No, we're not looking at the *entire spectrum* of the fossil record. It's not that complete. What we're looking at is probably more like this..... 
...and then guessing to fill in what we don't have fossils of.
Posted on 04/01/2009 6:24:14 AM PDT by seanindenver
Some time ago, a highly charged argument was set in motion. It pitted evolution against creationism. One side of this debate relies on scientific inquiry and the other relies on ancient mythological texts.
That's my view. That's what I intend to teach my children.
Yet, I have no interest in foisting this curriculum on your kids. Nor am I particularly distressed that a creationist theory may one day collide with the tiny eardrums of my precocious offspring.
Which brings me to the Texas Board of Education's recent landmark compromise between evolutionary science and related religious concerns in public school textbooks.
The board cautiously crafted an arrangement that requires teachers to allow students to scrutinize "all sides" of the issue. This decision is widely seen as a win for pro-creationists — or are they called "anti-evolutionists"?
(Excerpt) Read more at denverpost.com ...
For the most part your questions pertained to your faith, which I am not qualified to answer. As for explaining evolution, there are a whole host of fossils which identify the transition from one form to another, including the evolution to birds. Would it make any difference to you if I listed them out? Your position is the creationist model, the Biblical account of how we all came to be. Evolution of any sort contradicts that, most of science as a whole contradicts Genesis or the Old Testament in one area or another. But evidence of evolution does exist and I'm curious as to how you explain it away. Only you can answer that, and if you don't want to then fine. I won't push the matter.
Well if you are not going to answer my questions, then I am not going to answer yours.
Well I guess that makes me a kook too P-Marlowe!
Non-Sequitur wrote:
...science can look at fossil records and trace the evolutionary development of a horse, for example. Or a bear, or finches or moths, etc., etc. Are they all wrong?There's nothing in Non-Sequitur's statement that supports macroevolution theory on the basis of the fossil record. All his examples are of microevolution, or evolution within species. Basically that's all the fossil record shows.
Macroevolution theory posits a gradualist development in which a species that existed before gradually turned into another, and that every present species emerged in this way. All have descended from some common ancester.
The only problem with this is, the fossil record doesn't support this expectation. What it shows, remarkably, is stasis, the very opposite of evolution: the tendency of species to remain unchanged, even over the course of hundreds of millions of years. Stephen J. Gould put it this way:
Every paleontologist knows that most species don't change. That's bothersome... brings terrible distress.... They may get a little bigger or bumpier. But they remain the same species and that's not due to imperfection and gaps but stasis. And yet this remarkable stasis has generally been ignored as no data. If they don't change, it's not evolution so you can't talk about it.Or how about this, from the eminent paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson:
It is a feature of the known fossil record that most taxa appear abruptly. They are not, as a rule, led up to by a sequence of almost imperceptibly changing forerunners such as Darwin believed should be usual in evolution.Even Richard Dawkins seems to acknowledge this. In an evidently unguarded moment, he allowed that
...[T]he Cambrian strata of rocks ... are the oldest in which we find most of the major invertebrate groups. And we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history.It's surprising to me how many working paleontologists are not Darwinists.
In closing, I wholly agree with you, P-Marlowe: "There is no natural explanation for life or for its utter complexity."
Thank you ever so much for your excellent essay/post!
And I shall take this opportunity to direct Lurkers to your article on this very subject!
All that I can add is that there is no laboratory experiment that can falsify an alternative explanation for the findings in the paleontogist's dig, e.g. Special Creation, Panspermia.
How do you test for a miracle?
Science accepts that it cannot measure God, that it cannot say whether God exists - and therefore proceeds under the assumption that nature is knowable, measurable and predictable (methodological naturalism.) That is the self-imposed boundary of scientific investigation.
Science cannot therefore be used to deny God since it never considered Him in the first place. Nor can science make observations about miracles or any other supernatural thing or event.
Not by any definition of the term that I've been able to find. Microevolution is defined as change over a short and observable period of time. A few generations, for example. Macroevolution is defined as evolution over a much longer period of time which spans geologic time or which results in the creation of new species. The fossil record of the evolution of a horse spans over 50 million years and multiple branches, most of which died out.
