Increasing Diversity By Killing It

Veritasium recently highlighted what he calls "The Longest-Running Evolution Experiment" on YouTube. The experiment uses E. Coli bacteria and it's been running for 33 years.  This means that there have been 74,500 generations of bacteria.

To put that in perspective, assuming a generation in humans takes about 20 years, it would take humans 1,490,000 years to have this many generations.  For the record, if you ask a Darwinist, they will say that modern humans have only been around for 300,000 to 800,000 years.  Indeed, going back 1.5 million years, our ancestors would be Homo erectus.  The point is, there are huge differences between H. erectus and H. sapiens that supposedly came about in those roughly 75,000 generations.

On the other hand, if you look bacteria after the same 75,000 generations, they are basically unchanged to this day.  Not only that, but E. Coli can be found back well before this 33-year-old experiment began too. And in all that time, no mutant bacteria formed which would be classified as anything other than E. Coli.

But this is a bit aside the point I wanted to make in talking about this bacteria now.  The point raised by the video is that the E. Coli that exists today ought to have evolved to better fit into the environment of the laboratory, and comparing older strains with modern strains show that modern strains of bacteria are, in deed, "more fit."

This is, in fact, how evolution is typically presented. Organisms become "more fit" in their environment.  The problem is that this overlooks one extremely obvious point: becoming more fit for a particular niche environment does not mean that you are more fit as an organism, as a whole.  What I mean can be seen if we hypothesize a bacteria that has 50% capability of survival in a lab and 50% capability of surviving in a kitchen and 50% capability of surviving in a bathroom.  After thousands of generations, we measure that the bacteria now has a 95% capability of surviving in a lab, and that's all we measure. We then declare that the organism is "more fit", despite the fact that for all we know the new organism has a 0% capability of surviving in a kitchen and in a bathroom now.

The point can be even more readily made by considering what happens when a human feeds wildlife.  Birds, for example, may learn that to get food they just eat the seeds from a feeder all winter long. But what happens when the old woman who used to feed them dies and there's no more seeds?  The birds die too, because they have lost the ability to get food on their own.

So the question is, can birds that learn to eat seeds from a feeder be considered "more fit" than birds that know how to search for food on their own?  Only in the extremely specialized context of that specific environment and only assuming that environment never changes could such a bird be considered "more fit."  In all other points of view, it's actually harmful to the bird to make it dependent upon humans.  

E. coli naturally lives in the intestines of a human being.  Would we still consider the E. coli to be "more fit" if we discovered that all these lab grown bacteria would die if placed back into an intestine?  Does the fact that they are the best at living in the lab really mean the organism is "the best" itself, given that without being able to survive in humans, all of these bacteria have no ability to survive the instant there is no more funding for this experiment?

The reason that becomes important is more than just semantics. Evolution is supposed to explain why organisms become more complex over time, yet all these experiments actually show is organisms adapting to a single variable that we have artificially decided is the only thing we should measure for.  In fact, it ought to be predicted that they would become simpler as a result.  After all, if E. coli doesn't need to survive in the stomach because it's environment is now restricted to a laboratory, then the ability to survive in any other environments is wasted effort on the part of the organism.  It's better to streamline the organism and remove that ability.  But, clearly, this is reducing the available functionality, not increasing it.  And in fact, natural selection is a winnowing process by definition.  Death is not a creative function.  You do not increase diversity by killing off something.

So can you really call this an experiment in evolution?  Only in the sense that the bare-bones definition of "evolution" is change through time, and certainly these E. coli have changed through time. But to try to extrapolate from that some grand scheme of Darwinian progression is simply pushing the data way too far from what it actually provides.

McLatchie on Swamidass

Jonathan McLatchie comments on Joshua Swamidass' theory regarding Adam and Eve and human evolution:

An innovative and provocative attempt to harmonize evolutionary theory with an historical Adam and Eve has recently been proposed by computational biologist Joshua Swamidass of Washington University in St. Louis. [10] Swamidass proposes that Adam and Eve lived approximately six thousand years ago, in accordance with the traditional creationist understanding. He argues that Adam and Eve did not have parents and were in fact created de novo, as described in Genesis 2. Consistent with a face-value reading of Genesis, Swamidass proposes that Adam was formed from the dust of the earth and Eve from Adam’s side. However, Swamidass argues that Adam and Eve were not the first humans. Rather, their genomes became ‘mixed’ with the rest of the human population outside of the garden through interbreeding (that is, humans who, unlike Adam and Eve, arose naturally through evolutionary processes), such that all extant humans can be said to trace their genealogical ancestry back to Adam and Eve, even though their genetic ancestry includes other lineages, unrelated to Adam, as well. Swamidass points out that universal genealogical ancestors (that is, individuals to whom all modern humans can trace their ancestry) are common, arising often throughout human history. Swamidass proposes that “Adam and Eve are to work as priestly rulers alongside Yahweh Elohim, to expand the Garden across the earth. Civilization is rising, and a new era is coming. Their purpose is to welcome everyone into their family, in a new kingdom of God.” [11] Swamidass distinguishes between what he calls “biological humans” and “textual humans.” [12] For Swamidass, “Biological humans are defined taxonomically, from a biological and scientific point of view. From at least AD 1 onward, they are coextensive with textual humans.” [13] On the other hand, “Textual humans are the group of people to whom Scripture refers. I argue that this group is defined by Scripture to be Adam, Eve, and their genealogical descendants, including everyone alive across the globe by, at latest AD 1. They are a chronological subset of biological humans, meaning that some biological humans in the past are not textual humans, but all textual humans are biological humans.” [14]

