Posted on 07/05/2002 12:26:31 PM PDT by Khepera
What is the problem with evolutionists referring to "Mother Nature?"
I've got tons of fishing magazines at home; they're laying everywhere. This one is entitled In-Fisherman and it is one of the best fishing magazines around. It's very helpful in educating you about fishing--fresh-water fishing in particular. But they have these short sections in the beginning--snippets, side-bar type things. This one is entitled "New View of Eye-Spots." It talks about how they are reassessing why these creatures have eye-spots. The purpose for eye-spots, according to evolutionary theory, is to trick the larger fish into attacking the eye-spot and away from the vulnerable spot on the fish in order to give the shad a chance to get away. But now there's a case of a shad, which is a small bait fish that larger fish eat, that has an eye-spot right in the middle of its body, which seems to be the most vulnerable spot. Why would they have an eye-spot there if the purpose of an eye-spot is to provide a protective advantage for the shad?
There's a comment made in the article, "The spots on the sides of shad may have evolved as a way to help the species maintain formation while schooling or spawning and not for defense against predators." Here's another case where you have the evolution language mixed with design language. It "may have evolved as a way to help." In other words, there is a purpose for this and that's to help schooling fish. It's so interesting when one explanation based on evolution doesn't work and they try to come up with another explanation, but both of these explanations imply design and purpose.
I then began reading a book called Big Bass Magic . This author is quite a conservationist, and I'm glad for that. He advocates catch and release, which is big among bass fishermen because we catch our fish for the sport of it and then let them go unharmed. Of course, then they can return to their natural habitat, spawn and enjoy a long life there and maybe be caught again, so we have a resource that is maintained.
The author writes this unusual paragraph. Listen carefully to the words: "Generally, today's fish management has its roots in the agencies and programs of the forties. The purpose at that time was to determine how to exploit what was considered the lavishly over-abundant fish resource."
Let me pause for a moment. He used the word "purpose." Who has the purpose? Fish management people, right? "The purpose at the time was to determine how to better exploit what was considered the lavishly over-abundant fish resource."
He continues, "We often still find that attitude in fish management today, and it is typified by the much publicized statement that any fish that grows up, dies of old age and is never caught is a wasted resource. Well, that presumes that in nature no purpose is served by the complete life of that fish, and it is too much for me to take when that is denied. Nature would not allow a bass, for instance, to reach ten pounds if a bass that size served no purpose in the balance of the ecosystem."
If you are an evolutionist, you are not a theist in the sense that your theism has anything to do with the real world.
He's saying, look, older bass, bigger bass, the ones that people catch and hang on their wall really serve a purpose in the ecosystem. Notice how he used the word purpose to describe the intent of fishery management and then he used the word purpose to describe the intent of nature. Now, what the heck is that? Nature is not a person, therefore nature cannot have intent. Only agents have intents. Nature doesn't. Nature is just a general way of describing the accident of cause and effect in a naturalistic system. So to say that nature has a purpose that is served by the complete life of the fish in the ecosystem is to say something that is nonsense. It's ironic that it is said so glibly without a blush by a man who is deeply committed to evolution.
Now, I think that his gut-level observation is accurate. I think it seems clear that there is some purpose for the full life span of different species, but we can only make a comment like that if there is someone behind the scenes that is purposing, such that the things that we see have purposes. I think it is obvious there is a designer and that's why it is very easy for this man to talk about the purpose of individuals in wildlife management in the same breath as talking about the purpose of nature. It appears that both nature and wildlife management individuals are people that purpose. I think he is right, but nature is not like a mother nature that is to be worshipped. What we call nature is really the purposes of God. It is so obvious that even this evolutionist can't speak in such a way as to avoid that conclusion, which goes to make another point.
If you are an evolutionist, you are not a theist in the sense that your theism has anything to do with the real world. If you want to believe in God and believe in evolution, fine, go ahead and do that, but don't act like your belief in God has anything to do with the real world. It doesn't. Your belief about the real world is evolution, and that means time and chance. If you believe that God has something to do with the real world, then you can't be an evolutionist because evolution is run by chance, not by God, by definition.
