And something to go with it....
Posted on 11/29/2011 12:32:30 PM PST by SeekAndFind
For the last several months there has been a flurry of discussion—mostly online, of course—about the impossibility of a literal Adam & Eve (see, e.g., here and here and here). This ruling-out has been accomplished recently by the Human Genome Project, which indicates that anatomically modern humans emerged from primate ancestors about 100,000 years ago, from a population of something like 10,000. In short, science has confirmed what many of us already knew: there was not a literal first couple. So what else can we learn from this story?
Plenty, it turns out. Peter Enns, a biblical scholar who blogs at Patheos, has been following the discussion with some care. Lately he has done us all a great favor: written a series of posts pointing out recurring mistakes made by many of those doing the discussing. Many of these mistakes are rhetorically effective but collapse upon even modest inspection.
But not all of them.
On Friday, he listed one held mostly by the pro-science crowd: “Evidence for and against evolution is open to all and can be assessed by anyone.”
Enns declares that this is not so. “The years of training and experience required of those who work in fields that touch on evolution rules out of bounds the views of those who lack such training,” he writes.
This is true but it misses the point. The open-access-to-science cliché, usually trundled out by those who wish to contrast the transparency of science with the supposed obfuscation of religion, carries some truth.
Science actually is transparent in a way that religion is not. That’s because, in science land, there is nothing but to follow the evidence. It’s out on the table, after all, able and willing to be poked and prodded and analyzed and figured out and held up and turned around and looked at from new angles. Also, what counts as evidence in science is pretty well-defined. And if you do become an evolution expert, you actually will see that 99% of all scientists back evolution for a reason: the evidence demands it.
This is the great generosity of science, and its great strength: It is actually all right there, ready to be seen and understood. It is relievedly explicit. It takes effort, sure, just as Enns suggests; it’s not easy to become a professional research biologist. But the reason biologists agree on evolution is because it’s a relatively simple matter to be objective about fossils and genes. Unlike the objects of religion—the divine and humanity’s relation to it—the objects of science give themselves up for abstraction and analysis without a fight.
Therefore Richard Dawkins (for example) is right when he says, as he has on many occasions, that the evidence for evolution is there to be inspected by anyone. It is sitting out there on the table, waiting patiently for most of humanity to catch up to it, waiting to tell us it’s time to bid the historical Adam & Eve a final, if fond, farewell.
IOW, it won’t matter that evolution can’t deliver.
Biochemistry is more useful for something like flu vaccines. Not how it got to where it is and where it might be going.
Yea, I think that’s accurate.
What Dan said. and i’d like to note that your 220 is a response to a direct hit by me on your position. Don’t worry, the ringing in your ears will go away in a day or two.
What Dan said. And I’d like to note that your 220 is a response to a direct hit by me on your position. Don’t worry, the ringing in your ears will go away in a day or two.
That’s a reasonable answer to my second question. Now, what’s your answer to the first question?
But that does not mean we know exactly what that meant in real terms. “Adam” means simply “man.” and Eve.”mother of the Living. When I read Genesis, at least the first part, I am reminded of the language as John Revelation. Until we get to the story of Abraham, it puts me to mind of a mystical vision.
Note that he still hasn’t come up with a medical treatment that depended on evolution.
Cause there ain’t none.
Why couldn’t God do a better job of describing the beginning of the world than telling people there were plants before there was a Sun?
I didn't answer because I don't have an answer. What do you think?
In these posts where you obsess over this one guy’s cosmology, you’re pretty much the same as creationists who think every evolutionist is Pete singer. Bravo...so intellectual.
I think that God described what really happened.
I don't care who you are, that's funny right there!
“I take it you do not beleive in God?”
Why do you ask that?
I actually do public speaking defending Genesis 1-11. I am a loving Disciple of Christ.
I had jumped in here with some questions for allmendream but I’m actually enjoying reading Mr. Siverback and GourmetDan (among others) keep him dancing.
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
“When you start with a bad premise you get bad results.”
Amen, allmendream..... now you’re getting it!!
