What is Evolution?
by Ted Slater on 01/30/2009 at 3:00 PM
Feb. 12 is "Darwin Day," the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birthday. It seemed the perfect time to roll out a four-part series exploring the theory of evolution, contrasting it with the biblical account of creation.
Last week we published "Now a Creationist" (we blogged about it as well), a confessional of sorts from a scientist with a Ph.D. in Chemistry who came to reject evolution in favor of biblical creation.
Today we published another conversation-starting article by Dr. Jonathan Sarfati. "What is Evolution?" explains that the General Theory of Evolution (GTE) isn't merely about change, but the direction of that change:
The main scientific objection to the GTE is not that changes occur through time, and neither is it about the size of the change (so we would discourage use of the terms micro- and macro-evolution). The key issue is the type of change required -- to change microbes into men requires changes that increase the genetic information content.
Indeed, biblical creation proposes that creatures have experienced genetic change through the millennia. The species are not "fixed," as some evolutionists mischaracterize creationists as saying.
In the blog about the first article in this series, we had some great questions and some great discussion. I look forward to more of the same here.
1. Alison said the following at 3:19 PM on Jan 30:
I'm sure it was mentioned in the huge comment list from the previous blog, but here, Dr. Sarfati avoids the geological evidence that disputes YEC, and the dinosaur bones abundant enough to create countless museums worldwide. Can he compile his argument for that in the upcoming articles? Thus far, I find too many topics unaddressed.
Also, the statement, "without any need for an intelligent designer" is (unintentionally, I'm sure) disrespectful to theistic evolutionists.
2. Samantha said the following at 3:58 PM on Jan 30:
I've always wondered how the finches explained or proved evolution. Can some one explain this?
3. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. said the following at 5:13 PM on Jan 30:
Alison, if you want an intelligent debate, then do your part by actually reading what I wrote. Far too many critics of my previous article clearly hadn't read it, and at least one refused to read it before spruiking forth with invective against it (sourced from christophobic sites).
"Now a creationist" discussed some geological issues, as well as explained the baneful effect of trying to marry evolution with the Bible.
4. Ted Slater said the following at 6:48 PM on Jan 30:
Dr. Sarfati -- while doing some research on "climate change," I came across some data that correlated CO2 levels and temperatures through the millennia.
Using Vostok Ice-Core data, certain scientists reported that the earth has experienced predictable and natural cycles of heating and cooling ... for 100s of thousands of years.
I don't know how these results were determined, how they came to those figures. Their estimates may be based on either invalid data or on illegitimate calculations.
If they are accurate, then that might be consistent with the "gap" theory some have -- that there's a lengthy gap of time between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, that God created the heavens and the earth and over time it became without form and void. No life existed during this gap; only geologic structures cycling through seasons.
Understand that I'm not playing a game of "gotcha" with you. I'm trying to reconcile this ice core data reported by scientists with the true, biblical account of creation.
5. Chris said the following at 7:06 PM on Jan 30:
If we're going to talk about theories and such, could someone please explain to me in what way creationism/YEC/theistic evolution is falsifiable?
I would seriously like to know.
6. Matthew said the following at 7:43 PM on Jan 30:
Samantha,
The finches are an example of evolution & natural selection because as the finches' food source changed, random changes in beak size and shape were selected such that the finches evolved the beaks that they needed. It's a fairly simple example and no creationist would dispute (nor would any evolutionist call it proof), but it helped to explain and express a radical concept at the time that is now considered one of the tenets of modern biology.
7. Philip said the following at 8:10 PM on Jan 30:
Some questions:
1. How do you define the information of genetic code? I found a reference using Shannon information for an aspect of what an organism does in a link from the Q&A Jonathan referenced in the earlier comments, but I don't see how it can be extended to a general definition. Another link says the Shannon information of the genetic code itself is not suitable.
2. How do you know genetic information can't be increased by mutations?
3. If there are mutations that decrease information, why can't the reverse mutations occur and so increase it?
8. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. said the following at 8:11 PM on Jan 30:
Mr Slater:
Meteorologist Mike Oard is the expert on the ice age, mammoths, ice cores etc. See for example Do Greenland ice cores show over one hundred thousand years of annual layers? and Ice cores vs the Flood. He points out:
"In my articles on ice cores, I reinterpreted the annual layers in the middle and lower portions of the GISP2 core as subannual layers, based on a Flood–Ice Age model, incorporating warm oceans, cooling continents and high levels of atmospheric particulates from volcanic activity. Thus, my starting assumptions assume significant climate instability post-Flood and rapid accumulation of snow and ice. In this scenario, annual ice layers would be on the order of metres.
"On the other hand, uniformitarians start with an assumption of great age, generally stable conditions and Milankovitch orbital cycles to create ice ages. As a result, uniformitarians are looking for very thin annual layers on the order of centimetres and even millimetres near the bottom of the ice sheet.
"The resulting difference in age-interpretation is a result of the starting paradigm; the data is the same and does not speak for itself. What we believe colours what we see."
The Gap (ruin-reconstruction) theory imagines a catastrophic judgement between Gen. 1:1 and 1:2. It has no basis in the Hebrew, and has the problem of death before the Fall. It is an ad hoc eisegesis to try to fit millions of years with the Bible. Yet it solves nothing geologically, since its "Lucifer's Flood" is different from the alleged uniformitarian ice age cycles. See also What about gap theories? from The Creation Answers Book .
9. Alex said the following at 9:40 PM on Jan 30:
As a theistic evolutionist, I appreciate the opportunity to have this debate with other Christians. I did have some quibbles with the article, however.
I think that equating the "General Theory of Evolution" with the mechanisms of evolution is misleading; the operative words in that phrase are "general theory," not "evolution." The scientific definition of evolution remains consistent - changes in the frequency of alleles in a population over time. If you believe that genetic variations lead to some individuals having greater reproductive success, and that success leads to a change in the genetic makeup of a population over time, then you believe in evolution. If you believe in speciation , you believe in evolution. You can argue that these forces can't explain the origins of life on the planet, but it's unfair to repackage them as something separate from evolution when they are, in fact, evolution's central principles.
I also disagree with the characterization that all evolution necessarily involves a "loss of information." There are a couple different ways that organisms can gain genetic material through mutation - the first and most obvious is gene duplication, where an extra copy of some or all of the genome appears. This extra material can then evolve different functions from the original DNA. The second is the evolution of new "switches" for existing genes, so that the same protein can be used in different parts of the body, in different times and for different functions. These cis-regulatory elements, or CREs, are often only 3-5 base pairs long and can evolve through mutation of existing genetic materials. Also, it's tricky to make definitive judgments about whether there is "loss" or "gain" of information - the "loss" of a trait, like flight ability for penguins, might just as easily be seen as the "gain" of an adaptation to their environment - fins for swimming.
Thirdly, I disagree with the characterization of Darwin that I see in a lot of creationist or pro-creationist writing. Darwin was the innovator of evolutionary theory, but his writings are not the standard to which all evolutionary biologists must conform. The theory has been tested, examined and modified over time, like all scientific theories should be. Just because Darwin was wrong about something doesn't make evolution wrong. And similarly, just because Darwin was an atheist doesn't entail that all evolutionists must be as well. Some famous doctors have become atheists because of what they've observed in their work - I can be grateful for their research and accomplishments while still rejecting their religious conclusions.
10. Matthew said the following at 10:25 PM on Jan 30:
Re-posting this because I think it accidentally got lost earlier:
Dr. Sarfati advances some inaccuracies about the nature of information, mutation, and evolution. He speaks as if all genes are only made up of useful DNA and mutations always change useful letters into non-useful ones. He asserts that "information-gaining" mutations have never occurred. This is simply not true! One example is here. Other evidence can be found at www.talkorigins.org.
Less than 2% of our genome is of coding DNA; all the rest is a rich source of evolutionary novelty (this could be one reason why natural selection "preserves" junk DNA, another possibility is that it's harder to lose it once it's been gained.) Many mutations "expand" the information in a protein or gene by creating new introns or exons, putting in a coding codon where a stop codon would be, etc. etc.) Genetic duplication (some examples are here) is another easy way of getting more information instantly, and many of the evolutionary pathways that we've surmised are based on duplication of very similar genes (like the clotting factor pathway.) The human immune system uses randomization and mutation every day to generate "new" and useful information. There are other mechanisms for this, like scaffolding and combinations, explained here These sorts of expanding mutations have the capacity not only to explain how "new" information can be generated, but also how "old" information can be rearranged to generate an incredible amount of diversity.
The question of new mutations being "information-gaining" or not is silly when you look at what these genes actually do. For example, certain patterning genes control bone length in an overlapping way-- if there's a mutation that makes the bone longer, is that a "gain" of information? If there's a mutation that makes the bone shorter, is that a "loss" of information? If a mutation makes you grow an extra finger, is that a gain or loss? Playing around with these terms really isn't helpful and doesn't do anything to disprove evolution.
11. Samantha said the following at 11:41 PM on Jan 30:
Matthew (6), do you mean the food sources changed over time? Over the finches just had different beaks and ate different things?
12. Naomi said the following at 6:49 AM on Jan 31:
Again, like I said in the previous blog post, the theory of evolution for the origin of our species "simply" would need:
These alone are enough reasons for scientists to rethink the evolution theory.
If you can believe that all these specific conditions CAN occur at the same time for one species to transform into another species, why can't you believe that our species was formed because of the simple word of the Creator of the Universe?
I think it takes more faith to believe in evolution than in the Biblical account.
I hope that if people consider the evolution theory, then try to be objective at least in considering the Biblical account.
13. Samaria said the following at 9:35 AM on Jan 31:
I read the article this time, Mr. Sarfati. Four times, in fact, just so that I could fully grasp and understand what you were saying in the article.
From what I've read from you and other YECers, I came to the conclusion that YECers desperately want to accept evolution, but can't because it'd totally destroy their faith. One of the things that pointed me toward this conclusion is the fact that you rely so heavily on speciation to prove your point - which is an " evolutionary process by which new biological species arise"* - and the knowledge that for all of their hemming and hawing, creationists depend so much on evolutionary processes to explain creationism. And, yes, creationism is supposed to be that "species are described as 'fixed' in the sense that they are believed not to change their form, or appearance, through time."
Because then, if that isn't the case, it isn't really creationism at all. It's evolution without all of the pieces in place. So many YECers point out that we (theistic) evolutionists believe that what God created wasn't perfect because they had to evolve continually to fit new environments, and yet with your argument, Mr. Sarfati, you are essentially saying the same thing!
It's interesting, to say the least. I'll leave all of the scientific arguments to the others, since they know tons more than I do, but I had to put my $0.02 in.
With love in Christ,
Samaria
*Wikipedia, "Speciation"
14. Cam Ross said the following at 10:01 AM on Jan 31:
Dr. Sarfati,
What do you mean exactly by 'specified complexity' in regard to genetic information?
I know that genomic size and gene count do not necessarily correspond with 'complexity' in the organism. This allows the rice plant to have ~50,000 genes, while humans have ~25,000, or that human genome 'length' is a little less than 2 metres while the water lily's genome would stretch about 100 metres. My point is that complexity is more derived from expression and implementation of DNA, not just the amount of base pairs.
Also, in regards to producing new information, gene duplication can occur by a variety of mechanisms and at various scales, from individual genes to blocks of genes to individual chromosomes to entire genomes. This would directly relate to increased information potential in mitotic organisms, also, there is symbiosis, taking the information of another simple organism and combining.
Some types of duplication also occur through meiosis.
The human genome is about 20-30 percent redundant, having multiple copies of the same gene. Many organisms, especially plants, have 10-20 percent more redundancy than that.
I was wondering what you thought of these points. How they may or may not explain potential for increasing information.
Thank you
15. Kimberly E said the following at 10:31 AM on Jan 31:
Matthew #6,
...and yet a finch is still a finch.
There was no additional information needed, there were no finches changing into duck billed platypuses or any other sweeping inter-species changes going on...just variations within the established parameters of what a bird is.
Creationists do not deny changes within a species. We deny changes from one species into another, in keeping with genetics, the fossil record, and basic common sense. The only people who claim creationist deny changes in a species are those who are trying to dispute creationism with false information.
Whenever mutations occur within nature we call them "Birth defects"...not progress, and not evolution. Someone conceived with an extra chromosome is usually perceived as being a mistake by this world we live in, and the medical community, encourages the mother to abort.
