Keep in mind, the six days is the English translation of the Hebrew word yom - which has a much less precise meaning in that language. I’m certainly not a Hebrew scholar, but I do know the word can refer to a standard “day”, but also to much longer periods of time, even epochs.
Yes, yes. We’ve all heard these exact same objections all the time. But these aren’t logical objections, they are rationalizations.
[1] But I beilieve speciation is limited to the “kinds” boundary - this is the scientific barrier that creationists face.
So explain what happened with the Alaska Rabbits vs. the Florida Rabbits? Both of these groups can reproduce with the Fargo Rabbits… But Alaska rabbits are not compatible with the Florida Rabbits. This is known as a “ring species” … though in this case, instead of a “ring” it’s more of a “rail”. It proves that over time, genetic differentiation can not only lead to different colored fur … or different eyes … but also the very compatibility between the average member of one population vs. the average member of another.
[2] If the “six days” weren’t literally six days of 24 hours duration each, then it seems Yahweh wasn’t telling the truth in Exodus 20:11.
Now once 2 populations are no longer similar enough to be reproductively compatible, then all bets are off. Yes, Dredge, there are no limits to the kinds of changes that one population might eventually adopt, vs. another population, under different environmental stressors and different food supplies and so on.
What if one of those rabbit populations eventually loses their floppy ears because they are too vulnerable to a disease they find in Alaska (or in Florida)? After a while, you have ear-less rabbits … and maybe they start reproducing better after they start hunting other rabbit species for food … instead of just eating vegetation. Pretty soon … you got a pretty vicious predatory mammal without rabbit ears hunting down the soft, fuzzy lovable rabbits with floppy ears. So what does it mean “of a kind”?
They lost the status of “one kind” when they are no longer reproductively compatible. And there’s no way out of that dead end argument.
- Now as for this whole dispute about what God meant about “days”… are you telling me that God wrote Genesis? Did he have a pen in his hand? What color was the ink? And how long was God’s thumb of the hand that held the pen? Genesis was written by men … inspired men, for sure. But not perfect men.
The preachers who say that the Bible has to be infallible or you have nothing - - make the same sounds, to me, as the Austrian politicians just before WWII … it was all or nothing. It was a lie then. And it’s still a lie.
Exactly! Darwinism has absolutely no value to biology.
Many biology and medicine books have a tendency to include a chapter on evolution right along one on Mendelian genetics. However, while Mendelian genetics can readily be verified experimentally and has real and immediate implications in medicine, biology, food science and much more, the “knowledge” that organism A evolved from organism B, or the two are just products of “convergent evolution”, adds nothing to our understanding of either A or B. More… The Mandatory Evolution Statement – NonLin
Would Kemp’s article not be helpful to protestant Evangelicals or evangelical Protestants also?
You are wasting your time. Many times disease vectors and cures for them are made possible by understanding how many unique populations of the virus or bacteria exists that is causing the symptoms.
Sure. But I don’t have the same theological constraints as a Roman Catholic, so some interpretations that won’t work in their theology are open to me. That article is sensitive to RC theological constraints, some of which may not be of concern to Evangelicals or other Protestants.
Sounds like more examples of microevolution, which no creationist would deny is factual. But Darwinism is more than microevolution, which creationists deny and object to.
Do you not have other “theological constraints” than Roman Catholics? Or is it simply a matter of your branch of “Evangelicals and other Protestants” having ‘less constraints than’ Roman Catholics? Could you please point out these “theological constraints” in Kemp’s paper?
“Microevolution” is a misnomer - you mean adaptation.
As far as I can see, Darwinism fails thoroughly - http://nonlin.org/evolution/, so it is time to retire:
“Natura non facit saltum” (gradualism) – argument is illogic and contrary to molecular/atomic physics as well as contrary to sexual reproduction
“Randomness” as in random mutations and “Random creates”
“Natural” in natural selection – everything is natural; this religious argument does not comply with the scientific method, is unsupported, and beyond the competence of claimants
“Unguided and Purposeless” – argument is illogical and, since selection is guided and purposeful, the outcome must be as well guided and purposeful
Recognize that Selection and Survival are one and the same – the selected survive and the surviving have been selected
“Fit” as in survival of the fittest – we cannot measure “fit” except as “survival”
“Four or five”…or LUCA (Last Universal Common Ancestor) – in a generic “primordial soup” scenario if one happens, then many happen …unless said soup is magical(?)
“Arising” as in Arising of Everything and Life vs. Entropy
“Benefit” and “optimization” – there’s nothing wrong with these anthropic concepts, but they are utterly incompatible with the mechanistic universe envisioned by Darwin and his followers
Hello Dredge,
It may be helpful to go back to the first responses to your OP at the top, since you didn’t respond to them early in the thread. They flip the question on its head so that it becomes rather difficult for you to complain “Darwinism is…” anymore when your target is so small as to be largely irrelevant to the actual science that is going on, including by Christians whom you might otherwise respect for their knowledge and expertise dedicated to a chosen field of work.
The EES is indeed on the table (hint: go to Third Way of Evolution page - they are against Darwinism!), which Dr. Sy Garte is ready to answer your questions on. But if you are just stuck backwards worrying on ‘Darwinism,’ as some atheists demonstrate is their preferred choice of vocabulary too, then you’ll likely have much less opportunity for growth and exploration on the otherwise fruitful topic.
Dropping ‘Darwinism’ or ‘neo-Darwinism’ is one of the first steps out of YECism & the IDM. Consider please that it might be you who also needs to do the dropping as much as ‘them’. That’s hopefully accepted as friendly advice from a non-Darwinist. 
