Monday, November 20, 2006

To be or not to be

TOUCHSTONE SAID:

“OK, so I've given my rationale, "showed my math". If you want more details, there are thousands of papers and scholarly sources we can look at.”

The problem this time around wasn’t with the details, but the logical structure of the argument.

Your basic argument was fundamentally fallacious. Adding a lot of factual detail doesn’t validate an invalid inference.

***QUOTE***

Perhaps I misunderstood your original argument. Maybe you can verify for me whether you think man *did* have the minimum resources to survive the last million years, or whether he did not. If he *did* have the minimum resources necessary, I don't see a particular point of protest -- and I don't think your local anthropologist would either.

My understanding from your "Adam and evolution" post was that man did *not* have the minimum assets necessary to survive the last million years (and even farther back, depending on where you draw the (proto-)human line). I'd be surprised to hear you say now that man *did* have the minimum assets, after all. But if that's the case, so be it. All the better.

***END-QUOTE***

Throughout this thread you’ve demonstrated an inability to distinguish between an internal argument (arguing on the grounds of the opposing position) and an external argument (arguing on the grounds of your own position).

I already drew that distinction in my original post.

My position, both now and then, is that:

i) Assuming Genesis to be true, man did have the wherewithal to survive;

ii) Assuming evolution to be true, man did not have the wherewithal to survive.

I’d add that, under (i), man hasn’t been around for a million years.

***QUOTE***

Now, assuming that you remain convinced that man *did* not have the minimum assets to survice, can I ask for your "math", your rationale? Specifically:

+ What are the minimum assets needed for man to survive?

***END-QUOTE***

I’ve already been over this ground with you numerous times.

The answer depends on which proposition we are assuming for discussion purposes.

i) If we’re assuming evolution, then the identity of man is fluid. He ceased to be what he used to be.

One discontinuity is the eventual loss of his natural defense mechanisms—chiefly an arboreal lifestyle.

At a minimum, he would need a compensatory adaptation, such as weaponry.

This would involve the ability to invent suitable weapons, the actual invention of suitable weapons, and the ability to use them effectively.

And the timing of this development would need to be such that there wasn’t a chink in his armor during the transitional phase.

ii) If we’re assuming Genesis, then his identity is continuous rather than discontinuous. The first man (Adam) already had the same basic body and brainpower as modern man.

And weaponry existed in the first generation of man. That’s how Cain was able to kill and butcher a sacrificial animal (Gen 4:4).

Assuming Genesis (0n the traditional reading), there was an environmental transition from life inside the garden to life outside the garden, but there was no anthropological transition in the basic physiology or psychology of man from Adam to you and me.

Since you view Genesis in the trick mirror of theistic evolution, you don’t look to Genesis for answers to questions like these. But the resources are inherent in the text.

“In any case, if one is to dismiss the inference of the past based on the present, there has to be a criterion in place to make the assessment of man -- or coelacanth, if you were to look at that -- as implausible.”

i) I don’t dismiss an inference from the present to the past. On the contrary, I can also reason back from the present to the past as. Indeed, I can do so with far more confidence that you can since I don’t interject a radical discontinuity into the biological history of man.

ii) But illustrating, once more, your constitutional inability to accurately reproduce the stated position of your opponent, I drew an explicit distinction between the level at which such as inference was either valid or invalid.

“I don't suppose you would say that a coelacanth is any match for a shark. If that's the case, how did these guys survive for so many millions of years? Yet, it's not a match for a shark, or any number of other aquatic predators with bigger size, more speed, bigger teeth, etc. Given that, I believe we would suppose that the coelacanth couldn't have made it, either. The little coelacanth can't even point to its emerging technology, organizational skills, or enlarging brain. It's just the humble coelacanth, surviving all these hundreds of millions of years.”

If you do a little research on the coelacanth, you’ll find that it does have a number of natural defense mechanisms. So your analogy between a man and a coelacanth falls apart at the critical point of comparison.

“Instead, it reasons from the present to the past. We have living coelacanth specimens caught by fishermen, and we have coelacanth fossils that date back to something like 400Mya (Devonian period, for most of our coelacanth fossils, I believe).”

Of course, I happen to deny your chronology. But, for purposes of this thread, it’s unnecessary for me to challenge the evolutionary timeline.

I only raise the issue when you raise the issue in your attack YEC chronology.

“Assuming of course, that the speed of light hasn't changed by thousands of orders of magnitude, which might mess with our dating techniques.”

If you weren’t such a slow learner, or so chronically forgetful, you’d know by now that those are not the grounds on which I’d challenge your chronology.

