Btw, that is exactly what we did. Not you and your father, but parents and children. The rate is high, and already quoted to you.
That is 1 duplication for every 100 births. Or a rate of fixation of about 1 every 2,500 years. We would fix 700 in less than 2 million years. The problem is not that there were too many duplications, but that there were too few. That is fixed by remembering that there are deletions too.
At the same time, there are several concepts being floated around.
CNV expansion or reduction.
Gene duplication (which is not always the same thing, right?)
Indels (which are not #1 or #2)
De novo genes (which are what people assume these are, but they are not).
Iâd just suggest we keep straight what we are discussing. Or this will get even more confusing.
I would not say that. He is asking a legitimate question wanting to learn more. The reason he think this violates the law of averages (as he puts it) is because he does not know the actual values. This ends up being pretty strong evidence for common descent. Iâm pretty sure he would not be pressing the issue if he really understood this. He is just asking to learn.
Now that is the most thought-provoking paragraph I think I have read on this forum. It may also resolve a paradox I had where you said my definition of TE is really deism, but you seemed dead-set against any sort of Divine interventions as I envisioned them.
So if I may go a bit further and you can tell me if I am tracking with youâŚare you saying that known evolutionary processes, if undirected, are vanishingly unlikely to produce beings who create civilizations and desire connection to a Creator? That is, He did not just set this process up so that all that was the likely or inevitable outcome of the evolutionary processes He fashioned, but rather those processes require His intervention in what might appear to be ârandomâ occurrences in order to produce beings like us?
Or would all that be a âgod of the gapsâ too? NOTE: I donât see what is so terrible about God filling in the gaps so long as it is understood that He is not just God of the gaps. He is God of the whole of the processes and laws by which the universe operates, and therefore can suspend or over-rule them when He desires. Every miracle is a âgapâ, including the resurrection.
I provided a direct quote from a published paper with exactly the number. @Swamidass reposted it just above.
And he answered you by referring to the literature that you do not read. By the way, since you are the one making calculations about genomic evolution, it is your responsibility to read and understand the literature upon which you base your math. Have you even tried to do what I did, which is examine papers by scientists who work on these things?
It has been days since I posted a number that shows yours is wrong. That is your responsibility. No one elseâs.
As long as you think that you can overturn human evolutionary history with some Googling and an abacus, you will be making a much bigger error than merely underestimating gene duplication rates. You will be exemplifying extraordinary hubris, and I would suggest the source of this is your religious stance that somehow convinced you that âphilosophical naturalismâ would make an entire discipline miss an arithmetic blockbuster.
Until you decide to read scientific papers, you will be unqualified to create new scientific theories. As you have written before: thatâs how science works.
Yes, I have read scientific papers and yes you did give out the number⌠To t_aquaticus, not to me. You did not give it to me and frankly, you are so abrasive and contemptuous toward me I have kind of taken to âtuning outâ your posts, particularly if directed to others. I will take your number and reply based on it- to @swamidass who conducts himself with more civility.
Well, like you said, it is hard to keep track of what we are discussing. If that is the rate of duplication among the 22,000 odd active genes then the 700 number looks pretty unremarkable. Funny how things can change when using rates discovered less than ten years apart.
Now if this is the rate of CVNs anywhere in the genome, including in the stretches of non-coding stuff, then I suppose the numbers would have to be adjusted for that, because the 700 genes I have been discussing were considered a part of the 22,000 genes in the study which I saw. But not sure even that would change the conclusion that the difference is not much different than what known processes might produce.
One last thing to consider: That rate would mean 2100 dupes in about six million years, minus deletions. To get a net of 700 it seems to me the long-term rate of duplication must exceed the rate of deletion by 50% (2100 gained, 1400 lost). I wonder if this can be/ has been tested for? Scientists are now extracting genetic information from humans who died 20K ago, even 40K ago. Heck they even have some from Neanderthals though I am not sure about the completeness of the genomes.