While Swamidass’ model is superficially attractive in that it does not require positing thousands of gaps in the Genesis genealogies, the problems that it raises are too intolerably great for me to commend Swamidass’ solution. For one thing, in what sense, if any, can non-Adamic biological humans be considered to be fully human? Are they affected by original sin, and did Jesus die to save them? Swamidass conjectures that these biological humans bear God’s image but “are not yet affected by Adam’s fall. They have a sense of right and wrong, written on their hearts (Rom. 2:15), but they are not morally perfect. They do wrong at times. They are subject to physical death, which prevents their wrongdoing from growing into true evil (Gen. 6:3).” [15] The Scriptures, however, make no such distinction between biological humans and textual humans. Swamidass’ view would seem to suggest logically that those individuals who were biological (but not textual) humans are qualitatively indistinct from other animals. But in that case it makes no sense to call their deeds evil, or to postulate that they had a sense of right and wrong. Moreover, if they, as Swamidass suggests, “do wrong at times”, then does this not suggest that Adam’s fall is but one of many falls that have occurred in human history? The theological ramifications that accompany this scenario are too severe for me to entertain Swamidass’ proposal.

"Apparent" theistic evolution

I'm not a young earth creationist (YEC). That said:

Some people criticize YEC on the grounds that it makes God a deceiver if not a liar. He created the world in something like 10,000 years, but he created it with the appearance of age, empirically speaking. Critics say that's deceptive. Some critics even say it makes God a liar.

Some theistic evolutionists may face a similar problem. They say God guided evolution, but they also say we can't detect evidence of design. Such as in entities like DNA, cells, flagella, eyes. Apparently God guided evolution in such a way that his guidance is empirically undetectable. (Otherwise, if design is detectable, why not embrace design like Behe does?) Apparently theistic evolution is empirically indistinguishable from naturalistic evolution. So does this mean theistic evolutionists are making God out to be a deceiver if not a liar?

If theistic evolutionists respond there's nothing necessarily unethical about God's deception, then why couldn't YECs say the same about YEC?

What is evolution?

I've argued against evolution - or more precisely I've argued against certain components of evolution - on many occasions. I use evolution to mean Darwinism or rather neo-Darwinism which is the mainstream theory of evolution today.

That said, oftentimes debates over evolution forget the very basics. They often forget to define what evolution is in the first place. So I'll try to do that now in a hopefully simple manner accessible to most people reading this.

What is evolution? Evolution is the combination of six components:

1. Genetic change over time. A species undergoes change in their genes or alleles over time. (Alleles are simply variants of the same gene.)
2. Gradualism. It takes a long time (generations) to produce genetic change.
3. Speciation. The simple idea is splitting. One or more species can split off from another species.
4. Common ancestry. This is the flipside of speciation. If species can split off from other species, then we can trace the splitting back in time (via fossils and genetic sequences) to find the shared or common ancestor of two or more species.
5. Natural selection. Organisms in the same species may have genetic differences among one another. This in turn impacts their ability to reproduce and survive in an environment. The genes that are more conducive to reproduction and survival will more likely be passed on (heredity) to the subsequent generation while the genes that don't will be less likely to be passed on (heredity) to the subsequent generation. That's in essence what natural selection is.
6. Other mechanisms (besides natural selection). These include genetic drift, gene flow, and random genetic mutations which can cause evolutionary change. The primary mechanism (especially in a large population) is random genetic mutations. Broadly speaking, random genetic mutations are permanent alterations in a gene.

This is a fairly standard definition of evolution. In fact, it's so standard that it's based in large part on Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution Is True!

Now that we have a mainstream working definition, we can begin to voice our concerns and disagreements with evolution (neo-Darwinism). Keeping this in mind, see my earlier post including its comments for many of my own thoughts on evolution.

