Hello,
I am a moderate-conservative Protestant and I accept Intelligent Design. No problem. Even some members of BioLogos accept it. I must believe in a First Cause and that was an eternal Being. I believe it was Yahweh Elohim.
@Christy wrote:
When you wrote this Christy, you said that you were not a scientist and all that you knew about evolution you learned in children’s books. This statement does not appear to be from a children’s book, but that is besides the point.
Now you are part of the BioLogos team, so as such please consult with them or others to see if this understanding of evolution that you cite is more than evolution for kids, and, if it is, where it is laid out by scientists for adults.
One important issue that I do have with this statement and that is you say that the goal of the individual is to survive, and adaption is only a byproduct of survival. Not really. That is like saying that the goal in football is to win the game, and the fact that the players practice and study so they might play better is a byproduct of their desire to win.
Playing better and wining both go hand in hand. Teams must practice and work together to win. It is not an accident or even a desire.
The question is, what is the right way to survive or win? Is it to adapt by working together with other members of the species, or compete with your other members of the species as a selfish gene as Dawkins and Darwin indicate?
To win in football teams must adapt to counteract the strengths of the other team, and to make the best use of their own strengths. Individuals on the teams must adapt to their team mates so they can best work together. Winning in the short run can at times not be helpful in the long run. Individual success can get in the way of team goals.
There are clear example of individuals putting their survival in danger to protect other members of the group. This indicates that self survival is not the primary goal of individuals. This causes all sorts of problems with Darwinists, but not for ecological evolutionists, which is one reason I support the latter.
@Eddie
I read the article you cited on another blog since closed to comment. It criticized Darwinian evolution as being ahistorical. I totally agree.
I really do not know if homology is the answer, but if you look at what I have written about Dinosaurs to Birds in this blog you will find a historical non-Darwinian way to understand evolution, which I find to be very helpful.
I agree with Eddie that BioLogos individually and separately need to be more specific, but I also think that Eddie needs to be also.
The astonishing fact is that there is a clear and open place in the evolution process where God can be placed and needs to be placed. In the recent (2010) book
What Darwin Got Wrong
by Jerry Fodor et al., the authors clearly and without contradiction point out that the concept of “natural selection” points to a Personal Agent, not an impersonal natural process. In fact Darwin and Co. do not even try to define how a natural process works, except for the “survival of the fittest,” as if a slogan can take the place of science.
The book even says that God though the Holy Spirit could be that Personal Agent determining natural selection, not that they believe that this is so for one second. Saying that something happens “naturally,” that is it acts in a purposeless undirected manner doe not make it so. In fact Darwin said the natural selection is directed toward the perfecting the organism, whatever that means and whoever is able to do that.
The fact is that God used natural selection based on ecology to guide evolution through the process of creating human beings and all other living beings. The evidence is all around us, which is why it is so difficult to see.
Nature is not purely physical. Genes are based on the genetic code, which is a language and not material. God could have chose to easily manipulate our DNA codes to make us who we are, but I do not think God does that.
God has created a diverse environment in our world, where advanced beings like humans have to think and love to best survive and thrive. God the Creator also sent down God the Logos/Son and God the Spirit of Love to further enrich our environment and give us guidance. We are the product of our environment which God has created in many ways, physical, rational, and spiritual. That is how God works.
The statement is not from a children’s book, the content is. I’ve learned a lot of history from teaching my kids too. It’s amazing what you don’t learn in school the first time around.
Yeah, my special power to delete spam does not get me VIP access to a special team of science consultants. But… the BioLogos website is full of information on this very topic, so you can read for yourself where it is laid out by scientists for adults: http://biologos.org/questions/what-is-evolution
I was talking about genetic adaptation over time, not some behavioral adaptation of an individual or group within one generation. Populations adapt genetically over multiple generations. Individuals don’t genetically adapt, no matter how selfish or selfless they are. It’s not a choice. I don’t disagree that communities cooperate for survival, but then we aren’t talking about genetics anymore, we’re talking about social behavior of animals.
For example, where we normally live in the mountains of Mexico, meat is scarce and dogs are fed old tortillas. Biologically, dogs are carnivores, but certain individual dogs are able to digest and get the necessary nutrients for survival from corn. Those dogs survive. The dogs that are born and can’t eat corn die as puppies. No individual dog is saying, “I want to survive. I will adapt to this situation and learn to like stale tortillas.” Even if the mama dogs want to share their tortillas with their babies, if the babies can’t digest it, they will not survive to reproduce. Either their biology can handle it or it can’t. Over many generations the dog population in that area has a much higher concentration of corn digesting dogs in it than in populations of dogs where meat is available.
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It seems to me, Eddie, that while every young earth creationist would of necessity hold to intelligent design, not every ID adherent holds to YEC. This is a distinction often lost on many others.
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Many Americans seem to think that Ken Ham is the point man for YEC. However, to be honest, I don’t know much about him. I tend to be more influenced by creation.com, an organization headquartered in Australia. I also appreciate the analysis and challenges presented by Ian Juby, a Canadian who is YEC. But Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research are other organizations who have also discovered great insights, and who make relevant arguments. I don’t need to accept every single thing they say, in order to appreciate their general arguments and discoveries. In the same way, while you have difficulty with YEC, I still appreciate the many lucid comments you make.
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