Darwin on the Right: Why Christians and conservatives should accept evolution

Scientific American ^ | October 2006 issue | Michael Shermer

[Celtjew Libertarian]

the "material" is the debate, don't you think?

No. The debate is with regard how long creation has taken.... The duration of creation, if you will.

[ml1954]

Thread Moved To Religion Forum Placemarker

[srweaver]

Which specific absolutely unambiguous statements of science are you referring to?

The science I know of is CONSTANTLY changing its story in all areas of observation as our tools become more accurate and effective.

[balrog666]

Blindsided!

[Krodg]

I'm a Southern Baptist, but I don't believe that evolution is inconsistent with the Bible. It's only inconsistent with some folk's INTERPRETATION of the Bible.

How do you interpret Genesis 1:27? If God made man in his image, is he an ape or do we go back to pond scum?

[Dimensio]

Evolutionism implies biological determinism.

How so? Also, what is "evolutionism"?

[atlaw]

At the point that man became conscious of good and evil, or, if you will, at the point that man became "as one of us."

[Thatcherite]

Which specific absolutely unambiguous statements of science are you referring to? The science I know of is CONSTANTLY changing its story in all areas of observation as our tools become more accurate and effective.

That is a misunderstanding of the refining process of science. Details change at the edge of our knowledge, but well-established central theories (the example under discussion being evolution) are supported by untold millions of data points, 150 years of observations and attempted falsifications. Relativity replaced Newtonian mechanics, yet for 99.99% of practical purposes Newtonian Mechanics remains true; how could it be otherwise? Newton's work survived hundreds of years of practical application and observations without anyone noticing that it was incomplete.

Take modern genome sequencing. Practically every way that the genome data *could* have come out would have falsified common-descent. Case closed. Done and dusted. Evolution would have been dead and buried, indeed creationists predicted before the molecular data came in that it would falsify common descent. Yet what actually happened was that the genome data for every species that we sequence confirms the very precise predictions of common-descent, in spades. That is why even prominent IDers like Behe and Denton endorse common descent of life on earth; they know that the data in that area is unambiguous.

[RunningWolf]

In today's world, we've got bigger fish to fry than the argument about evolution

Bump that. For me an apt analogy here would be the science fiction movie 'total-recall'

For some reason that statement of yours sparks a memory to an observation that highly esteemed friend of mine made. He thinks that movies have taken the place of mythology in that movies end up incorporating the archetypal prototype's. And at the same time that movie analogy proves that man with his God given free will can override all compelling evil forces.

Whether some men want to insist that they and I came from some sort of ape ancestor is not as important as the inferences they want to make from that assertion.

Let them go to their ape ancestor, I will find a new map.

Wolf

[Dog Gone]

I think point three is weak at best.

But the biblical literalists, as they define themselves, will tell you that the Bible and evolution are wholly incompatible.

I'm not one who thinks the Bible contradicts evolution. But what I interpret as allegory representing an underlying fundamental truth is interpreted by them as something else entirely.

But it's undeniable that there are those in each camp who see a huge and irreconciliable difference between Special Creation and evolution.

[The Blitherer]

At the point that man became conscious of good and evil, or, if you will, at the point that man became "as one of us."

That is a good argument, but unfortunately it doesn't take into account the very crux of the Fall, which is man's choice to disobey God. If man simply became "aware" of good and evil, and did not choose it, then there is no argument for the Fall, which is central to Christian theology.

[LibertarianSchmoe]

Celtjew Libertarian: Which is a remarkably on-target analogy for evolution

scottdeus12: Um...this is quite a leap, don't you think? Shaped from dust vs. shaped from something living are two different things.....

An analogy is a comparison of two different things.

[Thatcherite]

The more I study it, the more it seems as though there is no more conclusive evidence for evolution as there is for creationism. But people (the scientific and academic communities) stifle any debate by dismissing it altogether, which also bugs me.

I wonder if your studies have encompassed visiting any university libraries. Visit one, and you will find literally tens of thousands of volumes and articles of data, experiments etc concerning evolution across numerous scientific disciplines.

Below in this post is the scientific evidence that supports separate creation of kinds:

...

[Sagebrush rolling]

...

Perhaps debate is stifled, in the same way that debate about the proposition that the earth is a hollow sphere that we are living on the inside of is stifled. If you want to overturn the central paradigm of biology then you need to bring substantial physical evidence to the table. The "creation of separate kinds" proposition is lacking this. I don't buy conspiracy theories in which the conspirators gain nothing, and have to co-operate in their tens of thousands for over 150 years.

[King Prout]

that link didn't work for me.

[Thatcherite]

Bailing out for the night placemarker

[Celtjew Libertarian]

It's interesting though that at the points of man's "fall," God expresses concern that may will become as God. Can something that made us more God-like actually be a fall?

[King Prout]

well, it *is* an accurate model, based on a large number of data points, and has successfully predicted the discovery of yet more data points.

[highball]

Why Christians and conservatives should NOT accept evolution.

If they accept macroevolution they believe God is a liar.

Care to explain that?

If evolution is false, God sure left a whole lot of phony evidence on the Earth for us to find.

The only ones saying that "God is a liar" are those who suggest that the fossil record was faked by God to make the Earth appear to be billions of years older than it actually is....

[atlaw]

Actually, you have identified one of the thorniest Biblical issues -- one that has defied all efforts at easy or simplistic resolution.

The "choice" to disobey God was made by a naive man, and the simplistic notion that it was mere disobedience of a given order (pre-supposing that the nature of the order itself was somehow irrelevant) carries with it the equally simplistic notion that God is, or was prior to the "awakening" of man, a mere dictator or eternal theater director.

It is, after all, only with the cessation of naivete (the "fall" as you put it) that man became capable of knowing, or distinguishing, good from evil and God from serpent. "Choice" is indeed a lesson of Genesis 3. But the effectively preordained "choice" of an ignorant and all too easily deceived man to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is not the heart of that lesson.

[The Blitherer]

It's interesting though that at the points of man's "fall," God expresses concern that may will become as God. Can something that made us more God-like actually be a fall?

Ho boy, this is straying pretty far into theological debate. :-) I want to answer that but I don't have the time to construct a complete answer. Do you mind if we take this off forum?