Some comments on theistic evolution

For what it's worth, here are some comments (revised) on intelligent design and theistic evolution that I recently left in a previous post in a friendly conversation with Eric:

1. I'll use evolution as shorthand for neo-Darwinism. And I'll use ID for intelligent design.

2. To my knowledge, ID is relatively "new" in the sense that Dembski describes it in his chapter "How does intelligent design differ from the design argument?" in his book The Design Revolution. An excerpt is available here. However, ID is "old" in the sense that it's in the same or similar vein as teleological arguments in general (aka arguments from design, which might be more clearly termed arguments for design). This stretches back as far as Thomas Aquinas' Five Ways if not earlier.

3. I'm very sympathetic and greatly appreciate the work of the ID guys. At the same time, I think I'm persuaded by Alvin Plantinga (e.g. "design discourse") and Del Ratzsch (e.g. "the persistence of design thinking") when it comes to assessing their work.

4. My impression is, relatively speaking, secular physicists (cosmology) seem more open-minded about arguments for design (e.g. fine-tuning) than secular biologists. I mean, there are plenty of close-minded cosmologists, but I'm speaking in comparison to secular biologists. Secular biologists seem like the dwarves in the stable in C. S. Lewis' The Last Battle, imprisoned in their own minds, and "so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out". They stick their fingers in their ears and refuse so much as to entertain the possibility of anything other than a strictly material world. I guess most of them take after Lewontin: "materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door". Regarding fine-tuning, see the works of Robin Collins and Luke Barnes.

5. An interesting question to explore is whether evolution itself requires design to operate. By contrast, if the universe and all it contains including life is not designed, then would evolution even be able to get off the ground?

For starters, evolution appears to be goal-directed, that is, it appears to be teleological. It appears to be able to adapt means to ends. However, if the universe and all it contains is not designed, then how would evolution come to be goal-directed? How would it come to be able to adapt means to ends? For example, if all is undesigned, without teleological purpose, then how did the heart come to exist to pump blood to the body? A happy accident? Not to mention all the other functions in every organism on this planet. Multiply all this together and the chances of all these serendipitous events occurring seem improbable to say the least.

Stepping back, what are the chances of the origin of life? Next, of the origin of the first cell? Next, of the origin of the first multicellular organism? Next, of the origin of the first warm-blooded animal? Next, of the origin of intelligence or consciousness? And so on. Each step is not one small step, but a giant leap. A leap as giant as a human being becoming a star-child à la 2001: A Space Odyssey.

And all this is in addition to the chances of finely-turned laws to drive all this, but what are the chances of a law like natural selection in an undesigned universe?

Perceiving design

Alvin Plantinga, Where the Conflict Really Lies:

Perceiving Design?

In this chapter and the last we have been thinking about fine-tuning arguments for design, and Behe's biological arguments for design. We have been calling them, naturally enough, "arguments." But perhaps there is a better way to think about what is going on here. You are hiking up Ptarmigan Ridge towards Mt. Baker in the North Cascades; your partner points out a mountain goat on a crag about two hundred yards distant. She thus gets you to form a belief—that there is a mountain goat there. But of course she doesn't do so by giving you an argument (you are appeared to in such and such a way; most of the time when someone S is appeared to that way there is a mountain goat about two hundred yards distant in the direction S is looking). Perhaps what is going on in the arguments like Behe's, as well as the fine-tuning arguments of the last chapter, can be better thought of as like what is going on in this sort of case, where it is perception (or something like it) rather than argument that is involved.²⁰

What is intelligent design?

William Dembski offers one definition:

Intelligent design is the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as the product of intelligence.

What is intelligence? Intelligence is teleological. It's basically about adapting means to ends. Intelligence is a causal power that can bring about purposes by arranging the means to bring those purposes about. An intelligence has to make choices. If it's adapting means, then it's this means, not that means. In fact, the very etymology of the word intelligence is inter lego - "to choose between". That's the characteristic of intelligence. Whereas something that operates by brute necessity always does the same sort of thing. Even chance is not really intelligence; it's not goal-directed. So it seems there's this fundamental distinction. Intelligence is about adapting means to ends.

The starting question for intelligent design is, what are the markers? How do we detect the effects of intelligence? There seem to be three main things we're looking for. Contingency: whether something happens that didn't have to happen. So it was optional. There are different live possibilities. Complexity: it was hard to reproduce by chance. If chance and necessity were operating, would it have been unlikely? And third specification: does it conform to some independently given pattern? So it's not just something we're imposing after the fact, that we're cherry-picking and looking for something that we're hoping is there, but that there's this independent pattern to which it conforms. If we have those three things that come into place, then it seems we're triangulated on the effects of intelligence.