Would human remains from 25,000 years ago show fewer of these genes than humans have today? If so how many and what does that say about the rate of duplication in the human genome? Would the Neanderthal, who some consider to have had a common ancestor with us 500,000K ago, lack proportionally more of them? There are more ancient genomes coming out all the time, it is real cutting edge, but I have only seen them focusing on how those long-dead individuals related to various modern populations. I donât know if anyone has taken that same data and looked at what it means for duplication/additions of genes
Analyses like these are just being done. Here is one on indels, doing just what I think you are asking for:
The first complete Neanderthal genome was published in 2014, and there has been an explosion of research on ancient human genomics since then. October of 2016 saw numerous papers in Nature, including several in one issue, on ancestry of current human populations inferred from huge collections of genomic data, cross-referenced with the ancient genomes. (Example here.) There are some cool online tools that people can use to explore them and do âexperiments,â such as this one. I havenât played with it, but you might find it interesting given your curiosity about human genomic evolution.
Hope you experience great blessing in 2018. There is no other assumption that can be made within the paradigm of doing science. You and I make the assumption of natural and/or stochastic change every day when we watch the Weather Channel, watch for astronomical events like eclipses, or experience an earthquake.
There is no way to show via scientific inquiry if God intervened in a particular way at a particular time in a ânaturalâ process.
In fact, I will go on to assert that it is a categorical error to divide historical events into natural and divine, because it implies that God is not involved in the ânaturalâ events. Remember that Paul teaches us that in Christ, everything holds together. That means that the ânaturalâ and ârandomâ things are within the realm of Godâs continuing providence.
The Scripture does speak of miracles as distinct from ordinary events, so we could profitably use those categories. I think of miracles as Godâs work independent of the creation, although having effects within it. The ordinary would then be Godâs wisdom at work within the creation. Iâm sure some philosopher could raise objections, but that discussion would require another thread.
If you insist on the natural vs. Divine classification scheme, then inevitably the realm of the divine is going to shrink as scientific knowledge grows, asymptotically reaching deism in the future. Thinking in terms of ordinary vs. miraculous, OTOH, allows us to speak of Godâs continuing providential involvement in creation as knowledge advances. We just reclassify, as for example in thinking of the stochastic union of one of my fatherâs sperm and one of my motherâs ova, and the resulting embryonic development that culminated on the day of my birth. Miraculous or ordinary? Maybe both. In either case, I feel loved by God.
Chris that is the only kind of cause we can test for, to be sure. I guess what I am getting at is what happens when we do a lot of testing and we find a pattern which consistently defies natural explanation even though we have enough knowledge of the situation to where we should be aware of natural causes? I think that would be the other side of the valid point you make below about the shrinking area of the âdivineâ. It would be the shrinking room for some unknown natural cause that we have not detected yet.
Like my brother-in-law. Hurt in a car accident as a teenager. Wore a leg brace thereafter- until he got prayed for by a Pentecostal preacher that night. Leg brace didnât fit anymore because his leg was now straight. Same night. Why doesnât it happen more? What was so special about my brother in law or that preacher? I donât know. But if I am looking for natural explanations, I come up empty, and I kinda hate to ignore the supernatural Elephant in the room. I know I canât text FOR âGod did itâ, but I can test AGAINST every natural explanation and the more of them I rule out then, well like Sherlock Holmes once saidâŚâwhatever is left must be trueâ.
Totally agree about the division between natural and supernatural. I think it can go the other way though and science might be afraid to ask some questions because it smacks of âsupernaturalâ when really it is an extension of nature we just donât know about yet.
I do believe in a God who performs miracles, and I am delighted that your brother-in-law has experienced one.
Considering the history of scientific advancement, I would not be so quick to look for elephants. To give just one example, for decades astronomers did not understand why Mercuryâs orbit did not obey Newtonâs laws of gravity. Then Einstein published the theory of general relativity, and the mystery was solved.
You are confusing me with someone else as I donât remember mentioning deism, but nice to know I can still write a thought-provoking paragraph.
My personal opinion is evolution is totally directed just as rain is totally directed. I also believe there is no way to detect Godâs direction of the process. It will appear to be totally undirected to us. But we donât have to detect His direction because we have the Bible that tells us He directs all natural processes.
That is not what a god of the gaps argument means. It means basically âWe donât know how X happens so it must be God that is doing X.â What you said that triggered that thought in my mind was:
You are saying if we canât find a natural process that fits then God did it. Trying to find a âgapâ in our knowledge that will NEVER be filled by some new discovery is never a good idea.
