Posted on 01/25/2005 6:15:41 PM PST by gobucks
Ken Miller is an interesting guy. He is co-author of the nation's best-selling biology textbook. It was on his book, "Biology," that schools in Cobb County, Ga., slapped a sticker casting doubt on its discussion of evolution theory. And it was this sticker that a federal judge recently ordered removed because it endorsed religion. Miller, who testified against the label, gets a lot of hate mail these days.
But Miller is also a practicing Roman Catholic. "I attend Mass every Sunday morning," he said, "and I'm tired of being called an atheist."
A professor of biology at Brown University, Miller does not believe that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution contradicts the creation passages in the Bible. And he will argue the point till dawn.
"None of the six creative verses (in Genesis) describe an out-of-nothing, puff-of-smoke creation," he says. "All of them amount to a command by the creator for the earth, the soil and the water of this planet to bring forth life. And that's exactly what natural history tells us happened." (Miller has written a book on the subject: "Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution.")
Still, today's emotional conflicts over teaching this science in public schools leave the impression that Christianity and evolution cannot be reconciled. This is not so.
In 1996, Pope John II wrote a strong letter to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences supporting the scientific understanding of evolution. That's one reason why students in Catholic parochial schools get a more clearheaded education in evolution science than do children at many public schools racked by the evolution debate.
American parents who want Darwin's name erased from the textbooks might be surprised at the father of evolution's burial spot. Darwin was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey, an Anglican church and England's national shrine.
Not every illustrious Englishman gains admission to an abbey burial site. Darwin died in 1882. Two years before, friends of George Eliot wanted the famous (female) writer laid to rest at the abbey. Eliot had lived immorally, according to the church fathers, and was denied a place. (She is buried at London's Highgate Cemetery, not far from Karl Marx.)
But Darwin had been an upright man. The clergy were proud both of Darwin's accomplishments and of their own comfort with modern science.
In 1882, during the memorial service for the great evolutionist, one church leader after the other rose to praise Charles Darwin. Canon Alfred Barry, for one, had recently delivered a sermon declaring that Darwin's theory was "by no means alien to the Christian religion."
Nowadays, Catholics and old-line Protestants have largely made peace with evolution theory. Most objections come from evangelicals — and not all of them.
Francis S. Collins is head of the National Genome Project and a born-again Christian. He belongs to the American Scientific Affiliation — a self-described fellowship of scientists "who share a common fidelity to the word of God and a commitment to integrity in the practice of science." Its Web address is www.asa3.org.
But back in Cobb County, the debate rages. The sticker taken off Miller's textbook read: "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered."
Why should Miller care that the Cobb County School Board — having bought his book in great quantity — pastes those words on the cover?
First off, he says, "It implies that facts are things we are certain of and theories are things that are shaky." In science, theory is a higher level of understanding than facts, he notes. "Theories don't grow up to become facts. Rather, theories explain facts."
Then, he questions why, of all the material in his book, only evolution is singled out for special consideration. Miller says that if he could write the sticker, it would say, "Everything in this book should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered."
Clearly, many religious people regard evolution theory with sincere and heartfelt concern. But theirs is not a mainstream view — even among practicing Christians. Most theologians these days will argue that the biology book and the Good Book are reading from the same page.
Providence Journal columnist Froma Harrop's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. Her e-mail address is fharrop@projo.com
Thanks for the reply.
Is this as far as we've been able to observe evolution? Some say "species" is an arbitrary distinction. How can science demonstrate the "amoeba to man" notion as factual?
It's a different approach. Some come from the perspective that God gave us a mind to explore our beginnings. That is what we are doing. It is curiosity.
Think about the kid that is given everything and everything is done for him. He develops no discipline. Maybe God gave us a hint of what he did and now is allowing us to pursue the details of what he did.
There are undoubtedly as many different theistic interpretations of Evolution as there are interpretations of any other part of the Bible. No two denominations agree on what the Bible means, and that goes for Genesis as well.
