Is Theistic Evolutionist an oxymoron?

[UTEOTW]

Originially posted by Helen...

"Secondly, there is no evidence in genetics or biology at all which supports evolution."

Except that this simply is not true. There is a lot of genetic evidence for evolution. Plenty of it has been discussed recent on this board. In fact, if every fossil in every collection and in the ground were to disappear, and all knowledge of them to be lost as well, evolution would still stand based on the genetic evidence, the similarities between the extant species, the heirarchy of the species, the biogeography of the species and so on. In reverse, if all the other were to disappear, the rich fossil record that we already have would be sufficient to lead to the conclusion of evolution.

Here are a few of the genetic threads and posts.

This thread discusses how the genetic code reveals every sign of having been the product of a process whereby genes, and indeed whole genomes at times, have been duplicated with the duplicates serving as raw material with which evolutionary mechanisms can produce novel features.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/66/104.html

This thread traces some of the specific genetic data which ties humans to the other apes. The genetic data includes many various sorts of both coding and non-coding genes. They all point to the same phylogenic tree that happens to agree closely with what would be expected if the fossil record of primate evolution were true. There is not another satisfying answer for this data.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/66/19.html

Here is a post that shows how genetic testing of whales shows them as closely related to pigs and camels and other single toed, hooved animals, just as the fossil record reveals.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/66/23.html#000001

A few posts down on the same thread, you will see how whales also have pseudogenes for a sense of smell that only makes sense if they had a land dwelling ancestor.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/66/23.html#000004

Here is a post showing the genetic connection between birds and crocodiles. Such a connection would never be expected according to YE models and cannot be explained. But, since birds are dinosaurs and dinosaurs and crocodiles share an ancestor in the archosaurs branch of reptiles, such a result is expected if evolution were true and matches the fossil record.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/66/89/4.html#000047

This post, if you scroll about 3/4 of the way through the post, shows how genetic testing links the horses and the rhinos just as the fossil record shows they should be. As with the others, there is no satisfactory YE explanation.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/66/2.html#000000

And that is just a sampling of some of the things discussed here which is barely a drop in the grand bucket of data which is available, which is ignored and denied with reason by YEers, and which has no explanation outside of common descent.

 

[Paul of Eugene]

the problem with common descent is that is devalues man, and gives us no reason to think that man is any more valuable than other thing.

What, being formed from literal dirt is more prestigous than being formed from the elements of the earth by a long process of evolution?

You have some kind of scripture that says dirt is better than animals in some way, any way at all, or is this just a personal taste thing, in which case it can't be expected to be persuasive?

Is your desire for a more prestigous origin perhaps an unwarranted pride thing?

 

[UTEOTW]

Originally posted by Helen...

"The sun is not necessary for day and night. The earth rotating on its axis in relation to a directional light source is. If you look out into space (back into time) you will see there are quasars in the middle of each galaxy, associated with the black hole there. As you come closer and closer in both space and time, you will find these quasars dim and finally go out. All we have left in our galaxy is a black hole with occasional x-ray bursts. But at the beginning that quasar was there, with light much more powerful than our sun."

One of the brightest known quasars, 3C 273, has a luminosity of about 10^12 the luminosity of the sun. Using the inverse square law for how brightness changes with distance and using a distance of 28000 light years to the center of the galaxy lets us calculate how bright the quasar would appear from Earth if placed at the center of the Milky Way. As it turns out, the calculation says the brightness of the sun would be over three million times the brightness of the quasar. Even you go to the very extreme, the absolutely brightest of them all, QSO B0827.9+5255, which is 1000 times brighter than 3C 273, the quasar would still be three orders of magnitude dimmer than the sun at the distance to the center of the galaxy.

But there is yet another problem. These extremely bright quasars are powered by their massive balck holes. The mass of the black hole at the center sets a limit on how bright the quasar can be. The heavier it is the brighter it can be. These brightest of the quasars have masses of hundreds of millions of times the mass of the sun. The black hole at the center of our galaxy is only about three million times the mass of the sun. So you are talking about a black hole that is two, perhaps three orders of magnitude too small to have ever been as bright as the brightest quasars. And even the brightest of the bright are at least three orders of magnitude, close to four, too dim to have served as such a light source.

--------------

This leads into another related topic which is a problem for what was claimed. The basis of the claim lies in the ideas of a decaying speed of light postulated by Helen's husband. I thought we should examine one short coming as an alternative way of addressing the quasar claim. Especially since it can be tied right in with quasars.