And as for your comment in #1 regarding dinosaur bones, no creationist denies dinosaurs (they are mentioned in the Bible, particularly in the book of Job). We deny they lived millions of years before humans. How else do you explain all of the legends of old describing "dragons" or great beasts, and cave drawings showing dinosaurs long before the first dinosaur fossil was found in the 1800s? Additionally I have 5 different books that go into great detail about the geologic record and it's support of a young earth. Chapter 9 in the original version of Darwin's origin of species is called "The Problem with the Fossil Record" in which he laments the fact that he has no proof of his inter-species adaptations...but assumes we'll find some someday. This chapter has been removed from later additions of the book because after 150 years, we still don't have the proof he was hoping for (Censorship anyone?).
As a former evolutionist myself, now when I look at the evidence for and against various theories of origins the only logical explanation to the mental gymnastics most die hard evolutionists go through is pride. It's what kept the established state church believing in the idea that the heavenly bodies revolved around the earth as the unsaved scientists taught (despite what the Bible says) for centuries, and it's what kept them believing the earth was flat like the ungodly scientists of the day believed (despite what the Bible says). I think, should the Lord tarry, evolution and theistic evolution will be looked upon as we now look at the erroneous beliefs of a flat earth and a geocentric solar system.
16. Melissa S. said the following at 11:09 AM on Jan 31:
Philip #7-
I haven't read tomes on mutation or anything but what I do know about mutation is that they almost always lead to a loss of information, deformity, or death, when occurring naturally or when they are "forced" in a laboratory.
This is on the authority of a few books and college professors, including the one who said that mutation wasn't very important for macro-evolution because mutations almost always lead to loss of information, death, etc, in all observed cases, and then the next day turned around and said that mutation is one of the major driving forces between macro-evolution. I'm not sure if he or anyone else actually realized what he was saying but I had a hard time not laughing out loud for several minutes.
Anyway, someone is going to have to do a lot of explaining to make me understand how something that generally makes things worse (mutations)can suddenly and erratically become a positive force.
17. Philip said the following at 11:09 AM on Jan 31:
Further to my question about why mutations can't increase information: I assume there is no particular reason why mutations that confer increased complexity with survival advantage can't be passed on, so the issue is presumably about whether such mutations can exist. Some mutations involve loss of gene expression, and I'm guessing others do the reverse, and there's duplication of course.
However the type of mutation that seems most relevant to discussion is the one that changes a gene slightly such that it does something different. Why is it that such mutations cannot occur when the result is an increase in complexity? And again, if there are such mutations that decrease complexity, why couldn't their reverses occur?
18. Matthew said the following at 11:55 AM on Jan 31:
#11 Samantha,
As food sources changed, the beaks that were best at utilizing those food sources. Again, it is not cold hard proof for "goo-to-you" evolution by any stretch of the imagination, but it's the principle that changes in the environment naturally select the results of random mutation and assortment that's important. If it can happen in a beak, it can happen in a wing, it can happen in a liver, it can happen in a claw... and add it up after enough time, and you've got evolution.
19. Matthew said the following at 12:00 PM on Jan 31:
#15 Kimberly E,
As I mentioned before, the finch beaks are more illustrative of the principles of evolution. Evidence for the historical process of evolution as understood by the modern scientific consensus comes more from evidence like Human Chromosome #2, which looks like it was fused together from two ape chromosomes (including centromeres and telomeres, which are non-coding functional pieces that are only found in the center and at the end of chromosomes.)
20. Craig M. said the following at 12:38 PM on Jan 31:
Wow, more of this, huh?
No one feels more barely-restrained glee than myself when the Richard Dawkins crowd oversteps from science into Metaphysics and then gets shot down as the science advances ("Piltdown Man", the theistic implications of the big bang, etc.). Of course, the "materialist evolution" crowd is prone to that sort of thing because they're over-eager to see everything through their chosen lens. And that's true because they've made their science slave to their metaphysical ideology. A bad place to start for anyone--just saying.
From the last post, everyone knows I'm a theistic evolutionist. I have no problem with the young earth people--we tend to agree about everything else. We're both pro-life, we both believe in the divinity and humanity of Christ and in the necessity of his redemptive sacrifice, we would all affirm every tenet of the Nicene Creed. My one and only issue with young earth creationism is that I just don't think there's any way it's true.
I think it's a harmless little debate as long as we're not questioning each others' faith. I just wish the tone of some--not all--of the young earth people would acknowledge that millions and millions of faithful and orthodox Christians don't agree with them, and that doesn't make them heretical. The Anglican (distinct from Episcopal) and Catholic churches are probably the two largest (and fastest growing) worldwide Christian communions, and both acknowledge the reality of evolution without in any way compromising their witness. C.S. Lewis was the best Christian apologist of the 20th century, and he didn't believe in a literal interpretation of early Genesis (though he did enjoy seeing the materialist evolutionists put their foot in it sometimes, as I do). Using words like "Christophobic" to describe the scientific literature relied upon by such believers is a really unfortunate and uncharitable lowering of the standards of discourse. It's also an example of argumentation by ostracism, which always strikes me as suspect.
As Ted notes, by the way, a clear-eyed and unprejudiced view of science can be a real weapon in the "culture wars." The strongest indication that global warming alarmism is just that--alarmism--is the universally accepted fact (amongst geologists) that we are living in a geologically short time period of about 10,000 years (the Holocene) between two lengthy ice ages.
21. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. said the following at 4:00 PM on Jan 31:
Samaria, it's "Dr Sarfati" to you if you want to use titles, and yes it was an earned science doctorate from a secular uni.
Wikipedia is hardly a reliable source, given that anyone can edit (in theory).
Who says that "fixity of species" is a creationist concept? It is a straw man that evolutionary propagandists love. The Bible talks about kinds, while "species" is a man-made term, which has a variety of meanings. So while speciation is something claimed as an evolutionary concept, it is also an important part of the biblical creation model, since it takes into account the Fall and the Flood. I.e., God created things perfect, but Adam's sin ruined this perfection, so creatures now must adapt to hostile environments.
"Love in Christ" sounds oh-so-pious, but the real (biblical) Christ warned of false ones; your "Christ" who made mistakes is a false Christ.
Cam Ross: thanks to the ENCODE project, we now know that the genome must be at least 93% transcribed, not just 3% as the junk DNA proponents thought. So-called "junk DNA" turns out to be actively transcribed, e.g. to regulatory RNA molecules which are "meta-information" or information about information.
22. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. said the following at 4:22 PM on Jan 31:
Fine Alex (#9), if evolution means "changes in the frequency of alleles in a population over time" then we are all evolutionists. But then the same people who use that dishonest bait-and-switch or equivocation (that I refuted in my article) usually rail against creationists for threatening evolutionary teachings!
Matthew (#10), like Samaria, is another example of the anti-Christian nature of evolution, since both of them go to misotheistic sources to try to attack biblical creation. And they both misrepresent what I said.
I didn't say that an information increase could never occur, but that the touted "proofs" of evolution (i.e. variation and natural selection) do not involve such. And for evolution from goo to you via the zoo to have occurred, information increases must have been frequent, not the handful of debatable examples.
These evolutionary propagandists also act as if I've never heard of arguments not mentioned in a necessarily brief article. E.g. we have:
Lenski's citrate-eating bacteria likely suffered a loss of control over the manufacture of citrate transporter. This is like a car alarm where the off-switch is permanently jammed, which might have a selective advantage in scaring some thieves.
Do new functions arise by gene duplication?
Why B Cell Hypermutation in the immune system is NOT an analogy for neo-Darwinian evolution.
It is just crass to point to examples of loss of flight or sight as proofs of goo-to-you evolution and against biblical creation model which also includes the Fall.
23. Matthew said the following at 5:19 PM on Jan 31:
Melissa S. #16,
You're right-- in general, mutations make things worse or nonfunctional. Organisms and populations with bad mutations tend to be selected out. But the mutations that make things better tend to get selected in. Let me give you an example-- are you familiar with how the immune system works?
In a nutshell, bacterial/viral antigens are presented to B lymphocytes (white blood cells that make antibodies) by other cells. The B lymphocytes then express a protein that increases the mutation rate in the antibody-forming genes 1000-fold and start cranking out antibodies.
Now, there are millions of B lymphocytes, and each one that is kicked into high gear by the antigen-presenting process makes identical antibodies. But each B lymphocyte also tests its antibodies against the antigen that is made, and so the B lymphocytes that make the right kind of antibodies are given signals to divide and keep making more. The B lymphocytes making bad antibodies (and there are still thousands of them) do not receive this signal and die.
In this process, millions of mutations occur. Most of them are harmful, and all of them generate "new" information via gene arrangement and mutation (that is, they generate a unique antibody that has never been generated before in the body.) But the harmful ones are naturally selected out, and the positive ones are selected in.
This same phenomenon of mutation (and gene rearrangement and expansion and deletion and duplication etc. etc.) occurs with populations of organisms over long periods of time. With the appropriate changes of circumstances (including, I believe, the providential plan of God), you can see how different traits and species can evolve over time.
Does that at least make sense, even if you don't agree with the conclusions about "macro"evolution?
24. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. said the following at 5:41 PM on Jan 31:
Craig M (#20), Matthew did cite Christophobic sources—this is a question of fact. And he does allow circumstantial "scientific" evidence to trump the clear biblical teaching of man's special creation.
For instance, about that boring old chromosome fusion claim, that arrangement is unique to humans, but fusion of pre-existing chromosomes would have reduced fertility. Geneticist David DeWitt points out in Chimp genome sequence very different from man:
"With no known selective advantage it is difficult to see how this fusion would become exclusively characteristic of man. Chromosome fusions can occur but are particularly messy and typically thought to reduce reproductive success due to the resulting monosomy and trisomy in the zygotes produced by the mating of a normal genotype and an individual with the fused chromosomes. Many of these types of chromosomal defects are associated with mental retardation. The chance of the same chromosome fusion occurring in two individuals at the same time in the same place such that they just happened to mate with one another to produce viable male and female offspring stretches credulity to breaking point. Moreover, there are 9 pericentric inversions (a stretch of nucleotides in a chromosome that appears to have been spliced out and reinserted in the reverse order)."
Some evolutionary researchers pointed out:
"Because the fused chromosome is unique to humans and is fixed, the fusion must have occurred after the human–chimpanzee split, but before modern humans spread around the world, that is, between 6 and 1 million years ago. … This gross karyotypic change may have helped to reinforce reproductive barriers between early Homo sapiens and other species, as the F1 offspring would have had reduced fertility because of the risk of unbalanced segregation of chromosomes during meiosis." [Fan, Y. et al. "Fusion site in 2q13-2q14.1 and paralogous regions on other human chromosomes", Genome Research 12:1651–1662, 2002.]
As for truth by majority decree in churches, why cite the Anglican one that has homosexual and atheistic bishops and a pr-Sharia archbishop? We should also use what G.K. Chesterton (apologist and Darwin critic) called the "democracy of the dead". The vast majority of Church Fathers and all Reformers accepted Genesis as written. This is because they accepted the authority of the biblical text over man-made theories.
25. Craig M. said the following at 9:14 PM on Jan 31:
Jonathan--honestly, at this point, I'm barely interested. I think your perspective is rejected by 98% of devout Christians who are scientists, let alone the scientific community in general. Ten minutes on Google can demonstrate that. I think your explanations for really obvious flaws in your system (starlight, ice layers, plate tectonics...) are transparently flawed, and would never be embraced by anyone if he weren't desperately trying to find a way to make the world be 6,000 years old. I think your non-sequitur arguments are absurd--of course most church fathers and reformers believed in special creation, as they essentially all lived before the advent of the scientific method, the discovery of the genome, and modern (or even pre-modern) physics. Far more important, I think that your ad hominem attacks on people who are, as far as I can see, pretty reasonably respectful and measured in their comments, are disgraceful. I can't imagine another context in which Boundless would allow someone to accuse another poster who professes Christ of believing in a "false Jesus" solely on the basis of disagreement about a non-creedal issue. I think your attitude of arrogance and impatience towards anyone who disagrees with you ("goo to you evolutionists", as though your adversaries, and not you, are the ones with the theory rejected by over 99% of scientists) , and your mockery of entire communities of Christian faith (how many faithful Anglicans who share their church's perspective are there? I personally know a lot...) undermines any credibility that you might otherwise have on this issue.
