Is God still at work in the world, or have His purposes all been accomplished already?
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Dear Lynn Thank you for your comments. Yes to me that is the core question. If we believe that that God the Creator uses evolutionary processes to create all life and Man and this process continues then is not God still at work?
I remember reading an article some years ago that a moth species had changed its colour to a darker shade to fit in with a more dirty environment
It has also been noticed that migrant birds, that have some genetic constutent to their migraion habits are changing their timings of departures and arrivals along their migration routes due to climate change. In Europe the Blackcap has a sub popiulation no longer flies south to Africa but heads due south west to other parts of europe because of generally milder winters in the UK etc.
But lets not be too earth bound either. If the evolution of life is really a possibility on other planets in this vast universe there is every possibility that life is evolving elsewhere. If in the vast universe new worlds are formed that can allow life to come into existence then Yes Gid is probably still âcreatingâ. Maybe weâre too conceited if we think ours is the only world God cares about and made home for life to flourish on.
Wake up and smell the coffee. Just because I disagree with you ands others about some aspect of evolution does not mean that I am against evolution. I am very much for evoluti0on and have explored it intently, which is the reason why I criticize it, rather agree with whatever Dawkins claims is true.
That is as ridiculous as my saying that just because you disagree with me over ecological natural selection that you are against ecology, so I would write:
You are missing out, Stephen. The world of ecology is wonderfully interesting. Someday I hope you will try to explore it.
John 5:17: But Jesus answered them, and said, âMy Father is still working, and I also am working.â
@AMWolfe talked earlier about this some, but you might also want to read up on this idea here: Creation is the Temple where God rests | The BioLogos Forum
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Dear Stephen and Roger thank you both for your insight into the genetic variation associated with adaptation. It seems to me that the process of DNA variation is inherent in Gods design. As you mention the genome is constantly rearranging changing by genetic recombination, meiosis, mutation, reorganization, reproductive processes creating hybrid combinations that create new adaptations. These adaptations are created by these processes. Some of these changes or adaptations will effect the fitness of the entity which can then be selected for or against. There are many types of adaptations (physical, biochemical, behavioral) and many types of selective forces ( sexual, predatory, environmental)
I find that very reassuring. âMy Father is still working and I also am still working.â We see His creative evolutionary forces all about us.
Given this what can we learn from the evolutionary path that God has put us on and for us to better understand the path that lay ahead?
It seems to me that life is not an inevitable chemical reaction. The formation of life is a series of highly improbable reactions and events. The improbability of life creation is not impossible just very unlikely. I think that this improbability of life is the miracle of our God. He truly is the God that that can do the impossible. It may well be that He has created more life elsewhere but I am more concerned about serving Him and understanding His creation on earth.
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You are very welcome. Glad to talk with you. God bless.
If God is still creatingâŚexactly what is being created?
The Bio-Logos folk are into directed evolution. (directed by God - diseases and all)âŚ
They say the creation of man and woman looks nothing what Genesis saysâŚtear that chapter out of your Bible.
Bio Logos folk say God directed the evolutionary part for humanity until some bloke and woman appears who looks like us, then God plonks a human spirit / soul into them. Not sure what happened to the rest of those human like folk - hard luck they miss out.
You, me, rains and sunshine in due seasons ⌠all the stuff mentioned in all the other books that you apparently ripped out of your Bible. But then even in the one part you decided to keep (Genesis) â it may be that you donât even consider that infallible so much as you consider your take on it to be infallible.
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Hi Paul,
Nice to hear from you here.
What a beautiful, wonderful mystery this is! Who could possibly claim to know this? Certainly not I, my brother! 
Iâm pretty sure that to know the answer to this question, one would have to be, by definition, God.
This is a tricky term, you know? If youâre talking about the folks who officially run this site, then I canât speak for them as Iâm not one of them. Iâm just a guy like you visiting the Forum. If youâre talking about folks who believe in evolutionary creationism, then thatâs me, but youâre not doing a very good job of describing my own personal position, so I canât really defend the position youâre describing. Sorry to disappoint!
Iâm pretty sure thatâs not what BioLogos (please note the CamelCaps without hyphen or space) is suggesting. If youâre new to the site, there are lots of resources here about what BioLogos really believes about the Bible. If youâre having trouble finding some, just let me know and I can spend a few minutes helping you find some articles that can help dismantle your antagonistic straw man.
