Does evolution contradict creationism?

Talk Origins ^ | 1998 | Warren Kurt VonRoeschlaub

[shubi]

There are two parts to creationism. Evolution, specifically common descent, tells us how life came to where it is, but it does not say why. If the question is whether evolution disproves the basic underlying theme of Genesis, that God created the world and the life in it, the answer is no. Evolution cannot say exactly why common descent chose the paths that it did.

If the question is whether evolution contradicts a literal interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis as an exact historical account, then it does. This is the main, and for the most part only, point of conflict between those who believe in evolution and creationists.

[shubi]

We didn't descend from apes. We both came from a common ancestor, but apes split off millions of years before.

Genesis is not allegorical. Allegory is specifically where every symbol means something else.

There is hardly any allegory in the Bible. A long time ago, there were those that interpreted everything as an allegory, but that just did not hold water.

Similarly, a literalist translation does not hold water.

I think the concept of original sin is misunderstood by the literalists. I simply believe Adam is a story of how some ancient peoples tried to explain their existence. I think there are some spiritual lessons there, but they may not be exactly what you interpret them to be (or what your pastor thinks they are).

The Bible is a book about the Spirit and the Kingdom of God. If you are an engineer, you may be looking for too much precision. Nothing is certain. God is not about to reveal all his secrets. A God that did would not be much of a God. I know that I make mistakes (sin) every day. To me this is a continual fight between my animal nature and my spiritual nature. It is spiritual warfare. If you reject the fact you have come from animals, you are endangering your spirit, for you will not recognize the battle until it is too late.

[bigdakine]

Yes, macroevolution does involve some other concepts but it all comes down to the same process. Mass extinctions also change the allele frequency.

B: Yes, but in this case the change is not due to selection, drift, or (insert other favorite microevolutionary process here) but an eviornmental catastrophe or meteorite impact. The point Stanley and others make, is that you can't make much progress understanding long term trends in evolution simply by stating " change in allele frequency ". Any more than looking at a chemical reaction and say "thats due to QM".

[bigdakine]

You are wrong.


B: Would you believe, I've heard that before? :-)

[Right Wing Professor]

Look back in one of my previous posts for MY evolutionary professor who disagrees...kay, you guys boor me.

You promised to cite an evolutionist who denies Arcaheopteryx is a transitional form. Now you want me to go find one in your old posts. No dice. Do what you promised. Cite please.

[bigdakine]

I hope I've been able to illustrate why this is false, and how micro and macro are related, and how they are different.
Good post - the terminology is laid out nicely.

B: Thank you. Whether we will continue to disagree or not, I appreciate anybody that admits they've learned something.

Creationists caricature this difference as meaning micro and macro are completely different and unrelated processes.

I don't know what other Creationists are saying but, as a biblical literalist, I don't find enough historical time for macro.

B: Well as someone who reads the "original Bible" :-). I haven't found anything in it which suggest there isn't.

[Thatcherite]

We didn't descend from apes. We both came from a common ancestor, but apes split off millions of years before.

Don't you mean chimps or monkeys? We *are* apes aren't we? I stand ready to be corrected by one who knows his taxonomy though.

[bigdakine]

You know far more about Hitler than I. And look how long it took you to accomplish that. You are almost too stupid to converse with...bye.

B: ? Some people just don't like having their balloon popped.

[Jehu]

The same proof in the fossil record that you use to claim Archeopteryx is a transitory species. So modern man began 65 million years ago?

And go find out what it takes for human speech, no ape or monkey has the equipment. And if we descended from apes? Why the difference in birth positions? What is the advantage being bequeathed by "natural selection?"

You're the expert, you tell me. Certainly you have an idea? Or do you need time to Google and find some professor that can tell you, and you can cut and paste HIS idea.

