Okay cowpokes … it’s time to get those rodeo horses out into the center … so everyone can see them.
So, let’s tackle the question about how scientifically sound Evolution is:
Authors: Daniel Tumminelli O’Brien, David Sloan Wilson and Patricia H. Hawley write:
“A firm grasp of evolution is invaluable for understanding our own species in addition to the rest of the biological world…
Darwin’s theory of evolution is the most powerful explanatory and predictive tool available for the study of living things…”
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They sound half-hearted . . .
Editors Gaymon Bennett, Ted Peters, Martinez Joseph Hewlett, Robert John Russell, on page 9 of the book The Evolution of Evil write: “… after a century and a half of confirmation … combined with the field of genetics, the neo-Darwinian synthesis has become the most reliable theory regarding speciation and related biological phenomena. Today it provides foundational conceptual orientation for the most exciting and productive areas of genomic and post-genomic biological research and engineering. Theologians dealing with he problem of evil and the natural world must take up the challenges of an evolutionary perspective.”
Author Gerhard Lenski, on page 5 of his book Ecological-Evolutionary Theory: Principles and Applications writes:
“Of all the instances of [emergence/divergence], the most important are those that underlie the distinctions we make between physical, chemical, biological, and sociocultural evolution. In each instance, an important threshold was crossed an entirely new mode of evolution was set in motion. Thus, stellar evolution laid the foundation for chemical evolution, which, in turn, laid the foundation for biological evolution, which eventually, led to the evolution of human societies. In other words, one of the basic principles of modern evolutionary theory is that t’the evolutionary process itself evolves (Boulding, 1970; Lenski and Lenski, 1974). It follows that the various evolutionary theories are not only linked by similar … principles and concepts, but more importantly they are linked substantivgely in a causal process in which each new mode of evolutionary change has laid the foundation for the next mode of such change.”
Link to Google Books: Ecological-Evolutionary Theory, by G. Lenski
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The Portsmouth Institute wrote on pages 40-41 of the book, Modern Science, Ancient Faith: Portsmouth Review:
“Theology, I suggest, now requires fresn and unembarrassed expression in evolutionary terms. Any other option is unacceptable pastorally as well as intellectually, now that evolution has become the most important single idea in all of science… A sound theology of evolution must add that the promissory perspective of biblical faith invites us to envision the entire history of cosmic events, including all its wilder episodes, as the story of an emergent freedom called to ever deeper intimacy with God.”
[link pending]