So lots of questions are then open. What's the nature of that intelligence? What were the purposes of that intelligence? How did the intelligence implement that design?

Where intelligence design starts, not where it ends, is having reliable methods of design detection. Specifically: contingency, complexity, specification.

Is evolution a big deal?

I recently watched this informal debate or dialogue between Josh Swamidass and Doug Axe:

I thought it was pretty good on Axe's side. I'd recommend it for Axe's contributions.

Swamidass, however, was a challenge to listen to. For example, Swamidass frequently interrupted Axe (and Swamidass often interrupts others in several other videos I've seen). At times Swamidass didn't seem to try to make a good faith effort to try to understand Axe but perhaps even the opposite. Swamidass seemed condescending toward Axe around the 50 minute mark when he suggested to Axe that Axe's description of cancer is "not what we find" because Axe hadn't been through medical training (MD) or worked in a cancer lab. Axe's description of cancer was fine for his purposes.

At 56:20, Swamidass claimed "Dembski himself backed off from his book The Design Inference". However that's false. Dembski himself responded to Swamidass here.

Swamidass further questioned Dembski over on Peaceful Science. (By the way, the Peaceful Science forums seem anything but "peaceful" in my opinion.) Others replied including Paul Nelson. Nelson mentioned he'll do a 4-part series on Evolution News. This is the first one.

Does Evolution disprove Christianity?

One of those Bambi meets Godzilla debates:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Idyy8p4lShc&t=4616s

In addition to Jonathan's performance, a few observations of my own:

1. Jonathan McLatchie is well-qualified to discuss the issue. That said, the title is ambiguous. It could mean does evolution, if true, disprove Christianity. Or it could mean evolution fails to disprove Christianity because evolution is false.

2. A couple of issues:

i) Lim thinks disease is incompatible with God's existence, but diseases perform a necessary function in maintaining that balance of nature. In addition, most organisms were never designed to be immortal. 

ii) Lim fails to understand that there are constraints on what an omnipotent God can do by natural means. In many cases, God can bypass natural processes to produce a result directly, but if God is creating a cause/effect world, and God is using a physical medium, then that's a self-imposed limitation on God's field of action.

3. We also need to distinguish between Christianity and generic theism or perfect being theology. Even if we posit that disease is incompatible with an abstract concept of God that's a philosophical construct, the existence of disease in no way disproves the existence of the Biblical God. In Scripture, God coexists with disease. So disease in no way counts as evidence against the existence of Christian theism, but is entirely consistent with the God of the Bible.

4. Lim acts like the Genesis creation account indicates that God made all the species from the outset. But Gen 1 doesn't detail the species. Gen 1 doesn't preclude adaptation. Gen 1 refers to a few general taxonomies based on their natural habitat (land animals, freshwater or marine organisms).

5.  Since the issue of how best to interpret Genesis came up, here's a free, recent book: https://frame-poythress.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/PoythressVernInterpretingEdenAGuideToFaithfullyReadingAndUnderstandingGenesis1-3.pdf 

6. Lim constantly raises hypothetical objections to Christianity, but ignores al the evidence. He mentions prayer, but there are countless examples of answered prayer. The fact that many prayers go unanswered doesn't cancel out the evidence for the prayer requests that God does grant.

7. Lim then trots out Sai Babba, but from what I've read, there's lots of evidence that he's a fraud.

8. There are multiple problems with Lim's appeal to alleged pagan parallels between Jesus and hero archetypes:

i) You can't legitimately compare a well-documented historical figure with fictional characters in pagan mythology. Jesus is a historical figure. We have 1C historical sources documenting his life. 1C sources about a 1C individual. 

ii) You also have to take into account the chronological gap between a historical figure like, say, Buddha, and the dates of our earliest sources. 

iii) In addition, you have to take into account the Jewish worldview of the NT, which precludes pagan syncretism.

iv) Did the NT writers even have access to the pagan sources? 

v) How specific are the alleged parallels?

An interview with Gunter Bechly

"Interview: Gunter Bechly (Paleontologist)"

Is Christian opposition to science artificially selective?

Other 19C Bible readers, while comfortable with the general idea "that the Bible was written in terms accommodated to human understanding" and while generally seeking "to reconcile apparent discrepancies between science and Scripture by careful reinterpretation of one or the other," were nevertheless uncomfortable with recourse to the idea of divine accommodation in Scripture when it came to the new biology. Scholars like Edward Pusey (1800-1882), Charles Hodge (1797-1878), and John Dawson (1820-1899) accepted the reinterpretations of Scripture that had arisen as a result of Copernicus' work on cosmology and even the more recent discoveries of the new geology–at least insofar as these established an ancient age for the earth…With respect to Darwinian biology, however, these same scholars were generally opposed to making a similar move–at least given the present state of scientific knowledge.