Peace to you,
AMWolfe
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The earth is still bringing forth life.
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Seriously, Roger? You donât acknowledge genetic drift? You donât acknowledge the imperfect transmission of DNA each and every generation? Are you suggesting that DNA only mutates if there is a change in the ecosystem?
You should broaden your reading âŚ
George,
Wake up and smell the coffee.
What I am saying is that changes are not selected in by Natural Selection if they benefit the organism in its ecological niche, not that mutations donât take place. That is what NS is all about.
The only exception seems to be neutral genetic drift and reading the literature carefully indicates that genetic drift is very limited in its scope and importance. It is at best an exception to the rule of ecological NS not the rule.
Roger, you were the one that said Evolution cannot happen if the ecological factors do not change.
Most Evolutionists are much more than you in how they say things. For example, alligators and/or crocodiles, are usually acknowledged as virtually unchanged for millions of years. It is presumed this is because they are so well matched to their ecological niche.
But I donât know any academic that would say the modern croc or gator is the identical Species as the ones we find from millions of years ago. In other words, if we were (hypothetically) to find 10 million year old genetic material from one of these animals, the odds are pretty high that there have been ample genetic changes ! - - just not genetic changes controlling the outward appearance of the animal.
For someone who weekly lambastes professional evolution academics on choosing their words poorly, I think a little humility about what you say Can or Cannot happen in an unchanging ecosystem should be considered.
The opposite is the case. Anyone who has read Michael Lynchâs work knows this.
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If you have read Michael Lynchâs work, it would be nice if you gave us a quote to demonstrate your point. But I did look him up and sound that he received a degree in ecology and teaches at my alma mater.
The only book by Michael Lynch available on Amazon (for $100) is The Origins of Genome Architecture, which is an excellent textbook on quantitative genetics. This is not about Natural Selection or ecology. A note promised a follow up volume which might cover these aspects of evolution.
I am still waiting for concrete evidence that genetic drift is as important or more important factor for evolution than Natural Selection.
@gbrooks9, George seems to think that genetic drift is constantly altering the genome of all species. He says that there is no evidence crocodiles, which have existed for millions of years without apparent change, so not have a very different genome from primordial crocs.
I was always told that our appearance is controlled by our genes. Is it possible that our genes could change, but we would look the same?
We have many instances of life forms evolving to adapt to different environments. Is this in some unique manner caused by genetic drift?
Your assertion raises many questions without answering any and not verification that I can see.
You can easily find his work, most of it open access, by searching PubMed. Surely you know how to do this, since you claim to read the professional literature. Or of course you could also look at his lab website, easily discoverable, where he posts PDFs of every one of his scores of publications.
First you would have to decide that you intend to read and understand the scientific literature pertinent to the topics you post about here.
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Thank you again for the information.
Of course I never claimed to read all the information, but I read as much as I can. Also after chasing down the leads you gave me, my knowledge was deepened but opinion is not changed.
Abstract from article Genetic drift, selection, and the evolution of the mutation rate.
As one of the few cellular traits that can be quantified across the tree of life, DNA-replication fidelity provides an excellent platform for understanding fundamental evolutionary processes. Furthermore, because mutation is the ultimate source of all genetic variation, clarifying why mutation rates vary is crucial for understanding all areas of biology. A potentially revealing hypothesis for mutation-rate evolution is that natural selection primarily operates to improve replication fidelity, with the ultimate limits to what can be achieved set by the power of random genetic drift. This drift-barrier hypothesis is consistent with comparative measures of mutation rates, provides a simple explanation for the existence of error-prone polymerases and yields a formal counter-argument to the view that selection fine-tunes gene-specific mutation rates.
This states that Natural Selection is a barrier against rapid mutation, which produces much change. So it seems that genetic drift is change within this barrier, while change other than genetic drift is rapid change beyond this barrier. [This is not the same explanation of Genetic drift found in the other articles you gave me.]
I say that Natural Selection is based on the ecology. If the ecology is not changing, then there is no need to change and thus this is the barrier to rapid mutation and allows for genetic drift. When the ecology is changing then rapid mutation is selected in and there is no barrier.
This does allow for genetic drift, while being a better explanation for it and Natural Selection.
P.S. This debate began when I said that neoDarwinism did not give ecology a decisive role in evolution, and you and others said it does. As seen above Lynch as far as I have read does not give ecology any role in evolution.