We agree again 
. And if we agree that God obviously has the freedom to create as He wishes and sees fit to His purpose, then why would evolution (as a possible choice of Godās approach to creation) be such a threat to your faith?
first im not sure that behe position is till the same.
2)even if so- i dissagree with behe about this position.
It is weird to me that bio logos and evolutionist HINGE their whole belief system on whether it took millenniums for man to arrive at his present state or if it happened instantly! They could not care if you believe the Easter bunny did it or evolution or Santa clause or God,as long as you agree TO THIS ONE THING::: that it took millenniums for it to happen (man to develop}!!! I am NOT sure if you are aware that DARWINISM = CREATOR WITH OUT GOD believe this very thing and pushes it very hard! Now for me I do NOT wish to be considered even close to a DARWINIST so I will CHOOSE not to believe that it (evolution } happened over time! And if YOU do NOT want to be considered a Darwinist you should discard that belief as well! I figure that if Evolution happened over a long period of time,with evolution NOT having a mind or being able to think I would see SOME EVIDENCE of it somewhere! If God shows me different when i get to Heaven then I will go wow i did NOT think it could happen that way YOU are amazing God!
Then you have missed the entire point of BioLogos. BioLogos teaches that you CAN believe Evolution took millions of years AND BE A GOOD AND FAITHFUL CHRISTIAN.
If you cannot understand this point, there is nothing left to discuss with you. I donāt believe there is a remedy to your fear and anxiety that you think you MIGHT be confused with an Atheist.
George
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If evolution over time were true,why would we NOT see any evidence of it? Like a half man and monkey walking around? My understanding is that you think evolution over long periods of time is scientific and the Bible is NOT true. However if the Bible tells you something other than what evolution teaches, why would you believe science over the Bible?
Martin, the PROOF of evolution over time ?
Australia is a ātime capsuleā of the marsupial form of mammals that dominated before Australia became isolated from the other continents.
Eventually, placental mammals dominated all the other land masses that they could get to.
There is NO āflood-compatibleā explanation for why Australia had no placental mammals until humans brought them.
Australia provides the PROOF for āmacro-evolutionā or SPECIATION - - because there is no other explanation for how marsupial herbivores and carnivores could come to occupy all the ecological niches of Australia ā¦ while not being able to successfully occupy identical ecological niches anywhere else.
Since Australian-style marsupials appear in the fossil record millions of years after the disappearance of the dinosaurs, and placental mammals that we know never leave fossils in Australia, speciation is the only explanation that fits the evidence.
The first thing I would mention here is that you should not let atheists, and especially loud obnoxious atheists like Richard Dawkins, take away the wonders of science as we know it from their Christian roots in European universities. You may also find it interesting to know that genetics research was actually started by Gregor Mendel, who was an Augustinian friar in the 1800s.
The main goal of BioLogos is actually to show how evolution IS compatible with the Bible and how it could have been the way God chose to create us. Of course neither BioLogos nor anyone else has all the answers but I would suggest going over these very nice BioLogos posts to begin to get a sense for how evolution and God are not incompatible at all - in fact, it is quite amazing the sorts of things that God can make happen with even just the natural laws He used when creating this awe-inspiring universe we live in:
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Iām actually curious about how you see things. Iāve been following your exchange with glipsnort and heās made some good points that donāt seem to get across. Why do you think thatās the case? Is it the math or the concepts that donāt āclickā for you?
Thank you for your kind response. On the very first page is says DNA changes a little from generation to generation, My question is Most DNA āmodificationsā do NOT make organisms better it makes them worse off ,an example is an {albino person} why does Bio logos believe that DNA modificationās always or usually work for the better? That is an āassumed positionā bio logos stands on! Do you question Bio logos on their stand on that issue? You should!
Also I am NOT convinced that DNA changes as much as is claimed by Bio logos. Humans are human and cats are cats and cows are cows and dogs are dogsā¦ECT If a dog has Dog it is reproducing after itās own kind and NOT a different kind! Now if a dog gave birth to a baby cat,that would be different, I could agree with evolution then!
If all of recorded history goes back to Sumeria ā¦ which is about 5,000 years ā¦ how can you expect that we can SEE a species being formed? ā¦ a process which could take anywhere from half a million to millions of years?
If you believe the earth is millions of years oldā¦ then where did WHALES suddenly come from?