I already committed to numbers. I agree with @sfmatheson on the range of figures found in family trios which is much higher than the numbers you are giving.
The precession in the orbit of Mercury consistently defied Newtonâs laws of gravity. Should we have said that Mercury is being moved about by the miraculous hand of God, and then failed to discover the Theory of Relativity?[quote=âMark_Moore, post:69, topic:37511â]
Like my brother-in-law. Hurt in a car accident as a teenager. Wore a leg brace thereafter- until he got prayed for by a Pentecostal preacher that night. Leg brace didnât fit anymore because his leg was now straight. Same night.
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Just wanted to highlight this paragraph for those aware of discussions in other threads.[quote=âMark_Moore, post:69, topic:37511â]
I think it can go the other way though and science might be afraid to ask some questions because it smacks of âsupernaturalâ when really it is an extension of nature we just donât know about yet.
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One of the most exciting phrases in science is âI donât knowâ. In fact, many modern physicists are quite unhappy because most of our theories appear to be correct and there is very little left to discover, or at least not a lot of stuff that is easy to discover. Cutting edge science at the edge of modern theoretical physics often requires 10âs of millions to billions of dollars in infrastructure, and often they only confirm theories we already have. The LHC cost billions of dollars, and all it did was confirm the Standard Model, as one example.
Perhaps this could help⌠this comes from the deep archivesâŚ
"Introduction (by Ted Davis)
Original sin and the Fall of Adam and Eve pose major challenges to proponents of Evolutionary Creation, both at the level of theology and also at the level of biblical interpretation. BioLogos does not endorse any one response to those challenges: our view is that the church deserves a serious, pluralistic conversation about evolution and original sin. In an effort to help foster that conversation, we already provide numerous resources, among them these:
Further resources are being developed by some recipients of The BioLogos Foundationâs Evolution & Christian Faith program.
This series offers yet another perspective, as we serialize a paper by philosopher Robin Collins3, entitled âEvolution and Original Sin.â In this final installment, Collins explains his position on God, evolution, incarnation, and purposeâthe whole shebang. Readers will note how Collins draws eclectically and insightfully on elements that others often keep deliberately apart: theistic evolution, intelligent design, and divine kenosis. Iâm keen to hear what you think, not only of this finale but also of the whole series; please be forthcoming with your comments.
IV: A Theological Postlude
The next view we will look at is what I will call the historical/quasi-literal view. Like the HI view7, this view denies the existence of a literal Adam and Eve, but unlike the HI view, it still retains the traditional idea that humans fell from some sort of state of moral, spiritual, and intellectual integrity through an act of disobedience to God. C. S. Lewis, for instance, expresses this sort of view in what he calls a âSocratic mythâ that is, a likely story (see The Problem of Pain2 chapter 5, particularly pp. 77-85). According to Lewis, when hominids reached a certain state of development, God gave them the capacity for both self-consciousness and consciousness of God, while at the same time putting them in a paradisal state in which all their appetites were completely under their control, and in which they lived in complete harmony with one another and God. Eventually, however, one or more of these creatures decided to choose their own selves over God, to âcall their selves their ownâ (p. 80). Once this happened, they fell, their minds and hearts becoming darkened and alienated from God, and in the process losing control over their own appetites.
Although Lewisâs view runs into fewer problems than the literal Adam and Eve view, it still runs into two of the same problems which the HI interpretation avoids. First, it runs into the problem of accounting for how human beings fell: if they were in such perfect relationship with God, how could they be tempted to turn away? Second, as explained in more detail when we critiqued the literal Adam and Eve view at the end of the last subsection, Godâs bringing these first humans into such a paradisal state knowing that they would inevitably fall seems unmotivated, a sort of game that God plays. The only advantage I can see of Lewisâs interpretation over the HI view is that it is closer to the traditional view of Adam and Eve being created in a moral, spiritual, and intellectual rectitude.
Finally, although this is not necessarily a problem, Lewisâs account involves more of an act of special creation than he suggests. The reason is that a linguistic community seems to be essential to human self-consciousness and free will. But, since a particular language is something that one learns from oneâs ancestors, either that language would have had to slowly evolveâwhich would imply a slow evolution of self-consciousness, contrary to what Lewis presupposesâor God would have had specially to teach the first humans some particular language, which would involve a major act of special creation.
