The scale of such an experiment would be large considering the amount of information that would need to be analyzed and recorded. That being said, there is a field of evolutionary biology with , to the outsider, an overwhelming amount of literature which will show how mutations are tracked. Here for an entry, look up articles co-authored by Richard E Lenski or Z. D. Blount whom I ran across learning about the Long Term Evolution Experiment
I’m not sure I understand what you mean here. If you are merely amplifying what I’ve already said, that’s fine. Thank you.
But if you are contending with my premise, let me explain what I mean here:
If a non-profit group called “Nuclear Reactors R Us” announces that:
“they oppose public schools teaching students how to build Nuclear Reactors!”,
the plain-sense meaning of that announcement would provide assurance to the
readers or listeners that - - by God - - there will be no effort to teach students
about building Nuclear Reactors.
But if this announcement is then followed by the following statement, what would YOUR reaction be?:
“But ‘Nuclear Reactors R Us’ does encourage the comparative instruction in public schools of how, on a part by part basis, how the net financial results to procure and install Nuclear Reactors is sometimes better (on a per dollar cost basis) than than the parallel financial results, part by part, for the procurement and installation of a Coal Burning Furnace.”
No doubt, the students would receive one heck of a good education about engineering, and cost analysis and would become intimately familiar with the sophisticated technologies involved in either kind of electricity-generating plant.
But if the listener or reader is careful, he or she can discern that in the process of this education, the student is STILL going to learn how to build a nuclear reactor! … the very thing which ‘Nuclear Reactors R Us’ announced they oppose.
It’s equivocation.
It’s dissembling.
It’s disingenuous.
It’s prevarication.
It’s dishonest.
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At the urging of an I.D. supporter who found my anecdote of "Nuclear Reactors R Us too bizarre or confusing, I translated my point into ordinary English:
“Maybe it would help if I just put it plainly: any comparison of what Discovery opposes vs. what it
supports in public schools, would reveal the unavoidable fact that teaching what Discovery PROPOSES
would automatically be teaching what Discovery OPPOSES.”
Oh… and of course…
It’s equivocation.
It’s dissembling.
It’s disingenuous.
It’s prevarication.
It’s dishonest.
In the study of evolution we know that mutations can occur randomly. There are many causes for these mutations. The result of the mutation is random with respect to fitness. This means the mutation may help, it may hurt, or it may be neutral and cause neither help or harm. Many of these neutral mutations may end up having a positive impact when other changes occur in the future. But it is important to remember that much of evolution is not the result of mutations.
Note: I am not a biologist but I like to act like one on the internet. Funny story, I was thinking of majoring in biology in college but I didn’t want to have to learn German, which was a requirement way back when.
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I have been informed that unlike ENV, Uncommon Descent, an ID site, does allow comments and is moderated. So anyone who is interested in engaging directly with ID folks there can feel free.
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I usually wince when someone posts something on “randomness”. And I know some supporters of BioLogos struggle with how to acknowledge God’s role in Evolution without giving him the keys to the evolutionary hot-rod, and making God the puppeter of mutations.
The YECs don’t seem to have any problem with God completely specifying the genome of every species on the planet… and he does it in just a moment!
Personally, I don’t see any way around it. If the YECs can give God the the nod for making all animals exactly the way they are (the moment of creation), why is it such a struggle to think what we perceive as random mutations are actually specifically chosen? All of them. Always.
Wow… really? I think I’ll hang back… so I don’t get rolled over in the mob!
The scenario given was what would a teacher say. The assumption I made was this would be a public school situation. Therefore I believe my answer, as a public school teacher, was correct. As an EC I would say evolution is a God directed process and there is nothing random about it. Hopefully you are well aware of my position.
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“… now the blogs moderated by Discovery Institute speak more like YEC people …”
As a YEC myself I’ll call this one false.
I’ve just been to the Biologos site trying to work out what they believe. It seems they are “evolutionary creationists” rather than “progressive creationists”. That is they believe that God created the big bang loaded with all the information and fine tuning to produce man without further intervention, then God could once again step into the picture to imbue (is that the right word?) man with the divine image and begin a spiritual relationship with him.
ID on the other hand believes that some steps in evolution require intervention to provide information and overcome the barrier of irreducible complexity. So ID appears to be closer to progressive creation.
