Randy, thanks. I was halfway into my biochemistry major at a highly regarded private university when i shifted life gears and dove into theology… so not sure if that qualifies to what you’re getting at there? it hardly makes me an expert, but at least it makes me conversant enough with some of the specific items discussed. I’m afraid I have no interest, time, money, or desire at this point to do any further formal study.
I laid out much of my background and earlier experiences, including some of my time in my undergrad study and how they shaped my views, over at the first few posts on the “Why I remain a Darwin Skeptic” post, if interesting.
Hi Randy. You’ve got my story correct. In 1983 I walked out of medical school at the University of Toronto to become a creation scientist (YEC). The goal was to do two PhDs (one in theology and the other in evolutionary biology) and then attack public universities and their acceptance of evolution. Starting at Regent College (Bruce Waltke, JI Packer, Gordon Fee etc), I slowly moved away from YEC. Then in the biology PhD I saw for the first time the evolutionary evidence. I was told in my church there was no evidence. Not true. The thing worth noting in my voyage from YEC to EC, is that my love for the Lord and love for the Word of God never changed one bit. As I often say, "The Jesus I loved and served as a young earth creationist is the same Jesus I love and serve today as an evolutionary creationist.
Here is a chapter I wrote about my experience:
Struggling with Origins: A Personal Story
I wonder if I might venture a quick question - please forgive my ignorance. Are you able to give me a brief take on your perspective about the origin of the first life itself? i.e., chemical evolution or abiogenesis? (Or point me somewhere you’d recommend for further reading?)
Thank you so much for sharing your story @DOL. I found it supremely encouraging to hear about your dual love for God’s Word and his World. I particular appreciated the evolutionary evidence you included and engaged with. Thank you.
Also, apologies for not getting back to you @Daniel_Fisher. Life is very busy at the moment, and I whilst I have plenty of time to read the forum, I have less time to post, and even less for anything over a few lines. We may have to rain check the (genuinely) interesting line of discussion we began to another time.
Hi Daniel,
I’m not competent to talk about chemical evolution. I’m a tooth evolution guy. In fact, just finishing up a paper on the evolution dental attachment. As most who work in abiogenesis will admit, this still an open question needing more work. But I find the RNA world material quite interesting.
No worries at all, I’m rather pressed myself - Plus I still owe @Shekar a few thoughts as well that I’m needing to get to.
I’ll go ahead and post the rest of my “train of thought” regarding my hypothetical archaeologist over on the other thread, with no rush whatsoever, but as opportunity permits, I would very much value and covet your thoughts and engagement and further discussion.
In looking at the quotes, I did not go through all of them to pick apart their context of use, but note that in several they indeed are referring to the historical concepts of Darwin (primarily natural selection) as opposed to modern evolutionary theory, and thus were correct in their usage, at least in part. I think the problem lies when the use of Darwinian is made in the wrong context. Sort of like calling current quantum physics " Newtonian."
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Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
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Phil, I’m afraid I’d have to dispute your interpretation - In none of these contexts are the authors describing historical concepts in any way different than what they currently embrace. Dawkins is saying that we, presentlyare the result of “Darwinian evolution,” that Darwinian evolution is the very process that proceeds once life has originated - and Coyne is using the term to describe the entire scope of his book - the entire breadth of currently understood evolutionary process he is describing and defending in his book “Why evolution is true.”
And if you need more convincing, we could go to Jerry Coyne’s own website, it becomes clear he doesn’t just use the term (or “misuse” it, according to @Christy’s standard), but it turns out he is a staunch defender of the “Darwinism” terminology to describe “modern evolutionary theory”…
Well, how much confusion has really been caused by using the term “Darwinism”? How many people have been made to think that we biologists adhere to an ideology rather than a strongly supported theory? Would creationism and its country cousin, intelligent design, suddenly vanish if we started using the terms “modern evolutionary theory” (ugh!) or the insidious-sounding “neoDarwinism”? I don’t think so. “Darwinism” is a compact, four-syllable term for “modern evolutionary theory,” which is ten syllables long. And, of course, Darwin had far more influence on modern evolutionary research than Newton has on work in modern physics… So by all means let’s retain the term. It is less of a jawbreaker than “modern evolutionary biology,” and has not, as was feared, misled people into thinking that our field has remained static since 1859. What better honorific than “Darwinism” to fête the greatest biologist in history?
And if that isn’t enough, here’s a nice video of Richard Dawkins, where he uses the term “modern Darwinism” in the first 30 seconds…
“An understanding of modern Darwinism should arm us with courage to fight what I shall demonstrate is the hubris of faith.”
Jerry Coyne and Richard Dawkins are highly invested in the conflict thesis and rhetorical and philosophical battles with creationists. You are quoting from lay-level books with ideological aims. I don’t think they are the best examples of how the term is typically used in the field of evolutionary biology. Their use of Darwinism has been critiqued by other scientists as motivated by rhetoric not scientific precision.
Darwinism designates a distinctive form of evolutionary explanation for the history and diversity of life on earth. Its original formulation is provided in the first edition of On the Origin of Species in 1859. This entry first formulates ‘Darwin’s Darwinism’ in terms of five philosophically distinctive themes: (i) probability and chance, (ii) the nature, power and scope of selection, (iii) adaptation and teleology, (iv) nominalism vs. essentialism about species and (v) the tempo and mode of evolutionary change. Both Darwin and his critics recognized that his approach to evolution was distinctive on each of these topics, and it remains true that, though Darwinism has developed in many ways unforeseen by Darwin, its proponents and critics continue to differentiate it from other approaches in evolutionary biology by focusing on these themes. This point is illustrated in the second half of the entry by looking at current debates in the philosophy of evolutionary biology on these five themes.
OK, but your argument is primarily still with them. My offer still stands - if you convince them that they are using the term incorrectly, I will likewise concede.
How many reference to evolution roll of the press each day? Hundreds? Thousands? … Of course, you will be always able to track down instances of sloppy usage. As I have pointed out before, there is a well established understanding of the basic meaning of evolution, and some qualifying prefix or adjective is not required just because ID and YEC exists.
Or … you can just continue to wrongly use it right along with a few anti-religious provocateurs; and then continue to be misunderstood because of your less-than-updated use of terms. Don’t expect too many here to follow suit, though. Why choose misleading language when you can be more accurate instead?
Watch out for those rabid adherents of Accommodationism. Nobody should have any trouble understanding with perfect clarity any Accommodationist manifesto. If they found it confusing at all, that would be total failure for the cause!
This is not true. The issue over Evolution is order vs lack of order, or to put it another way Does the universe have meaning and purpose? Dawkins says that the universe does not have meaning and order and uses his Selfish Gene evolutionary biology to justify that philosophical, theological stance.
The question is about what is good science and good theology. YEC uses bad theology and Dawkins uses bad science to support their views. I think that we must be able to call a spade a spade on freeing ourselves of this false conflict between faith and science.
No one is innocent in this debacle. We all need to take responsibility for our mistakes and seek the way to find wholeness in our intellectual life.