The Ideal Interpretation
As in the HI view, this interpretation sees the Genesis story as representative of an ideal for which we ought to strive. However, our âfallen stateâ is more the result of our evolutionary heritage than the result of free choice. The evolutionary process left humans in a state of incompleteness, with various impulsesâsuch as aggressionâthat we must learn to transcend or control.
This view fits the best with process theology1 and traditional liberal theology, which typically embraced some sort of evolutionary optimism. Taken as a complete interpretation of the doctrine of original sin, this view, I believe, fails both to take sufficiently seriously the depth of our bondage to sin as assumed in Scripture and to include the social, communal, and historical dimension of sin as part of the doctrine.
Existential Interpretation
Above, I have sketched the basics of the HI view of original sin, and have indicated why I believe that it is more adequate than the major alternative views that we have examined. Here, I want to briefly indicate how it this fits into an entire theology that takes evolution seriously.
The view of evolution I propose is what I will call theistically guided evolution. I define theistically guided evolution as the view that all life on earth is the result of the evolutionary process (âdescent with modificationâ), but in various places God guided or influenced this process. God could guide the evolutionary process by mutating some gamete or even adding new information to the gametes, thereby resulting in one organism giving rise to a significantly different offspring. [Here Collins has a footnote: I prefer to think of Godâs guiding the evolutionary process in a non-mechanical way, a sort of nurturing or brooding over the evolutionary process as God is said to brood over the waters in Genesis 1:2. For a sophisticated account of how God could have guided the evolutionary process, see Robert Russell, âSpecial Providence and Genetic Mutation: A New Defense of Theistic Evolution,â in Perspectives on an Evolving Creation3; some of Russellâs ideas are presented in another column1.] Since in this view God works in and through the natural process of reproduction, the offspring could be said to be both the product of the natural operation of the world and a creation of God. The extent to which God guides the process, and the extent to which the evolutionary process is a result of unguided chance plus natural selection, however, remains an open question.
[Collins has a two-paragraph footnote that Iâve put here.] I should note that I also consider it an open question as to whether Godâs guidance of the evolutionary process is detectable, having never seen a good argument against this idea. Thus, at least in this sense, the view I sketch above is sympathetic towards the so-called intelligent design movement, the central claim of which is that some sort of intelligent guidance is detectable in the evolutionary process1. My primary theological motivation for postulating that God guides the evolutionary process is that it puts God into a deeper interrelationship with creation, while still leaving room for creation to act on its own. Accordingly, it fits better with the image of a relational God, as suggested by the doctrine of the Trinity. Further, it paints a picture of a God who is a nurturing but not overbearing parent with respect to creation, which I believe conforms better to the Biblical witness. The other view, in which life is left to develop by means of unguided chance plus natural selection, tends to portray God as a great engineer who after the act of creation abandons the world to its own devices.
The view of theistically guided evolution that I am advocating also seems to be the best explanation of the scientific evidence: unlike the other major positions, it accounts for both the evidence for macroevolution such as presented in this volume2, and the seemingly impressive arguments against the adequacy of unguided chance plus natural selection as the primary driving force of evolution. (For a fairly good overview of many of the scientific arguments for some sort of guidance of the evolutionary process, see David Ray Griffin, Religion and Scientific Naturalism, pp. 265-292.) One of the most impressive arguments against the adequacy of unguided evolution, I believe, is the argument that unguided naturalistic evolution cannot explain human consciousness or our capacity for highly abstract theoretical reasoning. This argument has been advocated by both prominent atheists and theists. (See, for instance, philosopher Thomas Nagel, The Last Word, pp. 130-143, philosopher Alvin Plantinga, Warrant and Proper Function, chapter 12, and theoretical physicist Paul Davies, âThe Intelligibility of Nature,â in Quantum Cosmology and the Laws of Nature , pp. 149-164.)