7 comments:

  1. Steve,

    OK, so you said this time around you don't have a problem with my math. I still have a big problem with your math. Or more precisely, I have a problem in that you won't show your math. Can you please tell me what your model was originally in deciding that man did not have adequate assets to survive the last million years?

    You said:
    ii) Assuming evolution to be true, man did not have the wherewithal to survive.

    What would man minimally need to survive, in your view, and how did you arrive at those numbers?

    I will accept that you are simply unwilling to provide this information. If so, just let me know. We can draw the appropriate inferences one way or the other then as to why you will not. As it is, you're just leaving things hanging.


    Also, you've said the "logical structure" of my argument is fallacious. What's the official fallacy, or fallacies you identify, just for those of us scoring at home. As it is, your dismissal seems short on support.

    Thanks in advance,

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the response, Touchstone.

    Although this response properly belongs in the combox of the previous post, I'll post it here so it doesn't end up falling by the wayside.

    I didn't see any complaints, or even mention of common ancestry in Steve's original post ("Adam and Evolution"). In fact, common ancestors would put man and gorilla together. He clearly believes Gorillas have the minimum resources for survival -- they are offered as the example of what man is not. If we superimpose common ancestry on the picture, then Steve's point becomes hopelessly confused: you have a man-ape creature to assess for survivability. Was the man-ape ancestor a viable species? How do we know? Steve is keeping his magic formula to himself, so we can't say on our own.

    1. Isn't common ancestry -- this man-ape creature you're referring to -- a problem on your side of the lawn as a theistic evolutionist?

    2. In fact, in this very post , Steve says:

    "I’ve already been over this ground with you numerous times.

    The answer depends on which proposition we are assuming for discussion purposes.

    i) If we’re assuming evolution, then the identity of man is fluid. He ceased to be what he used to be.

    One discontinuity is the eventual loss of his natural defense mechanisms-chiefly an arboreal lifestyle.

    At a minimum, he would need a compensatory adaptation, such as weaponry.

    This would involve the ability to invent suitable weapons, the actual invention of suitable weapons, and the ability to use them effectively.

    And the timing of this development would need to be such that there wasn’t a chink in his armor during the transitional phase."

    3. Re: the gorilla, the point Steve is making is that man does not have the survival capabilities of a gorilla in the wild. He notes that the gorilla, for instance, is strong and has fangs whereas man does not have any natural defenses relative to those predators which would prey on him.

    I'm invoking evolution as the leading theory that accounts for how man (and other creatures) got to where we/they are. But I'm happy to just assume man as he is now, if that's what Steve is intent on arguing about. Does man, as he exists today, have adequate assets to survive as a species? It appears so.

    You state that man as he exists today does appear to have the adequate assets to survive as a species. That's not in question, though. What is in question is how did he receive or achieve (or however you want to put it) the adequate assets to survive? From where did these survival assets originate? How did they develop over time?

    If we assume a traditional reading of Genesis, then man survived because of his God-given brainpower. If we assume evolution, then man survived because he developed compensatory survival assets in order to survive. But then the next question is, how do we account for the survival of man during the transitional period when man descended from the trees, so to speak, and became modern man? As Steve points out, after losing his arboreal lifestyle, "At a minimum, he [man] would need a compensatory adaptation, such as weaponry. This would involve the ability to invent suitable weapons, the actual invention of suitable weapons, and the ability to use them effectively." What's more, according to evolution, this takes place over millions of years, so man's survival over such an extended period of time would be a significant factor we'd need to explain as well.

    I think Steve must be supposing some model that has early man "unprotected" as part of his evolutionary past, and thus man can't be here? I admit, I responded to that post simply because it seems inchoate on the face of it. It the present implies the past, and we believe there is a causal chain at work, then it seems one would need a pretty strong rationale to tell us that what we see in front of -- lots of humans surviving to the present day -- didn't really happen.

    1. But that's precisely the point, why did the original argument that, "Assuming evolution to be true, man did not have the wherewithal to survive," seem inchoate to you? To me, it actually seems like a good question worth addressing.

    2. As far as your point about "the numbers" (or statistics?) is concerned, the simple fact that we have a whole lot of people on earth today doesn't necessarily require evolution to explain it. That is, we know there are a lot of people today, but the question is how did they get here? And if we do assume evolution to be true for the moment, then the question raised by Steve (as I quote above) is indeed relevant, isn't it? It seems that way to me, anyway.

    "More to the point, hasn't Steve already addressed this above?"

    No, I still have no idea what he considers enough in terms of survivability. And I don't think he has any idea either, as he doesn't think he needs one. Evolution didn't happen according to his particular interpretation of Genesis, and that's all the rigor he needs.