…there do remain in the modern world not only young-earthers who regard old-earthers as "unbiblical," but also geocentrists and flat-earthers who regard everyone to their "left" (including both old- and young-earthers) the same way–as dangerously liberal in their approach to Scripture. The Bible, these Christians insist, must trump in all cases what unbelieving scientists says; we cannot pick and choose. Those who no longer believe in geocentrism (or flat-earthism), they allege, have capitulated to science even while pretending that they have not. They no longer adhere to what the Bible clearly teaches–in passages like Joshua, for example, where the sun indisputably stands still. I. Provan, The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture (Baylor 2017), 408, 434.

1. This raises a legitimate issue that deserves to be met head-on. Theologically, evolution raises the stakes in a way that antiquity of the universe does not. Human anthropology is central to Christian theology in a way that geology or geocentrism is not. So it may well be that some Christians are inconsistent on this point. 

2. However, even if where they draw the line is driven by theological motives, and to that degree, arbitrary, it doesn't follow that such distinctions are necessarily arbitrary. Indeed, it begs the question to treat all cases alike unless they are alike. That's not something we an settle in advance, apart from exegetical scrutiny. So there's nothing intrinsically ad hoc about treating these issues on a case-by-case basis, because we don't know if they're all of a kind unless and until we examine them. Even if theological motives sometimes exert undue influence, it's logically fallacious to invalidate a position for that reason alone. We must still evaluate the interpretation on the merits, whether or not impure motives played a role in the conclusion. 

3. The theory of evolution remains scientifically–and not just theologically–controversial in a way that astronomy and geology do not. So at that level alone, the comparison is inapt. It's very difficult to turn evolution into a workable theory. You don't have to be a Christian fundamentalist to say that or see that. 

4. As I've often detailed, questioning flat-earth cosmography doesn't require any knowledge of modern science. The endlessly reproduced three-story mockup wouldn't jive for attentive observers in the ancient Near East. 

5. Modern readers don't come to the geocentric prooftexs as a blank slate. We're inclined to consciously or unconsciously filter that through Ptolemaic astronomy and the Galileo affair. But the OT wasn't using that paradigm. There's precious little evidence that OT writers shared the Hellenistic Greek theoretical interest in celestial mechanics. 

6. The meaning of Joshua's Long Day is far from straightforward. 

i) Joshua's statement is poetic. Notice the parallelism. 

ii) In addition, the narrator is summarizing a description from a book that no longer exists. So we can't compare his summary with the full text of the primary source. We lack the larger context. 

iii) The miracle is describe from the phenomenological standpoint of an earthbound observer: the position of the sun at Gibeon, and the position of the moon in the Valley of Aijalon. That's a perceptual, local frame of reference. 

At the very least it describes a supernatural or preternatural optical astronomical illusion. Maybe something more. But the details can't be reconstructed from the poetry or the summary of primary source that no longer exists. 

Swamidass on human evolution

A Christian physician-scientist named Joshua Swamidass published a book at the tail end of last year (Dec 2019) called The Genealogical Adam and Eve: The Surprising Science of Universal Ancestry. Granted, I haven't read the book, but I've heard reliable summaries of its main argument. Indeed, from the mouth of Swamidass himself (e.g. see Swamidass' interview with Cameron Bertuzzi of Capturing Christianity and Michael Jones of Inspiring Philosophy).

Swamidass' main argument is it's possible Adam and Eve were created de novo in the garden of Eden 6,000 years ago, but at the same time there are hominids outside the garden of Eden. These hominids evolved through standard evolutionary processes. This includes hominids like Homo neanderthalensis, Homo erectus, Homo habilis, and so on. However, after Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden, they interbred with these hominids. Modern humans are their descendents. This in turn explains, for example, why there is a certain percentage (1-5%) of Neanderthal DNA in humans today. That's Swamidass' central argument.

This position raises several questions:

1. For one thing, are these hominids human like us? Were they created in the image of God?

2. If the answer is yes, how could there have been humans made in the image of God outside the garden of Eden? Did God create multiple humans in his image, two in the garden, but many others outside it? Yet these humans outside the garden evolved, but can one evolve from non-human to human (made in the image of God)? How would that work?

3. If the answer is no, which is presumably the answer, then these hominids were highly sophisticated primates closely resembling humans, but not human. So would Adam and Eve and their descendents have been committing bestiality by interbreeding with these hominids? Would Seth, Enoch, Methuselah, and Noah have been interbreeding with them?

4. Taking a step back, could these hominids even produce viable offspring with humans? Swamidass would have to say yes because that's how he explains the presence of Neanderthal DNA in humans today. So, are we part human and part beast? If one parent is human, but the other parent is a non-human hominid, then what would that mean for the child? Would they still be human made in the image of God?

