What might be the spiritual origins of YEC?

I may be so bold as to suggest that to the extent you have Love, you lack nothing.

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Is this systematic bias, though?

Fred Hoyle (former astronomer-royal, first to propose of stellar nucleosynthesis, coined the term ‘Big Bang’) also believed in panspermia, and wrote a book arguing simultaneously for that and a kind of self-intelligent self-designing universe.

My comments related to the reliability of scientific consensus rather than the reliability of every scientist. Some of them, despite being brilliant in some ways, simply fly too close to the Sun and go unhinged in random directions.

Here’s another one, Kary Mullis. Co-inventor of PCR. Also ate too much homemade LSD and became an AIDS denier, a climate change denier and a believer in astrology.

None ot that makes PCR or DNA or stellar nucleosynthesis fake… Or AIDS or the Big Bang or climate change or an old universe or evolution fake…

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His directed panspermia hypothesis specifically?

No.

His unwillingness to consider God’s involvement as even a possible hypothesis, begging the question that any acceptable answer must be entirely materialistic in nature, and thus willing to entertain practically any materialistic solution no matter how desperate or far-fetched rather than allowing consideration of direct supernatural agency?

Yes, absolutely.

Understood. but if interesting: once I started noticing the entirety of the scientific establishment embracing, sharing, and repeating obvious patterns of fallacious, question begging thinking, i myself began to suspect a kind of “groupthink” that takes over.

to take an example from another field… C.S. Lewis once critiqued the “anti-supernatural” bias of the “scholarly consensus” of biblical critics…

Here is an example of the sort of thing that happens if we omit the preliminary philosophical task, and rush on to the historical. In a popular commentary on the Bible you will find a discussion of the date at which the Fourth Gospel was written. The author says it must have been written after the execution of St Peter, because, in the Fourth Gospel, Christ is represented as predicting the execution of St Peter. ‘A book’, thinks the author, ‘cannot be written before events which it refers to’. Of course it cannot—unless real predictions ever occur. If they do, then this argument for the date is in ruins. And the author has not discussed at all whether real predictions are possible. He takes it for granted (perhaps unconsciously) that they are not. Perhaps he is right: but if he is, he has not discovered this principle by historical inquiry. He has brought his disbelief in predictions to his historical work, so to speak, ready made. Unless he had done so his historical conclusion about the date of the Fourth Gospel could not have been reached at all. His work is therefore quite useless to a person who wants to know whether predictions occur. The author gets to work only after he has already answered that question in the negative, and on grounds which he never communicates to us. This book is intended as a preliminary to historical inquiry. I am not a trained historian and I shall not examine the historical evidence for the Christian miracles. My effort is to put my readers in a position to do so. It is no use going to the texts until we have some idea about the possibility or probability of the miraculous. Those who assume that miracles cannot happen are merely wasting their time by looking into the texts: we know in advance what results they will find for they have begun by begging the question.

In essence, it doesn’t matter how many, or what kind of broad consensus, existed in the minds of how many ever biblical critics… if they all shared the same fallacious presuppositions and faulty methodology, then the value of their “consensus” was essentially worthless, if in fact they all followed the very same “question-begging” method.

I find, essentially, the exact same problem in biology. The procedure of practically every scientist in this realm is, “First, assume no supernatural intervention. then, explore what options remain, and then pick the best of those to be the best answer.” Now, for many, many areas of science and biology, this procedure will not necessarily effect the results (does DNA exist? how does it work? how do viruses replicate? etc.) but for such core questions such as, “are natural selection and mutation, alone, adequate explanations for the great complexity of life?” then the “methodologically naturalistic” approach absolutely begs the question and taints the results. When those are the questions I am asking… and someone tells that the scientific consensus is that undirected processes are an adequate explanation… well, to borrow Lewis’s words, “Those who assume that the results cannot be the result of miracles are wasting their time by looking into the biology: we know in advance what results they will find for they have begun by begging the question.”

And the very fact that even Christian organizations such as Biologos have explicitly embraced and defended this anti-supernatural approach in their methodology (i.e., “methodological naturalism”), affirms to me that what I’m seeing is indeed “systemic”.

Hoyle was President of the Royal Astronomical Society (1971–1973). Not Astronomer Royal. Genius commonly exacts a price. God is fair.