    That's just passing off theological interpretations dressed up in quasi-scientific language. There's no need for that -- just call a spade a spade.


    1. The interpretation of Genesis Steve has in mind, as he noted, is the traditional interpretation. Historically, it's how the majority of Christians have interpreted the Bible throughout the centuries. I realize many if not most modern people (although I'm not at all suggesting you do) view this interpretation as beneath discussion, as something which must only come from ignorant, Bible thumpin' hillbillies in the Bible Belt, it has been defended from various angles -- from fine theologians, from knowledgeable historians and archaeologists, from very capable scientists such as Dr. Kurt Wise, etc.

    2. What's more, the traditional interpretation fits in very well with the GHM method. As I understand it, the same could not be said of the theistic evolution take on Genesis 1.

    3. And now, speaking as a Christian, I would presume this is what it comes down to. That is, that the Word of God is our final authority. It is what we know and it is what we love with all our hearts simply because it contains the very precious words of our Heavenly Father and God.

    Hence, if we look at the Bible with this in mind, and if we assume that we don't know whether or not theistic evolution is viable (since that's the position I currently find myself in), then laying aside for the moment the validity of theistic evolution, shouldn't we ask ourselves, what makes the most sense according to a fair exegesis of the passage, according to the GHM of Biblical intepretation?

    For example, when God says in Genesis 1 that such and such was created in one day, then could one day actually refer to an epoch of time rather than simply to what the Hebrews knew as "one day"? Especially in light of the fact that throughout the rest of the Bible, whenever the phrase "one day" is used it simply to refer to one day (as far as I'm aware). Even the phrase "a day is like a thousand years" seems to me to be meant to be taken as an analogy rather than as a literal fact. So why do we impose, say, the idea that "one day" really means "an epoch" on the phrase? Perhaps there are legitimate reasons for doing so, but personally speaking, I don't know what they are -- although, yes, I definitely have to read up on it. But for the time being, this is my own best understanding of what a proper exegesis of Genesis 1 spells out. And where there are questions about whether we evolved from apes, whether theistic evolution is true, and given that I don't yet know the answers to these questions or perhaps understand the questions themselves, and given that what I do understand does not seem rational or logical to me (e.g. everythhing Steve has pointed out about theistic evolution), then it seems reasonable to me as a Christian to interpret the Bible on its own terms, on as fair a reading of the text as I do understand, insofar as it makes sense in accordance with proper exegesis based on the GHM since these seem to be the bedrocks of interpretation.

    He absolute is asking those questions. In fact, he's offering some knowledge that surpasses the accumulated knowledge of all the PhDs in anthropology out there.

    To make anything but silly guesses about the survival dynamics of a particular species half a billion years ago, one would need an enormous evidential base, and some sort of calibrated model for running the numbers.

    Did (proto-)humans reproduce fast enough to compensate for all the predator attrition?

    We don't know. No PhD I've read could say with any certainty what the reproductive rates were a million years ago. If you can find some scientific evidence for that number, I'd be glad to know that -- it would be useful to the question at hand.

    Does Steve have this number? He better! How else could he determine that the predator attrition rate was sufficient to make man non-viable?

    Don't hold your breath waiting for those numbers from him, though.

    Without a model to point to and say: Yes, present implies past, but it can't have happened and here's why... saying what Steve is just indulging himself in ipse dixit.


    1. But if what you've said is true, and if it does require "knowledge that surpasses the accumulated knowledge of all the PhDs in anthropology out there," for instance, and if "No PhD [you've] read could say with any certainty what the reproductive rates were a million years ago," then doesn't that invalidate theistic evolution as well? After all, the need for so much knowledge at best seems to me to be a barrier to all parties involved. It cuts both ways.

    2. However, it also seems to depend on what you mean by knowledge. If by knowledge you mean more and more detailed facts and figures, more and more data and information, then where do we draw the line? How much is enough?

    3. Even if we agree on a finite amount of requisite knowledge, then wouldn't the next step be an argument for the best understanding of the knowledge (otherwise an infinite body of knowledge would be required, which isn't fair, since no one requires that in anything else we do or study)? What do make of the data we've accumulated? Does it seem to prove or disprove human evolution? Yet insofar as I understand, this is precisely where Steve has been leveling his argumentation against human evolution. That is, a logical, rational analysis of the knowledge does not seem to indicate that (as Steve puts it) man has the wherewithal to survive if we assume human evolution.

    So perhaps you're looking for more and more information and knowledge to support this or that or to disprove this or that whereas it seems to me that Steve is arguing based on what we already know or on the information you've already provided?