Quasars are massive black holes and are generally found at the center of a host galaxy. The host galaxy provides the mass which fuels the energy output of the disk surrounding the black hole. Now, we can measure the velocity at which galaxies rotate by examining the the change in wavelength of any particular absorbtion or emission line from the side of the galaxy rotating towards us versus the side rotating away from us. If seen edge on.

The formula is simple.

(velocity of object)/(speed light) = (change in wavelength) / (wavelength)

Now if the the spped of light were higher in the past, then the difference that you would see in the wavelegth because of the rotation at a given speed would be reduced directly proportionally to how much the speed of light changed.

Take M31. It is about 2 million light years away so light would have been necessary to have been traveling at least a few thousand time faster when it left than now to get here in 6000 years. This means that the measured speeds of rotation are off by at least three orders of magnitude. This means that M31 must be rotating at around the speed of light based on measurements. And M31 is the nearest large galaxy. The measurements for more distant galaxies would mean that they must rotate much faster than the speed of light.

"So the early stars literally blew up like balloons very quickly as their atomic processes produced the light that is still pouring out of them. That is why the population II stars are identified by the red giants, while the younger population I stars are identified in the spiral arms and are associated with the bluer color."

It is my impression that most population II stars are red dwarfs, or other similar small stars. Not red giants. Though some fraction of these stars will have evolved to the giant stage at any given moment. I think most red giants would be classified as population I.

But I could be wrong.

 

[Mercury]

Originally posted by Helen:
THAT is why theistic evolutionism is an oxymoron. What you are really saying is that you will believe only in the "God of the gaps." Where evolution cannot explain it you might be willing to put God.

How is claiming that God made and sustains natural processes a "God of the gaps" theology? I would think that the idea that one must find unnatural interventions in creation to attribute to God would be far more like God of the gaps theology. ID looks for evidence of design in creation -- as if all of creation isn't designed, but there's some gaps that demonstrate design and can be attributed to God. Behe's irreducible complexity looks for certain transitions that evolution can't yet explain -- maybe God had his hand in the bacterial flagellum and a few other things, at least until a better explanation comes along, although of course everything evolution can explain must have happened naturally. Many young-earth creationists limit God's creative work in nature to what happened thousands of years ago. Some even go as far as to say that the "micro-evolution" that has happened since the flood is due to sin's corruption, so the creatures around us today are created by our own sin, not God's power, regardless of how God points to them as his handiwork in the Bible (Psalm 104, Job 38-41, etc.).

Many Christians no longer believe that God is responsible for holding the universe together, in spite of what Colossians 1:15-17 declares. Instead, they've accepted the reality of many natural processes and think that this is how the universe holds itself together. They accept gravity as an explanation for how the planets orbit, and unlike ancient philosophers who saw God's power in how the planets move, many Christians now just see nature, a competing power to God. Similarly, the discovery of electromagnetism caused many to no longer see God's power in lightning; it's just nature, not God. And, of course, the discovery of evolution caused many to no longer see God's handiwork in the variety of life on our planet. For many, science has been incrementally shrinking God until all that can be attributed to him are a few miracles, most of which happened thousands of years ago.

By contrast, theistic evolution does not limit God to the supernatural. God can work naturally and supernaturally, because he is the author of both nature and everything beyond nature. When scientists uncover natural processes, such as gravity, electromagnetism or evolution, they are uncovering some of the ways God works, regardless of whether they acknowledge that. God has made all these processes and he continues to sustain them. Even though God has granted creation a certain level of independence so that creation is real and not just an apparition of God, he still will accomplish his purposes in it.

 

[HankD]

By contrast, theistic evolution does not limit God to the supernatural. God can work naturally and supernaturally, because he is the author of both nature and everything beyond nature.

So? I am 6 day YEC and I can agree with the emboldened words.

HankD

 

[Mercury]

Originally posted by HankD:
So? I am 6 day YEC and I can agree with the emboldened words.

That's wonderful! I know many creationists who can. You'll notice that I was careful to say "many creationists" and "many Christians". What is unhelpful is when people try to generalize an entire group, especially when they don't understand the group, such as the claims about theistic evolution being an oxymoron or being about believing in the "God of the gaps".

 

[Mercury]

Originally posted by Artimaeus:
However, Newton didn't invent gravity not did Einstein invent general relativity itself. Coming up with a theory, however brilliant, of how the telephone COULD have been invented without including Bell, does not change the fact that Bell invented the telephone. The attempt to explain the invention of the universe without including God is equally ludicrus, no matter how brilliant.

Newton's, Enstein's and Darwin's theories don't attempt to explain the invention of the universe. They all explain how aspects of the universe naturally function. And, as you say, the phenomena they investigated existed long before they described them.

