancient. Somewhat earlier, scholars studying Genesis declared the world must be “a thousand times a thousand times a thousand” years old, and some added another thousand to that.
Thus on the basis of scripture honest scholars of Hebrew concluded that the world is a billion years, a trillion years old, or incalculably old – and was formed out of just four elements. The question, then, is why you think your conclusions about Genesis are any more correct than those men who understood the original language text better than either of us?
It’s also one that had me giggling uncontrollably.
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This reminds me of the time I got called a blasphemer because I said Jesus got pimples as a teenager.
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Love this paragraph –
Concerning Noah’s Flood, Smith says that contributors at BioLogos tend to either argue that Noah’s flood was a historical local flood or that it is a mythological story, and thus not historical at all. Well, that is true—that is what contributors tend to say about Genesis 6-9.
– because I maintain on a literary basis that “Noah’s flood was a historical local flood” AND that it is a mythological story; “myth” doesn’t mean “fiction”.
And this:
Adam must be historical—because Jesus was a historical person, and who in their right mind would ever compare a historical person with a literary figure?
because just yesterday I heard a guy in his mid-twenties comparing a friend’s dad to some Pokemon figure.
Seems like people at AiG don’t get out much.
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Wait – they’re actually treating puffins as irreducibly complex?
That’s how Ham ended up in charge of AiG.
They are not, however, to be forgiven for driving many thousands away from Christ.
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They lack any conception of how people can agree on something without there being a leader they follow.
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AiG is allergic to avoiding the public arena and resolving things privately. Ken Ham is on top and in charge because he deceived, manipulated, slandered, and libeled fellow Christians publicly and falsely agreed to private meetings which he then didn’t attend.
I watched a video a while back that provided an impressive example of how it should be done: a doctoral candidate in physics had finished the first draft of his thesis, then set it aside for a few weeks, then returned to it as an antagonist, questioning every procedure and calculation and argument. He was as merciless with his own work as he would have been against any opponent.
It doesn’t take long reading at AiG to see that such humility and honesty never even crosses their minds.
Absolutely, especially in an organization built around one man.
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I think many Christians in general and Evangelicals in particular are quasi-Docetists without realizing it.
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Of course its logical…its no suprise that given we are created in Gods image, we also tend to surround ourselves with our creations (things we make). Clearly you are not a person who has ever done a day of manual work in your life. Id suggest you visit a carpenters shop and get some practise.