The only problem with this is, the fossil record doesn't support this expectation. What it shows, remarkably, is stasis, the very opposite of evolution: the tendency of species to remain unchanged, even over the course of hundreds of millions of years.
It shows nothing of the kind, as this link explains.
So how would you expect science to falsify a miracle?
By laboratory experiment, scientists cannot falsify an alternative explanation for what is observed in the paleontologist's dig.
If a person believes God created each kind specially, no laboratory experiment can falsify his belief.
Likewise if a person believes space aliens (panspermia) seeded each kind, no laboratory experiment can falsify his belief.
The principles of the lab and the dig are set in contrast to each other. In the lab, the absence of evidence is evidence of absence. In the dig, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
The one cannot not be superimposed on the other, i.e. lab to dig is a belief as surely as Creation and Panspermia.
Precious few creatures that ever lived left a complete record of themselves, i.e. fossils much less DNA much less a historical record.
At the root, the "tree of life" is and will always be a theoretical continuum which people are free to accept or reject.
The "evolution" of the modern horse from its precurser forms eohippus – mesohippus would seem to be an example of microevolution. So what if the earlier precurser forms died out. Perhaps in a couple million years the modern horse as we know it will look a lot different than it does now.
This is the best definition of microevolution I've ever come across, from Doron Aurbach, Professor of Chemistry at Bar Han University, Israel:
Micro-evolution is a reality that is experienced in life and documented by reliable scientific experiments and observations…. It includes observation of speciation in some kinds of birds and insects, due to the interrelationship between genetics, environment, and adaptation. In fact, the genetic code of all living species allows for certain degrees of freedom and change for any property that is inherent in these species. These degrees of freedom are in part intrinsic, that is, they are part of the genetic code itself, and may be caused by mutations, or, in layman’s terms, by sporadic and occasional changes in the genetic code. This freedom of the genetic code is of critical importance because it allows for the adaptation of life to environmental changes and for all the wonderful diversity that is seen in life on earth, enabling human beings, for example, to be distinguished from one another, by appearance, as well as by unique identities and characteristics. This adaptive ability of genetic codes … is nothing more than a fine tuning of basic properties. ["Intelligent Design vs. Evolution Theory," Divine Action and Natural Selection, Singapore: World Scientific, 2009, p. 687]Do you have a problem with that definition? If so, please tell me what it is.
Alamo-Girl: If you could test for it, it wouldn't be called a miracle.
I gather that Non-Sequitur is not a theist. That doesn't necessarily mean N-S is an atheist. I won't draw that conclusion; but I do notice that N-S seems to be looking for "proofs" of the scientific kind for miracles. This is the same demand that materialists/naturalists often make for the existence of God — even though their method is limited to direct observation of the natural world and thus cannot address supernatural entities in principle. The scientific method simply has nothing to do with the matter: God and miracles are simply not "testable" in principle. But because they cannot be "tested" doesn't mean they don't exist.
What can we say about miracles? I very much admire Martin Buber's reflections on this matter:
The concept of miracle ... can be defined at its starting point as an abiding astonishment.... Miracle is not something "supernatural" or "superhistorical," but an incident, an event which can be fully included in the objective, scientific nexus of nature and history. Miracle is simply what happens; in so far as it meets people who are capable of receiving it, or prepared to receive it, as miracle. What is vital is only that what happened was experienced, while it happened, as the act of God.... The real miracle means that in the astonishing experience of the event the current system of cause and effect becomes, as it were, transparent and permits a glimpse of the sphere in which a sole power, not restricted by any other, is at work. [emphasis added]All I can say about the matter on the basis of personal experience is: Miracles do happen. And indeed they do seem temporarily to suspend the laws of cause and effect.
Thank you ever so much for your trenchant essay/post, dearest sister in Christ!
One might ask how one tests for what caused the Big Bang!
The demand for proofs - whether signs or wisdom - are not honored by God.
For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. - I Corinthians 1:21-24
So the one who needs proof is not without hope.
Thank you so very much for your insights and that wonderful excerpt! And thank you for all your encouragements, dearest sister in Christ!