NONE of you can propose anything on your own. You lack the ability to use this theory you so lovingly clasp to your breasts, to account for all the specificity in species. From the woodpeckers beak, to the angler fish spitting a stream of water at low branches to knock off insects that he feeds on. And that fish had to figure out the air/water interface bending of light to come up with this circus act! But all a happy accident. Believing in evolution, you have lost the ability to think, mistaking arguments over process as understanding and knowledge, puffed up by mutual admiration societies of the arrogant, leading the proud to their frontal lobotomies. Cause there is only chance, or design, nobody has ever been able to propose a third way, although evolutionists pretend "natural selection," is a new animal, not chance...but not design either. Sort of a hybrid, like maybe rap/disco sung by a Country Western artist.

[bigdakine]

Dr. Jonathan Wells who wrote "Icons of Evolution" is on the Michael Medved show right now.

B: Wells should spend more time trying to get his "ideas" published.

[Thatcherite]

Can't we finish dealing with the old arguments before you wheel in a whole bunch of new ones. Have you worked out why those falsifications that Theobald suggests wouldn't falsify ToE yet?

[bigdakine]

Look back in one of my previous posts for MY evolutionary professor who disagrees...kay, you guys boor me.
You promised to cite an evolutionist who denies Arcaheopteryx is a transitional form. Now you want me to go find one in your old posts. No dice. Do what you promised. Cite please.

B: I'll help you out. He claims Feduccia did.

[Thatcherite]

But as a BTW why we are going on with this...

A fish that jumps close to the right place gets more flies and passes on the tendency to jump close to the right place. The better it gets at it the more advantage it has.

A proto-woodpecker with a beak only marginally bigger or stronger than other birds gets more insects to eat and is more likely to pass on the genes that keep it from going hungry.

[Right Wing Professor]

But humans come out face down

Head down, most of the time. So do chimpanzees, most of the time. The only difference is that humans tend to turn 90 degrees at the last minute so the long axis of the head is along the wider axis of the brith canal. It's not a major change; it may well simply be caused by the pressure of contractions.

http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/dept/d10/asb/anthro2003/origins/babies.html

Dolphins, sharks, whales...the same!

Nonsense. there is a full set of transitional species for whales and dolphins.

But Giraffes suddenly appear with their enormously lengthened necks with all that entails...with no, absolutely not one, preceding hint of any fossil of anything even remotely like them!

Haven't you ever seen an okapi?

[derheimwill]

I accept all the primary evidence. I only "pick and choose" when it comes to the secondary stuff. The original question was "Does evolution contradict creationism?"

I am a creationist as a result of studying scriptural history. Over 2000 years, 40 different authors wrote down the things they witnessed, without any contradictions, and without having conferred. This proves the coherency of canon to me. Prior to Moses (Exodus, chapter 2), there is mostly only oral tradition (which Moses compiled). Oral tradition may seem fallible but, in oral societies, it is taken seriously and even a secular story may go hundreds of years unchanged. In the case of Genesis 11 through 50, there is little reason to doubt the tradition. Abram was only born 4 centuries before Moses. With this much coherency, I am not going to doubt Genesis 1 throught 10 without definite proof that it is untrue. A scientific theory which uses only its own internal logic, no matter how well it describes the universe, does not explain it.

Evolution does not contradict creationism. Created things evolve. It is creationism which limits evolutionary theories to a time period. What happened before that is not the purvue of evolution as a theory. This is the purvue of geology, astronomy, ontology, theology, cosmology, etc.

Whatever terminology these sciences come up with, whatever processes they describe, there is no proof they always existed. This is the central issue. One can neither prove nor disprove the assertion that time has a beginning. One day, time began. See?

[Right Wing Professor]

He claims Feduccia did.

Lucky him; I have a copy of 'The Origin and Evolution of Birds' at home. I'll post some highlights.

IIRC, the only thing he cited was a quote where Feduccia called Archaeopteryx a bird, which it surely is. That doesn't mean it isn't transitional. Homo erectus is a hominid, but it's for sure transitional between habilis and sapiens.