This may be far more than you were asking, but I’ll share if interesting to you…

if i could be so bold to offer this example… (and if not personal to home to share on the Biologos site, I hope and trust this doesn’t appear an ad hominem…), but a prime example of my concerns was Darrel Falk’s review of Stephen Meyer’s book Signature in the Cell… I read Meyer’s book some years ago, and was also interested to read the best critiques in order to “fact check” Meyers’s arguments. i’d read Meyer’s book and found it compelling, but wanted to see what others more experienced and studied in biology saw in terms of holes or counter arguments in Meyer’s case that i wasn’t seeing…

i’m afraid Dr. Falk’s review confirmed to me the very concerns i had been seeing elsewhere:

One of Dr. Falk’s main critiques / counter examples was in critiquing Meyer’s claim that

Meyer suggests that the two different conditions for making two of the key building blocks that characterize an RNA molecule are incompatible… As he was writing these words, however, some elegant experiments were taking place at the University of Manchester that showed there is a way, a very feasible way that both building blocks could have been produced through natural processes (emphasis mine).

And then, to emphasize even further in the footnote to that point, he adds:

Even as he [Meyer] was delcaring that no further progress would be made, the problem had been solved. (emphasis mine)

Now, to a casual reader, this is striking - proof positive that natural processes could indeed accomplish this particular said critical feat of abiogensis and stating in no uncertain terms that "the problem had been solved. Case closed, indeed! I seem to recall being struck that perhaps Meyer’s point was weak here if Dr. Falk could make such a strong statement.

But Meyer’s explanation in his surrejoinder is striking, though - he points out that the experimenter in question 1) intentionally selected non-racemic isomers of the initial compounds, 2) utilized numerous intermediate steps wherein the chemists purified the reaction, removing problematic byproducts, and 3) followed a carefully planned procedure of introducing only specified reagents and only in a specific order…

Just like in nature. :roll_eyes:

If such a distinguished scientist can examine a carefully designed, step-by-step designed process, carefully at each step only taking those extremely precise, guided, purified, selected chemicals, at the right time and the right order… and conclude that this was “a very feasible way that both building blocks could have been produced through natural processes”…? Then an observer like me cannot help but think that there were some extra steps in his thinking between the experiment and his conclusion that this demonstrates a “very feasible way” this process can be produced by natural processes… This strikes this observer as simply wishful or fanciful thinking, not scientific conclusions following from actual data.

A second “counter-example” provided by Dr. Falk involved an experiment in which he described:

In just 30 hours their collection of RNA molecules had grown 100 million times bigger through a replication process carried out exclusively by evolved RNA molecules. So another dead-end pronouncement by Meyer was breached even while the book was in press."

Again, at first glance, given the choice of language, this sounds like a slam dunk against Dr. Meyer’s claims against RNA replication. I recall being struck that, if this is true, then it immediately debunks Dr. Meyer’s observations. But again, exploring further and reading Dr. Meyer’s surrejoinder, it appeared that Dr. Falk’s claim was, in this humble reader’s opinion, wildly exaggerated. When I read from Dr. Falk that RNA molecules grew through a “replication process” carried out by “evolved RNA molecules”, this sure sounded impressive. But what actually happened was that 1) a very specifically designed and sequenced RNA molecule catalyzed 2) a single chemical bond, thus “replicating” other RNA by 3) joining two pre-designed and already existent, essentially pre-staged, carefully “intelligently designed” sequenced RNA halves together.

While this may well have been an impressive experiment in itself, it doesn’t remotely come close to demonstrating what Dr. Falk apparantly wanted it to demonstrate. When I explored it in more depth, I realized it would be akin to showing off a monstrous, 1,000 piece exquisite completed lego set, and boldly bragging that my two-year old had built it… when in reality I had built the entire thing on my own but kept them separated in two halves only needing one last final step to snap the two halves together into one whole… then I set it up on the table, guided my two-year old’s hands carefully in place, and instructed him to push the two pieces together that would “complete” the lego set. Then boldly bragged that my two year old had, “by himself”, built that lego set. :roll_eyes:

Again, the experiment itself may well be very impressive in its own right, if limited in its claims. But the logical step from reading about an experiment combining two such pre-staged and practically-almost completed by design of the experimenter RNA halves into one by another carefully-designed RNA molecule that catalyzed a single chemical bond… to concluding that RNA can indeed “replicate” itself “exclusively by evolved RNA molecules”… strikes this reader as absolute desperation… this is a logical “leap” that is in the category of the kind Neil Armstrong made… One small step for science, one giant leap of logic…

Finally, I continually notice a striking tendency to beg the very question under consideration, and was especially struck by how Dr. Falk made this fallacy. The very question that Dr. Meyer was raising in his book was as to whether or not materialistic processes could, or could not, account for the introduction of large amounts of complex specified information in a system.