Here is the dilemma. How do we test for "natural"? Apparently we can determine that something is a natural event if, without the presence of a supernatural intervening event, the thing can be shown to occur over and over and over again to the point where we assume that it is simply a "natural occurrence".
But as we have been shown in Genesis, the whole of creation is a supernatural event and a miracle. It is a miracle that atoms exist. It is a miracle that they are held together. It is a miracle that they can be combined to make all the things that exist in the universe. It is a miracle that they can be combined to form living organisms. It is a miracle that these living organisms not only live, but that they recreate themselves. It is a miracle that plants exist, that we can see, that we can hear, that we can touch, that we can feel, that birds can fly, that fish can swim, that roses can smell and that the sky can be blue.
But when we combine all these miracles what is it that we have?????
NATURE.
Then what do WE do with nature?
We look at it, we test it, we examine it and we ultimately conclude that it is merely NATURAL and ignore the miracles that brought it into existence and pretend that it all just happened on its own.
That is blasphemy.
Scientists attempt to deny the existence of the supernatural, but the fact is that Nature itself is irrefutable evidence of its own supernatural existence.
Romans 1:19-23 ESV (19) For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. (20) For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (21) For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. (22) Claiming to be wise, they became fools, (23) and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation since the 1960's confirm that this universe is expanding, that there was a beginning of real space and real time.
Jastrow called this the most theological statement ever to come out of modern science, i.e. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."
In the absence of time, events cannot occur.
All physical cosmologies (multi-verse, multi-world, cyclic, imaginary time, ekpyrotic, hesitating, etc.) require space/time for physical causation.
Bottom line, there had to be an uncaused cause of space/time and therefore physical causation itself: God whose Name is I AM.
No, we're not looking at the *entire spectrum* of the fossil record. It's not that complete. What we're looking at is probably more like this.....
...and then guessing to fill in what we don't have fossils of.
That is blasphemy.
Scientists attempt to deny the existence of the supernatural, but the fact is that Nature itself is irrefutable evidence of its own supernatural existence.
Many of them believe in Christ and testify to Him not only in their personal time but also in their workplace. My daughter is in the field and takes advantage of the opportunities to witness as they come up.
Personally, I am impressed by their calling to witness in the "belly of the beast" (naturalism) that has caused so many to fall away or question the faith of their fathers.
Nevertheless, their work is based on methodological naturalism and is performed by the scientific method. I doubt that they include a personal testimony in each report any more than you would include a testimony in each document you draft or I would include a testimony each time I work a formula.
Nor would I. Scientists are under no moral or ethical requirement to deny the existence of either God or the supernatural. They do not take an oath to ignore the reality of God or the existence of supernatural cause or effect. But you would think that in order to become a scientist in this century, that you would have to sign a written promise that you will ignore all evidence of God in his own creation.
But the scientific community tends to ostracize any scientist who would dare to look at nature and see God. In educational circles, that is strictly prohibited. To do so is to be branded a kook.
My point is that anyone (scientist or layman) who looks at Nature and concludes that it was nothing but a product of "Nature" and denies the hand of God, is in effect calling God a liar and stealing from God the credit which he deserves for bringing it all into existence.
As I said before, there is no need to explain "miracles". Everything we see is a miracle. The FACT that we see is a miracle. The dilemma, is in attempting to explain Nature in the absence of a supernatural cause.
We are mocked because we see the hand of God in all creation. That is our "scientific" deduction. They can mock us, but God is not mocked.
When one loves someone or any-thing it is a miracle..
Forgiveness is miraculous.. Appreciation of beauty is amazingly special..
A miracle is proved by tasting it..
To look around and see no miracles around you is proof of brain washing..
Beautiful, beautiful essay/post, P-Marlowe! Thank you ever so much for your glorious witness!
The view from the "naturalism side" sees only phenomena subject to the laws of cause and effect as they operate in 4D reality. "Naturalism" never sees that "a sole power, not restricted by any other, is at work." "Naturalism" is blinded by its own method from seeing deeper levels of reality. Usually, this is a willful blindness: "There are none so blind as those who refuse to see."
But Life itself is a miracle!
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