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RandomAlias
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Indeed, it is more accurate to say that birds are the only surviving descendants of dinosaurs.
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RandomAlias
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Or, respecting the sensibilities of those present who don’t believe in evolution, it may be just as well to say that birds were created without any relation to dinosaurs, but by a strange coincidence they have striking anatomical similarities to dinosaurs which are not shared by other vertebrates.
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PickyPicky
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Actually I’ve changed my mind on that. I think the result may depend on the availability of sandpaper at the time.
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PickyPicky
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It’s fortunate that only our distinguished biologists and palaeontologists have been exposed as a wicked sect of liars and fraudsters, while the cunning physicists have escaped. Think what wit we might have had to endure on the notions of relative time and wave particle duality.
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Hugh_Farey
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Thanks. So what was buffalo going on about, do you think?
Ah! Buffalo is risible. Do you think that’s it?
Of the commenters on this thread who disagree with you, the majority are not evolutionists, but “literal-24-hour-day-ists”. Does that strike you as curious?
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Hugh_Farey
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Dear Glark! Can you not see that this farrago of deliberate misrepresentation, weakly humorous in intent (I suppose, as I am certain you do not believe any of your ‘examples’ are remotely accurate) is exactly what Benjamin means? If this is your idea of “preaching to all nations” then not only does your own version of the bible become wholly discredited thereby, but, by extension, so does mine. I really object to that. You and buffalo and edwest are champions of atheism, and if I have any reason for remaining on this thread it is to show any casual passers by that a belief in evolution is not incompatible with faith in God, and that faith in God is not incompatible with a belief in evolution.
Your every post is eloquent testimony to it.Claiming that any particular interpretation is the only one, and that all others are heretical, is indefensible.
Glark:
“caeli enarrant gloriam Dei et opera manuum eius adnuntiat firmamentum”
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buffalo
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Been doing just that for years and it is fascinating. Revelation though is the lens that reveals the fullness of truth.
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benjamin1973
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No. You feel that way because you are Catholic, and you think evolution is anti-Catholic. But there’s no requirement to accept evolution in order to attend science classes, to do scientific research, or even to be published.
The problem is that evolution is so much more compelling a theory than anything else that only Christian anti-evolutionists are going to consider something like ID.
The problem is that evolution is so much more compelling a theory than anything else that only Christian anti-evolutionists are going to consider something like ID.
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benjamin1973
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Revelation is a particularly poor description of physical reality. You can’t use it to design a rocket, to cure cancer, to improve seed stock for crops, or anything else. And it definitely doesn’t have anything useful to say about why there were dinosaurs, and why some of them had feathers, or why there were no giraffes say 10 million years ago but there are today.
I think the talk about Scripture is just a dodge-- a distraction from the fact that there’s no specifically Christian answer to evolution that is nearly as robust or useful in its application.
I think the talk about Scripture is just a dodge-- a distraction from the fact that there’s no specifically Christian answer to evolution that is nearly as robust or useful in its application.
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benjamin1973
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Here’s the process I follow in my thinking.
- God made the Universe.
- We have access ONLY to the Universe, i.e. through the senses.
- The only way in which we can study God is to study the Universe.
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buffalo
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The Scriptural worldview is indeed a good description of reality.
The understanding the universe was intelligible and worthy of study gave rise to modern science and a long list of discoveries and inventions. Understanding the design of the body is helping cure cancer.
Design is an excellent descriptor of the universe.
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edwest211
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And the current reverse engineering project going on with the genome is further evidence that a design approach is the only one available.
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Richca
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The question I’m going to focus on in this post is whether the seven day creation narrative of Gen. 1-2:3 was intended by Moses or the inspired sacred writer (hereafter I’m going to just say Moses for the sake of simplicity) as well as by God, the principle author of Scripture, to mean that God created the heavens and the earth, the seas, and everything in them in literally six 24 hour days and than resting on the seventh day. As some have mentioned here, Exodus 20:11 is sometimes cited for this interpretation:
“For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it.” As an aside which I’m not going to get into here but just mention it, I have read that the preposition ‘in’ in the phrase ‘For in six days’ is actually not in the hebrew text so some exegetes translate the phrase ‘For six days…’ I have not looked at the hebrew text myself or done any study about this so I can’t comment one way or the other.
Some others point out that the heavens and the earth were created (verses 1-2) before God created the light in verse 3 and separating the light from the darkness from which followed the evening and morning came, ‘one day,’ and thus an indefinite period of time could be conceived between the creation of the heavens and the earth of verse 1 and the ‘first’ day of verses 3-5. However, Moses in Exodus 20:11 appears to say that verses 1-5 are as one day.
Aside from these details, the question is whether Moses in either Genesis 1-2:3 and Exodus 20:11 is meaning to say that God created the world and everything in it in literally six 24 hour days. A few observations: Moses could not possibly have known apart from divine revelation either directly to himself or lets say God telling Adam and that knowledge was passed down through the generations, whether God created the world and everything in it in six 24 hour days. Lets assume for the moment that such a revelation was not given to Moses or Adam, it follows that the days of creation are symbolic or allegorical. Moses may have meant the days to be understood as 24 hour days as when he says “For [in] six days the Lord made heaven and earth…” But without an explicit revelation, he could not possibly have meant that God created the world and everything in it in six literally 24 hour days. In other words, how could he possibly have known this?