 

[OldRegular]

Originally posted by Artimaeus:
Helen,

Oxymoron? Yes, with heavy emphasis on the last two syllables. It isn't stupid but, it is foolish. It attempts to explain how God did what God did and when He did it, without including God in the process. It is like explaining how we got the telephone but having as a guideline that we can't invoke Alexander Graham Bell in our explanation.

Get your own dirt.

Excellent analogy!

 

[JackRUS]

To Charles Meadows, Paul of Eugene & Gold Dragon:

The Talk Origins web site noted this:

Q5. Does evolution deny the existence of God?

No. See question 1. There is no reason to believe that God was not a guiding force behind evolution. While it does contradict some specific interpretations of God, especially ones requiring a literal interpretation of Genesis 1, few people have this narrow of a view of God.
There are many people who believe in the existence of God and in evolution. Common descent then describes the process used by God. Until the discovery of a test to separate chance and God this interpretation is a valid one within evolution.

But theistic evolution does preclude any possibility that the God of the Bible exists.

Scripture tells us that by the sin of one man (Adam) death entered the world. And by the Resurrection of one Man (Jesus) we can have eternal life. Rom. 5:14; 1 Cor. 15:14-24.

There can be no evolution without trillions upon trillions of deaths. Yet Scripture tells us that Adam was created as is. If Adam is just a allegory, then there can be no salvation for us since he set the precedent of a federal father passing on death to us in the same way that Jesus passes on eternal life to those that believe. You can't have one person being an false story or an allegory, and the other literal for this Scripture to stand.

So then it's only an oxymoron concerning the God of the Bible, our God. But not for the god of most people's imaginations.

And then theistic evolution is a rank heresy.

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c015.html

[ September 16, 2005, 08:47 PM: Message edited by: JackRUS ]

 

[Marcia]

I've been in on this discussion before and went a few rounds with Mercury on common descent. I just find it appalling to believe that humans came from animals. It is denigrating and goes against the scriptural account.

Before someone asks me why I don't think it's denigrating that God made Adam from the dirt, I will just say that the dirt was pretty clean then because it was only a few days old.

Whereas, if man came from animals, we were actually originally beasts. How in the world does this go along with being made in God's image? I know that our bodily form is not like God since he doesn't have one, but I think our bodies have a relationship to our spirits and minds in ways that a beast's body cannot have a relationship with human thinking and spirit. Apparently, God puts a high value on the human body since he will resurrect it.

Also, Gen. 2.7 states that God breathed the breath of life into man's nostrils but it does not state this about the animals' creation. The Bible refers to animals having the breath of life, but it does not state that God breathed it into their nostrils. For Adam, the text implies that it was given more directly to man than to beasts. There is an emphasis when the text says that God breathed into Adam that is missing from the creation of the animals.

 

[just-want-peace]

The whole issue of evolution aside, I'm not concerned about where I came from. I'm concerned about where I'm going. Going forward with Christ is of no value if I'm looking over my shoulder.

Fine for you, as a Christian, but how are you going to convince an unbeliever that they are valuable in God's mind when they are taught that they are nothing more than a super intelligent offspring of a monkey?

There's a lot more in this heresy than a needless concern of a Christian of "where I came from--"!

As someone noted earlier, if you discount the literal truth as spoken by God (assuming you believe the BIBLE; if not my whole post is wasted) then why should you believe the part that states Jesus was the 2nd ADAM? Kinda foolish to accept that if you think the 1st ADAM was a big myth!

As stated many times before, you either believe God, OR you believe man; and since the two are contridictory, well-------!

 

[OldRegular]

This question comes up routinely and I routinely post the following:

Unfortunately many professing Christians have compromised the Biblical teaching of creation with the claims of evolution and embraced a concept called ‘theistic evolution’ teaching that God uses evolution to accomplish His creative purposes. The term ‘theistic evolution’ is self contradictory [that is: "an oxymoron"] since the fundamental postulates of evolution are unlimited time and chance without design. The following remarks by leading evolutionists [from The Modern Creation Trilogy by Henry M. and John. D. Morris] show the absurdity of theistic evolution.

Nobel prize winning biologist Jacques Monod writes:

“Natural selection is the blindest most cruel way of evolving new species. .... I am surprised that a Christian would defend the idea that this is the process which God more or less set up in order to have evolution.”

Evolutionist A. J. Mattell is even more perceptive:

“Those liberal and neo-orthodox Christians who regard the creation stories as myths or allegories are undermining the rest of Scripture, for if there was no Adam there was no fall; and if there was no fall, there was no hell; and if there was no hell, there was no need of Jesus as Second Adam and Incarnate Savior, crucified and risen. As a result the whole biblical system of salvation collapses. .... Evolution thus becomes the most potent weapon for destroying the Christian faith.”