    You said:

    "Young and Old Earth Creationists believe in a literal Adam and Eve who were able to give birth to human children. Such that Adam and Eve would be the cause. So I don't see how what you've said couldn't fit in with YEC or OEC. Regarding the cosmological evidence, it's not as if YEC and OEC have somehow forgotten about this. For example, there's a book by Dr. Russell Humphreys called Starlight and Time that attempts to resolve the issue of billions of year old starlight in a YEC model."

    I like Hugh Ross a lot. An honorable, brilliant and devout Christian, from what I've seen. Gracious and generous to boot! I don't agree with Hugh on evolution, obviously, but as I read him, he is taking a good faith view of scripture and God's creation.

    I have Starlight and Time sitting next to me here right now. I use this book often to refer to in discussions about day-age and "yom" (I'm looking at Chapter 5, pgs 45-52 here).

    Chapter 6 -- the theological case for long days is good too, but a little more complicated for me.

    In Chapter 9, where he takes on YEC responses to old earth claims (p96), Ross really shines. He's very gracious, but it cuts YEC protestations into little pieces.

    SO yeah, I'm highly friendly with Ross's position. I respect OECs as honest and faithful in their "platform", if a little bit afraid to look squarely at the question of evolution. YEC assertions when it comes to science are completely incoherent. They shouldn't even pretend, and just stick with the "God 'poofed' everything into place so that it looked and behaved old" approach and be done with it.


    I agree with you. Hugh Ross seems like a fine Christian. But he didn't write Starlight and Time. As I originally noted, Russell Humphreys did. And while I also can respect OEC like you, Humphreys is a YEC.

    Secular science has entertained just that idea, it's called the multiregional hypothesis. It's fallen out of favor in the past couple years due to new evidence and information from the genetics side of the story that strongly support the "Out of Africa" hypothesis.

    I've never been able to get comfortable with mult-regionalism, just because it presents such significant problems for me in reading Genesis. My understanding of Genesis strongly favors the "out of Africa" idea -- a single location for Adam & Eve to begin as the first humans -- humans endowed by God with souls and the imago dei

    Like Hugh Ross -- or at least his pal Fuz Rana whose mp3s I've been listening to this week -- the "out of Africa" understanding of our history fits nicely in with my reading of Genesis, and doesn't flip the middle finger at the evidence.

    Thanks for your comments. I hope I answered them satisfactorily.


    This makes sense. Thanks for the explanation.

    What problems has he pointed out with evolution? That we don't know precisely when man's ancestors descended from the trees? What?

    No one is suggesting that evolution has fossil evidence or some other kind of forensic proof for every part of every species' history. It's frankly remarkable that we have as much fossil evidence as we have, and what we have leaves long periods of time wide open.

    That said, I guess you will have to tell me what problems he's pointed out with evolutionary theory that need to be addressed. Saying you need an intact fossil skeleton for every 20 year period (generation) back for a million years is completely unreasonable, if that's what you (or he) is demanding. We wouldn't expect to find that kind of evidence whether evolution was true or not.


    You're right, it would be unreasonable. But from what I've read, and I think I've read most of the thread, Steve has never made this a requirement anywhere. And I don't either.

    If you asking about trying to pair off Gorilla fangs with hominid spears, or something like that, that's a fool's errand. It's foolish to even offer an argument like that without a working "survival model" behind it. We have no way to establish if what we are talking about is even remotely attached to what really happened.

    But again, this isn't the argument. The argument is if human evolution is true, if man evolved from an ape-man (or whatever), then how did man survive all these millions of years in the face of natural predators?

    Steve brings up points like the following which I've quoted above but would like to quote again for emphasis:

    "One discontinuity is the eventual loss of his natural defense mechanisms-chiefly an arboreal lifestyle.

    At a minimum, he would need a compensatory adaptation, such as weaponry.

    This would involve the ability to invent suitable weapons, the actual invention of suitable weapons, and the ability to use them effectively.

    And the timing of this development would need to be such that there wasn’t a chink in his armor during the transitional phase."

    In previous threads, and in other posts in fact, he's brought up other problems with evolution, too.

    Speaking of which, I'm curious, how would you as a theistic evolutionist respond to the existence of disease and death prior to man if we assume evolution is true?

    That is, according to evolutionary theory, uni and multicellular organisms (prokaryotes and eukaryotes) such as bacteria, and others such as virii, were present well before the advent of man. Decomposition took place when organisms died. Presumably bacteria, for example, helped along in the process of animal decomposition after death. It makes sense to say that (early) man would have also decomposed after death. Or at least fallen prey to disease even if he was able to eventually fight it off through a developed immune system. But probably many died from disease.

