Posted on 02/10/2005 10:47:45 AM PST by LibWhacker
No, it isn't. That's a cartoon version of biochemistry which is as "accurate" -- and as much of welcome and useful "contribution" to the discussion -- as a Michael Moore rant at a Bush cabinet meeting.
Appreciative placemarker.
The thing is, imagine if that particular form of life proved absolutely lethal to the current dominant form? Perhaps the former simply couldn't develop outside of intervention due to constraints via ID. Perhaps it simply isn't "natural" as it were.
Do I believe that engaging in such activity is trying to "play God"? Yes, it must be approached with absolute respect for all the implications and the responsibilities.
Now that's not to say I don't think they should do such research, but I have to question the motivation and mentality behind it on behalf of all mankind.
I am not a cell biologist so what I say is very, very broad, besides being simply a posting of what Bruce Lipton said. If Bruce Lipton is flat wrong, then this needs to be brought out.
"...personally missed the bit in the Bible where it says that God limited men's abilities such that they cannot make life."
Did not mean to mislead on this part - it is just my opinion that God has placed this limitation on man. Off the top of my head, I cannot think of any place in the Bible that specifies this. However, based on reality, I believe it to be true.
That said, I have given the idea of man creating life a lot of thought the last couple of days. And at this point, I do not believe it could ever happen. Why? Because only God can create a spirit and soul. Man absolutely cannot do this. Man and every living thing has a body - the physical. But man also has a spirit and soul - the spiritual/psychological/emotional side. How would man ever create a mind? And emotion? A will? A conscience? And so forth.
So to once-and-for-all, finally, and adamantly clarify my position: God, and only God, can create life. Man cannot. Man can only take the life God has created and propagate it or terminate it. Even though - as you say - "Abiogenesis only has to have happened once on a trillion-trillion planets in 14 billion years," I truly believe that the possibility of that being the origin of life as we know it to be absolutely zero.
Curious. Have you ever shared your life with a dog? Have you ever worked for a time with a horse? Have you ever been in open water with dolphins? I have done all of these things, and I find your contention that they lack some vital spark of the spirit that only humans have absolutely bizarre. The only lack I can see in these creatures is the intelligence of human adults, but they are easily equal to small children in that regard. (I speak as a loving father)
How would man ever create a mind? And emotion? A will? A conscience? And so forth.
I thought that we were only talking about the ability to create life. Now you seem to be arguing about the ability to create intelligent life. I think that you might find "Can Machines Think" (1950) by Alan Turing to have interesting philosophical points about this area. Obviously thinking machines have not been achieved, but many things that were at one time "unthinkable" are eventually accomplished, and then become commonplace. Dan Dennett has collected a whole series of essays on this subject (including refutations of the idea) in a book, "The Minds I". It is a very thought provoking area.
You contend (presumably) that God creates a Soul every time 2 humans successfully mate and conceive... whey should He not do so if humans create a thinking machine, or a thinking biological construct? (I think this obvious rejoinder is in Turing's essay)
But I thought that was from scratch...
"Seems more like he gave orders, and the *Earth* brought forth the critters. Sounds like evolution, to me." ~ orionblamblam
Theological Problems of Theistic Evolution http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1986/JASA3-86VanDyke.html#Theological%20Problems%20of%20Theistic%20Evolution
"A critical examination of the scientific nature of evolutionary mechanisms, specifically differential mortality and resource scarcity, lead to significant anomalies in current interpretations of theistic evolution.
Theistic evolution necessitates that mortality and resource scarcity are the creative agents of God. The Bible consistently identifies them as being 1) a consequence of human sin, 2) a curse on the human species, 3) a tangible manifestation of sin's operation, 4) opposed and abhorred by Jesus Christ in His earthly ministry, and 5) destined to be abolished in the kingdom of God.
Theological, philosophical, and scientific research on evolutionary mechanisms aggravates rather than ameliorates these anomalies, and generates others.
Theistic evolution fails on a broad spectrum of issues to offer an integrative paradigm of evolution and biblical revelation. Until such anomalies are resolved, theistic evolution cannot be viewed as an adequate response to the question of origins.
The controversies generated by the relationship of evolutionary theory to biblical revelation regarding origins have been with us for some time (Moore 1979) and are likely to continue (Aulie 1975). The debate is many centuries old, but has intensified particularly since 1859 with Darwin's publication of Origin of species.
Evolution, in its most restrictive and technical sense, may be defined as change in average population gene frequencies over time. This has been referred to as the .. "special" theory of evolution (Kerkut 1960, Jones 1978).
In this precise sense, evolution is not a theory, but an empirically demonstrable process. This may be contrasted with a broader definition of evolution, sometimes referred to as the "general" theory of evolution (Kerkut 1960, Jones 1978).
In this sense, evolution refers to the process by which living organisms have descended from ancestors unlike themselves through the gradual acquisition of heritable traits, and that all organisms can be traced to a common ancestry which was itself derived from nonliving material.
Theistic evolution may be broadly defined as the belief that God brought about the present diversity of life through the process of (general) evolution.
Many see this as an intelligent manner of reconciling science and Christian faith on the question of origins.
For example, Aulie (1975) sees evolutionary theory as being derived from a Judeo-Christian world view.
"The idea of progress-necessary for the theory of evolution- was strengthened by the secularization of an attitude toward nature that was drawn initially from the Judeo-Christian tradition" (Wagar 1967, cited in Aulie 1975).
Aulie sees the reconciliation as essentially complete. "Contemporary Protestantism has long since made its peace with Darwin" (Aulie 1975).
Evolution has a long lineage as both theory and philosophy.
Its roots can be traced to Thales and Democritus several centuries before Christ.
Evolution began to take on a more scientific nature, especially in biology, in the seventeenth century.
It gained supremacy in that field through Darwin's theory of natural selection (Moore 1979).
Though changes in evolutionary theory since Darwin have been significant enough to warrant the label "Neo-Darwinism" (e.g., Moorhead and Kaplan 1967), the fundamental theorem of evolution, natural selection, has survived essentially intact.
The theory of natural selection states that the traits of organisms which reproduce more offspring increase in frequency over those which produce less offspring in any given population.
Despite recent criticisms (e.g., Thompson 1981) of the tautology inherent in this logic, natural selection's influence on scientific thinking in biology has not noticeably lessened.
Conditions necessary for natural selection to occur within a population include competition, differential survivorship, and differential reproduction.
Competition may be said to occur when two or more individuals attempt to appropriate a necessary, but limited, resource, with the result that 1) at least one individual is excluded from the use of the resource and 2) such exclusion has a measurable effect on the individual's survivorship and reproduction.
Simple mathematical effects of competition's effects on organisms are familiar to biologists as the Lotka-Voltera equations (Colinvaux 1973:330ff.) and, conceptually, as the Competitive Exclusion Principle (Krebs 1972:231).
Competition demands resource scarcity.
Problems with integrating natural selection through resource competition with a biblical world view begin at this point.
The biblical account of creation provides no principle that scarcity should be a necessary condition of life. Instead, the antithesis of scarcity is described. The newly created world is portrayed as one of abundance. ...." ~ F.Van Dyke
Click above link to read further.
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