Distasteful...The Implications Of Evolution Before The Fall

[J.E.S (Jonathan)]

@Christy

@Christy

I think @BradKramer is supposedly working on it already.

That would be good

[Bill_II]

@J.E.S

I am not ignoring Macroevolution. I am simply adhering to the creationist approach that microevolutionary adaptation, while it does indeed happen, has limits to the variation it can create.

But no one in the YEC camp has proposed a mechanism that that could limit the changes. There is no indication in the way evolution works that any limit could be applied.

@J.E.S

For example, the initial breed of dogs from Noah’s ark could, through the generations, give rise to all of the different dog breeds we see today through natural selection.

But dog breeds are not separate species.

@J.E.S

To say “since microevolution is true, macroevolution must be as well” seems to be flawed logic, as the two are fairly different.

Different only to a YEC. No difference to a biologist. It is like saying a foot and a mile are fairly different when in reality if you add up 5,280 feet you get to a mile. The difference is only in degree not in the underlying unit.

[Celticroots (Emily)]

You explained it nicely, Bill.

[J.E.S (Jonathan)]

@Bill_II

But no one in the YEC camp has proposed a mechanism that that could limit the changes.

@Bill_II
I’m fairly certain that I have read about such a mechanism from a YEC source. I’ll try to find exactly where. Until then, don’t quote me on that (this is something I would also like to find)

@Bill_II

But dog breeds are not separate species.
J.E.S:

Precisely. Macroevolution did not occur. _Micro_evolution did.

@Bill_II

Different only to a YEC. No difference to a biologist. It is like saying a foot and a mile are fairly different when in reality if you add up 5,280 feet you get to a mile. The difference is only in degree not in the underlying unit.

To be fair, there are YEC biologists…
I can see what you mean, and that is how I have always seen evolution explained…but that pretty much fits with me looking up the mechanism for restricting variation.

Also, I think you explained it nicely as well. Good for you.

In the meantime, I have an idea for a new discussion…

[Bill_II]

@J.E.S

Precisely. Macroevolution did not occur. Microevolution did.

Microevolution is supposed to explain how modern species evolved from a kind that was on the ark so your dog breed example does not fit. The argument is there was hyper-evolution resulting in new species after the flood to generate the number of species present today.

Joel Duff has done extensive writing on the problems with hyper-evolution at his web site. Some of these problems are actually caused by what is written in the Bible. You can view the YEC Hyper-evolution Archive on his website Naturalis Historia

[Christy (Christy Hemphill)]

@J.E.S

Precisely. Macroevolution did not occur. Microevolution did.

Artificial selection via human-run breeding isn’t considered microevolution, even by creationists, as far as I know. It doesn’t have to do with beneficial adaptations or natural selection.

[gbrooks9 (George Brooks)]

@J.E.S

if evolution were really that scientifically sound, and was able to blend seamlessly with theology, I feel that we wouldn’t have AIG, CMI, etc., and all of the other organizations that are against evolution. I think that that says something…

@J.E.S

After the birth of the protestant denominations… leaving the One Roman Catholic church in th aaazzze West… did you ever wonder how the Catholics could be wrong -considering the sheer multiplicity of protestant groups who cannot agree on much at All!

This is quite parallel to the scenario you mention about all the anti-evolution groups.

[benkirk (Benjamin Kirk)]

@J.E.S

To say “since microevolution is true, macroevolution must be as well” seems to be flawed logic, as the two are fairly different.

Then kindly explain the difference in mechanism.

[gbrooks9 (George Brooks)]

@J.E.S

To say “since microevolution is true, macroevolution must be as well” seems to be flawed logic, as the two are fairly different.

The one thing you should learn when visiting here is the only real difference between what you are calling micro and macro is that macro evolution takes longer … because it is the cumulative collection of lots of little changes that leads to:

A. Speciation of two groups of what was once one population;
B. Then becoming two species with similar appearances;
C. Then becoming two or more sub-groups that have become so different that casual observers may have trouble seeing any connection.

One would think that finding strange similarities between hippo and whale ankle bones, a similar reliance on blubber tissue to make their long term presence in water more manageable, and even oddly similar genetic markers, is exactly what we would expect in a so-called MACRO evolution scenario!