Secondly, if you are an evolutionist, then please be honest with yourself and everyone else and abandon this Mother Nature language and all of this purpose talk that you invariably allow to be smuggled into your language when talking about the natural realm. You are rationally obliged, if you want to be intellectually honest, to refer to the rest of the time/space continuum world in entirely chance terms. No more Mother Nature language. No more purpose language. No more design language. Nothing.
I think if you consistently talk in a way that fits your basic world view you will see how ridiculous that world ends up being. It becomes untenable. It can't be held because the world is obviously designed. Things obviously fit into ecosystems with a particular purpose. They obviously have their place. Bodies are obviously artifacts. Mouths were made for eating. Hands were made for grasping. Legs were made for walking. They don't just happen to do that because they accidentally formed that way through the forces of nature acting on mindless matter. That, by the way, is the thing that gives human beings purpose. Not only are their bodies purposeful but their lives are purposeful as well.
Why? There is an intelligent Creator who is behind everything. A Creator we see quite obviously, as Paul says in the book of Romans, and as you say consistently every time you use the words Mother Nature.
I defy you to find the term "Mother Nature" in any of several tens of thousands of pee-reviewed articles in any scientific journal of evolutionary biology.
Talk about your straw-man argument.
Before anyone else gets in a quick joke, please change "pee-reviewed" in the above to "peer-reviewed."
pee-reviewed would apply to, say, anything published by the ICR :-)
Not necessarily true. Nothing (except the Bible, by some interpretations) says that God couldn't use evolution as his method of creation.
Funny. No proof or documantation about any of it. The Bible is 2000 years old, and the evolution minions are just getting started. I wonder how long it will take the Darwinites to catch up with reality?
Originally the word liberal meant social conservatives(no govt religion--none) who advocated growth and progress---mostly technological(knowledge being absolute/unchanging)based on law--reality... UNDER GOD---the nature of GOD/man/govt. does not change. These were the Classical liberals...founding fathers-PRINCIPLES---stable/SANE scientific reality/society---industrial progress...personal-PRIVATE moral/social character-values GROWTH!
Evolution...Atheism-dehumanism---TYRANNY/govt. RELIGION---bigotry/intolerance---HYPOCRISY...
Age of the taliban/pharisees(unreal-maufactured world)...EVO-WHACKS---ZEALOTS...
Then came the post-modern age of switch-flip-spin-DEFORMITY-cancer...Atheist secular materialists through ATHEISM/evolution CHANGED-REMOVED the foundations...demolished the wall(separation of state/religion)--trampled the TRUTH-GOD...built a satanic temple/SWAMP-MALARIA/RELIGION(cult of darwin-marx-satan) over them---made these absolutes subordinate--relative and calling all the residuals---technology/science === evolution to substantiate/justify their efforts--claims...social engineering--PC--atheism...anti-God/Truth RELIGION--crusade/WAR--INTOLERANCE/TYRANNY...against God--man--society!!
Could be just me, but I'd consider a big 'ol hole in my lip "harm."
As I've stated repeatedly, never ceases to amaze me how creationists repeatedly claim to be more religious than those Godless evolutionists, yet it's the creationists that are repeated bald-faced liars. Somehow, I think you're more likely to burn in Hell for being a liar to that degree, than for daring to suggest that Genesis not be taken literally.
There's no documentation at all, of course, except those hundreds of thousands of fossils found by thousands of evolutionists all over the world spending years and years in the field.
While creationists, by and large, sit at home twiddling their thumbs.
It's interesting, creationists sort of project themselves on evolutionists; they assume that evolutionists all spend all of their days studying and re-studying "Origin of Species" and the collected life and sayings of Darwin or whatever, and never leave the house. In fact, there's actually very little study of "Origin of Species"; evolutionists are too busy running around digging up fossils in the real world, observing animals, and analyzing and discussing them.
Well, excuse me Mr. Conceited Intellectual Giant Elitist.
You just go ahead and adhere to your religious beliefs and I'll stick with mine, okay?
If you believe humans "evolved" from pond slime billions of years ago, rather than being uniquely created as human beings by the Creator - you've got a hell of a lot more faith than I have. And a bleak hereafter.
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