As my former pastor, who has gone home to be with the Lord, used to say, "Ain't God Good." Perhaps those theistic evolutionists have not yet reached the "Age of Accountabiliy".

 

[Helen]

Have been outside working for several hours and have not kept up here. But about man being made from dirt, or dust. It is interesting that the Bible is WAY ahead of science here! Dust was the smallest known particle before the microscope. The Hebrew word for dust (aphar) also means to pulverize, or that which is pulverized, meaning reduced to its smallest parts.

Today we call the smallest cohesive parts 'elements', and we are indeed made from the same elements as the dust of the earth, the rocks, stars, trees. This was unheard of before a couple of hundred years ago -- outrageous! Maybe even blasphemous...

But the Bible was right.

Which brings me to another point. There are those who say simply "The Bible says it, so I believe it." I have learned in studying and teaching science for so many years that these people are on very safe and stable ground. So many times science has disagreed with the Bible and, when the fact become known, the Bible has always proven those who disagree wrong.

The evidence is accumulating that the universe is definitely less than ten thousand years old. This wipes out evolution, of course, and verifies exactly what the Bible has been telling us all along.

Those who believe the Bible just because God caused it to be written as it is are on very safe ground scientifically, historically, and every other way.

 

[JackRUS]

Craig wrote:

I was an evolutionary biologist before I was saved, and I know a little bit about the science that supports the various theories of evolution. I have never met or otherwise encountered anyone who understands evolutionary biology who did not admit that the state of the evidence as we now have it supports the general theory of evolution rather than special creation.

Then I would have to say that you don't get out often enough.

Dr Jonathan Sarfati writes:

"... evolutionists have had to abandon many 'proofs' for evolution as well. For example, the atheistic evolutionist W.B. Provine admits: 'Most of what I learned of the field in graduate (1964-68) school is either wrong or significantly changed.' Creationists understand the limitations of these dating methods better than evolutionists who claim that they can use certain present process to 'prove' that the earth is billions of years old."

http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/dr_jonathan_sarfati's_reply.htm

Here is a site that touts a book with 450 pages of the same kinds of quotes from evolutionists. For a sampling:

http://www.fishdontwalk.com/articles/evolution08.html

More of the same:

http://www.harunyahya.com/mediawatch_99_myth_is_dead_sci34.php

http://www.creationapologetics.org/refuting.html

Craig, they know evolution is a lie, but they must cling to this false hope in order to suppress in their minds the final judgement day. Don't you believe Romans 1:18-23?

And you wrote:

"As for “young earth science”—that is absolutely and incontrovertibly an oxymoron. The correct expression is "young earth hocus-pocus."

Maybe not.

http://www.creationists.org/
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4005.asp

 

[JackRUS]

BTW, I have long held that the "strong delusion" of 2 Thes. 2:11-12 may be the theory of evolution.

And here are some more evolutionists voicing their doubts about the validity of their faith-based religion: (some of the quotes are from creationists and intelligent design scientists though)

http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/top.htm

[ September 16, 2005, 09:52 PM: Message edited by: JackRUS ]

 

[JackRUS]

Here's some great quotes from the above site from evolutionists:

"We Paleontologists have said that the history of life supports (the story of gradual adaptive change), all the while really knowing that it does not." Miles Eldredge, pro-evolution pg. 59

"...the philosophy of evolution is based upon assumptions that cannot be scientifically verified...whatever evidence can be assembled for evolution is both limited and circumstantial in nature." G.A. Kerkut, pro-evolution ([4], p.363)

"In other words, while Osborn, Gregory, and their colleagues considered themselves to have written scientific analysis of human evolution, they had in fact been telling stories (fiction). Scientific stories to be sure, but stories nonetheless." Misia Landau, paraphrase ([14], p.32)

"The more one studies paleontology, the more certain one becomes that evolution is based on faith alone." T.L. Moor, pro-evolution ([22], p.22)

"Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation which is unthinkable." Arthur Keith ([22], p.22) (And so Rom. 1:18-23 comes to roost doesn't it?)

http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/bias.htm

 

[Charles Meadows]

There are those who say simply "The Bible says it, so I believe it." I have learned in studying and teaching science for so many years that these people are on very safe and stable ground.

True! We should feel encumbered to prove it.

The evidence is accumulating that the universe is definitely less than ten thousand years old. This wipes out evolution, of course, and verifies exactly what the Bible has been telling us all along.