I have no serious dispute per se with anyone who strongly believes in young earth creationism though. I see this as a perfect example of the sort of issue that requires us all to indulge our weaker brothers and sisters as Paul instructs. Young earth creationists should see those of us hobbling along in our faith on the wounded limb of scientific intellectualism, try to understand our need for what we see as "rationality", be grateful to God that we have not embraced materialism, and shore us up with reminders of the beliefs we have in common rather than trying to force a choice between our faith and our minds. And we theistic evolutionists should try to respect the young earth folks' commitment to biblical literalism, admire and seek to imitate them for their absolute devotion to God, and encourage them in our mutual beliefs about Christ.
I probably haven't exemplified that ideal so well myself throughout all these posts. I do genuinely admire the commitment of the young earth folks. But I have equal respect for the Christians on this board who have reconciled their honest understanding about science with their faith in Christ and now believe that both evolution and Christianity are true.
26. Philip said the following at 9:41 PM on Jan 31:
So information increasing mutations do occur, you just don't think they occur frequently enough. Now we get into my field of expertise: statistics. How do you get a precise, accurate idea of how often they do occur (avoiding problems like self-selection bias) and how often they would need to occur for evolution to work?
Also how can you be sure information increasing mutations are too rare if you can't even formally define information?
27. .j said the following at 11:10 PM on Jan 31:
@ 25 Craig. Agreed. I always figured if I got up to heaven and God was like "yeah...I did it through theistic evolution. We're watching the whole video tonight." I wouldn't scowl at him and go pout outside the pearly gates for a couple thousand years. And hopefully vice versa for others. While I believe in taking Genesis literally, I also feel it's worthwhile to continue (objectively) investigating the universe around us. There are apparent hiccups on both sides of the discussion, but eventually it'll "all come out in the wash" as they say. :)
Truthfully, I've shied away from reading these articles simply based off of the way Dr. Sarfati has handled himself in the comment area. The majority of his responses have been snippy and surprisingly immature. Although, if I'm understanding things correctly, I feel the "false Christ" statement was made in regards to a couple of the comments Samaria has made while flitting in and out of the comment area on her "someday you'll all ascend to my level" campaign (seriously -- check yourself o__o), and not merely on the stance of theistic evolution.
28. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. said the following at 11:46 PM on Jan 31:
Excuse me, Chris M. -- Samaria stated explicitly that Christ made mistakes, such as accepting Genesis as history. That is what I meant by a false Christ, not believing in evolution or long ages. It is certainly a creedal issue that Jesus is "true God of true God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made ..." Try not to misrepresent my arguments in future.
Evidently you would have had a lot of problems with Jesus as well, since he frequently used challenge-riposte.
Note that I don’t claim that one can’t be a Christian and a long-ager. I leave that straw man to my opponents. Many people are saved despite ‘blessed inconsistency’—there is no hint in the Bible that the ability to hold mutually contrary thoughts in the same skull is an unforgivable sin.
Unfortunately, people like Samaria are being more consistent: since Jesus accepted Genesis as history, and this contradicts evolution, then if evolution were true, then Jesus would be mistaken.
Highly regarded 20th century Old Testament scholar E.J. Young said:
‘the man who says “I believe that Genesis purports to be a historical account, but I do not believe that account” is a far better interpreter of the Bible than the man who says, “I believe that Genesis is profoundly true, but it is poetry.”’
The point of citing the Fathers and Reformers is to show how people understood the text, rather than try to fit the text into current fads.
The "goo-to-you" phrase was to outline the real scientific issue against the bait-and-switchers.
The creation/evolution debate is finally about which authority we believe: God's written Word or man's fallible "science", which interprets data according to materialistic dogma as Lewontin admitted. Of course, as my articles show, real science, as opposed to materialism-infested "science", supports the Bible.
29. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. said the following at 12:01 AM on Feb 1:
Craig M (#20), we agree about global warm-mongering, it seems. Yet we are apparently in a minority ...
In Australia we are fortunate to have journalist Andrew Bolt (not even a Christian) talking common sense about it and quite a lot of other things.
E.g. he shows that green zealotry has driven jobs out of California and caused unemployment to double, made energy twice as expensive, and CA is facing $40b deficit. Unfortunately Australia recently elected equally fanatical green zeolots.
Mr Bolt also has a column about something raised in The Great Global Warming Swindle: that even taking uniformitarianism, the temperature increases preceded the CO2 increases, so Gore reversed cause and effect (and made millions out of it).
30. Alison said the following at 8:15 AM on Feb 1:
@Dr. Sarfati, (#3)
I did read your posts. I was, clearly too politely, trying to assert that you're ignoring real scientific evidence--that you're picking and choosing your forays into science.
I've read your sources. They are unscientific. No one who has studied science would give your sources any sort of respect unless they were searching for "truth" with the end already in mind, i.e. "don't confuse me with the facts--my mind is made up!"
I have far more respect with YECers who say, "I believe this because I take the Bible literally," than I do for people who manipulate and distort for the sake of reinforcing their insecurities. I believe this is why you sometimes treat people disrespectfully in the comments section here--you're unable to budge from your viewpoint, so everyone else is wrong. Where is your Christ-driven humbleness to respect others' viewpoints?
If you're going to battle evolution as a Christian, you're going to be unsuccessful using science to do so.
Why does science need to be the trump card when you really don't respect it? (Actions speak louder than the word-symbols like "PhD" behind your name.) If you believe it because you want to take it literally, just say so. We are Christ-followers too, we can respect that a lot more. God is far bigger than anything--we don't need to bow down to science to acknowledge God. Theistic evolutionists believe in evolution because it makes sense with the beauty and brains God left us to get to know Him more. We still believe God is the be-all-end-all of everything.
31. Matthew said the following at 1:00 PM on Feb 1:
Dr. Sarfati, you asserted in your article that evolution as we know it "requires changes that increase the genetic information content." You talked in your article about how all mutation and natural selection does is sort and lose information. Several people here suggested ways that the sorting processes in genetics made the question of "gaining" or "losing" information irrelevant. We've made it very clear how these processes can increase complexity, gain new functions, and explain a lot about evolution. But you've dismissed them all with a couple of links back to your site without dealing with the arguments being made.
Regarding the specific links-- the E. coli response is entirely unscientific. The idea that the bacterial citrate transporter just got disregulated is entirely conjecture; the fact of the matter is that E. coli had been previously unable to metabolize citrate in oxygenated conditions, and now they are able to. This is a huge functional leap for the cells in the conditions that they are in and an example of a dramatic evolutionary change taking place to make a species more fit.
The main argument of the gene duplication article you linked to is thus: if gene duplication is really the major process of evolution, then more complex species ought to have more genes total. This is fairly weak, especially considering that "complexity" is quite a fluid term-- toads can't think, but humans can't secrete a poison that we can spit out of our eyes. In addition, it is not even necessarily true that gene duplication would make more complex organisms have numerically larger genomes because so much of the genome is involved in other functions besides simply coding that we just don't know what it all does. Selective pressure is clearly harder on different species, and the need to rely on gene duplication and mutation has obviously been different over the eons.
As far as human chromosome #2 goes, you cannot deny that the chromosome, telomeres and all, looks like a fusion event took place. Besides, the same fusion doesn't have to take place twice at the same time (although given the millions of years in which it could have happened, that's not an entirely unreasonable possibility.) It only has to take place once and make the organism more fit.
Finally, the B cell analogy is just that: an analogy. The vast majority of mutations are harmful, and those B cells die. But the ones that are helpful are selected and propagate. Clearly it's not a perfect analogy, but it is a clear example of how mutation and selection generate complex, unique, and helpful information.
32. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. said the following at 4:32 PM on Feb 1:
Alison, I have studied real science considerably. So I, unlike evolutionary camp-followers, can differentiate real science from materialistic philospophy masquerading as science.
Richard Lewontin admitted:
‘We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.
‘It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.
‘The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that Miracles may happen. [Billions and billions of demons, The New York Review, p. 31, 9 January 1997]
Dr Scott Todd, an immunologist at Kansas State University:
‘Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic.’ [correspondence to Nature 401(6752):423, 30 Sept. 1999.]
Non-creationist information theorist Hubert Yockey observed over 30 years ago (and he has not revised his opinion since):
‘Research on the origin of life seems to be unique in that the conclusion has already been authoritatively accepted … . What remains to be done is to find the scenarios which describe the detailed mechanisms and processes by which this happened.
‘One must conclude that, contrary to the established and current wisdom a scenario describing the genesis of life on earth by chance and natural causes which can be accepted on the basis of fact and not faith has not yet been written.’ [A calculation of the probability of spontaneous biogenesis by information theory, J. Theoretical Biology 67:377–398, 1977]
So evolutionists, despite the copious evidence against it, e.g. the real chemical problems with chemical evolution as per my "Now a Creationist" article, will always assume a materialistic origin. So why should Christians reinterpret Scripture by a materialistic theory?
Where is your "Christ-driven humbleness" to take Him at his word in regards to Genesis (as per Ted Slater's "Jesus Was Not A Theistic Evolutionist"?
33. Samaria said the following at 5:03 PM on Feb 1:
..."campaign"?
I looked back upon my posts on the last evolution-creationism thread, and I realized how condescending I sound on them. I don't apologize for what I said, because I meant every bit of it, but I do apologize for how I said it. My last posts could have been worded better to be more Christ-like, less condescending. Please forgive me.
With love in Christ,
Samaria
34. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. said the following at 5:41 PM on Feb 1:
Craig M: this backs up Lomborg's point in his anti-AGW-alarmist book Cool it that cold is more dangerous than warming:
“Despite being one of the countries most effected by the global financial crisis, concerned listeners of an Icelandic radio station rallied to help British pensioners struggling to cope with energy price rises and the bitter winter weather.
“Listeners to the Bitid morning radio show, on the Bylgjan station, donated garments made from Icelandic wool after hearing a warning from the National Pensioners Convention that one in 12 British pensioners could die this winter.”
35. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. said the following at 5:47 PM on Feb 1:
J (#27) is unfortunately typical of the selective indignation of compromisers. He whinges about my responses, which were mostly factual, but was deafeningly silent when the likes of Samaria called creationists "liars".
Arthur Koestler coined the term mimophant to describe Bobby Fischer, but it applies to many anticreationists: e.g. thick skinned as an elephant when it comes to vicious invective against creationist, while delicate as a mimosa at the mildest riposte by a creationist.
Others keep misrepresenting creationists as claiming that YEC is essential to salvation, despite our repudiating that many times. But this won't stop us from pointing out genuine heresy, such as the claim that Jesus was mistaken when He affirmed that Genesis was history.
36. Priscilla said the following at 6:58 PM on Feb 1:
What a horrible thing Satan has done to convince American Christians to deny science. What a horrific stumbling block to unsaved people.
Evolution is a scientific fact. Doubt it? Go to www.talkorigins.org and post your creationist claims. You'll be in for a very thorough debunking.
37. Leah said the following at 7:52 PM on Feb 1:
Hmmmm... I sitll think the terms "macro-evolution" and "micro-evolution" are useful because macro-evolution requires an addition of genetic information. I guess the terms are useless if people don't know what they mean, but for people who do, I think they're useful.
Alison (1)- the theory of evolution was developed by people who were refusing the existence of a God. Evolution itself does not require an intelligent creator. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to say that the theory of evolution is "without any need for an intelligent designer".
Matthew (6) said The finches are an example of evolution & natural selection because as the finches' food source changed, random changes in beak size and shape were selected such that the finches evolved the beaks that they needed.
Yes, but your terminology is a little misleading. The finches did not "evolve" these different-shaped beaks. This is an example of natural selection; the genetic information for those different-shaped beaks already existed in the finch family, and as the food sources changed, the finches with unhelpfully-shaped beaks died out because they could not feed. Therefore, the genetic information for the more usefully-shaped beaks became more prominent in the gene pool, and in the subsequent populations. No evolution involved.
Philip (7) asked 2. How do you know genetic information can't be increased by mutations?
3. If there are mutations that decrease information, why can't the reverse mutations occur and so increase it?
Mutations deal with genetic information that already exists. It is where existing genetic information either doesn't work properly, or is accidentally deleted altogether. For example, sometimes a gene which controls limb-growth might accidentally be enacted too many times, resulting in too many limbs on an animal. There is no extra genetic information added from the previous generation; what already existed was simply enacted too many times. Often the extra limb is faulty and actually detrimental to the creature, rather than useful, which the entire premise of evolution circles around. (ie- being useful for the creature evolving).
