Why is teaching evolution important?

Faith & Science Conversation
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43

Thanks Caleb,

I agree it is important to teach and to discuss evolution. I think it important that we teach all the sciences, but we must also teach the limits to science.

Here in the UK far too many people think that science has no limits - that it can answer any question. However, it seems to me that science, no matter how well done, cannot answer a moral question. It can tell me that eating red meat, driving a big car and flying off to some distant place will contribute to climate change. However, science cannot tell me if I should do these things. That is a moral question that is beyond the limits of science.

I am quite willing to accept the idea of the ‘Big Bang’. However, why the Big Bang occurred, it seems to me, is also outside the limits of science.

In all this I have found the writings of Alister McGrath helpful.

Thanks, John

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44

Forgive me for being unclear. The context wasn’t scientific or science in general. Rather, it was whether or not evolution somehow displaces God as First Cause and Creator.

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45

If “nature did it” then, yes, God did not structure any DNA one nucleobase at a time. God invented a universe in which these things could operate on their own - - think in terms of free will, where mistakes are punished by death (failure to reproduce.
The “controlled by atheists” is another YEC meme. Many scientists have accepted deism / Christianity as inherent in the beauty they find when advancing the scope of scientific knowledge.
You are not YEC - YECs malignly connect science with atheism - complaining that information is controlled by atheists is a YEC meme.
Be well in Christ, my brother.

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46

The only time I recall God being mentioned in my volcanology class was on a field trip where we were hunting for a depression caused by the collapse of an underlying lava tube. The first guy to actually find it almost stepped off a twenty-foot drop, caught himself, looked at the massive size of what looked like an impact crater, and said, “Oh. My. God.”

Persactly. To those who have never studied it, cosmology may seem simple compared to evolution, but it is also complex and doesn’t include any mention of God, so it is a fitting parallel.

= - = + = - = † = - = + = - =

Unless you’re one of those ancient Hebrew scholars who purely on the basis of the Hebrew text concluded that the universe started out smaller than a grain of mustard (rabbi-speak for “inconceivably small”), expanded rapidly beyond human comprehension, is ancient also beyond human comprehension, was filled with fluid (“waters”) that thinned until God commanded light into existence and light shined, and that the Earth is uncountably ancient as well.

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47

Potent metaphor!

= - = + = - = † = - = + = - =

“Bring forth! Bring forth!”

= - = + = - = † = - = + = - =

More to the point, science is an activity of fallen man and therefore cannot see God. That’s a point that should be made to all Christians, that science is not an enemy of God or faith, it is just insufficient to lead us to God (though to some it will point to the way).

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48

I’d think that by now you’d have grasped that “allegory” is not the only alternative to “literal” – that point has been made often enough. You’re making the mistake here of mixing science and theology, which by the nature of the two makes the question nonsense.

It’s only a dilemma if you operate on the false foundation of mixing science and theology – and in this case, doing so very badly.

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49

That is the
Light the blue touch paper and retire immediately
methodology
Which still makes humanity a cosmic accident rather than a specific creation. If the system was only created by God then God had no control over exactly what happened or even what might be produced.

Granted, the most likely place for God is at the initiating change of DNA end, but that is not TOE and in TOE the control is Natural Selection. If the changes are made by God then Natural Selection is redundant. So if Natural Selection can be proved to exist then God cannot be controlling the changes. Fortunately I am not sure you can prove Natural Selection any more than you can prove God. It is an explanation, not an impiracle data.

Richard

50

I think others would agree that you would do well to digest and act upon @JerryN’s wise words which were posted earlier than what you just did here. Based on his words, it would appear that your gut biome is not working well (i.e, your digestion is incomplete ; - ).

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51

So evolution makes man a cosmic accident? Only if God is flying blind, rather than taking care that man WILL ascend via evolution. Please cut God some slack here.
For that matter, there are supposed to be 10 to the 24th power of planets orbiting stars in the universe. Ask yourself if we are the only (or only the latest) occurrence of a sentient species.

52

Forgive the nag, but TOE is a nonsensical idea. Evolution is fact. An explanatory theory does exist - Natural Selection. But all that amounts to is the truism that a good mutation outcompetes the original, until it assumes that mantel itself. Does God manually sprinkle pollen onto each wheat flower, or does God let bees do that?
Same idea - Does God need to manually craft DNA across billions of years go see to it that homo sapiens is the result, or does God observe a perfect Universe do what the bees do? Insisting on a strictly literal interpretation of at least some part of Genesis can confuse the issue.
Did I see someone denounce evolution as a pagan falsity? It is merely fact.
“So if Natural Selection can be proved to exist then God cannot be controlling the changes” Does not follow. “Cannot be controlling the changes” telescopes too many individual pieces to be precise.

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53

You might, and so might some others but you will see my answer.

It was an unfair set of questions designed to get a certain response.

So, no, my best response is to refuse to get drawn into scientific superiority.

