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garysibio
Guest
A few points to keep in mind when discussing evolution and creation…
1. The study of origins belongs to history, not science.
Even if you could get in the lab and prove that Darwinian evolution could have happened, you cannot prove that it did happen.
From where I live I can take a bus or a subway to go downtown. If you see me by my house in the morning and downtown later in the day, obviously something happened but you cannot go into the lab and prove that I took the bus rather than the train. The only way you can know is by the word of a reliable eyewitness.
Since the Laws of Thermodynamics rule out an infinitely old universe, we know that there was a time when the universe did not exist so we have gone from a condition of non-existence to a condition of existence. Something had to happen but you need a reliable eyewitness to be sure. The only reliable eyewitness we have is God.
2. There is nothing special about the concept of species.
Species is not a concept inherent in the natural world. It is the way our culture - more accurately, the scientific subculture - has chosen to divide up the natural world. Anthropologists call this folk classifications. The Linnean system is no more or less valid than any other method.
Lev 11:19 lumps bats in with the birds while we consider them mammals. The Bible is not in error here. To the ancient Jews it was more important that bats had wings and flew rather than that they had hair and fed their young with milk produced by the mother. Neither system of classification is “truer” than the other. They both fit the needs of the culture that used them.
3. Just because we believe that there are passages of Scripture that are not to be taken literally, we can’t assume that this is the case just because they don’t mesh with current scientific thought.
4. Don’t assume that the evidence in favor of an old universe is, pardon the pun, set in stone.
A few years back scientists took some rock formed by a Hawaiian volcano around the year 1800 and tested it using the Potassium-Argon test, the standard for determining the age of rocks. Despite the fact that the rocks were 200 years old, they tested out at 2 billion years old. Critics of the test complained that the test was never designed to work on young rocks and that is why the got the wrong result. Their point is valid. However, what happens if the universe is only 6-10,000 years old. All of the rocks are relatively young and would produce invalid results. We just wouldn’t know it.
Back in the 1960s NASA planned on landing an unmanned probe on the moon. Scientists were concerned because, according to their calculations, the moon should have been covered with a very thick layer of meteoric dust accumulated during its 4-4.5 billion years of existence. They were surprised to find that the dust layer amounted to less than an inch. The topic never seemed to get discussed after that.
There is plenty of data to indicate that the Earth is not as old as we have been taught to believe.
bones_IV said>>
How does anyone defend the notion that Homo sapiens are descended from TWO individuals from an extremely small genetic bottleneck? Why is this bottleneck so small? Wouldn’t Adam and Eve be living with other Homo sapiens too? Surely members of this ancient Homo sapiens have contemporary progeny, not just the two chosen individuals? <<
Mitochondrial DNA studies seem to point to all humans having descended from a single female whom scientists have nicknamed Eve.
I find it easier to believe in divine creation rather than to accept the idea that a male and female Home sapiens evolved at the same time and place so that they could meet and reproduce.
ribozyme said>>
I questioned that the lineage of Homo sapiens can to extrapolated backward to a population of two people, thus falsifying monogenism?<<
If you reject monogenism, how do you avoid the heretical position of denying original sin, a de fide doctrine of the Church?
1. The study of origins belongs to history, not science.
Even if you could get in the lab and prove that Darwinian evolution could have happened, you cannot prove that it did happen.
From where I live I can take a bus or a subway to go downtown. If you see me by my house in the morning and downtown later in the day, obviously something happened but you cannot go into the lab and prove that I took the bus rather than the train. The only way you can know is by the word of a reliable eyewitness.
Since the Laws of Thermodynamics rule out an infinitely old universe, we know that there was a time when the universe did not exist so we have gone from a condition of non-existence to a condition of existence. Something had to happen but you need a reliable eyewitness to be sure. The only reliable eyewitness we have is God.
2. There is nothing special about the concept of species.
Species is not a concept inherent in the natural world. It is the way our culture - more accurately, the scientific subculture - has chosen to divide up the natural world. Anthropologists call this folk classifications. The Linnean system is no more or less valid than any other method.
Lev 11:19 lumps bats in with the birds while we consider them mammals. The Bible is not in error here. To the ancient Jews it was more important that bats had wings and flew rather than that they had hair and fed their young with milk produced by the mother. Neither system of classification is “truer” than the other. They both fit the needs of the culture that used them.
3. Just because we believe that there are passages of Scripture that are not to be taken literally, we can’t assume that this is the case just because they don’t mesh with current scientific thought.
4. Don’t assume that the evidence in favor of an old universe is, pardon the pun, set in stone.
A few years back scientists took some rock formed by a Hawaiian volcano around the year 1800 and tested it using the Potassium-Argon test, the standard for determining the age of rocks. Despite the fact that the rocks were 200 years old, they tested out at 2 billion years old. Critics of the test complained that the test was never designed to work on young rocks and that is why the got the wrong result. Their point is valid. However, what happens if the universe is only 6-10,000 years old. All of the rocks are relatively young and would produce invalid results. We just wouldn’t know it.
Back in the 1960s NASA planned on landing an unmanned probe on the moon. Scientists were concerned because, according to their calculations, the moon should have been covered with a very thick layer of meteoric dust accumulated during its 4-4.5 billion years of existence. They were surprised to find that the dust layer amounted to less than an inch. The topic never seemed to get discussed after that.
There is plenty of data to indicate that the Earth is not as old as we have been taught to believe.
bones_IV said>>
How does anyone defend the notion that Homo sapiens are descended from TWO individuals from an extremely small genetic bottleneck? Why is this bottleneck so small? Wouldn’t Adam and Eve be living with other Homo sapiens too? Surely members of this ancient Homo sapiens have contemporary progeny, not just the two chosen individuals? <<
Mitochondrial DNA studies seem to point to all humans having descended from a single female whom scientists have nicknamed Eve.
I find it easier to believe in divine creation rather than to accept the idea that a male and female Home sapiens evolved at the same time and place so that they could meet and reproduce.
ribozyme said>>
I questioned that the lineage of Homo sapiens can to extrapolated backward to a population of two people, thus falsifying monogenism?<<
If you reject monogenism, how do you avoid the heretical position of denying original sin, a de fide doctrine of the Church?