[T_aquaticus]

@J.E.S

Do I now (consciously choose not to investigate it)? This statement is quite unfounded, and, frankly, quite unsupportable. Actually, it is quite wrong! One of (probably the) main reason I’ve been at BioLogos is to investigate evidence for evolution (as I’ve formerly spent most of my efforts examining the evidence against it).

I have posted such evidence in two threads now:

ERV evidence for pastor with a lawyer's mind

Continuing the discussion from Responding to pastor's hesitations:

Exons and Introns, Evidence for Evolution

There are many classic examples of evidence that support evolution, such as endogenous retroviruses or transitional fossils, but I would like to focus on another piece of evidence that I think is just as powerful and hopefully just as easily understood. That evidence deals with exons and introns. As a bit of a refresher . . . [image] In eukaryotes, a classical gene is made up of exons and introns. The exons are the sections of the gene that make their way into the messenger RNA. That mRNA …

I look forward to your participation.

[jpm (Phil McCurdy)]

@J.E.S, Biologos is not really a good place to look for arguments and evidence for evolution, as that is not its primary purpose, which is to integrate the findings of science with faith.
For most of us here, evolution is pretty much a given, not something that needs a lot a debate, though the refinement of our understanding is a continuous process.
It would be helpful to ask specific questions regarding issues you have in your studies. There are lots of resources for study of the general science out there, many online and many free or low cost. @beaglelady recently posted about an online course that looked very interesting, though at this time I have too many irons in the fire to participate in it. It may be something that you would be interested in.

[T_aquaticus]

@J.E.S

I’m fairly certain that I have read about such a mechanism from a YEC source. I’ll try to find exactly where. Until then, don’t quote me on that (this is something I would also like to find)

I can already tell you that you won’t find it. Macroevolution is nothing more than the accumulation of microevolution. To use an analogy, the same process you used to move one step is the same process you use to walk to the store.

For example, the human and chimp genomes are separated by about 40 million microevolutionary events known as mutations. If you compare the two genomes you will find that each difference is consistent with a single microevolutionary event.

@J.E.S

To be fair, there are YEC biologists…

Can you cite their YEC peer reviewed publications that evidence YEC? What YEC research are they doing? What grants are they funded by?

[J.E.S (Jonathan)]

@T_aquaticus
I have read that microevolution only allows change within a specific genetic code. Or, at least, that is what I have heard from AIG…This means that the changes would not be able to accumulate to the point that they would have to accumulate for macroevolution to occur…

Your thoughts?

[T_aquaticus]

@J.E.S

I have read that microevolution only allows change within a specific genetic code.

That doesn’t make any sense. What is a “specific genetic code”?[quote=“J.E.S, post:174, topic:36407”]
This means that the changes would not be able to accumulate to the point that they would have to accumulate for macroevolution to occur…
[/quote]

Then they should be able to point to specific differences between species that could not be the result of accumulated microevolutionary events. I have yet to see them do that.

[benkirk (Benjamin Kirk)]

@J.E.S

I have read that microevolution only allows change within a specific genetic code. Or, at least, that is what I have heard from AIG…This means that the changes would not be able to accumulate to the point that they would have to accumulate for macroevolution to occur…

That makes no sense. There’s nothing mechanistic about it, either.

[Bill_II]

@J.E.S

Your thoughts?

There has to be changes to more than one code to be able to account for all of the species that are supposed to result from microevolution. Remember, if you add up 5,280 feet you end up with a mile.

[gbrooks9 (George Brooks)]

@J.E.S

I have read that microevolution only allows change within a specific genetic code. Or, at least, that is what I have heard from AIG…This means that the changes would not be able to accumulate to the point that they would have to accumulate for macroevolution to occur…

@J.E.S

You have read “that microevolution only allows change within a specific genetic code…”?

These are the preacher’s rules… they are not biology’s rules. There is nothing about mutation that automatically stops as soon as a certain point is reached.

Genetic changes just keep happening … because no cell’s ability to replicate genetic material is perfect. It has been theorized that life forms that ever achieved perfect replication were eliminated relatively soon, because perfect replication makes it very difficult to store genetic variation - - at the ready when the environment throws some new threat at the popuation.

[BradKramer]

@J.E.S

Perhaps it would be interesting to have a pinned discussion filled with all of the best posts codifying and explaining evolution and the BioLogos view. Then, the evidences would all be listed in one place so that people such as I can peruse it without following hundreds of links.

