Many
professing believers are currently bailing on the historicity of Adam. Indeed,
this has become a theological fad. To be an evangelical who denies the
historicity of Adam is hip and chic.
The argument that cinches the deal for these people is
comparative genomics, viz. genetic commonalities between humans and
chimpanzees.
I get the impression that many of these breathless converts
to evolution haven’t bothered to study the counterarguments. They discount the
counterarguments in advance as the work of “creationists.” Such
counterarguments are unworthy of their consideration because they are tainted
by the source.
However, I’d like to make a different point. For the sake of
argument, let’s grant scientific realism. There are true and false scientific theories.
False theories can have explanatory power. The history of
science is chock-full of false theories that explain some of the evidence. I
think that’s the case for just about any field of science. Especially in the
early stages of scientific investigation, it’s not uncommon to have multiple,
competing theories of a given phenomenon. Each rival theory explains some of
the evidence.
The challenge is to come up with a theory that explains all
of the evidence. And that’s more challenging the more evidence you have to
explain. I assume it’s easier to explain the cause of melanoma than it is to
explain the origin and diversification of life on earth.
Suppose evolution could explain the commonalities between
humans and chimps. Problem is, that’s only impressive if you bracket the
selective phenomena for which evolution offers plausible explanations from
everything that a theory of origins and biodiversity must be able to explain.
Remember, false theories can explain some of the evidence. But that’s a specious
explanation, for you have to evaluate a theory by the totality of its
explanatory power, or lack thereof.
Evolutionary theory suffers from serious and persistent internal problems.
And it isn’t just critics of evolution who point that out. Not just hostile outsiders. It includes
scientists who think evolution must be true, that something like the
evolutionary narrative had to happen, yet they don’t think the current
synthesis can get the job done. Among the older generation, that includes the
late Fred Hoyle and Francis Crick.
More recently, the late Stephen Jay Gould was savagely
attacked because he made too many concessions to the dreaded creationists. His
version of evolutionary theory wasn’t pure enough.
Currently, you have dissenters like Jerry Fodor, James
Shapiro, Stuart Newman, Thomas Nagel, and Richard Sternberg, &c. This has alarmed the gatekeepers of
Darwinian orthodoxy, like Jerry Coyne.
As I recall, Jerry Coyne has argued people like his colleague James Shapiro don't understand the modern evolutionary synthesis because they don't properly understand topics like speciation, population genetics, random genetic drift, etc. As such, Coyne thinks they're missing the forest for the trees.
ReplyDeleteIf I'm not mistaken, I believe James Shapiro, Stuart Newman, and Richard Sternberg primarily work in the more technical subfields of molecular and cellular biology. For example, Shapiro argues in part for what he terms "natural genetic engineering" which he bases in the genomic evidence (e.g. see here for an interview).
Anyway, at the risk of oversimplification, I think we could say Shapiro, Newman, and Sternberg are working at a more micro level in contrast to Coyne (as well as others like Dawkins) who is working at a more macro level.
But isn't the picture of the forest only as good as the trees? If some of the trees don't fit into the pattern of the picture of the forest, in such a way as to warp or discolor the whole picture, then isn't it possible we may need to scrap the current picture, and if possible come up with a new picture?
Many professing believers are currently bailing on the historicity of Adam. Indeed, this has become a theological fad. To be an evangelical who denies the historicity of Adam is hip and chic.
ReplyDeleteThe argument that cinches the deal for these people is comparative genomics, viz. genetic commonalities between humans and chimpanzees.
BTW, if I follow correctly, it's amusing these professing Christians base their denial on genetic commonalities between humans and chimps in contrast to cutting-edge scientists like Shapiro who would argue the genetic differences between humans and chimps are in part evidence against the current evolutionary paradigm.
"This report describes a large-scale single-contig comparison between human and chimpanzee genomes....However, and importantly, this 98.6% sequence identity drops to only 86.7% taking into account the multiple insertions/deletions (indels) dispersed throughout the region." (Source)
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