In response, Dr. Falk simply asserted:

There is no question that large amounts information have been created by materialistic forces over the past several hundred million years.

I’ll simply observe that, to someone like me who is asking if evolution is true, i.e., if information can indeed be created by materialistic forces, it is not an impressive “argument” to assert that evolution is true and therefore information is de facto proven able to be created by materialistic forces.

The entire approach looks to this observer far more like a desperate attempt to arrive at a foregone conclusion, using whatever crumbs of evidence and whatever desperate leaps of logic are necessary, to reject Intelligent Design and arrive at the pre-selected conclusion that “materialistic forces alone are sufficient,” than a genuinely scientific approach willing to follow the evidence wherever it leads, and only so far as it actually leads. Hence another plank in my continued skepticism.

For what it is worth.

Slightly paraphrasing the original:
 

There is a God-shaped void in everyone that only Christ can fill.

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A lot of what you wrote is outside my expertise to assess.

But on the above, in fact, “material forces alone are sufficient” is more than a pre-selected conclusion, it’s fundamental to what science is. (IIRC Falk talks about this a bit in “The Fool and the Heretic” when he says he doesn’t think what Todd Wood does is science.)

That’s because science is about making sense of what appears to be an inherently intelligible universe. Answering questions with “God did it” doesn’t really serve to make sense of the world. You need to be really really sure you can’t and can never find a material explanation before you invoke miracles, and when you do, you’ve left the scope of science.

Does this mean that science is inherently atheistic, or at best, deist? I don’t think so. In Him all things are held together. All things, even things that appear to conform to readily intelligible patterns, not just the rare occasions when those patterns are violated, involve God’s agency.

Being a theist doesn’t mean you should drop the scientific method of trying to explain observations materialistically. It just means 1) you believe regular events occur under dual causation, material and divine (ie that God creates and sustains an ordered, intelligible Universe) and 2) you believe there are some pattern-breaking events that are therefore outside the scope of science. For example, the Resurrection.

It also doesn’t mean you should focus on finding further examples of those pattern-breaking events, as if belief in God hinges on finding them. (ID/God of the Gaps.) For whatever reason God seems to be very sparing in his use of those events. Really although during Jesus’ incarnation there were many signs and wonders, as Paul noted, the spread of Christianity really in large part has been built on a single miracle: the Resurrection.

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Of course, the distinction between philosophical naturalism and methodological naturalism is useful here. In terms of absolute beginnings, though, the distinction may not be as easy to parse.

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Limiting science to only exploring marterial forces is a reasonable limitation.

concluding that, therefore, material forces must be an adequate or sufficient explanation for any particular phenomenon is logically fallacious. that is completely non sequitur.

i trust we dont take that approach to the resurrection… i would agree that science, as science, simply cannot explore non-material or supernatural forces, and could not speak further on the topic…

concluding, therefore, that strictly material forces can sufficiently explain the resurrection would be completely fallacious.

and thus my main and core question… is the creation of the first life one of these pattern-breaking events?

and can science tell us anything that could legitimately inform our conclusion on that topic?

Science tells us about atomic and molecular behavior, and my nephrectomy account tells us that God is sovereign over the timing and placing of those reactions (which I don’t think you doubt), kidney DNA in particular. So it is not a leap to imagine, even though we don’t know the particulars, that in some extreme providence, abiogenesis is also within God’s realm.

So you agree that science is limited to material or non-supernatural forces. Given this any explanation has to be limited to non-supernatural forces. So what is your problem? The supernatural explanation comes from the Bible. Which thankfully is not limited to non-supernatural forces.

Why is the Bible’s explanation not adequate for you? Why do you want confirmation from science? Which you will never get.