Yep, the Common Questions page is the best match for what you are describing. Perhaps you’re right that we need them more prominently linked from a pinned thread of some point. I will bring that idea up in our next mod meeting.

[Casper_Hesp]

@J.E.S

I would ask you to provide for me what you think are the best evidences for evolution in a concise and easily understandable format (and no links).

Hi Jonathan!
A long while back, I wrote the following in response to a similar question asked on this forum:

@Casper_Hesp

@martin

may I ask you a sincere question?you said you believe that God created humans and animals through the process of evolution? could you please state your top 3 or 4 reasons why you believe that? and the evidence that you personally see that backs that up to be true? Thank you very much-Martin

Hi @Martin, excellent question. I’ll try to provide you off the top of my head with some of the reasons that I personally find the most compelling. I’ll try to give you some everyday examples, basically trying to speak your language.

In the end, it all comes down to the fact that evolution makes sense of a lot of stuff we find in God’s Creation. God is not a deceiver so we expect His Creation to be in accordance with His Word. Let’s see in what way evolution makes sense.

1. All of life looks like a family in terms of anatomy and genetics.
I think this one is often underappreciated because we’re being confronted with it every day everywhere. It’s so normal that most of us are not fully aware of it. Just taking a look at my own dog, I see four paws, two eyes, one nose, spinal column, one head, similar brain in many ways, even his emotions show correspondence with my own. In his world, punishment is negative and reward is positive. He’s hungry like me, pees like me and poops like me. Don’t get me wrong, humans are made in God’s image and animals aren’t. But besides that, the correspondences are so overwhelming that most people are used to taking them for granted. I’m a graduate student in brain research and the correspondences in the functioning of the brain are amazing across species. When you look into the DNA, you find even more of such correspondences (ones that follow the tree of life! ). I’m not an expert on genetics, but Dennis Venema has written a nice series on the evidence of “old genes” in the human genome.
The bottom line of this point is that if God did not want us to come to conclusion that we’re all part of the family of life, He could have just made the similarities less extreme. God is not a deceiver.

2. We see a progression of species in the geological record.
This one is less in my street, but the way the species are ordered in the earth is just amazing. We see the most ancient species in the lower layers. As we progress from the deepest layers to the surface, we can basically see the complexity of life arising gradually. Here’s a small picture of the distribution in time, which corresponds with what we find in the earth layers:

The bottom line is, if God really didn’t want us to come to the conclusion that life arose gradually on Earth, He could have just avoided placing all lifeforms in order of increasing complexity in the geological column.

3. The universe and Earth are unmistakably ancient.
I’m also a graduate student of astrophysics and am very amazed at the ginormous size of God’s Creation. Even for distant light to arrive at our Earth it needs billions of years and yet we’re observing that all the time. In my studies, we explored in detail how the current picture we have explains the elements that we have on Earth (metal, gold, oxygen, et cetera). Current models even produce predictions of the concentrations of certain elements that were formed in the Big Bang (especially helium) and guess what… it works! Perfect models don’t exist, but the current cosmology we have has proven to be astonishingly correct on many different specific predictions. The current Big Bang cosmology agrees with an interesting scriptural truth: Creation as we know it had a definite beginning. Before, scientists like Einstein preferred to belief that the universe was eternally existing and stable. However, later the evidence for a beginning became so strong that most people accepted the Big Bang model.

4. There are currently no other models that can answer to the huge mountain of findings that has been piling up (and still growing).
Especially the website Naturalis Historia of Joel Duff has been very useful for me in understanding the blatant inconsistencies of the young earth paradigm. He’s a biology professor but also explores archaeological issues. For example, we find gazillions of stone tools in Africa, which can’t be placed in a short timeframe of 10,000 years. Even if every single human being in Africa would have produced one million stone tools during his or her lifetime you would fall short of the actual number: 15-150 trillion stonetools (!!!).

5. Important one: I don’t find evolutionary theory (as a scientific framework) to be in contradiction with the Christian faith and the teachings of the Bible.
We have to look at what the Bible aims to teach, not at the ancient cosmology that the writers were familiar with. One interesting observation is that even the writer of Genesis was comfortable with the idea that God gave the Earth the ability to bring forth life. In Genesis 1:24 it is written:

And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds…"

The final bottom line is… If God’s Creation speaks to us, we do well to respect what it’s telling us. Since it isn’t contradicting what God revealed through the Scriptures, we can rest assured that there are no risks involved if we remain critical of the science.