5. Swamidass argues he believes the imago dei is not the best way to understand what it means to be human if the imago dei is taken to refer to something like a rational soul or human exceptionalism. Instead, Swamidass argues, he believes we need to take a "vocational" view of what it means to be created in the image of God. By this Swamidass means we might regard the imago dei as a God-given calling or role to represent God in the world. In addition, Swamidass talks about a third view of the imago dei known as the relational view, but he says this is the least common view.

In any case, it seems to me Swamidass hones in on the vocational view for the imago dei. I think he does this because that makes room for the fact that humans interbreeding with hominids could still be human. If what it fundamentally means to be human is a matter of "calling", then God can call hominids to be human too. I think that's roughly speaking Swamidass' reasoning. By contrast, if we say there's something unique or exceptional about humans, then that would not apply to non-human animals like Swamidass' hominids.

I don't know that I agree with these three ways of looking at what it means to be created in God's image. However, suppose we agree with this way of looking at the imago dei at least for the sake of argument. Why does Swamidass single out the vocational view? Why not all three at the same time? These could be three different perspectives of looking at the imago dei, all of which have some merit to them, but none to be favored over another.

6. If the hominids outside the garden are not humans, then they're akin to animals. They may have a soul, but would they be able to go to heaven? Perhaps only in the sense that God might allow some animals (e.g. pets) to go to heaven. But it's not as if they could be tempted, sin, and fall. Yet if we interbreed with these animals, and have offspring who are part hominid, then how would that influence Christian soteriology? Did Christ die for people who are half-hominid?

Look at it this way. Suppose humans could breed with other animals. Suppose humans could breed with dogs. We'd have dog-men. If so, then did Christ come to die for dog-men too? Did Christ take on dog-man flesh? Is Christ fully God, fully man, and fully dog? That seems absurd if not blasphemous.

7. Given Swamidass' argument, it's possible there are some humans living today who are not human at all. It's possible they could be fully hominid. Who were not made in the image of God. Nevertheless they look, think, talk, and behave indistinguishably from us. In fact, Swamidass mentions that's possible but it'd only apply to less than 1% of all humans. Nevertheless, they would still exist! And if so, then it wouldn't necessarily be immoral to kill them. At least no more immoral than killing a dog or horse or other animal if it must be done. Yet we couldn't distinguish between them and us.

8. Importantly, if we're the descendents of Adam and Eve interbreeding with these hominids, then we are not exclusively descendents of Adam and Eve. Rather we are descendents of Adam, Eve, and other hominids. This would have tremendous theological ramifications, no matter how much Swamidass wishes to underplay it.

9. All this relies on Swamidass' interpretation of the scientific evidence. Swamidass makes it sound like he's the only one who has the correct understanding of the scientific evidence. Despite the fact that there are other scientists who look at the same scientific evidence but draw different conclusions. Swamidass knows many of these scientists in person. He's well aware of their work. I'm referring to people like Ann Gauger, James Tour, Michael Behe, and Doug Axe.

Point being, there's debate over the scientific evidence. There are reasonable arguments to consider that some hominids could be part of humanity. For example, many have argued some hominids may in fact be human. This includes Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis. See the book Science and Human Origins for starters.

Behe vs. Swamidass debate

I watched the debate (above) between Michael Behe and Joshua Swamidass over intelligent design (ID). Behe argued for ID while Swamidass was highly skeptical about ID. This post will mostly be my summary of their debate, with some opinion and evaluation interspersed throughout.

Craig on random mutations

Here's William Lane Craig's most recent Q&A "#-671 Do 'Random' Mutations Occur by 'Chance'?".

As explained, too many people on both sides of the creation/evolution debate think that “random,” when used by evolutionary biologists to characterize mutations, means purposeless or without direction or by chance. But that’s not at all what they mean. Rather they mean that the mutations occur regardless of their benefit to the organism in which they occur. Such an understanding of “random” is not at all contrary to God’s having a purpose for the mutations that occur or even Himself causing the mutations to occur.

1. If we want a strict biology textbook definition, sure, mutations are "random" in the sense that the mutation that occurs is unpredictable in relation to what is useful to the organism. The mutation that occurs is unrelated to the usefulness of the mutation to the organism.

2. However, that's not always what we're talking about when we talk about random mutations. It depends on the context. Surely (surely!) Craig knows when people debate creation/evolution/ID, they're not always or solely talking about the strict biology textbook definition of random mutations. Rather creation/evolution/ID debates likewise involve questions over more fundamental issues. Such as the existence of God as well as the nature and scope of God's intervention in nature. So the use of both kinds of definitions for random mutations aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

3. To be more specific, in the context of naturalistic evolution (e.g. Dawkins, Coyne), it's legitimate to argue that these mutations are ultimately purposeless or unguided. Given naturalistic evolution, what is the ultimate source of these "random" mutations?