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Richca
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(continued)
2nd Scenario: God revealed to Moses that he created the world and everything in it in six 24 hour days. The problem with this scenario is that the discoveries of modern science appear to contradict this scenario. The millions and billions of years that geology assigns to the earth and layers of rocks, the hundreds of millions and possibly billion/s of years that paleontology assigns to the fossil record, would be simply erroneous and extremely so. Now the science involved in determining these ages requires from what I understand some assumptions and so it is not an exact science but an estimation, a ‘ballpark’ estimate. But, could these estimations be so far off, extremely off as it were? I personally find this unreasonable, maybe I’m wrong.
Consequently, assuming that these ages in the millions and billions of years are somewhere in the ‘ballpark,’ even remotely so, it follows that God neither created the heavens and the earth, the seas, and everything in them in six 24 hour days nor obviously that He revealed such to Moses. Again, assuming the science is even ‘remotely’ correct or somewhere in the ballpark, the ‘days’ of the Genesis creation narrative as well as Exodus 20:11, even if understood as 24 hour days, are certainly symbolic. They can only represent an indefinite period of time unless one was to think that God created everything simultaneously but this idea is not the picture the seven day creation narrative gives us or again, that the discoveries of modern science gives us.
(to be continued with some of the objections from YEC)
2nd Scenario: God revealed to Moses that he created the world and everything in it in six 24 hour days. The problem with this scenario is that the discoveries of modern science appear to contradict this scenario. The millions and billions of years that geology assigns to the earth and layers of rocks, the hundreds of millions and possibly billion/s of years that paleontology assigns to the fossil record, would be simply erroneous and extremely so. Now the science involved in determining these ages requires from what I understand some assumptions and so it is not an exact science but an estimation, a ‘ballpark’ estimate. But, could these estimations be so far off, extremely off as it were? I personally find this unreasonable, maybe I’m wrong.
Consequently, assuming that these ages in the millions and billions of years are somewhere in the ‘ballpark,’ even remotely so, it follows that God neither created the heavens and the earth, the seas, and everything in them in six 24 hour days nor obviously that He revealed such to Moses. Again, assuming the science is even ‘remotely’ correct or somewhere in the ballpark, the ‘days’ of the Genesis creation narrative as well as Exodus 20:11, even if understood as 24 hour days, are certainly symbolic. They can only represent an indefinite period of time unless one was to think that God created everything simultaneously but this idea is not the picture the seven day creation narrative gives us or again, that the discoveries of modern science gives us.
(to be continued with some of the objections from YEC)
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benjamin1973
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Let me explain what “begging the question” is.
Begging the question is when you attempt to indirectly use your axioms to support themselves. In science, it’s often done at a definition level.
Try this: “Consciousness is awareness of the environment and the ability to interact with it. My robot can sense stuff around it and avoid it. Therefore my robot is conscious.” Would you accept this? No-- you’d stop right at the definitional stage, and say that you don’t accept that definition.
You are doing the same thing-- you define informational complexity as “design,” and then when (unsurprisingly) informational complexity is found in DNA, you insist that you’ve found evidence of a designer. But that’s no discovery of God-- it’s just a shell game.
You are currently implying that since we’re “reverse engineering” that there is an engineer. That’s a fine position to hold, but you don’t get to use your definition and your conclusion to mutually support each other. That’s a fundamental error in logic.
Begging the question is when you attempt to indirectly use your axioms to support themselves. In science, it’s often done at a definition level.
Try this: “Consciousness is awareness of the environment and the ability to interact with it. My robot can sense stuff around it and avoid it. Therefore my robot is conscious.” Would you accept this? No-- you’d stop right at the definitional stage, and say that you don’t accept that definition.
You are doing the same thing-- you define informational complexity as “design,” and then when (unsurprisingly) informational complexity is found in DNA, you insist that you’ve found evidence of a designer. But that’s no discovery of God-- it’s just a shell game.
You are currently implying that since we’re “reverse engineering” that there is an engineer. That’s a fine position to hold, but you don’t get to use your definition and your conclusion to mutually support each other. That’s a fundamental error in logic.
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buffalo
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Not exactly. Functional specified complex information is the key.
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benjamin1973
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Does this word clarify or confound your definition?
Genetic information is information about how a life form should grow in utero and how it should age. These are all physical properties, governed by chemistry.
But this is your problem-- define it however you want, but you are still begging the question-- you’re deliberately defining information in a way that implies God, and then using the information as evidence of God. This is circular reasoning, and is fundamentally unsound.
Genetic information is information about how a life form should grow in utero and how it should age. These are all physical properties, governed by chemistry.
But this is your problem-- define it however you want, but you are still begging the question-- you’re deliberately defining information in a way that implies God, and then using the information as evidence of God. This is circular reasoning, and is fundamentally unsound.
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buffalo
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No. The higher the degree of fsci the more the meter tips to the design side. The UPB is set at 10^150. Chance events fall under and design over. Where this boundary could slightly change; when the odds are magnitudes higher we can even more certain of design.
Protein folding is well beyond the UPB. So are many other things. Fine tuning of the universe is another example.
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Glark
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I’m not aware of any cats that have evolved into non-cats.
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Glark
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This is evolution science In a nutshell. Well done.
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