Sometimeā¦ in the middle of nowhere ā¦ we have WHALESā¦ that are mammals with FINSā¦
If there is no speciation ā¦ then how did the Whales come out of mammals? There was a time when there were NO WHALESā¦ and then ā¦ POOOF ā¦ suddenly we have whale bones ā¦ with surviving whale species very different from the really old whale skeletons.
Only speciation can accomplish thisā¦
George Brooks
An actual biologist can correct me if I am explaining this wrong, but when we talk about genetic modification over the course of generations, we are not just talking about mutations, we are talking about the pool of genetic material available in a population of organisms in one generation that can potentially be passed on to the next generation. That pool of genetic information changes with each generation because in changing environments, certain traits will prove more beneficial for survival, and organisms with those traits will survive to reproduce or will reproduce more successfully than those with less advantageous traits.
With sexual reproduction, half the genes come from the male and half the genes come from the female. That means that every offspring only has half the genetic material that was represented in the genetic potential of both parents. In a given generation, due to pressures placed on the species by the environment, offspring with gene A might survive better than offspring with gene B. So when it comes to mating time, there are more carriers of gene A than gene B, and since only half of each parentsā genes gets passed on to offspring, with each passing generation, less common genes/traits become even more rare until they eventually may be eliminated from the pool of genetic material in the population altogether. Genes that were originally less common, may prove advantageous as the environment changes and become much more widely distributed in the population after 50 generations. The changing combinations of possible genes in the offspring can cause changes in the visible traits of the species over time.
Genetic deletions and additions play a role in evolution too, but Iām pretty sure they are not the main thing when it comes to modification over time in a population. The vast majority of the genes of a species 10,000 generations down the line was also present in the population of the ancestor species, just with a different distribution.
You are absolutely correct - most mutations will make things worse and it is only the rare mutation that turns out to make things better.
In fact, this is so much the case that Iād like to illustrate it with a particular gene called FOXP2 - this is an important gene in our human genome because it is known to be related to speech, language and cognition. As it turns out, the reason we know this is because there was/is an unfortunate family where some family members have one mutation on this gene (just 1 mutation out of ~3 billion possibilities on the genome) and that results in significant physical (rigid lower half of the face), cognitive (lower IQ) and language impairments (difficulty pronouncing words). I thus mention this gene because it clearly illustrates how the absolutely minimal difference (just one mutation) can sometimes have very dramatic effects.
But now imagine the reverse situation. Imagine that a long time ago it was the ābadā version of the gene that was the common version in the population. Then the first person to get the āgood mutationā would become able to express herself/himself much better and would likely have been more intelligent than the overwhelming majority of everyone else. Thus, it is likely that this individual would have accumulated enough resources to have a large family, many of which would again carry the āgood geneā and the cycle would repeat over many, many generations until eventually individuals with only the ābad geneā would either be āsqueezed outā or be isolated into a separate population. This is an example of one way in which speciation might eventually happen - if the two populations are separated long enough then their genomes become āincompatibleā and that is the definition of how two populations become two different species. This type of ādriftā is also why we have different human ethnicities, but thankfully God didnāt keep us apart long enough to become incompatible so we can all still be one big human āfamilyā.
Now hereās the thing about mutations - atheists will insist that mutations are ārandomā but among Christians there is debate as to whether that is actually the case. If God chose to create via evolution then He was always in full control of the process and would make sure that the right mutations would happen at the right time to create exactly who He wanted us to be. This is partly why the BioLogos page about BioLogos beliefs includes these statements:
- We believe that God is directly involved in the lives of people today through acts of redemption, personal transformation, and answers to prayer
- we reject ideologies such as Deism that claim the universe is self-sustaining, that God is no longer active in the natural world, or that God is not active in human history
- we reject ideologies that claim that evolution is a purposeless process or that evolution replaces God
One way in which I like to think about this is how a symphony is constructed one note and one instrument at a time - only God is the master composer and we are His amazing symphony. And if youāve been to a concert hall and watched an orchestra play your favorite composer then you know that seeing them press the keys or pluck the strings actually makes the music even more personal and more enjoyable. That is how a Christian scientist marvels at evolution - not unlike seeing God play His majestic symphony of Creation.