However rather than starting with a belief in a particular creator ID infers the unidentified Intelligent Designer from examination of living things and the constraints of the physical systems in which they live. If the system does not have the capacity to produce ATP Synthase or new proteins then an alternative explanation is required.
But we all know who you-know-who is.
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A Hindu IDA (Intelligent Design Advocate) could well say Lord Bramah. IDA’s are careful to distinguish the inference to an Intelligent designer from their personal beliefs as to who that designer is.
But more importantly perhaps you could enlighten me as to what the Biologos people believe. Have I assessed their position correctly?
** 9th grade classroom. **
Nobody mentioned a 9th grade classroom. The question I pose could have been in a college classroom. Or in a charter schools honors class. Or In a public university say Ball State where the Chancellor shut down a class “The Boundries Of Science” because of a book list supplied by the physics prof which referenced I.D. If this is the way you guys like education. And maybe the reason the question might not appear in high school is because of the airtight atmosphere of conformance enforced, and the students not encouraged to come up with the gaping holes in the theory.
** When was the last time you were in one?**
I was in a graduate course for diecrete time signal processing well into my career.
"HaHa a serious attempt at discussion for you speaking of 14 year olds,
See what we have is a sincere question that gets contributor all snarky and stuff. In other words, a weakness of Darwinian evolution indicated just by attitude. Right here for you guys to chew on. And contributed to the weakness without even having to work at it.
"The scale of such an experiment would be large considering the amount of information that would need to be analyzed and recorded" That’s right, and maybe even outside the realm of feasibility, in other words outside the realm of science. I had another person, a working biologist answer me that mutations are always “random” - as a null hypothesis.
" how mutations are tracked" Thank you for a sincere answer I will look at them after my morning appointments. I would be surprised if there were what I’m looking for in there.
"“they oppose public schools teaching students how to build Nuclear Reactors!”"
The reason I’ve learned to try to avoid analogies in my long career, is that they mostly don’t work too well, and the reason people are tempted to employ them is that they can’t describe a problem or a situation very well, where the time could be better spent on the actual problem. This one seems particularly silly. Nuclear reactors have a history of being subject to politics in a drastically different manner than the enforcement of doctrine in schools, with the threat of termination for deviation.
I think I demonstrated quite well a topic that could be introduced in a classroom, a reference only to rigorous statistical application, and the doctrine of null hypothesis which seems to be the overarching scientific answer. It is an angle that student in high school could even follow, regardless of Jay’s pronouncement. Why not stick to the topic. For example why not discuss the possibility of the teacher getting fired for bringing it up in class. Why not indicate that the teacher did not have to discuss I.D. in order to bring up this obvious weakness.
Just like the ID movement, Biologos is a big tent. You have described the position of some of the people here, but not all by a long shot. You might say Biologos is ID with an identified Intelligent Designer, which would be God.
Hi Chris -
Welcome to the forum. Your paragraph describes deism, rather than than evolutionary creationism. Evolutionary creationists believe that God has not wound up a clock and let it run. Every EC I am familiar with believes fully in the concept articulated by Article 10 of the Belgic Confession*, which states:
We believe that this good God, after he created all things, did not abandon them to chance or fortune but leads and governs them according to his holy will, in such a way that nothing happens in this world without his orderly arrangement.
Admittedly, it is a challenge to explain how we also believe in scientific methodology, which provides a framework for explaining causation without referring to supernatural intervention. But please be aware of these considerations:
-
It is not just ECs that have this problem. Every Christian who pays attention to weather forecasts, or who thinks that planetary motion is explained by Newtonian mechanics and is therefore planning to watch the solar eclipse sweep through central USA in 2023, has the challenge of explaining how it is that God is still involved with creation. After all, cold fronts and Newtonian mechanics yield effective predictions without any supernatural component.
-
The Thomistic conception of different kinds of causation may prove helpful. Scientifically explained causation such as common ancestry, natural selection, cold fronts, and Newtonian mechanics could be thought of as material and efficient causation. God’s creative and continuing involvement with creation could be thought of as formal and final causation. (I am not an expert in Thomistic theology, so I’m sure someone with more training could express this much more elegantly.)
