Maybe there’s a book that you think epitomizes your view. Let me know and I’ll
give it a look…
OK It looks as if George does not want to look at my book.
Some alternatives. Symbiotic Planet by Lynn Margulis.
A New History of Life by Peter Ward and Joe Kirshvinck
A new exhibit at the American Natural History Museum on the Human BiomeMy apologies Roger, but when I saw the title (“DARWIN’S MYTH: Malthus, Ecology, and the Meaning of Life”), I’m just not that interested in trying to argue with what Darwin thought.
I’ll check out out these other recommendations of yours …
George B.
Ha! Roger … it’s a book I’m barely interested in.
So a book ABOUT A BOOK I’m not interested in … well, that would just melt me away.
George
Roger, I guess what interests me the most is the topic of
the history of the Church being confronted by new facts in natural history …
… and ADJUSTING to the new facts … instead of ignoring them.
While Flat Earth might be one of the more notorious - - it suffers from some
all sorts of controversies (on both sides of the Evangelical line) … but another
issue that virtually the same is the Church’s position on Antipodeans! … briefly
put, the antipodeans would be anyone living in Australia and New Zealand.
For centuries, Churchmen argued over whether there were any lands in the
Antipodes that humans could actually access. And so if humanity couldn’t
get to the antipodes… and the Bible didn’t even mention them … then they
can’t exist.
And then … suddenly … there they were… and it was full of people.
Christianity survived that crisis … it should be able to survive the crisis
Old Earth being an unavoidable reality.
George Brooks
Hope you are still in touch with this thread as those blog obligations can become rather tiring.
I always wonder how at that point of understanding endosymbiosis we missed the opportunity to understand the law of evolution as it should have been so blatantly obvious. You are surely far more well read on the subject but has no one ever considered it to be the word of God.? It is however important that one knows what the word of God is as it has been mistranslated by many who have missed out on its third person style.
If you love your neighbour like yourself you insist on your self, e.g. your independence. If you love thy neighbour like thyself you have population dynamics as your self steps outside your personal self. Thus you can lay down your self for the sake of others. The sacrifice of your selfishness is what makes this law an integrative function that leads to higher complexity, thus explains evolution as the extinction of the selfish traits as they lead to dead ends. Dawkins never understood evolution when he declared genes “selfish” in terms of self preservation as he only can see those genes who sacrificed their selfishness for the benefit of the greater self. The ones that put themselves above others have been deleted.
Thank you for your comments and your question.
I hope that Dr. Fugle will reply, but since he said above that he has ended his participation, I take him at his word and will try to answer it for you if I can.
I wonder if you are familiar with the book by Thomas S. Kuhn entitled The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1962, 1970. Kuhn looks at several scientific revolutions, esp. the ones of Copernicus and Einstein. The best part of this book is that he pointed out that scientific discoveries result in new answers to problems but new ways of thinking about the universe.
Kuhn made popular the concept of scientific model. Newton’s world view included absolute time and absolute space. Einstein changed that through E = mc squared to say that space and time are not absolute, but related and relational. This is a very way of looking at reality or MODEL of how our and God’s world is constructed. It goes from an absolute view or model to a relational view or model.
The problem with this is that people who are accustomed to the old view resist the new view, The problem with this is that people who are accustomed to the old view, which is almost all of us do not really understand the new view or model so do not make room for it in out thinking. Thus many if not most people including scientists are living in a Newtonian world, especially philosophically, even though theoretically we have moved into a Einsteinian one.
Now let us look at the Darwinian scientific revolution. Clearly many people have not accepted this world view of change. They prefer a worldview or model of reality that points to stability and continuity, which is why they reject the random nature of Darwinism. There is sound reason for this because evolution is not random as most people think of random (which is another issue.)
So we have one scientific revolution under attack, but now we have another scientific revolution called Ecology. It covers much of the same scientific ground as evolution, but has a different model of organic change. Thus evolutionary theory is under stress from two sources.
It is hard to adapt and admit one is mistaken when one has been assured that one has been right all this time and the critics are anti-science know-nothings. It is also hard to point out problems with settled science when others think that there must be something wrong with you as Margulis found out.
Dawkins has made Darwinism a self-serving ideology. He has no incentive to change his mind and has convinced others to follow him. Even those who should know better are loth to disagree with “settled science,” and embrace a new scientific revolution for the reasons stated above.
thanks for your comment. It is interesting that this law governs all existence, whether biological or not as even planetary constellations follow the same law.
Had not read all comments. Margulis work came indeed closest to understanding it, so following your comment I was surprised to read that “this is not the place to clarify all these things.”
Dr. Fugle,
I may be passed the point you are reading these replies, but your article was stimulating and encouraging. However, it did leave me with a question. You mention seeing God as being at work even while we see and explain the natural processes at play. With this mindset, how do I look at the mechanisms of cancer cells and pathogens that wreak havoc on life?
you maay have noticed that death of the material body is part of the work of God and if you see how those who live in God and have God liev in them deal with their own physical mortality you see God at work.
After all, if you look at a human body as its own universe you will learn that all the elements of this body work together as a functioning consortium of cellular elements you see that if some cells do not obey the rule to support each other but turn selfish that the whole universe collapses. the same lesson is given to you in the pathogens that you can see how the peaceful interaction can occur with one host and not another. The lesson is to learn to live peaceful alongside each other.
The general lesson to learn if you encounter suffering is not to pray to God to do something about it but to pray to God to give you the wisdom to do something about it. Only then you will see God at work. Those who expect reality to be changed according to their wishes obviously think they are God and desire a magic Genie or Santa’s big brother to arrange things for them. You be surprised to see how many subscribe to such a God, thinking he has to realize their utopian reality.
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