    Thus early to modern man would have evolved in an environment which included things like the existence of processes like decomposition, would have been susceptible and in fact exposed to disease, and would very likely have died. Even from his earliest days, in fact even from his transitional phase between ape-man to early man, man would've been living in these conditions. Illness and disease existed and thus would've been trasmitted to him. His body would begin to gradually die as he approached old age. Death would inevitably claim him. His body would decompose. And so on.

    Yet Genesis indicates that man did not suffer the effects of physical death until after the Fall. Man's own body did not decay and eventually die in the Garden of Eden. What's more, he appears to have been living in an environment in which none of these processes which lead to death were in effect. Man's environment seems to have been perfect and free of those things which would cause death. Romans 8:20-22 elaborates: "For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now." This "pains of childbirth" would seem (at least in part) to refer to the Fall in Genesis 3.

    At any rate, Romans 8 indicates that creation itself is in "bondage to decay." In other words, according to the Bible decay and death do not seem to be a natural state of affairs. But according to the theory of evolution decay and death would be perfectly natural. In fact, they would even be prerequisites to the entire process of evolution and human evolution. Without decay and death, how could any organism evolve in the first place? Without decay and death, how could animals prey on one another? Without decay and death, how would natural selection and survival function? Etc.

    So my question is, how would you make sense of the Biblical narrative in places like Genesis 3 and Romans 8 in light of evolution?

    Thanks again for your comments.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Patrick,

    Thanks for the thoughful response. I'm continuuing the exchange, but will break this up into several pieces/submissions.

    You said:
    1. Isn't common ancestry -- this man-ape creature you're referring to -- a problem on your side of the lawn as a theistic evolutionist?

    Not as far as I can see. God *does* intervene miraculously at some point, elevating proto-human to human by virtue of the endowment of a soul and th image dei. Before elvating Adam (and Eve) in this way, proto-humans were just animals. Their shared ancestry with other species isn't a problem at all.

    You said:
    2. In fact, in this very post , Steve says:

    ...
    At a minimum, he would need a compensatory adaptation, such as weaponry.

    This would involve the ability to invent suitable weapons, the actual invention of suitable weapons, and the ability to use them effectively.

    And the timing of this development would need to be such that there wasn’t a chink in his armor during the transitional phase.
    ...


    Steve has given us no "threat model" that needs to be overcome. I say "we're here!", which implies that we survived somehow. I don't pretend to know the rate at which saber-tooth cats preyed on (proto-)humans. I don't pretend to have an inventory of every kind of predator that served as a threat. Without this information, I can't say "man didn't have enough", because I don't know what *enough* is.

    Steve *does* pretend to have this information, else he wouldn't be able to say what is enough or not enough.

    For example, what if I said, for the sake of argument, that the move from living in trees to living on the ground introduced *no* predatory threat? I'm not saying the case, but how would that be rejected? There "must have been". Well, how many, and where, and what kind? If it's the odd victim that the tribe loses to a leopard now and then, then the move to the ground isn't a problem. If (proto-)humans are getting picked off right and left by packs of hyenas and gorillas with fangs(!), then humans reproductive rate would have to be a lot higher to keep up.

    But Steve hasn't, and apparently won't share any of his numbers with us. So it's just a bunch of internet hooey as far that argument goes for now.

    You said:
    3. Re: the gorilla, the point Steve is making is that man does not have the survival capabilities of a gorilla in the wild. He notes that the gorilla, for instance, is strong and has fangs whereas man does not have any natural defenses relative to those predators which would prey on him.

    What predators were those, and how much of a threat were they? As I said, for many species, including possibly humans, the real survival threat at the species level isn't predation, but food and energy acquisition. Did the move down from the trees afford (proto-)man a rich new source of food? If so, did it more than compensate in survival/reproductive rates for whatever the predatory attrition rates were? How do we know any of this?

    We don't so far as I'm aware. If Steve does, he's one of the only ones on the planet, I'd wager.

    I'll continue shortly.

    -Touchstone

    ReplyDelete
  4. Patrick,

    You said:
    You state that man as he exists today does appear to have the adequate assets to survive as a species. That's not in question, though. What is in question is how did he receive or achieve (or however you want to put it) the adequate assets to survive? From where did these survival assets originate? How did they develop over time?
    Those are the questions science takes on. How did that come about? How did we get here? I don't think you could find any anthropologist that would say we have a clear view of how things happened, in terms of what man's resources were and what his environment was like. There's just a lot we don't know. Ask your local anthropology what the predators were for (proto-)man, and you get a probably list of candidate, but even the list of predatory species is very sketchy.