I'd love it if this were the case - but it is not and you know it. There are many compelling reasons to believe evolution. One need not agree with them - but to deny that they exist is intellectually dishonest - and a poor example to our young people.

Don't believe evolution? Fine.

But don't tell half truths and quarter truths just to bolster a case.

 

[UTEOTW]

"Dr Jonathan Sarfati writes:

'... evolutionists have had to abandon many 'proofs' for evolution as well. For example, the atheistic evolutionist W.B. Provine admits: 'Most of what I learned of the field in graduate (1964-68) school is either wrong or significantly changed.' Creationists understand the limitations of these dating methods better than evolutionists who claim that they can use certain present process to 'prove' that the earth is billions of years old.'"

First off, what does the claim about dating methods have to do with the quote that is provided? Then why include it?

Second, this is a tactic known as quote mining where one takes a bit of a quote and either removes the context or removes part of the actual quote to make it say something different than what the author intended. It is dishonest. Here is a fuller quote.

Greater understanding of evolution is a laudable goal. High school biology textbooks are woefully out of date. I use a rough measure for how rapidly evolutionary biology changes. Most of what I learned of the field in graduate school (1964-68) is either wrong or significantly changed. Yet many high school textbooks could have been written in the mid-1950s. A boost from the National Academy of Sciences might really help.

Now, what you should be able to see is that Provine was speaking of how quickly the science advances with new discoveries. But most high schools texts are unable to keep up and are very often out of date. By the time he got through with his graduate work, most of what he learned in high school was out of date.

As for your other links to quotes, they do a similarly dishonest job. How about a few examples.

Your link makes the quote

Dr. Mark Ridley: "No real evolutionist uses the fossil record as evidence in favor of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation." New Scientist, June 25, 1981, p. 831.

But let's put this in context.

"Someone is getting it wrong, and it isn't Darwin; it is the creationists and the media." (page 830)

"In any case, no real evolutionist, whether gradualist or punctuationist, uses the fossil record as evidence in favor of evolution as opposed to special creation. The does not mean that the theory of evolution is unproven."

"So what is the evidence that species have evolved? There have traditionally been three kinds of evidence, and it is these, not the "fossil evidence", that the critics should be thinking about. The three arguments are from the observed evolution of species, from biogeography, and from the hierarchical structure of taxonomy." (page 831)

"These three are the clearest arguments for the mutability of species. Other defences of the theory of evolution could be made, not the least of which is the absence of a coherent alternative. Darwin's theory is also uniquely able to account for both the presence of design, and the absence of design (vestigial organs), in nature." (page 832)

Does that change things a bit? It might interest you to know that Ridley is a zoologists and from reading his quotes, you might notice that he finds the evidence from his own field, the field with which he is most familiar, to be the most persuasive. That should give you pause about recommending the quote. You will also se that he does not, in fact, criticize the fossil record but instead points out three areas which he feels are of even greater proof for evolution than the fossil record.

Another quote went like this.

"No consistent organismal phylogeny has emerged from the many individual protein phylogenies so far produced. Phylogenetic incongruities can be seen everywhere in the universal tree, from its root to the major branchings within and among the various [groups] to the makeup of the primary groupings themselves." Carl Woese, "The Universel Ancestor," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 95, (1998) p. 6854.

Luck for us, you can view this entire paper online.

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/95/12/6854

If you do, you will see that what is implied when the quote is presented is far different than what you will read in the paper. The actual paper discusses how when you attempt to trace all life back to an ultimate common ancestor, that you cannot do so. Why? Because life, especially early life but continuing to lesser degrees later, tended to swap genetic material, called lateral gene transfer, around between species. So the further back you go, the more this swapping of material happened. The end result is that you are only able to trace back to populations of different organisms who swapped so much genetic material between them that it ceases to be meaningful to talk of a single ancestor. This is the whole point of the paper; to introduce this model!

You would think that those who are publically arguing in the name of God would take more care to honestly present such material if they were going to take the time to dis it up.

 

[jw]

CM:

I'd love it if this were the case - but it is not and you know it. There are many compelling reasons to believe evolution. One need not agree with them - but to deny that they exist is intellectually dishonest - and a poor example to our young people.

Amen! I totally agree. The only thing worse than listening to an evolutionist is listening to a half-baked creationist spout misinformation and pseudo-science... which currently makes up about 90% of the creation scientist out there.

 

[El_Guero]

Charles,

Don't believe evolution? Fine.

But don't tell half truths and quarter truths just to bolster a case.

Well said. If we are to defend the Truth, we should never defend His Truth with mistruth(s) ...