Alex (9) falsely suggests that such a happening is an addition of genetic information when he/she says There are a couple different ways that organisms can gain genetic material through mutation - the first and most obvious is gene duplication, where an extra copy of some or all of the genome appears.
That like if I took a rubber stamp, inked it up, and stamped it on two pieces of paper. Evolution would require one of the images to somehow be different to the other; instead, they are exactly the same because no additional information has been included in either image. It's just been duplicated.
Samaria (13) said From what I've read from you and other YECers, I came to the conclusion that YECers desperately want to accept evolution, but can't because it'd totally destroy their faith. I would have laughed at that had it not been so insulting. I can say, with a completely clear conscience, that I have no desire to believe evolution. I don't see why anyone would have the desire to believe something that has such little hard evidence (as top evolutionists will admit).
It's like saying believing in Greek mythology would destroy my faith. Well, duh. But it's not true, so it's a non-issue.
As an addition- if what you said was true, then how is it possible for evolutionists to have their mind changed, and for them to become YECs? If they were so desperate to believe evolution, why did they change their mind?
kimberly E is spot-on when she says Creationists do not deny changes within a species. We deny changes from one species into another, in keeping with genetics, the fossil record, and basic common sense.
It's totally plausible that all horses, ponies, etc had a common ancestor. That common ancestor would have had all the genetic information necessary for all the different kinds of horses and ponies we see today, and as it bred, that genetic information drifted apart into the different kinds of horses and ponies- no different species.
In the same way, it's plausible that all cats had a common ancestor; all palm trees might have had a common ancestor; all bovines might have had a common ancestor; all hogs and swine might have had a common ancestor. But pigs and cats having a common ancestor? Fish and birds having a common ancestor? No. That would require an addition of genetic information, not merely a mutation or duplication or loss.
38. Megan said the following at 7:58 PM on Feb 1:
There's a book being released, "The Extinction of Evolution", by Darek Isaacs, that creationists and evolutionists alike should read. It addresses several of the arguments, assumptions and points made here; such as, the point that mutations have occurred, but they have never increased--they have never improved a creature--all mutations have been a breaking down or loss of information--thus poor eyesight, crooked teeth, etc.
If we look at a movie like "X-Men", where evolution is the worldview, does that mean that evolutionists believe we humans will one day shoot bananas from our (nearsighted) eyes--if evolution supports that anything is possible?
Have I evolved if I adapt to my environment by putting on a wool sweater because I was cold?
39. Leah said the following at 8:02 PM on Feb 1:
.j (27) - I agree with your synopsis on how Dr Safarti has handled himself in these comments sections. I'm very surprised and disappointed with him. But as I've been reading his articles for a lot longer than he's been commenting on Boundless, I can testify that his articles are very good and that he knows what he's talking about.
Alison (30)- I'd say "I believe this because I take (Genesis) literally"; but I'd also say that I've been taught and learnt about evolution and still see no solid evidence for it. I'm not saying that for the sake of what I believe; I'm saying it because that is what I believe.
40. Matthew said the following at 9:28 PM on Feb 1:
Samaria,
I appreciate your humility and your repentance here, and I think you did an admirable job on the last thread of trying to be gracious in your responses even when you were being attacked. You could have done better, and I'm glad that you've acknowledged that. I think Dr. Sarfati has seized upon your comment about Jesus rather unfairly and keeps repeating it as a tangential attack to denigrate your character. The point raised by "Jesus Was Not a Theistic Evolutionist" can't even be used as a "gotcha!" like Dr. Sarfati wants it to be, because Jesus doesn't even reference Adam & Eve, just that God created them "male and female"-- and even that takes a serious amount of prejudgment to mean that "God specially created them male and female exactly like they were and He most definitely didn't use an evolutionary process to do it." That isn't even why Jesus quoted that Scripture!
41. Matthew said the following at 9:39 PM on Feb 1:
Leah #37,
I may be wrong, but your comment shows that you haven't read or understood what we've been saying about gene duplication or sorting. Information can "increase" when, say, a gene that normally codes for a stop codon mutates into a coding codon instead. Duplication can preserve two different sets of genes that can each be modified and evolve independently within the organism, working together as each one changes. Really, the question of "adding" information is fairly irrelevant because there is so much DNA in the genome to work with that something that was useless lines of "junk" before can become useful with just a base pair change or two. As we've all said before, most mutations tend to be harmful-- but the helpful ones also tend to be selected and passed on.
What really intrigues me is the fact that you think that hundreds of thousands of mutations separating animals as different as dolphins or whales could occur in just 10,000 years, but you can't accept that whales and deer might have had a similar ancestor millions of years ago, even though common ancestors between the two have been found.
42. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. said the following at 9:51 PM on Feb 1:
Priscilla (#36), who denies science? I deny its hijacking by materialistic philosophers. If Satan has done anything, it's to convince professing Christians to trust antitheistic sources like Talk.Obnoxious over the Bible.
Leah (# 37, 39), glad you like my articles anyway, and you made some good points in the big post. Small hint to you and J though: throwing me under the bus won't win you much respect from compromisers.
And J, on re-reading your post, I see that you are not a compromiser and saw that you did understand the problem I had with Samaria, so a partial apology is in order.
43. Alison said the following at 10:05 PM on Feb 1:
@ Dr. Sarfati (#32),
Where is your "Christ-driven humbleness" to take Him at his word in regards to Genesis (as per Ted Slater's "Jesus Was Not A Theistic Evolutionist"?
Thanks for the reply. :) I have pressing school work to attend to until Tuesday evening, but I promise I will reply with careful thought and consideration to what both you and Ted have written as soon as time permits.
I'll make clear what I perceive to be a strong case about why it's actually more God-honouring to read Genesis non-literally. (Though certainly I will not be discrediting the literal readers--like Ted wrote last week, I too appreciate Boundless as a safe place to explore questions about Christ. I think ultimately no human can see this sort of thing perfectly which means we'll both be wrong to some degree (to presume perfection from a human other than Jesus is blasphemous). Hopefully we can both help each other see Christ a little more clearly, which I presume is the objective of these blogs and comments.)
44. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. said the following at 10:21 PM on Feb 1:
Romans 1:18–22 is a good argument against theistic evolution. Verse 20 says:
‘Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.’
This passage clearly teaches that unbelievers won't have the slightest excuse for unbelief, because God’s power and deity can be ‘clearly seen’ from nature. This seems to be a strong support for the argument from design. However, according to the late Stephen Jay Gould, one of Darwin’s main motivations was to counteract the argument from design (see Darwin’s real message: have you missed it?).
So if evolution were true, where is the clear evidence for God's power from what has been made? Far from being evidence for a divine hand, evolution, according to Gould, gives ‘evidence’ that ‘there’s nothing else going on out there—just organisms struggling to pass their genes on to the next generation. That’s it.’
So why would unbelievers be ‘without excuse’ if goo-to-you evolution were true?
Furthermore, all things were made by and through Jesus Christ (John 1:1–3, Col. 1:15 ff.). He had compassion for the weak, and clearly opposed waste (He told the disciples to gather up leftovers after He fed the 5000). So the creation should somehow reflect these attributes.
Yet goo-to-you evolution is all about the strong cruching the weak, and is the most wasteful and cruel process imaginable for "creation". And the late atheistic evolutionist Jacques Monod was hardly impressed by this compromise:
“Namely, selection is the blindest, and most cruel way of evolving new species, and more and more complex and refined organisms … .
“The more cruel because it is a process of elimination, of destruction. The struggle for life and elimination of the weakest is a horrible process, against which our whole modern ethics revolts. An ideal society is a non-selective society, is one where the weak is protected; which is exactly the reverse of the so-called natural law. I am surprised that a Christian would defend the idea that this is the process which God more or less set up in order to have evolution (emphasis added).”
45. Philip said the following at 10:22 PM on Feb 1:
I'm going to try to rephrase my previous comment as it hasn't been answered. In his article Dr Safarti wrote, 'none of the alleged proofs of "evolution in action" provide a single example of functional new information being added'.
I don't know enough about these examples to dispute that, though without a formal definition of information it does seem to be a subjective concept. In any case, why is it that 'The origin of information is a major problem for the GTE'? I don't see how a relatively small number of only information decreasing mutations proves that information increasing mutations are too rare. If the creationist argument being made is just that these examples are being claimed by evolutionists to show more than they actually do then possibly fair enough, but the claim of a major problem seems to be unjustified.
46. Lukas said the following at 11:41 PM on Feb 1:
"As will be shown, none of the alleged proofs of "evolution in action" provide a single example of functional new information being added. Rather, they all involve sorting and loss of information. From "What is Evolution?"
"I didn't say that an information increase could never occur, but that the touted "proofs" of evolution (i.e. variation and natural selection) do not involve such."
From blog post #22
Am I missing something here? Doesn't accepting the possibility of "information gaining" in genetics falsify the entire premise of the original article that evolution cannot occur because there are no "information gaining" mutations?
47. Samantha said the following at 12:53 AM on Feb 2:
Can you be a Christian and believe in Darwin's therory of evolution?
48. Sheridan said the following at 1:37 AM on Feb 2:
Most of you who are evolutionists (Christians or not) believe evolution because the 'facts say that according to science it is IMPOSSIBLE for God to have created the world in 6 literal days.'
Now, you Christian evolutionists also say that your beliefs have no impact on your relationship with Christ.
IS IT NOT ALSO A SCIENTIFIC IMPOSSIBILITY FOR A MAN TO BE RAISED FROM THE DEAD AFTER THREE DAYS??
and yet in order to be a Christian, you must deny 'scientific facts' in this case. Because our faith DOES hinge around the fact that Christ died AND rose again.
So my question is... Why can you believe that Christ rose from the dead, and not that God created the world?
49. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. said the following at 7:44 AM on Feb 2:
Alison (#43): isn't it more "God-honouring" to believe what He said? This means exegesis, i.e. reading out of the text, rather than eisegesis, or reading into the text.
Matthew (#40): when Jesus affirmed that God created them "male and female", He was citing Gen. 1:27 and 2:24, clearly talking about Adam and Eve. Note also, Luke 3 explicitly traces Jesus back to Adam, and 1 Cor. 15 explicitly links Jesus' resurrection to the death brought by the "first man", Adam. And please spare us unreliable sources like Wikipedia; there are much more reliable articles about alleged whale evolution.
Samantha (#47): yes, but only with unhealthy compartmentalized thinking, so much better to believe the Bible rather than Darwin.
50. Alison said the following at 7:52 AM on Feb 2:
@Sheridan (#48),
I don't believe anyone thinks it's impossible.
Science does not exclude miracles. Science can't explain everything. But, IMO, to believe in YEC from my knowledge of science is to call God a liar with regard to the evidence he left behind for us that He lets me see. I don't think God is lying. I think we just need to read Genesis contextually, which I will add in my large post coming up as soon as I have a chance to do this topic justice.
In Christ,
Alison
51. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. said the following at 7:55 AM on Feb 2:
Lukas (#46), are we likely to receive an admission from you that the usual "proofs" of evolution are nothing of the kind? I.e. that a loss of sight or loss of flight, or sorting out pre-existing genetic information, are not arguments in favour of evolution and against creation? Those changes in the wrong direction are overwhelmingly what pass as "evidence" for evolution.
After that, we can move on to alleged claims of genuine increase in information, and whether they could turn bacteria into biologists over billions of years. I've written far more than the introductory article in this thread, you know.
52. Matthew said the following at 9:15 AM on Feb 2:
Leah and J,
Just to make it perfectly clear, you win plenty of respect from us "compromisers" by throwing Dr. Sarfati under the bus. I appreciate the level of respect and thought that you've put into your posts here, and I'm glad that you want to discuss the issues without resorting to name-calling and hyperbole.
53. Alison said the following at 1:00 PM on Feb 2:
isn't it more "God-honouring" to believe what He said?
You keep setting up strawmen, buddy. There are some intelligent people discussing on these boards and when you do that it makes them less motivated to search through your words for where there is true content to think about. Please don't manipulate words by implying that I disbelieve the content of the Bible. This is incorrect and disrespectful.