As I wrote earlier, I can’t do my work as a biologist without relying on both common descent and natural selection. Specifically, I have repeatedly and successfully used the common ancestry of humans and chimpanzees, which I think everyone would agree exceeds the bounds of what creationists will accept as microevolution.
Beyond its usefulness for doing other biology, common descent is a highly successful piece of biology in its own right. That is, it explains and predicts a wide range of observations, and it has no competitors.
Scientists use macroevolution as a core part of biology because it works. As long as no one offers an alternative that performs as well, we’ll go on using it, no matter how many times you tell us it doesn’t work. Give us something better and we’ll use that instead.
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Yes, I would imagine so.
I believe the official position of the Catholic Church is human monogenesis, at least of the soul, as laid out in the papal encyclical Humani Generis.
Yes, I would imagine so.
Ok, so then the recommendation should be to all Christians, not just some Christians. Right? Put another way, Kemp’s paper should come highly recommended at BioLogos. But it isn’t. Go figure.
“I believe the official position of the Catholic Church is human monogenesis, at least of the soul, as laid out in the papal encyclical Humani Generis.”
Ok, that’s fine. I just don’t understand why you call that a “theological constraint”. Is it not a fundamental Christian teaching in contrast with polygenesis? Are you personally in your individual theology not ‘constrained’ by believing in “human monogenesis”? I am confused. You do accept human monogenesis, do you not? Or is this polygenesis hinting? Again, my reception is now befuddled by innuendo of “theological constraints”, now with 1 example = Roman Catholic Church is anti-polygenesis. So now you wish to create an alter-polygenesis that might be appealing to liberal evangelicals? This would be a big surprise!
The likely move is next to fork biological monogenism and theological monogenism. But that move first offers just another “double truth” doctrine, not enviable position to defend. And that double truth approach to monogenism might be a “theological constraint” worth considering in this case.
How so? Since Linnaeus and before (which is way before Darwin), people have classified organisms into families based on similarities. Genetics have added resolution to that “tree of life”, but in the end this is still nothing more than a human construct, common ancestry or not. This is what I suspect you are using. If not, you should be more specific.
Not all Christians care about monogenesis, biological or spiritual. It is of particular concern to Catholics. Other Christians might also be interested in the arguments presented, depending on their theological framework. I don’t quite understand what your beef is here. One of the things I do is try to point people in a direction that helps them work through their particular questions, I’m not selling anything and I’m not concerned whether people agree with my preferred interpretations or not.
In order for evolution to be theologically acceptable to a Catholic (at least one operating under the Church’s authority), evolution has to be situated within the constraints of that encyclical. Not every claim “science” makes will be acceptable to them.
No, human monogenesis is not a huge concern for me because I’m not super hung up on ensoulment, original sin, or some of the other issues involved. I think the image of God is a vocation and all humans sin by their own free choice. I’m theologically fine with humans evolving from a population and there being no original couple from which we all trace our lineage, biological or spiritual. There are other more compelling interpretations for me of what it means to be “in Adam.”
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One example of a use I’ve made of common descent: Getting an estimate for the local human mutation rate in a particular piece of the genome. Since genetic differences between humans and chimpanzees are the result of accumulated mutations, the degree of divergence in different parts reflects (primarily) the local mutation rate. I know of no reason apart from common descent why the human mutation rate should track with chimpanzee/human divergence.
An example of data that’s explained by common descent: Human/chimpanzee divergence is very high at site in the genome where one of the genomes consists of a C base followed by a G. This is expected under common descent, since that pairing of bases has a very high mutation rate. Again, I don’t know of any other reason why it should also be reflected in human/chimpanzee divergence.
There is a difference between explaining or predicting an observation and actually being useful in applied science. Scientists come up with all manner of theories to explain or predict all manner of observations, but such stories are often as irrelevant as fairy tales.
I’ve no doubt evolutionary theory can be used to explain or predict certain observatons - “it works” - but so what?
“Evolutionary biology has been severely hampered by a speculative style of argument that records anatomy and ecology and then tries to construct historical or adaptive explanations for why this bone looked like that or why this creature lived here. These speculations have been charitably called “scenarios”; they are often more contemptuously, and rightly, labeled “stories”. Scientists know that these tales are stories; unfortunately, they are presented in the professional literature, where they are taken too seriously and literally.” Stephen Jay Gould (Richard Ellis, Aquagenesis: The Origin and Evolution of LIfe in the Sea. Penguin Books, 2001, p.204)
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This seems like a good example of what I meant in my previous post - all you seem to be doing is using a theory to explain a certain observation. Of what use is your “paper science” to applied biology?
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Once you have enough “micro-changes” to achieve full reproductive imcompatibility, there is no more “line in the sand” between micro- and macro- evolution. Until you understand that one point, you don’t understand Evolution.
As to the original question of the thread … Darwinism includes any kind of change. No disease specialist is going to ignore evidence simply because a sample of a virulent bacteria (for example) hasn’t turned itself into a dinosaur!
You’re missing an important distinction. If all you do is explain an observation after the fact, then all you’ve done is generate a hypothesis. That’s what Gould was complaining about: making up stories and assuming they were correct. Predicting new observations based on your hypothesis is a very different matter. That’s how you test whether your story has any truth to it. It’s how you do science, whether it’s applied science or not.
So that means it’s very likely a good description of what’s actually happened. Do you have another explanation for why common descent can consistently predict what we’ll see when we look at new data? Why does creationism fail so completely at the same task, if it’s so easy?
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