[Jehu]

You are in error about original sin. I agree we are in spiritual warfare between two natures. However we are doomed without outside help. Nothing God does is vague. It is all very specific. Jesus is not a magic wand. He came to fulfill law, and execute a new covenant with man.

The Bible makes no mistake in mentioning original sin. To deny that central tenet is to deny most of the Bible, and all most all of Paul's writings. He could only take away sin from us ALL, (as one man himself), if that sin came into ALL of humanity through one man. The account of Genesis stands as is. There cannot be common descent from another species, we must all have only a common parent!

I am not a young earth believer. I do believe the Gap between Gen 1:1 and Gen 1:2. Unless I can be dissuaded about original sin I will view evolutionary teaching as a direct attack upon the central tenet of original sin.

I really personally could care less if God did things by evolution, or fiat. But the revelation of original sin, the teachings of the Bible, and my own experience and observation, and the writings of hundreds of Christian scholars persuade me that this is correct.

Evolution, (as taught now) is in contradiction to original sin, and is my basis to oppose this theory vehemently, until either it, or Christianity is vanquished! You are fighting the wrong battle on the wrong side.

I have not even touched upon the utter disaster evolutionary theory has wrecked upon humanity from a sociological viewpoint. It turns loose a nihilism upon man we cannot afford. For that reason alone it should be rejected.

[bigdakine]

The same proof in the fossil record that you use to claim Archeopteryx is a transitory species. So modern man began 65 million years ago?

B: I didn't claim that. What I did claim, and anybody without a reading comprehension problem could understand, was that most of the features you listed as properties of modern humans, actually predate humanity. Opposable thumbs, is a general property of primates, even prosimians. Hence, opposable thumbs were present at the dawn of primate evolution, 65 or so million years ago. THis is not rocket science. It is an easy to follow argument, whether or not one agrees with it.



And go find out what it takes for human speech, no ape or monkey has the equipment.

B: Thats quite right. We know the brain has an area which seems to be important in speech. Its called "Broca's Area" or Broca's Bulge. Even though brains aren't fossilized, the outer sturcture of the brain is preserved on the inside of the skull. THis is called a "cranial endocast". Chimps don't have a Broca's area. Neither did the Australopithicines, so far as I am aware. But it is present in the early hominid skulls, and becomes more pronounced during subsequent evolution. I would venture that this is strong evidence that speech evolved during the course of human evolution.


And if we descended from apes?

B: Evolution means change. Again, I don't see what you're on about.


Why the difference in birth positions? What is the advantage being bequeathed by "natural selection?"

B: Greater reproductive success. Women who tend to give breech births or babies facing the wrong way aren't as reproductively successful as women who do. Because either they or the child dies. That was an easy question.


You're the expert, you tell me. Certainly you have an idea? Or do you need time to Google and find some professor that can tell you, and you can cut and paste HIS idea.

B:Sorry, I have my own ideas.

NONE of you can propose anything on your own. You lack the ability to use this theory you so lovingly clasp to your breasts, to account for all the specificity in species.



B: Funny, but very little of what I have posted, perhaps 2-3% is not my "own words". You sir are a liar, and are ill suited and equipped to deal with the scientific evidence in a rigorous and even handed manner.

[bigdakine]

He claims Feduccia did.
Lucky him; I have a copy of 'The Origin and Evolution of Birds' at home. I'll post some highlights.

IIRC, the only thing he cited was a quote where Feduccia called Archaeopteryx a bird, which it surely is. That doesn't mean it isn't transitional. Homo erectus is a hominid, but it's for sure transitional between habilis and sapiens.

B: Which was my take exactly.

[Jehu]

Actually I don't care what Theobald says, a quick perusal assures me it is just another in the enless semantic tricks of evolutionists, and if the pre-Cambrian explosion of life is NOT enough falsification of this theory, then what possibly could be?

[Thatcherite]

A quick perusal is certainly all you managed, as you demonstrate no interest in learning anything that might contradict your religion. That is why you missed the math, presumably.