    So Steve comes along and says 'this couldn't have happened'. I, and I think your local anthropoligist would say: hold on, ruling *out* survival would mean we know a lot more than we currently know. What's up with that?

    We don't know all the hows and whens. We may never know. But by the same measure we don't know enough to make positive claims like Steve does.

    You said:

    If we assume a traditional reading of Genesis, then man survived because of his God-given brainpower. If we assume evolution, then man survived because he developed compensatory survival assets in order to survive. But then the next question is, how do we account for the survival of man during the transitional period when man descended from the trees, so to speak, and became modern man? As Steve points out, after losing his arboreal lifestyle, "At a minimum, he [man] would need a compensatory adaptation, such as weaponry. This would involve the ability to invent suitable weapons, the actual invention of suitable weapons, and the ability to use them effectively." What's more, according to evolution, this takes place over millions of years, so man's survival over such an extended period of time would be a significant factor we'd need to explain as well.


    Sure, that's what anthropology works to explain. How *did* early man survive all that time? Well, we found some spears that *some* (proto-)humans made in one location 400,000 years ago. That's a small piece of the puzzle. Does it explain everything? Certainly not. We have axes and cleavers at a million years ago, in an another place. That's another piece of the puzzle. Does that complete the picture? Hardly!

    It's a slow, sketchy process, that puts in pieces of the puzzle where they are found, but a lot of empty space remains. That's how science works. Do we know enough to explain all our questions? No. Do we know enough to say man couldn't have survived? Not even close.

    Unless Steve is holding back his secret evidence repository on us.

    You said:
    1. But that's precisely the point, why did the original argument that, "Assuming evolution to be true, man did not have the wherewithal to survive," seem inchoate to you? To me, it actually seems like a good question worth addressing.

    Well, first, it's not a question. That's Steve's problem: it's a claim. I think the question is a fine one myself; I like to read scholarly journals on anthropology, because it's a fascinating topic. So I have no problem with the question: how did early man survive?

    If that had been what Steve had said, I don't think he'd be in a position to backpedal and wave his hands about. But he made a positive claim that man did *not* have the wherewithal.

    So I ask him (and you perhaps?, since he's unwilling to answer):

    On what basis is that claim made? What is the science behind that conclusion. As far as I can tell, it's because Steve thinks gorillas are more fierce than humans? If that's all the science he's got behind this claim, well then, we know what we need to know about his claims.

    2. As far as your point about "the numbers" (or statistics?) is concerned, the simple fact that we have a whole lot of people on earth today doesn't necessarily require evolution to explain it. That is, we know there are a lot of people today, but the question is how did they get here? And if we do assume evolution to be true for the moment, then the question raised by Steve (as I quote above) is indeed relevant, isn't it? It seems that way to me, anyway.


    As I said, questions are fine. I have them myself. Science doesn't know all the answers about what predators, food sources and all the other survival parameters were at all (or even any) points in the timeline. Science just works to provide more pieces to the puzzle over time.

    Questions are good, as they don't assert knowledge claims. If Steve had just been asking questions, seeking knowledge, I'd be right there with him. That isn't what happened. He made claims that implied knowledge that he's yet to produce.

    More in a bit, thanks.

    -Touchstone

    ReplyDelete
  5. Patrick,

    You said:
    1. The interpretation of Genesis Steve has in mind, as he noted, is the traditional interpretation. Historically, it's how the majority of Christians have interpreted the Bible throughout the centuries. I realize many if not most modern people (although I'm not at all suggesting you do) view this interpretation as beneath discussion, as something which must only come from ignorant, Bible thumpin' hillbillies in the Bible Belt, it has been defended from various angles -- from fine theologians, from knowledgeable historians and archaeologists, from very capable scientists such as Dr. Kurt Wise, etc.

    There's no honest way around this but to say that YEC interpretations as *science* are a complete joke. I have no problem with YEC interpretations outside of any consideration of the scientic witness to God's creation. But if one claims to incorporate a scientific view of reality into one's interpretation, YEC interpretations are completely refuted. Like, refuted as thoroughly as the idea that earth is flat, or that the sun goes around the earth.

    I talk to YECs all the time about this -- I come from a family of YECs. One scientific claim after another... hundreds of them. And they're all fantastically bad as science. Truly, to be a YEC, one must divorce oneself from science. The latest one to hit my desk is the "sun is shrinking so fast it would be gone in 100,000 years" one.

    You said:
    2. What's more, the traditional interpretation fits in very well with the GHM method. As I understand it, the same could not be said of the theistic evolution take on Genesis 1.