God cannot control TOE as it is taught. If He is there then it is not what is being taught. it is not about care or anything else, it is about whether evolution is being directed or not. Natural selection does not direct, it just prunes and refines what is presented to it.

That has nothing to do with the price of fish. We are talking here, not what may or may occur elesewhere. But, put it this way, If TOE is correct the chances are any other version would not produce the same results. Might be similar, but it is almost certain there would not be a meteor cataclysm for starters.(Unless it was necessary)

I think you will find that the scientific community as a whole would disagree with you.

Only the process of change is a fact. Everything else is not, hence Theory of Evolution (TOE).

non sequitor. Pollination is not part of TOE

Basically, yes. otherwise it is not His specific creation

That is standing on the sideleine not specifically creationg. (How many more times?)

IOW Yio want me to be YEC, it would make your life easier.

Genesis 1 is there for a reason. You are trying to claim that it is not.

Science is not pagan. It is just atheistic, which is not the same thing.

So you keep saying, and i keep explaining why it isn’t

So now we see what you really are disputing

Unfortunately, at the risk of major criticism for saying so,

You have not understood the reasoning behind the statement or the principles governing Natural Selection that make the reasoning.

Natural Selection (personified) is not interested in shape, or form only whether it works (survives) or not. There is no reason, if Natural selection is the only control, for there not to be a fully sentient reptile instead of Humanity.

Richard

54

We are arguing past each other, by using non-intersecting definitions.
Be well in Christ.

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55

If I may.

Natural Selection is a very logical and plausible means of controling evolution if you are going to ignore God (Which science does, and must do). But it is an explanation, it is not a fact, or an empirical piece of data. It cannot be proven or even witnessed, or studied. Survival just is.

But Natural selection can only be true if there is a successful means of generating the changes it is regulating.

Without God doing it, there must be a method of generating successful changes for Natural Selection to temper. By Successful I mean changes that don’t just die because they can’t exist.

The evolutionary model of change is demonstrated by the Galapagos finches (et al) All of them, without exception, are changes within certain boundaries. That is within the given creatures. There is no proof that evolution can

  1. Grow a limb or a wing
  2. Change a gill into a lung
  3. Change an ectothermic system into an endothermic system
  4. And so on.

Given time is not a valid answer. It is avoiding the issue and claiming that you do not have to catalogue or identify the stages of change. They just happen. (That is pure faith, not science)
The fact that they happened does not prove evolution did it.(using the known methodology)

This is why I dispute the use of the word fact in association with TOE

Richard

56

Or, “designed”. From my thread about a Designer:

A Psalm of the Designer

Evolution declares the glory of God,
and the chromosomes in cells proclaim His handiwork!
Day to day pours out research,
and night to night reveals studies.
They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them,
yet their message has gone out to the whole earth,
and their words to the ends of the world.
He has set a tent for DNA,
which sends its messengers out from its chamber
like strong men they run their course with joy.
Its reach is from the birth of the Earth,
its circuit all around it,
and there is no life apart from that reach. selah

O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory within the cell.
When I look at all life, the work of your fingers,
the nucleus and the mitochondria§, which you have set in place –
What is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?
You have made them a little lower than the angels
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
you put everything under their feet:
all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild,
*the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, *
all that swim the paths of the seas.
Oh Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

§ or, “the plants and all animals”

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57

It has nothing to do with scientific superiority – it has to do with the truth that comes from reality. If there is any superiority involved, it might be the scientists, the scientifically literate as well as theologians and the theologically literate who have superior understandings? Might there be an outside chance (:slightly_smiling_face:) that you are declaring that you understand scientific and theological reality better than the professionals in both fields and everyone else and that your understanding is superior, refusing any legitimate correction and feedback?

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58

If my fellow university student was correct, then God only needed to intervene seven times in the evolutionary process in order to get humans. I don’t remember his argument for that, just that it was very convincing to a lot of us.

In which case evolution can be “blind” but God could end up with us.

And from a bit of a mystical point of view, given that God the Son was going to become incarnate, evolution would necessarily bend towards the form in which He was to become flesh.

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59

“evolution would necessarily bend towards the form in which He was to become flesh.”
Thank you for praises past, now forgive the puppy that bites back. This sounds like the puddle marveling at the pot hole providentially crafted to fit the puddle’s shape.
Jesus took the working form that evolved with a brain large enough, and features appropriate for technical innovation - bilateral symmetry, multi-hinged appendages with hands at the ends, air breathing, on a planet rich with available ores. And of course more than these few items.
We have no means to discover that other sentient species exist or whether the Son of God has come to them.
I is a great peril to allude to one’s superior knowledge of God’s intent (hello, Richard G.)
Enjoying your presence!

61

TOE is a non-sequitur.
Denying a fact based on theology never works.

62

It’s of great advantage to simply read of it though.

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:2

63

I also just noticed something else to that point…

Authorship says quite a bit about intent, wouldn’t you say?

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