Theistically guided evolution is part of a more general view in which God typically works incarnationally within the natural world to bring it to fulfillment, instead of working by externally imposing form and design on the world as postulated by various scenarios involving some type of special creation. In effect, this view takes the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation as indicative of the general way in which God redemptively works within all creation. God enters into the material matrixâthe Word becomes fleshâand from the inside brings it to fulfillment.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us. (John 1:14) Sandro Botticelli, Annunciation (1489-90), Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
Now, the New Testament implies that the fulfillment of creation is one in which God is all in all, in which God is in some sense fully present within matter. Many New Testament Scriptures speak of this ultimate fulfillment of creation. Romans 8:18-23, for example, tells us that the whole creation will be set free from its bondage to decay and share in the glorious liberty of the children of God. Similarly, other scriptures speak of Godâs ultimate purpose being directed toward the redemption of all creation: In Ephesians 1:10, this ultimate purpose is to âgather all things in him [Christ], both in heaven and earthâ; in Ephesians 4:10 it is for Christ to âfill all thingsâ; in Colossians 1:20 it is to âreconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heavenâ; and finally, in 1 Corinthians 15:28 it is for God to be âall in allâ What I am suggesting here is that just as from the beginning matter had the potentiality to be conscious, or at least embody consciousness, so matter has the potentiality of carrying or being infused with the divine life in a much deeper and more complete way than it is now, though we cannot at present see how this will occur (just as we cannot yet see how matter can embody consciousness).
From this perspective, one can see Godâs ultimate purpose being that the material cosmos become a full participant in the divine life. Following standard Eastern Orthodox theology, this complete participation of humans and creation in the divine life could be understood as participation in what the Orthodox call the âenergiesâ of God in contrast to the essence of God (see, for instance, Vladimir Lossky2, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, pp. 74-5, 97-101, and 133-34). For the Orthodox, the energies of God refer to the life of Godâthat is, âGod in his activity and self-manifestationâ (Bishop Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way, rev. ed., p. 22) â whereas the essence of God refers to Godâs innermost self, which is forever inaccessible to us. Using this distinction, Orthodox theologians claim to be able to affirm the eventual complete participation of redeemed humanity and creation in the divine life while at the same time excluding âany pantheistic identification between God and creationâ (Ware, p. 23).
Godâs ultimate purpose being this full participation does not mean that evolution necessarily needs to be linear. As we know from the fossil record, evolution is more like a giant bush, with the human line being one small twig. At first this might make the process of evolution look purposeless, and the evolution of human beings as a lucky accident, as Harvard paleontologist Stephen J. Gould has claimed. The existence of all these other branches, along with the many that have died off, only appears purposeless if we claim that Godâs sole purpose was the eventual evolution of human beings. But, there is no necessary reason to restrict Godâs purpose to us. In fact, even though humans can be considered the âhighpointâ of creation and the avenue through which it will be redeemed (for example, see Romans 8:21), the above Scriptures make clear that Godâs purposes involve all of creation.
[Collins has a lengthy footnote that Iâve put here.] This perspective also helps, I believe, with the question of the redemptive status of highly evolved hominids that are clearly not human, such as Neanderthalsand Homo erectus. Recent genetic evidence strongly indicates that Neanderthals were not human (David Wilcox, âHominid Origins: The Genetic Evidence,â in this volume2). Nonetheless, they had a larger brain than humans, and they used tools and probably fire, and seem to have buried their dead, indicating religious beliefs. The existence of such beingsâwhich have a form of sentience between currently existing non-human primates and humansâreally presses the case, I believe, for including all of Godâs creation in Godâs redemptive plan. Otherwise, it looks as though God abandons creation. Further, once we adopt this perspective, the meaning of human existence is put into a different light. This world is not simply a testing ground for us to make a decision for or against God. Rather, I suggest, our purpose is to have âdominionâ over all creation in the sense that Jesus gives to this idea: that is, those who are in authority are servants of all. Humans are called to be servants of each other and creation, and thereby be the agents of the redemption of all creation (Romans 8:21). Perhaps Adam and Eveâs tending the Garden of Eden could be thought of as an image of this sort of servanthood. Yet, they chose control, instead of servanthood, when they ate of the knowledge of good and evil, and this was the Fall.