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this again is completely non sequitur, unless i misunderstand you. it should be obvious if i take your method and try to apply it to examining the resurrection of Jesus…

you would really say that “any explanation of the resurrection has to be limited to non-supernatural forces”?

I have just read Falk’s review (which I ought to have done earlier; forgive me). I don’t see that he’s doing that. He says, on spontaneous abiogenesis, “the jury is still out”. There is a difference between thinking materialism currently can’t explain something, and thinking it never will be able to. It’s wise to be careful about that distinction, because things in the first category have a habit of becoming explained, because scientific knowledge grows incrementally.

I have also just realised I’m getting two different threads mixed up, but hey, might as well run with it: Again, I’m not qualified to assess the RNA replication evidence. So I am willing to defer to those who are. Who says the jury is out? “Everyone doing the science.”

Having now read Falk’s review, I wonder if you’re getting two things - abiogenesis and evolution - mixed up here:

As I understand it, Falk’s point is that evolution is well established (the jury is not out on that one, in the eyes of those doing the science). Yes he just asserts it here rather than expounding the reasons to believe that, probably because he knows Meyer already accepts that. He’s really saying, if you believe evolution then you shouldn’t write off spontaneous abiogenesis as impossible, since both involve the creation of information by materialistic forces.

I think it’s pretty well accepted that the Resurrection would be a pattern-breaking affair. This is why being a Christian is a religious position, not a scientific one. Science, witnessing the Resurrection, would just say “I can’t explain that”, not try to deny that it had happened (as an atheist / philosophical materialist would be forced to).

Actually we could ask the question of whether or not it really happened, and we could try to examine the evidence for and against. That would be doing history, not science. People have done that and the evidence is quite good, as it happens. But still at the end of the day, I don’t think many people these days come to Christian faith purely by reasoned examination of the historical evidence. Mainly they come through a spiritual experience, perhaps supported by awareness of that evidence. So again, it’s a religious position, not a historical one.

Maybe I misunderstood you.

So science is or is not limited to non-supernatural forces?

Would "any explanation offered by science has to be limited to non-supernatural forces” be clearer?

I think just about everybody here knows you can’t apply science to the resurrection of Jesus. So how do we know Jesus and the other people recorded as being raised from the dead were actually raised from the dead? I do believe the Bible, and not science, tells me so.

Just like I believe God guided evolution in a manner that is not detectable by science.

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Just like the first apostles did?

Sure, we believe because of the testimony of those who witnessed actual data with their senses. But they concluded that a resurrection happened not because they read it in their bibles, but because of what their eyes saw, ears heard, and hands touched, no?

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Strange, but not immediately. So I guess just having the data (nice touch trying to get science in this) wasn’t enough.

not science per se, but certainly empirical data.

yes, thanks. And on that, my point is not that i have any need for science to “confirm” a miracle or divine intervention happened (which is indeed impossible.)

what i’m objecting to is the propensity of scientists, even Christian ones, to insist on finding (or insisting that there must be yet undiscovered) a materialistic explanation when exploring biological data (whether we might be talking about a resurrected corpse or abiogenesis).

my bottom line claim: science, even while acting well within its own lane, should yet be able to know when to refrain from offering an (materialistic) explanation.

and given that such divine intervention is possible and recognized by us Christians as something that has occasionally happened… science even as science should reasonably be able to conclude “there is no conceivable scientific explanation given everything we currently know about science.”

by its nature, any such scientific conclusion is tentative and open to correction by future discoveries or new data, but the conclusion “this is beyond the ability of any known or even conceivable materialistic cause” should indeed be a reasonable scientific conclusion. had there been a scientist there to examine a biblical resurrection, or some other bona fide miracle or divine intervention, i would hope and edpect that would be the conclusion he would so reach.

There is no comparison between any entirely natural process like abiogenesis, whether grounded by God or no, and supervention of the laws of nature. They are infinitely different categories.

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The example I’m about to cite isn’t biological, but it is illustrative. Copernicus and Gallileo. Although persecuted in their lifetimes, their persecutors, people who insisted both on reading the Bible as a science textbook, and insisting on their authority as arbiters of that, were eventually shown to be foolish on both fronts.

It seems to me, reasonable lessons to draw from that are, don’t read the Bible a science textbook, and, don’t be too quick to declare settled, any matter that is subject to future scientific examination.

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