Genesis contains only a few hundred words about the creation. Obviously, there is a considerable amount of Gods creation not described there.
God does not talk about creating gravity, the electromagnetic spectrum, viruses, on and on. There are problems with Noah's journey. How did the animals get to and from Australia, for example? How did all the animals of the earth fit in the Ark? How were they fed?
The stories in Genesis just can't be literal. Virtually no one believes that that the earth was created in literal 24 hour days, and indeed, the sun itself was not created until the 4th day, so how could those days have been measured?
Further, there are two separate creation stories, starting in Gen 1:1 and Gen 2:4. Yes, some interpretations are that Gen 2:4 is an extension of Gen 1:1. But there are sequences in 2:4 (where "B" did not happen until "A" did), and these two sequences from Gen 1:1 vs. Gen 2:4 do not agree.
I don't know the model that is proper to interpret Genesis. Perhaps it is like Jesus' parables, and the true and only meaning is that "God did it". I don't know.
But since it is required for any honest interpreter of Genesis to rationalize apparent differences between the verses, it is no different to rationalize that God created Evolution, and just did not mention it in those few verses at the Beginning of the Bible.
I don't believe that God manhandles the earth in it's orbit around the sun moment by moment. I believe He created gravity and allows it to work as He designed. Likewise, I see no problem that God created Evolution, and allowed it to work as He designed.
Like the Pope, I believe that there is no conflict between God's creation and the Bible. Only conflicts in men. And this fight over Evolution is between men.
I don't know of any. I just (on my own, thus no publication because no funding, and I don't have to prove anything) developed the idea of using a (high dimensional) random walk to simulate mutation and some sort of selection for culling. I was surprised that the culling (natural or human selection) seemed to make things converge really fast (probably exponentially fast). This is useful in genetic algorithms.
You might look at the litterature on "particle filters." Not the dust stuff, the "control of electrical signals" stuff.
Chaos isn't really diffusion. It operates somewhat differently. There's no reason that one couldn't have both though.
Diffusion is a first order approximation to the more accurate transport theory and applies for mono-energetic applications only.
They do have a few dead and living popes (martin Luther being a dead one)(Pope JohnPaul, Pat Robertson, Dr. James Dobson, the arch bishop of the anglican church, the leader of the eastern orthodox church being a few examples of live ones)Between the living and dead they do have something in common that neither an angel nor God with an audible voice set them in that place as God did with Moses Christ or even Paul the Apostle. They do not have the signs wonders and healings that God says would follow such beleivers. They obey not the words of Christ that say they are to be servants of all, that they are not to rule as those in the world do. thatthey are not to seek the wealth and riches of the the world, and that they are not to come in their own names.
But what should we consider such small defieciencies -- when we can have a bunch of little horns walking around filled with eyes and boasting great things against God and the Church?
The answer is their are two churches in the word of God there is a natural physical church and there is a spiritual church that is not made with hands.
The New Testament was originally written in Greek all english bibles are translations. The word Church does not exist in the greek the word Church is an interpretation rather than a translation. The word ek-clessia that is rendered church is actually two words ek which means; "out from" or "away from" and clessia which means the called. so the english word church should read the "Out called of the called."
We will now make sense of the word "eccelssia" The call of the salvation of christ goes out to all those who hear the call and gather togeher are the clessia -- but from clessia there are those who sell out for God, and become his disciples those are the ecclessia.
In Churches people are discipled to that denomination they are discipled to pastors teachers and the occasional pope but Jesus said you can't be my disciple and sit under another or bear their teachings so all who do so are not accepted as eccelsia.
Now the Earthly church is spoken of and prophesied of in the old testaments as for my "names sake" those who are called by my name -- that is the earthly church and the Lord can not allow his earthly witness to perish because man is so orientated to the tangible and secondly if their was not clessia there could be no ecclessia chosen from it.