---
If you're going to pick the argument I expect from that, here is the refutation:
You don't interpret everything in the Bible literally, like I've cited before Gal. 5:12, "As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!"
Don't imply you read the Bible completely literally. You're using your brain to interpret the content of the message. Non-literal is not synonymous with disbelief. No one is challenging fundamentals of our relationship with Christ. Show more respect, please.
54. Matthew said the following at 2:22 PM on Feb 2:
Dr. Sarfati, you have responded to an issue I raised by throwing one of your own articles at me. These articles tend to only cite other creationist literature from scientists who do not have a strong background in the fields they are discussing. Your article on whale evolution relies entirely on arguments from silence and citations that are 10, 20, or even 30 years old. It never actually comments on any of the evidence for that these fossils present. The quotations from non-creationists are given entirely out of context and do not inspire a lot of confidence in their use. Finally, no discussion is given to the consensus of the vast majority of scientists who have actually studied the fossils, and we are left with the word of several scientists with little to no background in paleontology or comparative biology. I do not find your arguments convincing.
You have also not responded to my other points refuting the articles you tossed out before and continued to repeat the "information increase" line without consistently defending that it's even an appropriate argument.
55. Matthew said the following at 2:37 PM on Feb 2:
Dr. Sarfati,
Actually, if Jesus knew that Adam & Eve weren't real people, saying "male and female" could have been His way of avoiding the problem altogether. After all, the important part is that God instituted & created gender, not that He snapped His fingers and made different sexual organs out of thin air.
56. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. said the following at 4:37 PM on Feb 2:
Alison (#53): "You don't interpret everything in the Bible literally." Yawn, please quit these straw man arguments. It does you no credit you know. I take historican narrative genre as history, poetic genre as poetry. This was all explained in "Now a Creationist". Please re-read.
Let's face it: those who had the text of Scripture alone, without the desire to fit it into uniformitarian/materialistic "science", never read billions of years or goo-to-you evolution.
Matthew (#54): for one thing, I am a Ph.D. chemist, so it's perfectly in my field to refute chemical evolution. I note that no one has even tried to rebut those arguments, which are a dagger at the heart of materialism, and instead resort to endless minutiae and attempted "gotchas". Several of my collegues are Ph.D. biologists, including molecular biology and genetics.
Your accusation of decades-old sources is laughable. My book Refuting Evolution was a rebuttal of the NAS's best arguments in their teacher's guidebook Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science. And although written in 1999, as you can see, it has been updated with references from this millennium.
57. Lukas said the following at 8:54 PM on Feb 2:
Dr. Sarfati:
As far as I can tell, we are agreed that variation and selection can cause speciation to occur. Since we are not in a court of law, no one is discussing "proof" just a theory to fit the evidence, and without a working definition for "information" its still hard to refute claims about gain or loss thereof. Examples of loss of function are simply easy to pinpoint because they leave vestiges of their existence. So yes, such examples of loss of function are not ironclad "proof" of evolution, but they are strong evidence of descent with modification. Since you and fellow creationists already believe in this, the only thing stopping you from believing in evolution (other than your interpretation of Genesis) is your steadfast refusal that mutations cause an (impossible to define) increase in information.
58. Leah said the following at 10:51 PM on Feb 2:
Matthew 41- regarding your first paragraph- No, I understand all that. But in everything you said, the genetic information used already existed. Any changes and mutations were caused by information that was already there; some might have become active, some might have become inactive, whichever it might be. I guess a rudimentary analogy of that might be me inking up a stamp and stamping it once, then inking it up and stamping it again, only to have some part of the ink not cover the stamp properly the second time round, so some parts are missing, and maybe some parts smudged from excess ink. The two images would then be different, but only because some parts have been lost or mutated. But if there were to be any additives, I would have to draw them on- information coming from an outside source.
In the same way, animals can change- whether through a loss of genetic information, or duplication, or mutation of existing information- but there's never anything new added. Duplication of existing information is an increase, yes, but it's not new information.
Regarding the animals that you sent me the link for (Indohyus and Pakicetus). All those animals indicate is that they share traits with whales and deers; in the Pakicetus (suggested to be a relative of the whale, not a deer), it's the ear structure; in the Indohyus it's the ear structure and the fact it seems suited to aquatic life.
Why does this mean anything? Otters are suited to aquatic life, this does not make them related to whales. Wombats and elephants both walk on all fours and are fat; this doesn't make them related. Why does having common features make something related? Why could it not mean God saw a good thing when he made it and thought it'd be useful in other animals, too? Like opposable thumbs- koalas have them, so do humans, does that make us related? All it means, to me, is that God saw they'd be useful for both species. In fact, they'd be especially helpful for a koala which spends all day climbing around in trees, so he gave them two.
Also regarding your (54) comment - I haven't looked at the articles Dr Safarti has linked to on this thread, but from his articles I've read in the past, and the articles of his colleagues, a vast majority of them are qualified in the specific fields they write about. Only a small handful venture outside their field, and they usually include discussion with experts from those fields.
Also, your comment (55) sounds like you are suggesting Jesus was purposely deceitful. Judging from your previous comments, I did not pick you to be this type of person, so I can only presume the suggestion was inadvertent. If it wasn't, I'd consider you the type of person not worth discussing this with, because a person who maligns Jesus' character is clearly not a real Christian. I suppose you might not be, but I got the impression you were.
Also, if Jesus was reinforcing that God had created humans "male and female"- instituting and creating gender, in your words- then doesn't it require that he physically created those different genders?
Off the top of my head I can't remember Jesus discussing Adam and Eve specifically, but Paul certainly did. Are you saying he was wrong? And once we start calling some parts of the bible wrong, where do we stop?
Dr Safarti (42) - I certainly wasn't trying to throw you "under the bus". I'm not entirely sure what I've done to wrong you, except perhaps say I'm disappointed in your attitude to some people, but your 'tone' and expression when responding to me (someone who, effectively, stood up for you) only reinforces that impression.
I was also commenting only on your attitude and not your scientific aptitude. I have a feeling it's the scientific side of things that will rate with "compromisers", and I don't really think they'd care what I think in regards to how you talk to people. (I'm also not trying to win points with them anyway.)
59. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. said the following at 11:57 PM on Feb 2:
Leah (#58), you didn't "stand up to me", but whinged about me to someone else. Yet I wasn't aggressive to you, but merely cautioned about something my colleague Gary Bates has written about in Foxes crying foul in the henhouse! Atheists’ cunning ploys to silence debate about origins.
After a church meeting (that was very well received), Gary ran into a particularly aggressive questioner with a similar attitude to those of some people here: not interested in answers, but merely trying a string of "gotchas". Gary answered patiently for a time, then pointed out that other people want to ask questions as well. Then this questioner turned out to be a misotheist, whinged in his blog about Gary being "unChristian", yet Gary points out: "I had challenged him in the manner that he’d challenged me then he might actually have cause for complaint!" Then:
"But here’s the kicker, as they say. When the comments on this man’s blog reached the church, they contacted our local CMI office to voice their concern that our speakers needed to be more careful because this young man “has a point!” The church had fallen for it hook, line and sinker! Challenging such views, especially if done without any disrespect to the person, is utterly scriptural (see shortly). They failed to understand that this young man had already preplanned to do what he did, which was to disrupt the meeting and ridicule the speaker. His complaints were a cynical attempt to turn Christians against each other."
That's exactly how I see some (NB, not all) of the evolutionists on this board: firing off attacks against God's Word and spouting inflammatory attacks against biblical creationists (like Matthew as you note yourself). Then they squeal piteously about a creationist who dares to use Jesus' challenge-riposte method, in the hope that biblical Christians will "fall for it" as that church did. Matthew certainly gloated at the "throwing under the bus" (#55).
60. farmer Tom said the following at 6:38 AM on Feb 3:
Alison said,
Science does not exclude miracles.
miracle
1. an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause.
2. such an effect or event manifesting or considered as a work of God.
from Random House dictionary
naturalism
Philosophy.
a. the view of the world that takes account only of natural elements and forces, excluding the supernatural or spiritual.
b. the belief that all phenomena are covered by laws of science and that all teleological explanations are therefore without value.
Now Alison, your statement is in direct conflict with the philosophy of natural science. Either you are wrong or they are, both can not be correct.
And you have not responded to my post on the first evolution thread.
thanks
61. Matthew said the following at 7:53 AM on Feb 3:
Leah #58,
You ask a good question-- the information was already "there," so how could it be novel in any way? The fact of the matter is that DNA is so incredibly versatile that one mutation can change a whole lot.
For example, let's say you've got a protein coded for by 2000 base pairs, plus an extra hundred or so promoter regions on either end. Now suppose you ink up your stamp and a gene duplication event occurs-- bam, you've got two identical genes and, as you say, two rubber stamps. Now, suppose in the third codon of the extra copy of the gene there's an insertion mutation-- the polymerase accidentally includes an extra base pair and a frameshift mutation occurs. The entire protein composition changes, and you have a brand-new protein product that (except for the first two amino acids) is totally different from its predecessor! The previously existing information became "new" information by virtue of the frameshift mutation. You now have two totally different rubber stamps. "Jumping" genes, inverted promoters, and extra stop codons can do this, too-- and since the genetic "information" that is now being coded was previously not coding base pairs but rather promoter regions or expanded repeats or whatever, you are sorting the old information in a way that allows you to translate it into unique protein products.
Or suppose you duplicate your genes and you have your two rubber stamps, but there's a "mutation" that isn't a huge frameshift mutation and instead of two smiley face rubber stamps, now you have a smiley face and a frowny face. That's still a big enough difference to be useful.
Another analogy is: suppose you took and cut it up, then reassembled half of the words to make a new novel and threw the ones you didn't need away. If you change the story one word at a time it would still be a fairly interesting book, and if you changed it once a year for a million years you'd have an entirely different book on your hands. All of the same information is there; it's just been rearranged to make something completely new.
Once again, the first million times or so that this happens it's usually bad for the organism. But it happens often enough that good mutations can be selected out. We just don't have the perspective of billions and billions of years to be able to appreciate that vast length of time-- but we do have the paper trail in the genomes and the fossil record to get a hint of what has happened.
Speaking of the fossil record, the big deal about the ear bones in these supposed whale ancestors is that there aren't any other species we've found besides whales that have that bone structure. And there's a nice series of different transitional forms. But those aren't the only transitional fossils, either.
And coming to the genome, the fact that humans and koalas have opposable thumbs could mean that we're "related," or the trait could have evolved independently. We share a great deal of DNA with koalas, and before you say, "that's just because God wanted us both to have opposable thumbs," hold on-- because the DNA that we share isn't just coding DNA and it isn't even just other stuff like promoter regions and the like-- ancient repetitive elements, pseudogenes, and other parts of the genome that serve no purpose or were clearly useful genes in a previous organism but have now been inactivated. (and before Dr. Sarfati blasts off with another link back to his website, let me say that I've already read that article and once again it makes an argument from silence and ignores any discussion of all of the evidence that pseudogenes do present for evolution. And the talk.origins author wrote a more thorough rebuttal to the creationist arguments.)
Regarding comment #54-- I was only speaking of one article in particular this time, but in general Dr. Sarfati is not writing on subjects which he has had any significant training in, and even when one of the scientists he cites is actually a biologist or geologist, their actual field of expertise in which they worked for decades or studied in graduate school tends to be in an entirely subsection within the discipline. I say this not to dismiss them out of hand, but it's hard to trust the authority at hand when one scholar from a different field decides that the conclusions of ten scholars who have spent their entire careers working in that field are wrong. It's like an English professor who wrote his thesis on Romantic poets decides that ten of his colleagues are wrong about their translation of Beowulf. It's not to be dismissed out of hand, but it's certainly not nearly as authoritative an opinion as Dr. Sarfati makes it out to be.
Regarding comment #55-- I did not want to imply that Jesus was deceptive, but merely that He was obtuse. One needs to only read one of the dialogues with the Jews in the book of John to see Jesus display this quality of not giving information when He didn't feel like it needed to be given. I do not even know for sure if the whole silly debate even crossed His mind at that moment when He was discussing marriage, but the fact of the matter is that it's a not a proof text for the "Jesus believed that Adam and Eve were real people that God created with bellybuttons intact, and you should too!" argument.