thank you for your response friend! It is my opinion that we do way Too much āimaginingā about good genes and bad genes changing places! It is my view is that God simply spoke and all animals came from the mind of God as they are at present! Bio logos sounds like they are giving way too much glory to Darwinism evolution, it sounds way TOO close even though bio-logos says it is totally different ! I do NOT want to give ANY glory to Darwin what so ever! So I do personally REJECT any thing that sounds even remotely close to what Charles Darwin suggested! I believe that God spoke or thought and all animals and people we see today are exactly how they were on the first day of creation! It has never been proven to me that giraffes ever had a short neck or that they {their DNA} have changed simply by reaching up to eat off higher branches over time.DNA does NOT change because of your environment,DNA is given from your parents and unless you have a physical or genetic disability you will be a human with all the body parts working just as they have! If DNA changed as you say over time Eskimos would be very hairy to keep warm because they live in a cold area,but they are not. Black people in hot areas of the world would be white because light colored skin would reflect the hot sunlight. This is NOT supposed to be mean and argumentative but i am just pointing out facts that evolutionist seem to over look.intentionally or not I do NOT know
The Inuit (Eskimos) make warm clothing out of animal skins to keep warm. (But some animals do have special adaptations to cold weather.)
Not true. Dark Skin with lots of melanin protects skin from harmful UV rays of the sun. And thatās what we see happening in hotter climates.
I am still NOT convinced how a giraffe neck would grow over time and why horses and cows front legs are not very short because they eat with their heads down all the time,according to evolution they should be short!
Martin,
There are diminishing returns to all anatomical features ā¦ and depending on the situation (recurring or newly developing) ā¦ a benefit can sometimes suddenly become a liability!
For exampleā¦ unlike long giraffe necks, cows and horses need their legs to run from danger. Short legs could be seen as a luxury I suppose. But if you are being chased by predators, it is a luxury most animals canāt afford.
Giraffe necks are not only helpful for getting at higher levels of food that even elephants cant reach ā¦ but they also provide better views to see predators.
Giraffes may well have a unique mutation that makes is possible to survive with such long necksā¦ that no other species has fortuitously produced. If it was easy to doā¦ virtually all grazing animals would feature unusually long necks.
Martin, trying to figure out what is a benefit and what is a liability is part of evolutionary science. I am a little surprised to see you making pronouncements of what is REALISTIC evolution and what is NOT.
George
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Itās interesting youād mention exactly those examples. As it turns out, mutation have been observed that do show human adaptation along the lines you are suggesting. When it comes to skin pigmentation, @beaglelady is right that darker skin has better UV resistance (which may also be why we tan in response to sunlight exposure) and thus it does make sense that people would have darker skin in places with more sunlight. In fact, the converse also makes sense - it turns out that lighter skin makes it easier to absorb more sunlight and produce more vitamin D, which could be why populations in areas with less sunlight have lighter skins.
The Inuit example you mentioned is also a good one - while they have not adapted to have more hair, their adaptation to North pole conditions does it one better - as just reported in Science 4 months ago, their genomes have adapted to process the fat and protein in their diet so that their bodies are better in the development of brown fat cells which are better at storing heat! Itās amazing how God provides for His people.
There are other examples too - people living at high altitudes are better at using oxygen (because of lower levels of oxygen at those altitudes) and people in Malaria-prone regions have increased malaria resistance even though itās at the cost of a mutation that makes them more exposed to sickle cell disease. There are also clues about how the giraffe necks came to be as they are today.
I understand it can be annoying when āthose Darwinistsā try to use evolution to disprove God but we shouldnāt let their incorrect understanding of evolution take away what started as a Christian way to adore Godās creation. I also agree with you that God spoke and creation happened - itās just that God is beyond time so He can create in an instant what takes us a long time to perceive.
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To Georgeās excellent answer I would reply that in evolutionary history horses used to be the size of a fox, had multiple digits on each foot, and nibbled on shrubs in the forest. As forests gave way to grasslands, horses evolved and started grazing on grass.They were more exposed to predators in the open grasslands, and their longer legs enabled them to run from predators, as George mentioned. They also lost all but a single digit on each foot. On modern horses, splint bones, chestnuts and ergots are vestiges of their evolutionary history. btw, Horses are very comfortable eating with their heads down.
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what are those āgood pointsā? do you agree now that the flagellum (the main claim of this topic)is indeed an ic system?