    Hmmm. I think without considering the witness of science, I'd interpret scripture to say the earth is the center of the universe, and that the sun goes around the earth, just as the church did for many centuries. But that would be ignoring Copernicus' discovery. I've got no problem looking at scripture and trying to see it as the ancients did. But I have a big problem ignoring knowledge readily at hand -- like the movements of tides that confirms heliocentrism.

    GHM is and should be a means to gain insight, not something to be used as a shield from the facts.

    You said:
    3. And now, speaking as a Christian, I would presume this is what it comes down to. That is, that the Word of God is our final authority. It is what we know and it is what we love with all our hearts simply because it contains the very precious words of our Heavenly Father and God.

    Hence, if we look at the Bible with this in mind, and if we assume that we don't know whether or not theistic evolution is viable (since that's the position I currently find myself in), then laying aside for the moment the validity of theistic evolution, shouldn't we ask ourselves, what makes the most sense according to a fair exegesis of the passage, according to the GHM of Biblical intepretation?


    I think even on GHM ground, YEC interpretation is a contorted, unnatural one. I'm sure YEC subscribers can be found all along the timeline (Josephus was a YEC I think), but so can non-YEC subscribers (Augustine, perhaps).

    But what's really at issue here, concerning exegesis, is the question of whether we should decide that Gen 1 is making scientfic claims at all. So, under the GHM plan, I see Gen 1 being highly allegorical, and believe the natural grammatical-historical understanding of the ancient Hebrews was that it was just that. It's a remarkable bit of anachronistic thinking to suppose they understood Genesis to be a scientific treatise. It served notice that God was creator and sovereign, had established moral law, and had a plan for the salvation of man after the Fall.

    Thinking that the ancient Hebrews understood "yom" to be a claim for a solar day just makes no sense to me. It's post-enlightenment reductionist thinking superimposed on a tribe of ancient Hebrews.

    So no, I think YEC interpretations are poor one even in the GHM context, insofar that they insist Gen was presented as a scientific treatise. then or now.

    You said:
    For example, when God says in Genesis 1 that such and such was created in one day, then could one day actually refer to an epoch of time rather than simply to what the Hebrews knew as "one day"? Especially in light of the fact that throughout the rest of the Bible, whenever the phrase "one day" is used it simply to refer to one day (as far as I'm aware). Even the phrase "a day is like a thousand years" seems to me to be meant to be taken as an analogy rather than as a literal fact. So why do we impose, say, the idea that "one day" really means "an epoch" on the phrase? Perhaps there are legitimate reasons for doing so, but personally speaking, I don't know what they are -- although, yes, I definitely have to read up on it. But for the time being, this is my own best understanding of what a proper exegesis of Genesis 1 spells out. And where there are questions about whether we evolved from apes, whether theistic evolution is true, and given that I don't yet know the answers to these questions or perhaps understand the questions themselves, and given that what I do understand does not seem rational or logical to me (e.g. everythhing Steve has pointed out about theistic evolution), then it seems reasonable to me as a Christian to interpret the Bible on its own terms, on as fair a reading of the text as I do understand, insofar as it makes sense in accordance with proper exegesis based on the GHM since these seem to be the bedrocks of interpretation.

    Well, that's an interesting topic, but I've posted hundreds of pages on day-age debates, and the interpretation of "yom", "olam", etc. It's not at all true to say that "yom" is only used to mean "one [solar] day". That's manifestly not the case in scripture, by anyone's account, even YECs.

    I'm happy and willing to take that up with you, but suggest that's far afield from whether Adam's lack of fangs and Gorilla muscles invalidated the theory of evolution.

    Fair?

    Continued shortly.

    -Touchstone

    ReplyDelete
  6. Patrick,

    You said:
    1. But if what you've said is true, and if it does require "knowledge that surpasses the accumulated knowledge of all the PhDs in anthropology out there," for instance, and if "No PhD [you've] read could say with any certainty what the reproductive rates were a million years ago," then doesn't that invalidate theistic evolution as well? After all, the need for so much knowledge at best seems to me to be a barrier to all parties involved. It cuts both ways.

    Theistic evolution doesn't *mandate* evolution, or any particular flavor of evolution. It's simply compatible with it. That's why on my blog posts and elsewhere I routinely complain that "theistic evolution" is a problematic term for people like Francis Collins, Kenneth Miller, and others, and myself.

    Evolution isn't proven overwhelmingly, by any measure. It's clearly the best theory going in terms of science, but we are even now seeing evolutionary theory move and change shape into something very different than it was just a decade ago; we're seeing right now the obsolescence of the "modern synthesis" and the rise of a more evo-devo-centric model.