62. Matthew said the following at 8:06 AM on Feb 3:
Leah,
Oops, didn't see your question about Paul or gender there. No one from the TE/BioLogos/EC camp is calling any part of the Bible "wrong." There are no mistakes in the Bible-- it is God's inerrant Word. I personally believe that Adam and Eve were real people, although I am not entirely convinced that they ate a piece of fruit off the tree. In any case, the important parts of the story-- that God created us good, that sin has brought evil and separation from Him into this world, that gender roles are part of God's special creation, that we are now in need of a Savior-- all of those are still there in the story, and Paul can still use the story of Adam as an example in that regard because that's how God used the story of Adam in the book of Genesis. A series of perspectives (some of which I agree with, some not) can be found here.
To answer the gender question-- well, no, God's institution of gender doesn't mean that He had to create the different organs out of nothing because we've always known that biological sex is a slippery thing and gender is even slipperier. There are some animals that are completely abhorrent in this respect (search for the Onion article on "Transgendered Sea Anemone Denounced As 'Abomination' By Clergy"), but God teaches us in Genesis that humans are different, imbued with His Spirit and given roles different from the animal kingdom. Most mammals have the same parts that we do, but God has blessed us uniquely with the Imago Dei and that includes gender roles. These most important teachings of Genesis do not require a "literal" interpretation to be true because they speak of the universal things that God has instituted and established for us.
63. Matt from DC said the following at 9:06 AM on Feb 3:
Ted in #4,
If there was a lengthy gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 then Moses was not a prophet because he said:
Exodus 20:11 "For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."
64. Lou said the following at 9:11 AM on Feb 3:
Hey Dr Sarfati
In post #35 you complained about people being selectively indignant. Allow me to explain why we're more upset at your attitude than at anyone else's. You come to this discussion as an authority figure. You've set yourself up as the authority for the "biblical view". As someone so dedicated to defending the Bible, as someone who is being published by boundless, we naturally expect you to behave well. We expect you to respect other people, not call them names and challenge their salvation over relatively iinsignificant issues. In short, we expect you to act like you love other people, as Jesus commanded. This isn't always expected of everybody, though it'd be great, but most people don't come in here with the authority you do.
65. Matthew said the following at 11:53 AM on Feb 3:
Dr. Sarfati #59,
No one here is "squealing piteously." We're just all asking for a thoughtful discussion free of name-calling and disrespect. You can say whatever you want; we don't wish to silence you. We just want to discuss the issues without the implications that the opposing party is a bad Christian.
Also, I find it a bit unsettling that you are trying to use Jesus' challenge-riposte thing (you have said it several times now) to defend your behavior. Only Christ is God in the flesh and perfect in all He does; I would encourage you to be more cautious in working from Christ's indirect example of being deliberately offensive than God's direct command to be kind in your speech, especially to other Christians.
66. rachel said the following at 3:52 PM on Feb 3:
I just started reading about evolution and creation science and intelligent design in the last month. It's absolutely fascinating. I studied creation science in Christian schools (Bob Jones textbooks) and a tiny bit of evolution in public school. My PS teachers seemed to skim over the subject very quickly. I highly recommend the ID book The Edge of Evolution by Michael Behe, and equally highly the Catholic Darwinian biologist Kenneth R. Millers' Only a Theory. Also, for a secular but very balanced and fascinating history, the book Evolution by Edward J. Larson is fantastic.
67. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. said the following at 6:30 PM on Feb 3:
Lou (#64): sometimes refuting the antibiblical arguments is the loving thing to do. Please don't confuse biblical love with sentimentality. In any case, my comments have been very mild in comparison both with what the compromisers say and what Jesus Himself riposted.
Matthew (#65): Christians are commanded to be Christ-like. There is no proviso, "except for His challenge-riposte method"! There is a place for this at those who teach a different view of Genesis from what He taught.
68. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. said the following at 6:38 PM on Feb 3:
Lukas (#57): the main point I'm trying to get across is: Does the alleged evolutionary proof involve the direction of change needed to turn bacteria into biologists?
If the answer is, "no", then it is no proof at all, and perfectly compatible with the creation model. Yet leading misotheist Christopher Hitchens, with the approval of Richard Dawkins, used blind cave salamanders as a knock-down argument for evolution and against creation. Logic is clearly not a strong suit of many leading evos.
Now is this too hard to grasp: loss of information for sight is not proof of evolution. It sure doesn't prove how sight evolved in the first place. There are many ways to break something, but not many ways to make something in the first place. So it’s not surprising that it would be relatively easy for a mutation, or copying mistake in the genes, to ruin the eyes.
IOW: Proving that someone can fall down the mountain (Improbable or otherwise) is hardly proof that he could have climbed up there in the first place.
69. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. said the following at 7:09 PM on Feb 3:
Matthew decrees (#31): "the E. coli response is entirely unscientific." The Ph.D. biologist author must bow down; hark, the second-year medical student hath spoken. Of course, by definition, any evolutionist knows more than any creationist about any scientific subject, and anti-Christian sites like Talk-Obnoxious trump the Bible wherever there is disagreement.
Seriously: it's up to evos to show that an information-gaining mutation occurred rather than an information loss. What we do know is that the germs already have an ability to digest citrate, but is normally prevented from doing so in anaerobic conditions. We also know of other beneficial mutations that are really information losses in control genes (such as some that result in antibiotic resistance). So Dr Batten's proposal was very reasonable.
The B-cell mechanism shows precisely why a mutation/selection scenario won't work to turn pondscum into polymaths. Similarly, Dawkins "weasel" program shows why this scenario will not work with realisitic values of genome size and selection coefficient.
A far more sophisticated simulation program is "Mendel's Accountant". Similarly, Behe's book The Edge of Evolution discusses exactly what mutation/selection will achieve. Hint: it's not even the simplest biological machinery. I discuss these issues here.
70. Lita Cosner said the following at 7:12 PM on Feb 3:
I’ve been following the debate here and finally decided to post to comment on a few things:
First of all, a few people have complained that Dr. Sarfati posts links in response to questions without much commentary. I find this to be a ridiculous, and rather lazy, complaint; if he has written an entire article on a question, why should he ‘reinvent the wheel’ on this forum? Surely anyone who is really interested in an answer would be happy to read an article which would go into depth on the topic rather than read a paragraph that would almost by necessity be very simplified, especially considering the scientific nature of most of the questions. Many times my master’s-level professors will refer students to chapters or articles that they have written, or which they endorse, in response to student questions when there is not time to answer them during the lecture. The students who really want to learn more read the material, and the others lose out. If you read the article and still have questions, fine; but don’t complain because you have to click on a hyperlink to get to your answer.
Craig M #25: Just because scientists like Dr. Sarfati are in the minority doesn’t mean they are wrong. You are an evolutionist, yet at one time Darwin was in the minority. If you lived back then, would you have been a creationist just because of the consensus? Those evolutionist Christian scientists may be devout, but they are hardly logical.
You evolutionist Christians, tell me: how do you reconcile the fact that your belief in billions of years require that there be death before the Fall of mankind, when God called His whole creation “very good”? If death was there from the beginning, and was part of God’s “very good creation”, why does Paul call it the last enemy to be destroyed (1 Cor 15:26)?
How do you reconcile the fact that the entire rest of the Bible takes Genesis 1-11 as straightforward history without saying that Jesus was mistaken? Theistic evolution was a stumbling block that kept me from the faith for several years!
While many of you find fault with Dr. Sarfati’s style of dealing with evolutionists and various others, his excellent riposte against and refutation of evolution was part of what God used to convince me of the truth of creation, which led to my salvation a few months later. You might consider that a strong refutation of the other side sometimes encourages those who are searching for answers.
I am a Master’s student studying the New Testament, and I am amazed at how often a literal view of creation is assumed as part of an argument in Scripture. For instance, in Romans 5:12-21, Paul argues that Adam and Jesus are essentially the heads of two ‘kinds’ of humanity, but he isn’t so much comparing them as contrasting the effects of their respective actions: Adam’s transgression brought death for all who are under him, but Jesus’ obedience brought life for all who are under Him. But for Paul’s argument to work at all, both Adam and Christ had to be literal historical figures who literally acted in history, and those actions had to have real, literal consequences for the rest of history after them. You can’t make sense of that verse with a non-literal interpretation of Genesis, because if you don’t interpret Genesis literally, Adam’s sin didn’t bring death; death was already there from the beginning.
This post is rather long, but it contains none of those horrible links some of you don’t like, so I won’t apologize. ;)
71. farmer Tom said the following at 8:17 PM on Feb 3:
Alison,
I'm still waiting!!
read my post #60 again,
then explain yourself, please,
your answer was a contradiction in logic,
either science believes in miracles or it does not.
Either God is capable of creating every thing ex nihilo or he is incapable of raising a dead man to life.
The God of the Universe either has power over life itself or He does not.
Quit playing mental games with yourself.
Either He is the Sovereign God of the Universe or He is not.
What pray tell is the difference between creating life from nothing (ex nihilo) or causing a human body which is dead to return to life?
Can science do either?
72. farmer Tom said the following at 8:53 PM on Feb 3:
65. Matthew,
grow up!
I get so tired of people whining when their false idea have been shown to be false, suddenly playing the pious card and claiming the the person who just exposed their foolishness was unkind, to direct, combative or any other adjective which would cast them in a favorable light.
Dr. Sarfati has been straightforward with his answers, in many cases his answers have shot holes in the questioners evolutionary boat, so instead of fleeing the sinking boat, the questioner starts shouting about he unfairness of the answer.
Since it has been a few days ago let me remind you what Jesus said to the religious leaders of His day.
John 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
45And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.
Matthew 23:27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.
I could go on, but the point is that Jesus used rather harsh language to respond to those who denied God's authority and power while hiding behind their religiosity.
The central theme from the pro-evolution side in the argument seems to be that they are good godly people even if they deny the possibility of the Creator God having the power to create the universe and all that is in it ex nihilo.
Pot meet kettle.
Furthermore, Dr. Sarfati has used Scripture in defense of many of his arguments, and the result is an attack on the Word of God by those of you who worship the god of time/chance. Rather than accept the Biblical account, you immediately begin to question if is means is, and whether one can actually "really" believe the Bible as written.
In Other Words, to steal and misuse a line from Shakespeare,
"Methinks he doth protest to much."
73. Lou said the following at 10:33 PM on Feb 3:
from your challenge-riposte article (#67) "The object of each party was to try to undermine the honor, or social status, of the other in an exchange that ‘answers in equal measure or ups the ante (and thereby challenges in return)."
this kind of argument only makes sense if you make your arguments based from ethos. if what you say is an appeal to ethos rather than logos, sure, undermining eachother is a great plan. But for those who want to logically discuss the issue and deal with the evidence, the only ethos you're undermining by namecalling is your own. We don't buy what you say just because you write Ph.D. after your name. Being able to give what you do, which is defined on your link as undermining the honor/social status of the other person, a name doesn't make it right.
A difference between what you do and what Jesus did: Jesus asked counter-questions that made a relavant point.
74. Philip said the following at 10:53 PM on Feb 3:
Dr Sarfati, you wrote in #51 that 'Those changes in the wrong direction are overwhelmingly what pass as "evidence" for evolution.' Are you really claiming that the large majority of claimed evidence for evolution consists of a few examples of change?
Also sorry to be asking about this for the 4th time, but any chance you can answer my question from 3 days ago (linked from my name above) about why 'the origin of information is a major problem for the GTE' as you wrote in the article? This was the particular argument that you used against evolution in the article, so its hard to think of a more important question to come from it.
75. Matthew said the following at 10:59 PM on Feb 3:
Dr. Sarfati, I wrote a response to your last several arguments, but I decided that it wasn't worth posting them. I don't need to have words put in my mouth. I'm sure this brings you great happiness, and I hope you enjoy that. I've been more than eager to discuss the issues as respectfully as possible, but you can't seem to bring yourself to do that-- you were so quick to speak that you even slurred j when he actually agreed with you. If you are convinced that part of being "Christlike" involves gleefully aiming insults haphazardly at your brothers and sisters and taking every opportunity to throw an unkind word in someone else's direction, then have fun with that.
farmer Tom, I have no quarrel with you, but I will point out again that nowhere in the Bible are we actually instructed to disregard common courtesy when discussing contentious issues. We have only the example of Jesus and Paul, and their harshest words were saved for those who added to the Scripture their own ideas about the specific interpretations of God's Word and then excoriated those who deviated from this extrabiblical human tradition. I also did more than just complain about Dr. Sarfati's tone; I responded to his arguments until I decided it wasn't worth my time anymore.