We might say the earthly church the clessia is the maneure from which the the spiritual church the ecclessia comes forthfrom
This is in no text books, or commentaries, or from someones study notes not becasue it has never occurred to these people but it casts them in the bad corrupt light that they are in.
So the earthly church will continue to be corrupt to act corrupt and to split divide and fight until the end. And then the bible says that Christ will come and gather out all that offendeds, gatheing the tares first and burning them that the ecclessia that is hidden may shine forth.
So if you are coveting after the things of the world if you seek riches wealth power if you seek to be the disciples of men of make disciples to yourself you had better make the most of it becasue that is all your going to get and then its toaster time. So the memories of sbeing self serving had better be pretty powerful because that is all that is going to remain.
Many are called but few are chosen.
Matthew 7:14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
No church beleives these verses becasue of the huge denominations that they belong to. It would be bad for business to say many that go to our church are not going to make it becasue you are only doing this for looks, you are only doing what you think you can get by with.
Chruches make altar calls for people to accept Jesus -- that is to decide if Christ meets your object standards.
So we decide if Christ is worthy of us and if he is we relagete him to some dark corner of our heart and by God! We have fire insurance coverage.
But if we loved the truth and would read the bible we would find that Christ demands we follow him -- that is to be his disciple and the disciples of no other.
I will copy and paste a discussion of this with some scripture and leave you go.
1John1:1-3 “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us; That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you.
I spoke before of this personal testimony, this personal experience of the acts of God as being a law that Isaiah did not preach Jeremiah and Jeremiah did not speak Ezekiel each spoke only that which they saw and heard likewise Paul does not preach peter peter does not preach John and John does not preach paul.
John 3:11 “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, we speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen . . .” The Greek reads Verily Verily I say unto thee, That which we know (Oidamen to know by having asked – to know by having examined) we speak, and that which we have seen we bear witness of.
Acts 4:20 For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard. Now if this point were not important it would not be repeated again and again but it has somehow slipped under the church’s radar screen like most things that pertain to life and godliness, glory and virtue.
Matthew 11:4 Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see: Here we catch Jesus commanding the disciples of John to speak only that which they have seen and heard.
Romans 15:18-20 For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ hath not wrought by me, to make the Gentiles obedient, by word and deed, Through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God; so that from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.
Why does Paul the Apostle say that he dare not? The dare not implies that if Paul would speak of what Christ did in others, or preached what Christ had taught others there would be unwelcome consequences – ie no mighty signs and wonders no power of the spirit of God – So in his ministry Paul says by preaching what God wrought in Paul and what Christ taught Paul he was fully preaching the Gospel – Because the Gospel is what God has wrought in you and taught you.
There is more to the Apostles not just quoting from each other, consider this we know that Paul the Apostle sat under the feet of Gameliel – but yet Paul never says: “You know back before I was saved Gameliel used to say . . . And it is so true, I think Gameliel had some real truth and insight . . .
Realize that Paul knew the teachings of all the great Rabbis. He knew probably every Jot and tittle in the Talmud but Paul never quotes from any of that.
John the Apostle had been a disciple of John the Baptist and other than where The Apostle John felt that it was necessary to quote from John the Baptist as Identifying Jesus as the Christ , and as sending disciples to verify Jesus was the Christ before his death John never says: “You know when Jesus spoke on this John the Baptist used to say this . . . . And now that I look back to John I see that he really had some life changing truth and insights and if it had not been for John’s teachings I probably would not be where I am today.”
1 Corinthians 1:6 Howbeit we speak (Christ’s) wisdom among them that are perfect: Yet not the wisdom of this world, nor (Do we speak) of the princes of this world, that (will) come to nought:
We do not speak of the wisdom of this world. We do not speak the wisdom of the greatest philosophers, the greatest rulers, the greatest in business; the greatest sports stars, the greatest actors, the greatest musicians. If then we cannot speak of the wisdom that is of this world, and the wisdom that is of the princes of this world, how is it then that we believe we can speak the wisdom from the carnal among us who lust after the things of the world, that seek praise of men, and that seek the corrupt mammon of the world? Or even doing greater evil we have willingly given up our birthright to make ourselves the disciples and servants of those that come in their own name, and preach and teach their own wisdom?