It should also be noted that this idea of God working within creation provides a theory of inspiration of scripture according to which God worked incarnationally through the literature and concepts of the Hebrew culture, with the end result being that some of their writings became the vehicle of divine revelation. This theory was already implicitly behind our account of Genesis 1-113 and is fairly common among biblical scholars. It was well articulated, I believe, by C. S. Lewis, for seemingly independent reasons based on his profound knowledge and appreciation of literature. According to Lewis, âthe Scriptures proceed not by conversion of Godâs word into a literature but by the taking up of a literature to be the vehicle of Godâs word ⌠Thus something originally merely naturalâthe kind of myth that is found among the nationsâwill have been raised by God above itself, qualified by Him and compelled by Him to serve purposes which of itself it would not have served. Generalizing this, I take it that the whole Old Testament consists of the same sort of material as any other literatureâchronicle (some of it obviously pretty accurate), poems, moral and political diatribes, romances, and what not; but all taken into the service of Godâs word. Not all, I suppose, in the same way. There are prophets who write with the clearest awareness that Divine compulsion is upon them. ⌠There are poets like those in the Song of Songs who probably never dreamed of any but a secular and natural purpose in what they composed. ⌠On all of these I suppose a Divine pressure ⌠The human qualities of the raw materials show through. Naivety, error, contradiction, even (as in the cursing Psalms) wickedness are not removed. The total result is not âthe Word of Godâ in the sense that every passage, in itself, gives impeccable science or history. It carries the Word of God.â (Reflections on the Psalms, p. 116, followed by pp. 111-112)
Lewis then goes on to say that we might not like this method of inspiring scripture but that we must be very careful not to impose on God what we think is best, or our preconceived ideas of how God must have done it. Rather, he claims, we must look to the form and content of Scripture itself to determine how it was inspired. Similarly, I would argue, we must not impose on God preconceived ideas about how we think God should work in the world, but rather look both to nature and to Scripture.
He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of deathâeven death on a cross. (Phil 2:8) Sitting with my wife in the second row at Passionsspiele 2010, directly in front of this scene (which we were not permitted to photograph), was truly a profound experience.
This idea of Godâs working within creation also makes sense of the doctrine of the atonement. According to the doctrine of the atonement, it is through Christâs life, death, and resurrection that we are saved from sin and reconciled to God. In the view of atonement I develop elsewhereâwhich has close affinities with the views of several of the early Greek fathers of the Church, views that were later developed through the centuries by the Eastern Orthodox Churchâsalvation consists of fully sharing the life of Christ, as implied by Jesusâs analogy of the vine and the branches in John 15 (see my essay, âGirard and Atonement: An Incarnational Theory of Mimetic Participation,â in Violence Renounced). Because of the Incarnation, this life is both fully divine and fully human; and because of the cross, it is fully in solidarity with the depths of human brokenness, sin, alienation, mortality, and the like. Because of its fully human component, and because it is in full solidarity with the depths of our life situation, we can participate in it. As Paul indicates in Romans 6, by participating in this life we are redeemed from sin and reconciled to God, and freed from spiritual bondage and darkness. Thus, the effect of original sin is reversed. I call this theory the Incarnational Theory of Atonement, and defend it as being scripturally, morally, and theologically sound.
Moreover, this incarnational way of God working in the world also fits with the way in which God works as revealed on the cross and in the kenosis hymn of Philippians 2:5-11: God does not work by external force from the outside, but from the inside through a process of self-emptying love (see George Murphy, âChristology and Evolution,â in this volume2). In fact, I would suggest, insofar as creation has sentience, Christ has been sharing the sufferings of creation since the foundation of the world. Indeed, this could be thought of as the deeper meaning of Rev. 13:8, which under the ânon-predistinarianâ translation states that Christ was slain from the foundation of the world. God has never been an absentee father. The crucifixion is simply the culmination of this process. Finally, this idea of Godâs working incarnationally within the material matrix makes sense of Godâs continuing work in the Church and in history in general. For instance, God uses weak and frail human beings to carry the Christian gospel, and God appears to work within history largely by inspiring human beings to great moral and spiritual endeavors.
In sum, the idea of Godâs working incarnationally within the material Cosmos provides an overarching idea that coherently unites many elements of Christian theology and disparate things we know about the world: it sheds light on the significance of the incarnation, eschatology, the nature of inspiration of scripture, the doctrine of atonement, the cross of Christ, and how God works in human history. The HI interpretation of original sin simply provides one part of the story regarding how God has worked and continues to work incarnationally in the world.