And if asking for a little more respect and a little less name-calling is whining and protesting too much, you can call me a whiner and a quitter all you want. I'm not ashamed at all.
76. Lou said the following at 11:03 PM on Feb 3:
farmer Tom (72)...
the central theme of theistic evolutionists is that the evidence really seems to support evolution. The scientific burden of proof is on those people who challenge the widely accepted viewpoints. So Dr. Sarfati really does have the burden of proof here. The problem is that a literal reading of the Bible and an unbiased look at scientific evidence conflict. At this point we can a) deny the Bible. b) deny science (because after all, logic is fallen, right?). or c) take another look to see how the Bible and science fit together. The idea isn't that God doesn't have the power to create the Earth in whatever way he chose, He certainly has the power. The idea is that he may not have done it the way that the YECers believe. and we can believe that God meant yom as a period rather than a day and still believe in Him. We get defensive on this point because we truly do believe and love him, but everywhere we go, this gets questioned and it's implied that we are inferior for this belief. Imagine how you would feel if someone denied your salvation because of your belief for/against predestination.
and Dr. Sarfati, it really would be nice to see how you define information at some point.
77. Lou said the following at 11:11 PM on Feb 3:
Lita (70)
do you believe that animals died before the fall? If not, then why are some animals (like, for instance, the lion) clearly designed as predators? With those teeth, how could they have subsisted on plant life before the fall? If animals died, then why is such a leap to assume that the fall is only important to those beings with a soul? At some point (IMHO, anyways), God would've given humans a soul, and the fall follows that.
78. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. said the following at 11:31 PM on Feb 3:
Thanx Farmer Tom. And well done in recognizing that the common rendition of Shakespeare is not quite right (just like "Alas poor Yorick, I knew him well"). I wonder how many government educational "experts" would recognize that, yet even too Christians would prefer you to hand your kids over to them to be
indoctrinatededucated".79. Hannah C. said the following at 8:41 AM on Feb 4:
Evolutionists: How do you know your side is so unbiased?
I don't know much about evolutionary scientists today in general, but from what I've heard and seen, quite a few of them (e.g. Richard Dawkins) firmly believe that God cannot exist and try and use science to strike down any idea that there is a God. On Expelled, one of the evolutionary scientists said that he would believe any argument as to where life started..ANY argument at all..as long as God was not involved. That sounds pretty prejudiced to me. And it goes along with all the crazy lawsuits against Christians who stand up for what they believe in or refuse to do something on reasons of conscience.
That's a big problem with science and religion: the most visible ideology held by scientists is a virulent anti-theism or specifically anti-Christianity. The ones who are calmer about it seem to be invisible. So the other side reacts, and the first side reacts again...It seems to me that a lot of people in this argument probably aren't being as calm and reasonable about it as they could be. How many are actually taking time to read other articles, on both sides?
And I completely agree with Dr. Safarti on public education, having experienced it myself not too long ago.
80. James - UK said the following at 8:43 AM on Feb 4:
Lou 76.
An excellent summary of the points at hand. I have always believed that the true nature of the debate really had nothing to do with whether God created the earth, as we all believe he did - it's a debate between those who believe in a Bible that is always literally true and those who believe it is a combination of literal truth, metaphor and prose. The problem, as with many disagreements, is that one side cannot accept the other has a different point of view. In truth, your salvation, witnessed by your belief in God and His Spirit, has nothing to do with your belief on how the world was created. If people want to sling mud at us theistic evolutionists, let them. We have better things to be getting on with; sharing the gospel by life and lip with those around us for one.
However, I do have a few points of my own. Firstly, the number of genes (pieces of DNA that when transcribe code to give a protein) within an organisms genome does not correspond to its complexity. The majority of plants, and yes, even the humble banana has more genes within them than a human cell. It is not information density that is important here. Rather, it is the timing of expression (at what point in a cells life proteins are made) and the PTMs (post-translational modifications – changes made to a protein after it’s produced) that give humans that apparently higher levels of complexity. Though I would agree on a physiological level we are more complex, this is not true on all levels. Metabolically, bacteria can do things we could never dream of doing. And on the point of evolution being linked to an information loss and therefore not possible, that is simply not true. The introduction of foreign genetic materials into bacterial genomes via uptake of plasmids (circular pieces of DNA), via bacteriophages (viruses that target bugs) and through bacterial interactions akin to mating (yes, it does happen) is well documented. The congregation of single cells to form complex organisms, including specialisation of certain cells to certain functions (akin to organs), followed by disassembly is also a well studied phenomenon (look up Slime molds).
I agree that the General theory of evolution, rather like that of relativity is theory. However, like the proven examples of time dilation involving atomic clocks flown round the world, specific examples of evolution, such as the peppered moth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution) are there for all to see. There is a common statement that says that science doesn’t have all the answers. I agree it doesn’t have all the answers. But that does not mean that it doesn’t have some.
81. Lou said the following at 12:00 PM on Feb 4:
Hannah (79)
keep in mind that using Richard Dawkins as your representative evolutionist is rather like using Kent Hovind as your representative creationist. The truth is, science can't say anything about the supernatural; it is, by it's very definition outside of science. This is a point that even Dawkins concedes in The God Delusion despite his rampant atheism. Careful about taking what some evolutionary scientists say as indicative of what evolution itself says. Evolution is considered unbiased because it is based on physical evidence rather than on a very literal reading of scripture.
82. farmer Tom said the following at 12:06 PM on Feb 4:
Lou you have it exactly backwards,
If the God of the Bible is the Creator of the Universe and the Bible is His written Word revealed to mankind, see Romans 3 verses 1 and 2,
oracles
5. a divine communication or revelation.
6. any person or thing serving as an agency of divine communication.
7. any utterance made or received as authoritative, extremely wise, or infallible.
8. oracles, the Scriptures.
Either the Creator God had written exactly what He wanted, in absolute truth revealing what he did at creation or God is a liar.
You want the Bible to conform to science!
And in reality, science needs to start with the revealed Word of God, accepting the existence of God as a fact, and then doing all of its research and study with the sole purpose of using science to better understand the revealed Word of God.
83. Ted Slater said the following at 12:21 PM on Feb 4:
James UK N(#80)-- you aren't *really* pointing to the phony peppered moth hoax as an example of evolution in action, are you?
Whew.
84. Hannah C. said the following at 12:34 PM on Feb 4:
Lou (81) --
I don't think that's quite how it goes...
If Richard Dawkins thinks science has nothing to say about religion, then he should stop trying to say anything about religion through science or based on his scientific knowledge.
It seems to me that in general evolutionists take the premise that the earth is old and fit the facts into it. On the other side, the YECs take the premise that the earth is young and fit the facts into it. Neither side is taking the data and trying to see what it actually says; they're both trying to fit it into their ideology. And that seems to be the accusation each side levels at the other.
No way can I possibly think evolution is unbiased. Not when so many scientists think that the remote possibility that some intelligent being designed the universe should never be entertained because it contradicts science. And if that isn't so, then why are the scientists who believe in intelligent design, or the possibility of it, blacklisted or called the utter minority? That's completely biased.
85. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. said the following at 4:14 PM on Feb 4:
James (#80): "it's a debate between those who believe in a Bible that is always literally true and those who believe it is a combination of literal truth, metaphor and prose."
I and all my colleagues believe that the Bible is a "combination of literal truth, metaphor and prose", as I've explained at length. I don't know who James has in mind who "believe in a Bible that is always literally true".
Real creationists, as opposed to dishonest straw man caricatures, believe that the Bible's historical narratives should be interpreted as history, while its poetry should be interpreted as poetry, figurative language as figurative, etc. My Now a creationist article showed why Genesis is historical narrative.
No, the debate is as Farmer Tom says (#82): between those who accept the Bible as God's Word and thus the final authority, and those who accept uniformitarian/evolutionary "science" as final authority. We see this here: the theistic evolutionists hardly even bother to address the biblical text—it's all about how some "scientific" "evidence" supposedly proves evolution from goo to you via the zoo, so we must
disbelievereinterpret Scripture accordingly.86. JB said the following at 4:23 PM on Feb 4:
Dr. Sarfati,
I hope you'll take this is a challenge of the sort you endorse and not rudeness.
I think that you are avoiding defining "complexity" and "information" because the second you do so your whole argument becomes obvious for what it is - empty sophistry. I don't think that your information argument is merely incorrect - I think it is literally nonsense which only seems plausible because you are implicitly using shifting definitions of information. Give a clear definition and prove me wrong.
87. Philip said the following at 5:22 PM on Feb 4:
Ted, regarding the supposed peppered moths fraud see this summary article on the validity of the moths as an example.
88. Lukas said the following at 6:12 PM on Feb 4:
Dr. Sarfati:
Lukas (#57): the main point I'm trying to get across is: Does the alleged evolutionary proof involve the direction of change needed to turn bacteria into biologists?
If the answer is, "no", then it is no proof at all, and perfectly compatible with the creation model. Yet leading misotheist Christopher Hitchens, with the approval of Richard Dawkins, used blind cave salamanders as a knock-down argument for evolution and against creation. Logic is clearly not a strong suit of many leading evos.
First off, we are not discussing proof, that is the realm of the mathematician. We are discussing the theory that best fits the evidence we observe. If you are specifically referring to the loss of sight by cave dwelling salamanders and its subsequent celebration by Hitchens and Dawkins (correctly identified as misotheists), then no, that is not proof (or even great of evidence for) of "bacteria to biologists" evolution. Hitchens described it as a "poke in the eye" to creationists which is of course a straw man. Creationists are certainly not monolithic in their beliefs and it was naive of Hitchens to assume that all creationists disbelieve speciation (although some genuinely do).
The problem with your demand for proof of evolution is that it is nearly impossible to win. With clear cases of descent with modification (such as the blind salamander), it is easy to see the vestigial eye, so there is no denying it is descended from a sighted ancestor. Since this is a loss of function (and presumably a “loss of information” as well), this fails to meet the criteria of “information increase” leading to evolution. However if we were to bring up a case of added function, such as the specializations of our friend Ursus maritimus (ie, webbed feet, black skin, hydrodynamic body shape, increased body fat, buoyancy, hollow white hairs, suction cup-like indentations on foot pads, etc), it would fall into the cavernous loophole of “speciation within kind”, the unfalsifiable claim that the genome in some proto-Ursus already contained all the information it needed to specialize into our known species today. That claim strains credibility when you consider the extreme genetic bottleneck created by the Noachian deluge.
After ruminating on this issue for quite a while I realized that we could quibble about details forever but this is really an issue of philosophy of science. I would say that ideally science should be an objective search for truth in nature. My problem with creation science as it has been carried out is that practitioners have thrown out any notions of objectivity (admittedly so, in fact), and have subverted the scientific method in order to make scientific observations fit the conclusions that they believe they “know” through biblical revelation. I read chapter one of your “Refuting Evolution” book to get an idea of your point of view on the subject. The take-home message I got was that “Yes, creationists are biased, but so are atheistic evolutionists, so there is no such thing as objective study of scientific observations” (gross oversimplification on my part? Absolutely). The bias in creation science is implicit in their methodology, but in order to show bias in mainstream science, you quote-mined several prominent atheist scientists and philosophers to show that they are not only naturalistic in their methodology, but in fact overstep the bounds of science and reject the supernatural out of hand. The implication is that in order to reject a judgmental God, they need to prove that the earth is billions of years old, and that we evolved from “goo”, and through the zoo, as you put it. While this behavior is irksome on the part of atheist (or even antitheist) scientists and commentators, your conflation of evolution with atheism is a gross disservice to the thousands of devout Christians in geology, paleontology, and evolutionary biology who practice their skills with methodological naturalism, and it would be insulting to suggest that they are merely pawns at the mercy of their atheist masterminds. For example, it was pre-Darwinian British geologists (some of whom were Anglican clergy) who first thought a young earth and flood geology to be untenable in the early 19th century. I would say that the same God who created us with minds capable of logic and reason would want us to use them to explore and draw conclusions about His creation without fear that we would inadvertently step on His proverbial toes.