I don't know what happened by I sent a repsonse to you to someone else -- read post 65
But wouldn't Adam have been a special creation? I mean, somewhere in time there has to be a "man" that is there for God to call the first man...to have a relationship with that man...to create a woman out of that man. It seems strange to me that we have these millions of years of man evolving until BINGO! God says, "Here he is! This is the one I'm going to have that special relationship with. This is the one I will not allowed to die."
So what do we pick and choose out of the Genesis story? Do we forget about him creating man out of dust? Forget about him taking the side of the man to create woman? I'm not sure where I'm suppose to start believing and where I'm suppose to stop. I guess if it doesn't jive with evolution, I stop?
Look for "multi-pole" expansions to help reduce the N^2 interaction cost (perhaps.) Also the PIC (particle-in-cell may help.) There was some work on this done about 50 years ago on the Maniac computer.
I once built a system (for other purposes, network intrusion detection, actually, it wasn't used), that has similar problems to yours. What I did was sample which particle to move. The driving force was the average field of the other particles. I think this is similar to "mean field" approximations. Of course, you get only the "weak behavior" of the system (on the average, not detailed.)
We were taught in Sunday school that that was why man had one less rib that women ...
Except we all have the exact same number of ribs. :-)
Perhaps Adam was the first given a soul. Or perhaps God zapped Adam into existence. But I don't think it matters which. Remember that later Genesis talks of other people, not descended from Adam and Eve, living in a nearby land. Where did they come from? Obviously another important part that Genesis does not explain.
So what do we pick and choose out of the Genesis story?
You must already do that, irregardless of Evolution. Genesis cannot be parsed word-for-word coherently.
I was taught in college Old Testament History class at Oklahoma Baptist University that Genesis was a collection of oral stories that were transcribed by Moses. When reading Genesis 1:1 vs. Gen 2:4, that's exactly what it appears to be. Entirely separate stories, told by different unnamed prophets.
Do we forget about him creating man out of dust?
That's an interesting way to put the creation of man. If you consider that one of the methods proposed by science for the beginning of life is the infamous "soup" where the first self-reproducing "life" originated. You could interpret that this is "dust" that has been rained on.
This is just one line. Just a hint. But where would the original prophet known this, unless from a genuine revelation from God? Albeit just one line, and cryptic. It does match sciences assumptions about the first life that eventually evolved into man.
The creation of the universe, life, and man had to be a huge thing. But the creation in Genesis is only a very few pages of the Bible. It simply must be the Readers Digest version of what really happened.
There wouldn't be enough pages in the entire Bible to tell the real story.
Welcome back! It's very good to see you in these threads again.
Alas, I don't know enough about chaos theory to intelligently evaluate your idea of a boundry. (Doctor Stochastic does, so I'm pinging him.) Even if the math makes sense (which I don't know) it needs to be tested, or at least supported by some unambiguous observations.
The notion of a gradual (and sometimes not-so-gradual), step-by-step series of changes in a population, which over time accumulate to become "macro" evolution (or really, just speciation) is difficult for me to imagine being interrupted "just in time" to prevent things from "going too far." But science always follows the evidence, so I'm willing to follow reality wherever it leads.
I must say, however, that you are the very first person to even suggest a possible mechanism to block "macro" evolution from taking place. That is confirmation of my long-held opinion that you are one of the best people on your side of the issue.
You mean no animals or plants died before Adam sinned?Fascinating. So, in your understanding, before sin animals did not eat?Right.
That's Mars, not Earth.
That sounds like some sort of recrimination, used to "prove" some sort of point..
What is that point?
And, what do you think an AGNOSTIC is ?
If you think it means ATHEIST, you are wrong..
Choose your words, madam..
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