I think Behe is arguing that Evolution is trashing genomes and therefore the only way microbes to man evolution could work is by Intelligent Design.
Behe believes in evolution over deep time aided by an Intelligent Designer (God?) so I guess that makes him a theistic evolutionist. Behe TE.
( theistic evolution = n. evolution guided by God, Wordnik)
Chris, how exactly do those two notions tie together?
God is desultory in his interest in Evolution?
dictionary.com definition for Desultory:
[des-uh l-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee]
(14 Synonyms & Antonyms for DESULTORY | Thesaurus.com)
[1] lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order, disconnected; fitful:desultory conversation.
[2] digressing from or unconnected with the main subject; random:a desultory remark.
If God used Evolution to produce humanity, obviously Evolution is capable of something more than just devolution. So when we see devolution, it’s God not really caring about Evolution, and when we see something amazing, it’s proof that God is on the job for this particular thing?
My position is that God is using evolution constantly. So this “slice” of Behe’s interpretation seems pretty strained and awkward!
I would have thought it was pretty clear.
Evolution by itself stumbles down Mt Improbable. It requires input from an outside source to get it to climb the mountain; to create new genes, proteins, functions, body parts, and body plans. If indeed evolution has progressed from microbes to man over billions of years then far from desultory input it would have required intervention at innumerable steps along the way.
I think this would also be Behe’s position. Perhaps you and Behe are closer than you think.
As a YEC this is not my position.
This is curious. Why do you spend so much effort defending Behe when you must disagree with most of what he concludes about the development of life as we now see it?
Actually, this is exactly what I was thinking … until advance word of his new book starting coming out. It has me completely puzzled.
Basically, he has to attribute all the good stuff of evolution to when God is busy guiding it … and all the bad stuff to when God is busy making 777 billions of pounds of Heavenly Hash Ice Cream!
Eat the meat, spit out the bones.
@cwhenderson in other words the portion of the YEC community that buys into Sanford’s genetic entropy like @aarceng. That crowd would like Behe’s argument where ‘mechanisms of genetic change only break stuff.’
Interestingly enough, that’s pretty much how I used to look at scientific papers when I was a YEC. Find some bits I agree with then dismiss the rest because I knew better than scientists, they were fools!
I think you are being unfair and disparaging to both me and Behe.
I can only speak for my own perspectives when I was a YEC. I loved reading CMI in particular and was amazed at their impressive technical knowledge that I didn’t really understand but bits and pieces. I never bothered to read actual science papers or check to see what their sources were, but I knew that scientists all were blind to the Truth. If there were any Christian scientists they were usually compromising the authority of what God had said and they were apparently unaware of how their theories were all flopping around like a fish out of water. Ironically, I was the one who was unaware of mountains of data and work that scientists had done for decades to centuries, but CMI and others spoke with authority and always lifted up Christ in various ways.
In short, a diet that consisted only of YEC literature left me:
@aarceng, my story is rather similar to Matthew’s. I was raised with the same YEC perspective and was aghast at the willfully-blind scientific community. It took years of exposure to actual evidence to bring me to the point where I began to consider my indoctrination objectively.
I do not know personally what your reasons are for rejecting the theory of evolution, but mine was a fear for what a non-literalistic view of Genesis 1-3 might mean for the rest of the Bible. It took me time to understand to arrive at my personal conclusion that Genesis 1-3 is much more about the main themes of the chapter:
My faith has not been shaken due to an acceptance of what God has made evident through His creation.
How often is your story repeated? Millions of times, unfortunately! We see it here every day.
What is good is that as folks who have struggled through the same pitfalls, you have empathy and patience (as you do show) for the very struggles and presuppositions we had at one time. Works out well. Thank you for the insight you (and others who have studied more than I) communicate.
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