Given your admitted bias about creation science, I find it odd that you claim it to be “real science” while mainstream science is merely “naturalistic philosophy masquerading as science”. While I respect your resolve in these matters in the face of incredible adversity, I think it would do you well to have some humility and admit that we don’t have all the answers, about the Bible and about the natural world.
89. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. said the following at 6:24 PM on Feb 4:
JB (#86): presumably you have no trouble understanding that a 500 GB hard drive has more information than a 4 MB one. Also, is it so difficult understand that becoming blind or flightless is a loss of information? Until evos like Hitchens and Dawkins stop pushing sightless troglobionts as a refutation of creation, I will keep hammering that. Same with those who present cases of sorting out pre-exiting genes, or natural selection removing genes, as proofs of evolution from goo to you via the zoo.
Sometimes it's more subtle, as per these cases of antibiotic resitance:
A pump in the cell wall takes in the antibiotic. A mutation disabling this pump will prevent the bacterium pumping in its own executioner. But in the wild, a bacterium with a disabled pump will be less fit than other bacteria because the pump also brings nutrients, etc., into the cell.
A control gene regulates the production of an enzyme that destroys the antibiotic, e.g. penicillinase which destroys penicillin. A mutation disabling this gene destroys the regulation of the production, so far more enzyme is produced. Such a bacterium can cope with more antibiotic than others can, but in the wild, it would be less fit than normal because it’s wasting valuable resources producing more enzyme than is needed.
Right, once evos grasp the simple concepts above and stop their misleading propaganda, then we can move on.
90. JB said the following at 6:27 PM on Feb 4:
Farmer Tom,
I think that you may be confused about what science is. That's not surprising as a lot of people, including the aforementioned Richard Dawkins, are similarly confused.
Science is not a method of discovering Truth. The empirical natural science of Bacon, Galileo, and Newton is a method of correlating objectively observable phenomena to yield useful (i.e. falsifiable) predictions. It is a method which obeys certain rules which make the derivation of these predictions possible. For example, if we are to do science we must take it as a given that inductive reasoning is valid. Never mind that David Hume's argument against the validity of induction has gone largely unanswered, inductive reasoning is one of the rules of the game called science.
Another rule of empirical natural science is that we must resort only to materialistic, as opposed to supernatural, explanations for phenomena. This is a necessary rule for the simple reason that explanations which rely on supernatural actors, while they may have any number of other virtues, cannot yield useful predictions - and getting useful predictions is the object of the game. So, for example, we have to explain the motion of planets via the theory of gravity in science, and not by a theory that involves invisible angels. Gravity is a force which must obey certain discoverable rules, so we can make solid predictions about gravity. Angels need not obey discoverable rules, so we can never made good predictions about their actions. Gravity-explanations have the virtue of being useful in terms of telling us where, say, Venus will be on Tuesday, while angel-explanations do not.
This does not mean that the theory of gravity disproves the existence of angels or their role in the motion of celestial bodies. It does not mean that the scientist, who in seeking scientific explanations excludes angel-explanations, does not fervently believe that the world is inhabited by angels.
Because science does not admit angel-explanations, it cannot claim to derive any objective truth about the world. Science can't claim that the theory of gravity describes anything which is ultimately Real as gravity is simply the model which is used to make explanations. Gravity may be real, or angels may be real. Science is not a method which can settle that issue.
So, when considering evolution, the biologist says, "There are a set of phenomena here (and here s/he would reference some set of data from geology or paleontology or genetics or zoology) which can be explained with reference to a theory of evolution. This theory will allow me further insight into (some area of biology)." The biologist cannot say things like, "I have proven that species did in fact evolve!" or "This disproves the story of Genesis!" The fact that Richard Dawkins does say things like this only means that Dawkins is a sloppy thinker who doesn't know what he's talking about.
There are many consistent ways to approach evolution. You can believe that Genesis happened, but evolution is a useful tool to use in science. You can believe that species did in fact evolve, though you'd have to go outside of science to make that claim. You can believe that science is a flawed methodology altogether which fails to tell us about the most important Truth (in which case, I'd agree with you.) Or you could even say that evolution fails on purely scientific, materialistic terms (in which case you'd be consistent, though wrong.) One thing you can't say is that science needs to accommodate God-explanations for the origin of species, because this is not science at all.
91. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. said the following at 6:33 PM on Feb 4:
Lou (#81), that's disingenuous. Dawkins is widely cited by "respectable" sources like the National Academy of Science and Nature, has produced misotheistic diatribes on public television, and could probably be called "the apostle of atheism". Conversely, see CMI's Maintaining Creationist Integrity (response to Kent Hovind).
I note also that you (#77) refuse to address Lita's strong biblical case (#70) that death is an intrusion into God's very good creation, and that a number of arguments by NT writers depend on Genesis being historical. Instead, you try to second-guess God. But for answers to that, see How did bad things come about and the articles under If the original creation was ‘very good,’ why do many living things have features for attacking others?.
Remember 1 Cor. 3: many theistic evolutionists will get to heaven, but will be embarrassed when they have to confess to God: "I didn't take you at your Word because my puny brain couldn't see a way to overcome the fashionable 'scientific' objections."
92. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. said the following at 6:50 PM on Feb 4:
The Bible according to theistic evolutionists
Here's a list I've compiled of some Bible verses that need to be re-written to fit in with what, in effect, theistic evolutionists teach.
Proverbs 1:7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge.
To: The empirical method is the beginning of knowledge.
Proverbs 9:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.
To: Methodological Naturalism is the beginning of wisdom.
Proverbs 29:25 The fear of man lays a snare, but he who trusts in the LORD is safe.
To: The fear of man is most important for today's Christians to maintain academic respectability, but he who trusts in the LORD is naïve.
John 3:12 (Jesus to Nicodemus) If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
To: If I have told you earthly things like the fact that Adam and Eve existed "from the beginning of creation" and the global Flood really "occurred", and I'm wrong, don't worry; just believe me anyway if I tell you heavenly things.
John 5:47 But if you do not believe his [Moses'] writings, how will you believe my words?"
To: But if you do not believe his [Moses'] writings, it's not a problem, because you can believe my words anyway."
Colossians 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, following the tradition of men according to the rudiments of the world, and not in accordance with Christ.
To: Imbibe modern naturalistic philosophy, and make sure you follow the tradition of men according to the rudiments of the world, and accordingly judge the teachings of Christ.
2 Corinthians 10:5 We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.
To: We affirm arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God, and make Christian teachings captive to every thought.
Romans 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.
To: Be conformed to this world and be transformed by the renewal of your mind towards secular academic thinking.
Acts 17:11 Now these [Berean] Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so.
To: Now these [Berean] Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with all eagerness, examining the word and the scriptures daily to test them against uniformitarian science and reinterpreting them accordingly.
Heb 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
To: Now evolution is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of transitional fossils not seen.
Ex 20:8 "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. ... 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
To: "Remember the Sabbath eon, long age, indeterminate amount of time, to keep it holy. 9 Six eons, long ages, indeterminate amounts of time you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh eon, long age, indeterminate amount of time is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. ... 11 For in six eons, long ages, indeterminate amounts of time the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath eon, long age, indeterminate amount of time and hallowed it.
93. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. said the following at 7:44 PM on Feb 4:
Philip (#87), please see More about moths: A recent attempt to restore the reputation of the peppered moth as an evolutionary icon falls flat. Note that even if the staged experiments were valid, all it would show is that sometimes white moths do better, and sometimes black moths do. Yet evos, with their dogmatic materialism, often argue that this is conclusive proof of goo-to-evolution and disproof of creation.
94. Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D. said the following at 7:48 PM on Feb 4:
< Yawn, stretch > JB and Lukas fail to differentiate origins and operational science (see my section Naturalism, Origins and Operational Science). But thanks for admitting that it's their philosophical assumption of naturalism (at least for al practical purposes) that drives their evolutionary beliefs, even at the expense of the biblical text.
95. JB said the following at 8:19 PM on Feb 4:
Dr. Sarfati,
Again, I don't mean to be rude, but you once again completely failed to offer a definition of information. I will repeat - if you can't *define* the key term of your argument then your argument is nonsense. And I mean "nonsense" in the precise sense of "devoid of intelligible content." There can be no more devastating weakness to your argument than your inability to come out and say what exactly your argument refers to.
(I'll be charitable here and disregard your reference to hard drive sizes. If you really are arguing that "information" means something like "bits of data" then it would clearly be trivial to show that evolutionary processes can cause an increase in genomic "information." Obviously, that's not the argument you're making.)
96. farmer Tom said the following at 9:24 PM on Feb 4:
JB,
It's late, I have an aching back, and I have no intention of going through your post line by line. I did read it and I what to thank you for a good belly laugh.
Let me summarize your post.
Science is not a method of discovering Truth.
Science is not concerned with truth only with materialistic/naturalistic theories.
This is a necessary rule for the simple reason that explanations which rely on supernatural actors, while they may have any number of other virtues, cannot yield useful predictions - and getting useful predictions is the object of the game. So, for example, we have to explain the motion of planets via the theory of gravity in science, and not by a theory that involves invisible angels.
Let me see, you're talking about invisible angels like dark matter and dark energy right, that kind of science.
You can believe that science is a flawed methodology altogether which fails to tell us about the most important Truth (in which case, I'd agree with you.)
What Truth are you talking about JB? On what basis can you claim to know Truth? You deny the fact that Jesus Christ said that God's Word is Truth John 17:17
So we are once again back at the same place. You deny the Scriptural account of the creation, admit that science is not concerned with truth and then expect us to believe that you know and understand what Truth is.
Now that is funny stuff, ever considered a career as a comedian?? Cause most people will get a barrel of laughs out of that kind of logic.
logic Logic is concerned with what is true and how we can know whether something is true. This involves the formalisation of logical arguments and proofs in terms of symbols representing propositions and logical connectives. The meanings of these logical connectives are expressed by a set of rules which are assumed to be self-evident.
from Dictionary.com
97. farmer Tom said the following at 9:28 PM on Feb 4:
Alison
We're still waiting.....
You have questions in the first evolution post to respond to,
you have questions in post number 60 to respond to,
and some more in number 71,
we're waiting and waiting,
Alison we're waiting.....
98. Al said the following at 9:29 PM on Feb 4:
I'm somewhat bothered and dismayed that some of what could have been a challenging discussion has been rendered less edifying by what many have noticed to be veiled name calling. I know that sometimes there's nothing more annoying than someone who just pops in and drops a bunch of bible verses--but sometimes they (probably always) speak better than I can. Just hoping these verses can salt what remains of this discussion--
1 Peter 3:15
"In your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect--"
1 Corinthians 8:1-3
"We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God."
John 13:34-35
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
James 1:19
"Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak--"
James 3:17-18
"But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness."
Mathew 12:36
"But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken."
I know that's a lot of verses... but
if Peter recommends respect and gentleness when sharing the most central of Truths, I would think that gentleness applies even more to non-salvific issues, as passionate as some of us might be about them.
Name calling and mischaracterizing the motivations of those we disagree with will only weaken our arguments and persuasiveness to whoever might be listening, not strengthen them.
And we can win an argument (or worse, think we've won an argument) and lose a bit of our souls. As much as God will judge us for how we used our minds in service to Him, perhaps even in regards to this debate, He will certainly judge us for our hearts, our mindset, and our words-- and how we have and have not loved each other.
99. Philip said the following at 9:36 PM on Feb 4:
Dr Sarfati,
I agree that these examples you mention (including peppered moths) do not appear to involve increased complexity and that consequently if anybody claims they prove evolution (bacteria to biologists as you put it) then they are wrong. I don't know that anybody here is disputing that.
Since the discussion here is not going to get the evos to concede the issue, and you have certainly made your point for us, why don't we just assume that for this discussion at least, that the point is conceded and move the science argument on?
100. Lou said the following at 10:08 PM on Feb 4:
Dr Sarfati (#92) and what exactly is your problem with the sabbath eon? this is a very nice concept...it just so happens that I like to believe my entire life falls in this sabbath eon so...no work. I'd never thought of it like this before, but now that I know it would go against my religious beliefs to work during this eon, I get to sleep in tomorrow. So, thanks. Every now and then it's nice to have some one point out my beliefs to me so pleasant little blessings like sleeping in for the rest of my life can occur. Remind me to return the favor sometime. now I think I need to go to bed...responding to any other points will have to wait until such a time when I'm awake enough for it to not feel like work, this being the sabbath eon and all.