We come to see that evolutionary theory does not assert that the mutations which lie at the root of evolutionary development and, hence, evolution itself occur purposelessly or by chance, as popularizers and even careless scientists often claim. By properly understanding the meaning of “random” in evolutionary theory, we come to see that evolution is wholly compatible with God’s providentially directing the evolutionary process.

However, this doesn't depend on evolutionary theory (neo-Darwinism) in and of itself. Rather, as I've just said, it depends on whether we're talking about (say) theistic evolution or atheistic evolution. The textbook definition of random mutations is consistent with either theistic evolution or atheistic evolution.

I’m implying that the theory of evolution is not incompatible with Christian theism because it does not assert that the mutations which advance evolutionary change occur by chance or without purpose...What I’m implying is that God, while quite able to create fully functional biological organisms de novo, may have instead chosen to create them indirectly by deliberately causing the mutations that drove evolutionary advance.

1. Now, it could be Craig is simply answering this question or objection without offering his personal beliefs about the matter. Perhaps that's the case.

2. However, maybe I'm mistaken, but my impression is Craig has been becoming more sympathetic to theistic evolution as well as more skeptical about the historical Adam and Eve over the years. Again, that's not to suggest Craig currently accepts theistic evolution or denies the historical Adam and Eve. But it seems to me he is at least intellectually sympathetic to both positions, even if that's not his personal conviction.

Take the historical Adam and Eve. It seems to me Craig might be sympathetic in believing either there may not have been a historical Adam and Eve (e.g. Y-chromosomal Adam and mitochondrial Eve lived thousands of years apart from one another), or if there was, then they were "chosen" by God out of a pool of other hominids and "made into" the historical Adam and Eve.

3. If it's true Craig is becoming more sympathetic to accepting theistic evolution and/or denying the historical Adam and Eve, then I presume his main influence is the Christian physician-scientist Joshua Swamidass at Peaceful Science. I think Swamidass is in essence a theistic evolutionist, but he often seems circumspect about saying so explicitly. The latest two Reasonable Faith podcasts involve Swamidass (here, here).

The potter and the clay

But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?" (Rom 9:20)

Some poorly formed musings on a few separable topics which (hopefully) become more closely tied together at the end:

I think a fundamental issue at stake in the debate over LGBTQ issues is whether humans have a nature. Specifically a male and female nature. Is there some fixed core essential(s) that makes us human? Is there some fixed core essential(s) that makes us male and female? Or is human nature malleable or changeable?

If, let us say, atheism and neo-Darwinism are true, then it appears we have no fundamental human nature. Indeed, it appears neither does any other animal. Rather it would seem all living things are on a single ever-evolving spectrum of life.

Take whales and hippos. These are considered by neo-Darwinists to be close living relatives to one another. Yet they appear to be starkly different from one another. How can there be a fundamental whale nature or a fundamental hippo nature in such disparate animals which evolved from a common ancestor, which in turn evolved from another common ancestor, and so on?

Indeed, if we push it back far enough, all life on this planet shares a universal common ancestor. How could each organism's nature be fundamental to the organism when life presumably originated in a single kind of organism? Is the whole panoply of life of the same kind, only differing by degrees? Or is it different kinds - which, if so, how do different kinds differ at a fundamental level when they all originated from a universal common ancestor?

In addition, how could a fundamental nature exist before its corpus existed? We humans didn't exist at the beginning of life on Earth, according to neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory. So how could our natures have existed at this point in time?

Rather it would seem more likely there is no fixed point in terms of a whale or hippo or any other creature's fundamental nature. An organism's fundamental nature itself seems subject to evolutionary forces.

If it's true, though, that humans have no fundamental nature, then it would seem anything goes. Males and females may as well be interchangeable. Transgenderism wins.

In general, many if not most homosexuals oppose this, because they believe we have a fixed or fundamental nature, but a non-fixed sexual orientation. The former is immutable, but the latter is mutable. However, if the homosexual accepts atheism and neo-Darwinism, then on what basis would they argue we have fundamental male and female natures?

What's more, if we have no fundamental human nature, then why can't we mold humans into whatever we wish? Why shouldn't we mold humans into whatever we wish? Indeed, in atheistic totalitarian regimes, that's precisely what they do to their citizens. The state decides what people will be. The clay has become its own potter; the molded its own molder.

Dark City

If naturalistic evolution is true, then human beings are like the characters in Dark City who have false implanted memories. The characters have beliefs about their past, but their beliefs don't map onto reality.