    But theistic evolution doesn't have to have evolution as Darwin envisioned it be the ultimate truth (no one holds the pure Darwinian view anymore anyway), or the modern synthesis, or evo-devo. Theistic evolution simply says that we don't know from Genesis what specific methods or timeframes were used by God as his choice in creating the universe. If it turns out that a "smoking gun" genetically appears in the science that strongly affirms evolutionary theory, so be it. If the science produces a "smoking gun" in terms of genetics that falsifies evolution, so be it.

    So no, it's not a symmetrical situation at all. YECs make positive scientific claims based on their certainty of Genesis' meaning. Not only are those claims soundly rejected by the witness of God's creation, I reject the basic underlying predicate: that Genesis gives warrant for even making such claims.

    So, I'm not committed to one particularly development model of biology or another. I assert unreservedly:

    + God created the universe and reigns sovereign over it
    + God created Adam, the first man, endowed with a soul and the imago dei
    + Adam sinned and brought spiritual death into the world for all men

    The "hows" of creation -- timelines, geologic processes, biological development, etc. are all unspecificed in Gen.

    Lack of knowledge by science, then doesn't represent a problem for me, like it does the YEC. It could turn out any number ways as far as the processes involved, and none of them would interfere with the theological implications of Genesis.

    You said:
    2. However, it also seems to depend on what you mean by knowledge. If by knowledge you mean more and more detailed facts and figures, more and more data and information, then where do we draw the line? How much is enough?

    Well, YEC views are totally discredited, scientifically. As Christians, I think it's patently dishonest to present this any other way than that. YEC believers are welcome to say that they think God created the entire universe recently by in such a way as to an exquisite illusion -- it looks and behaves like it was billions of years old.

    That scenario cannot be denied. An omnipotent God *could* do that. That's a coherent answer. But to suggest that YEC ideas and science are compatible, that's not even remotely defensible.

    Has evolution been "proved"? Are old earthers intransigent viz. science like YECs? No, in my opinion. Evolution to me is *convincing*, but not overwhelming. I can definitely see good faith differences in OEC perspectives on the data.

    It may be, one day that genetics (or something else) provide a compelling case for or against evolution. We'll have to adjust at that point. But now evolution has convinced me that this is God's ordained process for creation, but I understand that others may not be convinced.

    An old earth is beyond controversy at this point, scientifically.

    You said:
    3. Even if we agree on a finite amount of requisite knowledge, then wouldn't the next step be an argument for the best understanding of the knowledge (otherwise an infinite body of knowledge would be required, which isn't fair, since no one requires that in anything else we do or study)? What do make of the data we've accumulated? Does it seem to prove or disprove human evolution? Yet insofar as I understand, this is precisely where Steve has been leveling his argumentation against human evolution. That is, a logical, rational analysis of the knowledge does not seem to indicate that (as Steve puts it) man has the wherewithal to survive if we assume human evolution.

    I've not seen any rational analysis of this from Steve on this question. Saying "gorillas have fangs" doesn't even come close to cutting it. If he (or you) thinks that's at all adequate, then he (or you) doesn't appreciate the scope of the problem. Survival is a complex equation -- exceedingly complex. A logical, rational analysis will consider the various factors that come into play.

    As I said, brainpower is a huge (the ultimate?) weapon in terms of survival and dominance of the ecological playing field. Without a very good handle on just how powerful hominid brains were at any specific point, one is forced to be tentative in one's conlusions.

    Steve wasn't tentative, so I wonder where he got his data to support his claims.

    So perhaps you're looking for more and more information and knowledge to support this or that or to disprove this or that whereas it seems to me that Steve is arguing based on what we already know or on the information you've already provided?

    No one knows enough -- scientifically speaking -- to rule out man's survival according to the evolutionary paradigm, except for Steve. Evolution may not have happened the way science believes it did. But this argument isn't established, or even helped by Steve's rationale, based on what he's provided thus far.

    -Touchstone

    ReplyDelete
  7. Touchstone said:

    "There's no honest way around this but to say that YEC interpretations as *science* are a complete joke. I have no problem with YEC interpretations outside of any consideration of the scientic witness to God's creation. But if one claims to incorporate a scientific view of reality into one's interpretation, YEC interpretations are completely refuted. Like, refuted as thoroughly as the idea that earth is flat, or that the sun goes around the earth."
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    Touchstone, you are a breath of fresh air. It is so nice to see a christian come around here and show some intellectual honesty. This blog is one big justify-my-belief fest. Then you show up, and prove that christians can seek the truth and still believe.

    You are in inspiration.

    ReplyDelete