“All mutations are not harmful. Mutations cause variations.”
Perhaps it would be a good idea for you to check out the work of Dr. Lee Spetner. He’s got a PhD in Physics from MIT and spent 26 years studying evolution before coming out with his book “Not By Chance” in 1996 (a very interesting and informative read, by the way).
By the way..... he ain’t a Creationist..... and he learned what he learned through observation... I believe that’s science, right?
“Here we see the utility of the theory.”
Good choice of words by you here, allmendream..... a theory that is utile enough to adapt to any new piece of observed data isn’t really much of a theory is it? I’d say it’s more like a worldview.
“Your false construction that all mutations are somehow information neutral or negative has no explanation for it, because it is false.”
Again I refer you to Dr. Spetner’s book.
I’ve been following the dance you’ve been doing with Mr. Silverback, GourmetDan, metmom and others. You’ve been mostly dealing in generalities about “science” and “creationists”, etc. I asked some very specific questions in post #82. I’ll paste it in here so you don’t have to go back:
“Based on humans evolving out of a primordial mudpuddle.... a gene magically forming itself out of chemicals that just happened to exist together in the puddle and then gradually evolving to the point that we now have thinking, reasoning beings called humans.... here are a few points to ponder:
Since genes reproduce asexually and animals/humans reproduce sexually.... that means that at some point in time at the exact same place on the planet, two creatures evolved with two separate sets of plumbing that just happened to be perfect for each other.... one having the sperm necessary for life and the other having an egg necessary for life. They also had the ability to inject the sperm into a cavity where the egg existed in order to fertilize it and begin the process of birthing another of the same species... and by the way... the process of fertilization was only the beginning.... the plumbing where the egg evolved is HUGELY complex and necessarily so in order to get that fertilized egg to the point of birth.
Here are a couple of questions:
1. Since Natural Selection IS an observable phenomenon and therefore a fact (and not conjecture)... and we know that Natural Selection will select based on advantage for survival... how did sexual reproduction survive given that observation tells us that asexual reproduction has up to twice as much reproductive success as sexual reproduction? Wouldn’t Natural Selection have selected sexual reproduction out of the process?
2. What are the odds that evolution, a random process, could invent the two complimentary sets of plumbing at the exact same time and the exact same place.... especially given the facts presented above?
3. At what point did chemicals (after all, we started as chemicals) evolve the ability to think?”
I’m going to throw one more on top of it here. Part of that hugely complex system I talked about above is the Placenta, which nourishes the baby while it’s in the womb and provides blood until the baby is born and the baby’s system takes over.
What happens with the Placenta at that point is amazing. It disengages from the mother’s body and is discarded as the “afterbirth”. This process has been described as similar to: “taking a meat cleaver and cutting off the arteries attached to the placenta.”
Yet the mother doesn’t bleed to death.....because those arteries have sphincters at the end that immediately close and shut off the flow of blood.
Here’s my question..... How long did it take evolution to get that right? I mean, if it took millions of years (or even hundreds) for the sphincters to evolve, wouldn’t all the women have bled to death in childbirth.... seems to me that life is over at that point.
Or maybe, just maybe the system was designed to work as it does.
You gots da ball, Allmendream. I’m looking forward to your answers.
And something to go with it....
>> ““Eating from the tree of knowledge” is obviously a description of humans learning and retaining what they learned.” <<
.
How in your mind, is that the sin that brought death upon the whole of creation?
>> “The bible was assembled by a Council that had human hands and a human agenda. It isn’t one monolithic book, it is many books that have some errors - intentional, and unintentional.” <<
.
You have hereby confessed to never having read it.
It very much is one monolithic account of all things.
>> “The bible was assembled by a Council that had human hands and a human agenda.” <<
Might there be “human hands and a human agenda” behind the billions in research grants promoting the Evolutionist worldview? Do you thing that a scientist questioning evolution would receive such grants?
>> “God created science.” <<
.
No, God created reality, and man foolishly imagined that his own heart was pure enough to examine it objectively, calling his failed attempt “science.”
Surely not!
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