Likewise, if naturalistic evolution is true, we've been brainwashed to value kin altruism, but that's a projection which doesn't map onto reality. Nothing is actually good or bad, right or wrong. It's just how our brains were wired by blind evolution. The valuation is arbitrary. We could just as well be rewired to value cannibalism. 

Phillip E. Johnson (1940-2019)

"Phillip E. Johnson, Who Put Darwin on Trial, Dies at 79"

"Died: Phillip E. Johnson, Lawyer who Put Darwin on Trial"

Update:

Bill Dembski reflects on his friendship with Johnson. Of course both were leading lights and brothers-in-arms in the ID movement.

Ever since Darwin

I don't know if this is worth posting since it's not like I'm covering new ground or anything, but here's my (lightly edited) response to an atheist on evolution:

You need to clear your head of McClatchie when it comes to evolution. The canard of unproven is false. You need to spend dome time understanding it better. Stop using your conclusion, the Bible, as a test for all else. Stop trying to make ideas fit your preconceived notion of reality in Christian terms fir your comfort...Seriously watch some other videos besides the discovery institute and Ken Ham. Have you ever watched Ken Miller. There us a Ken who us keen of evolution. And he is a Christian.

1. There are different legitimate means to know something is true. Empirical science is neither the sole nor primary method.

2. There are non-religious secular neo-Darwinists who are skeptical about neo-Darwinism (e.g. Denis Noble at Oxford University, James Shapiro at the University of Chicago).

a minority does not a consensus make. ID proponents can also be favorable to ID. Skepticism is a good thing, cynicism is not. The Consensus conclusion is Neo darwinian evolutionary theory is the current best model that explains evolutionary change in speciation. It holds and stands because it is rigorously challenged all the time, and I don’t mean lecture halls and churches, I mean in actual research. This does not mean that it can not be overthrown with a model that explains and makes better predictions. It just means it has not. Biblical or Islamic Creationism has not been able to, ID Creationism has tried but since the Dover Trial I have heard of no new ideas snd the ones proposed back then were dissmissed as inadequate and unsupported. Is there something new beside Bombardier beetles and Bacterial flagellum? I would like to hear it.

1. Yes, I'm familiar with "actual research" in science. I have a scientific background. I've presented at scientific conferences. I've published scientific research at a doctoral level.

2. You're talking about a lot of things I never even brought up. Lots of things irrelevant to what I've said. It just sounds like you're parroting talking points from village atheists rather than interacting with what scholars have said. It's ironic you earlier criticized Ken Ham because your arguments are like Ken Ham's arguments if Ken Ham was a neo-Darwinist.

3. If you think neo-Darwinism amounts to "evolutionary change in speciation" then you're highly ignorant of what neo-Darwinism is. Indeed, even a Young Earth Creationist could agree with that definition! For example, you leave out small-scale random mutations leading to wide-array structural changes in body plans, natural selection as the primary causative agent of adaptive change, and the role of genetic heredity in tracing a universal common ancestor. I'd recommend you read a text like Ernst Mayr's What Evolution Is if you want to know what a world-class neo-Darwinist argues. Mayr was an atheist and a neo-Darwinist. A doyen among evolutionists.

4. At the risk of stating the obvious, truth isn't decided by majority vote or consensus. Ultimately it depends on the scientific evidence, arguments, etc.

5. Sure, there's a lot of science that's settled science, so to speak, but there's a lot of science that's far from settled too. When it comes to neo-Darwinism, there are many fundamentals which even secular scientists who otherwise support neo-Darwinism would question. Neo-Darwinism only looks like a "consensus" to the uninformed layperson, but far from it when you read the academic and related literature. There's plenty of internecine debate even among secular scientists who otherwise support some kind of neo-Darwinistic model. Anyone can read a book like James Shapiro's Evolution: A View from the 21st Century or a paper like Denis Noble's "A theory of biological relativity: no privileged level of causation" and come to their own conclusions.

6. One doesn't have to be a creationist to question neo-Darwinism. The people I've already cited aren't creationsts. They're not religious. They're just secular scientists who dissent from neo-Darwinistic principles.

A single-couple human origin is possible

Justin Taylor interviews Ann Gauger and Ola Hössjermon their new research paper:
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/new-scientific-study-showing-come-original-adam-eve-interview-authors/

The species problem

THE THREE SPECIES PROBLEMS

The species problem is actually a number of problems that biologists have dealt with since the term was first applied to biological organisms by Aristotle. I call the three main problems the grouping problem, the ranking problem, and the commensurability problem. It will benefit us to clearly distinguish these at the beginning of our discussion and to bear them in mind as we consider the philosophy of species.