-
Theologian and former physicist John Polkinghorne points out that science can deterministically predict nothing at the quantum level and at the chaos level. These hard limits to scientific prediction are places where God can intervene in hidden ways. I don’t agree with everything Polkinghorne posits, but I do find this particular position to be very helpful. Note that this is quite different from the ID position, which argues from irreducible complexity or speed of change to non-scientific, design explanations. Nothing about the kinds of complexity or speed cited in ID literature is beyond the reach of scientific explanation, either in theory or in practice. I say in practice because many research studies have provided specific “material” explanations of phenomena that Michael Behe, for example, had declared to be inscrutable per se.
I hope you find this reply to be helpful.
Best,
Chris
*An edit at the suggestion of my friend Eddie. Originally the sentence stated, “We believe fully in Article 10…”
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Hindus don’t have a deity named Bramah. Intelligent Design Advocates tried to hide the identity of the designer, especially after Kitzmiller. They replaced the picture of God on the Discovery Institute web site. See here. And statements they have made over the years show pretty clearly who their designer is.
Why don’t you look at their page where they explain their beliefs?
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Odd. Discovery’s education policy is for public school science curricula. Have they delved into advising colleges how to teach science now? FYI, biology is taught in 9th grade in Texas and most other states.
So, in other words, your last experience with a 9th-grade classroom was when you were in 9th grade.
If you’d like, but the answer should be appropriate to the students’ cognitive development and background knowledge. In 9th grade biology, the question “what is a random mutation?” would be answered by making sure the student understood the terms “random” and “mutation.” Very simple. I could get into the question of whether ontological randomness actually exists, but that would be philosophy, not science, and just as much over the kids’ heads as your proposed approach.
Kids at this level are still learning the basics. Discovery thinks discussions of cutting-edge evolutionary theory should be mandated in high school biology, but one year ago those 9th graders were in middle school trying to wrap their minds around Mendel’s peas. They have not even taken high school chemistry, but Discovery wants them to “evaluate and critique strengths and weaknesses of … chemical evolutionary theories.” Really? Does this not strike you as silly advice for educators? It’s like asking a student in Algebra I to perform calculus.
Airtight atmosphere of conformance? Again, when was the last time you were in a 9th-grade classroom? In my opinion, it’s by far the most difficult grade level to manage behavior. The more difficult trick is to hold their attention long enough to get across the main idea of the lesson.
Waving the flag of religious persecution for talking about ID in class is just silly.
If you really want to talk about real-world issues, I have a question for you. Riddle me this, Batman: How many high school biology teachers hold even a bachelor’s degree in biology? Even better: How many high school biology teachers have neither degree nor certification to teach the subject? Until those problems are solved, worrying about high-level discussions of evolution that belong in college classrooms is a waste of everyone’s time.
(Edited for content and tone.)
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Is that your personal view? Or are you reporting someone else’s view?
Either way, you are not describing the BioLogos position as set out in its mission statements.
SOME of us… SOME… think God could do everything via natural law, but in two categories:
Natural Law that looks like Natural Law (like how rain is made); and
Natural Law that looks like a Miracle from the perspective of Humanity
(like, perhaps, Elijah being wisked away by a whirlwind into the realm of God).
SOME, but not most, accept that God has some tendency towards miraculous engagement of the
Universe that overrides natural lawfulness.
Further, no matter how much champions “purely natural law”, the presence of Free Will requires God
to continue to monitor the situation constantly, so that human freedom (which punctuates natural processes
everywhere, constantly) is accommodated AND yet God’s plan is still fully intact and on time,
with the End of Days.
Here is the official page on Mission Statements:
Point 6 explains the group’s interest in natural laws, as well as allowance for Miracles!
“We believe that God typically sustains the world using faithful, consistent processes that humans describe as “natural laws.” Yet we also affirm that God works outside of natural law in supernatural events, including the miracles described in Scripture. In both natural and supernatural ways, God continues to be directly involved in creation and in human history.”
And then Point 8 explicitly differentiates BioLogos from those who hold to Deism:
“We believe that God created the universe, the earth, and all life over billions of years. God continues to sustain the existence and functioning of the natural world, and the cosmos continues to declare the glory of God. Therefore, we reject ideologies such as Deism that claim the universe is self-sustaining, that God is no longer active in the natural world, or that God is not active in human history.”