Later, the same person asked me the following:

Did a Global Flood really happen? If not, why does the Bible describe one?

Casper Hesp the only thing i do not understand is this: when I go to the web site {Answers in Genesis} and look through it carefully they give many reasons why that evolution could not be true, why would you think just tacking on “God as creator of evolution” would serve a purpose or would make evolution more true. to me God spoke and it happened could well be just as true. this is NOT an argument I am just attempting to understand your justification for it. that is the very question th…

@Casper_Hesp

@martin, I agree with you that “tacking God onto something” can never serve a good purpose. My aim is to have God as the foundation of everything I think and believe. So tacking God onto anything cannot work if He is supposed to be my foundation. Therefore you don’t have to worry about that. Evolutionary theory will never be a guiding foundation for my life. So I do not need to “make” evolution true in any way and my faith is not in any way dependent on the scientific theory of evolution. Personally, it wouldn’t be any problem for me if sometime in the future there would be a number of huge breakthroughs that would show that thousands of scientists were seriously mistaken and evolutionary theory would turn out to be based on one humongous chain of errors. No problem.

I personally believe as strongly in “God spoke and it happened” as you. God’s Creation is unfolding according to His divine plan. So everything He declares to happen, will happen.

About “how” it happened, I consider it extremely probable that it occurred through evolution given what we know today. I could be wrong on that point, but given the evidence currently available in God’s Creation, I consider this a very safe position. Acknowledging this could have positive outcomes for the Church too. Most notably, if worldly people see that Christians are wise about earthly matters it can help them to trust us more regarding the important spiritual matters: salvation in Jesus Christ.

You see, I also believe that God’s character is to be coherent, honest, straightforward. His Creation is understandable, that’s a miracle in itself. God made the laws of nature and is upholding them as He wishes. Currently, the picture of a young earth does not correspond with all those logical principles that God upholds. If evolution and deep time would be wrong, God seems to have made a huge effort to make those things seem true. Such deceit just doesn’t seem to fit with God’s character as revealed in the Bible.

The most important problem I have with AiG is that they proudly claim to start with the conclusion that their specific interpretation of the Bible is absolute truth. Such perfect interpretation skills almost lifts them up to the level of God Himself… They start with their conclusions and then try to find reasons to uphold them. This is not how science works. They are different from you Martin. You have the openness to say “it could be true but I’m fine with just knowing that God spoke and it happened”. Maybe it helps you to be more critical towards AiG to know that here are many, many Christian scientists who completely see through the arguments they present.

Once I asked a young-earth creationist the following question:

“Imagine you end up in Heaven and God tells you that you were mistaken. Imagine that He tells you that the Earth is old and that He created mankind through evolution. He kindly explains you that the Scriptures were meant to transmit spiritual teachings, not cosmology… In that case, would you call God a liar for having inspired Genesis 1-3?”

The man in question was completely unable to answer this question. It appeared he was actually of the opinion of considering God a liar but couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud.

When AiG writers criticize any field of study in science, it’s very obvious to any expert that their claims are faulty. I know this from experience in my own field, astrophysics. Look I can imagine that for any non-expert reader it is difficult to assess those things. I guess it would help for you to focus very strongly on a single topic, instead of trying to grasp everything at once. Start with one claim of AiG and try to get to the bottom of it. Especially, read the arguments presented by actual scientists regarding that issue.

@J.E.S, I’m interested in hearing your thoughts about all of this!

Casper

[gbrooks9 (George Brooks)]

@Casper_Hesp

About “how” it happened, I consider it extremely probable that it occurred through evolution given what we know today. I could be wrong on that point, but given the evidence currently available in God’s Creation, I consider this a very safe position. Acknowledging this could have positive outcomes for the Church too. Most notably, if worldly people see that Christians are wise about earthly matters it can help them to trust us more regarding the important spiritual matters: salvation in Jesus Christ.

This is a pivotal point in your discussion where some YECs are most prone to interpret your views as heretical.

I’m still working on some “best practice” terminology that minimizes that YEC inclination!