Looking Ahead
Thatâs a ringing conclusion indeed! When I return in about two weeks, Iâll launch a new series based on my own research on the history of Christianity and science before the Civil Warâthe period when natural history first made its way into American colleges. Please join me again then. In the meantime Iâll be reading your thoughts about Robin Collinsâ ideas.
References and Credits
Robin Collinsâ chapter from Perspectives on an Evolving Creation, ed. Keith B. Miller (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003), is reproduced by kind permission of the author and the Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. We gratefully acknowledge their cooperation in bringing this material to our readers. Collins often cites other chapters of this outstanding book, not only in this excerpt. There is probably no better comprehensive work on Evolutionary Creation."
I concede that I was going off of old data. Using the latest rate calculations the number of gene differences is unremarkable- with the two caveats I mentioned earlier. One of them was that the rate of new gene duplication as to be 50% higher than the rate of deletions. I just donât know the answer to that.
Of course not. You keep searching for natural causes. Especially concerning natural phenomenon where there is no divine claim or purpose to what is seen. I suppose we should even look for natural causes on my brother-in-lawâs leg, which I notice you did comment on other than to say something like âlook everyone, Mark here thinks there has been a miracle.â All I am really saying is that our thinking should not be bound by philosophical naturalism to the point where we can never consider the possibility that there is more to the universe than matter and energy bouncing around.
In other threads there have been accusations that atheists misrepresent Christianity when atheists point to claims about answered prayers and miraculous healings. In response, I pointed out that atheists are merely repeating what Christians tell them. I was using your post as an example of just that. I wasnât trying to challenge anything you said or deride it in any manner, just merely highlighting it so others could understand what I had communicated in other threads.[quote=âMark_Moore, post:76, topic:37511â]
All I am really saying is that our thinking should not be bound by philosophical naturalism to the point where we can never consider the possibility that there is more to the universe than matter and energy bouncing around.
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When you are doing science you are bound by methodological naturalism. That isnât to say that you always have to be doing science, however. Obviously, Christian scientists are able to stay within the bounds of methodological naturalism in their scientific work but they look outside of those bounds in their spiritual lives. I see absolutely nothing wrong with that. I have many colleagues who are Christians, some who follow other faiths, and some that are atheists like myself. When we talk science it is just science, and we can all agree or disagree based on shared rules and methods that we all accept. With this said, there really isnât any way to incorporate undetectable, unpredictable, and untestable supernatural claims into the scientific method. This gets into all sorts of circular definitions surrounding what is natural and what is testable, but suffice it to say that if you canât get past âGod did itâ then science probably canât incorporate it because of methodological reasons, not because of philosophical reasons.
The reason that science has become an important human pursuit is because it has been so darn successful. If science, and by extension methodological naturalism, didnât work then we wouldnât use it. Betting the existence on God on the prospect of science not figuring something out has proven to be a bad bet. This is why a God of the Gaps is looked on as a failed theological approach, not to mention that it is rather shortsighted even if we didnât have science.
This all may sound strange coming from an atheist, but it really isnât. I really love science, but I would never want science to be a reason that anyone would unnecessarily jettison beliefs that are important to them. To be fair, science probably forces people to jettison a belief in a literal Genesis, but it certainly doesnât require people to stop believing in God. I think science will be better off with all of humanity behind it, not just atheists.
Your remarks are excellent and make important points that have also been observed by various Christians, e.g. Denis Lamoureux. One of the contributors here (donât remember who) went so far as to say that God has blessed the scientific enterprise! It might have flaws, but it has saved many thousands of lives.
This is especially true with regards to explanations for repeating and rhythmic natural events, such as the orbit of Mercury or rain. One time acts of history, not so much.
I find your scope of interests to be very puzzling. You have arrived here to explain how to merge the interests of the Creationists with the interests of the pro-Science Christians.
And yet most of your discussions have focused on why the very impressive arrays of scientific evidence are incorrect.
What exactly is it that you are going to preserve as Rock-Solid science, that you would fall on your sword regarding, when discussing creation with Young Earth Creationists?