Stingray: Conservative Christian News and Commentary
Posted on 03/11/2006 10:35:26 PM PST by DallasMike
Joe Carter at The Evangelical Outpost has an outstanding article on the "God of the Gaps." Joe explains in easily understandable terms that the notion "actually encompasses four different views based on distinctions between a “science gap” (a gap in our current scientific knowledge) and a “nature gap” (a break in the continuous cause-effect chain of natural process) that may or may not be bridged by miraculous-appearing theistic action."
As technology advances, our science gaps close, but more science gaps often rise up to take their place. For example, we once thought that an electron was a sub-atomic particle that had no components. Now we know that electrons are made up of quarks and that quarks are made up of vibrating strings. Furthermore, for those strings to have the properties that they do, it is required that the universe have somewhere from 9 to 11 dimensions instead of the 3 dimensions that we operate with on an everyday basis. The other dimensions are very, very tiny and apparently curl back on themselves, but they exist nevertheless.
I'm going to upset some people here but I have no theological problem with evolution just as I don't have any theological problelm with gravity. In fact, I believe that evolution exists to some degree though I don't know how large a role it has played in the history of life here on earth. A good example is the fact of natural selection. Scientists routinely breed mice with certain characteristics by tossing out any mice that don't fit those characteristics. That's human action interfering with something, of course, but we see it in nature, too. When we have another ice age (and we will), species who aren't able to adapt will disappear. Whatever role evolution may or may not play, it is an invention of God because all truth is God's truth.
However, as a Christian, I also firmly believe that "God created the heavens and the earth." Moreover, as one with degrees in chemistry and chemical engineering and a lifelike career in science in one form or the other, I just cannot accept the claims of the hardcore Darwinists who believe that God, if he exists, had nothing to do with the growth of life here on earth. The numbers just don't match up -- the universe would have to be much, much older than it is for random mutations to have produced that variety of life that we see on earth. I have no doubts that God set things in motion and prods the development of new species. I just don't have any idea how often interferes miraculously with the laws that he set in place at the beginning of time. God is the creator and sustainer of all things and "in him we live and move and have our being."
So what does all this bring me to? Well, Joe made a brilliant comment to his own post:
Neo-Darwinism sets such a low bar that it is almost impossible to falsify its claims.
...
ID advocates have long proposed an experiment that would shut them up: the bacterial flagellum. As Michael Behe says, to falsify such a claim, a scientist could go into the laboratory, place a bacterial species lacking a flagellum under some selective pressure (for mobility, say), grow it for ten thousand generations, and see if a flagellum--or any equally complex system--was produced. If that happened, he admits his claims would be neatly disproven.
Now why haven’t scientists tested this to prove Behe wrong? Because, when all is said and done, neo-Darwinism can’t stand up under experimental scrutiny.
I have to agree with Joe. Behe's idea of irreducible complexity is a tremendous challenge to the hardcore Darwinists and the evolution controversy will not disappear. Too many scientists have problem with the explanations offered by the hardcore evolutionists. Some of those problems may disappear as we learn more but I have a feeling that we will still be debating this issue in 50 years.
Stingray: Conservative Christian News and Commentary
The string theory is the product of a diseased raging cross-dressers mind
Unfortunately we might still be debating this issue in 50 years because people who refuse to believe in evolution will never be convinced by any amount of evidence provided by scientists. And regardless of what Behe and the rest may argue about and criticize, the onus is on THEM to provide evidence supporting intelligent design, not the scientific community. Attacking aspects of another concept is not the same as providing empirical evidence for your own.
"In the beginning God...."
It is because noone seriously thinks that something like the flagellum should readily evolve in a small lab colony in just 10,000 generations (about a year). It could very well take hundreds of trillions of generations amongst the trillions upon trillions of bateria covering the earth. Noone suggesting it evolved is claiming it did so easily. It's all about number of trials and 10,000 x small lab colony is definitely not enough to test it.
Randomly generates strings have the maximal amount of information. See any elementary text on "information theory" or the like. WTP?
Are you kidding? The hardcore evolutionists say that everthing is easy given enough time. If it would take trillions of generations to produce a simple flagellum amongst all the trillions of bacteria in the world then how long do you think it would take for a few thousand apes to evolve into a human? Consider how many exceedlingly complex systems exists amongst the various forms of life in this world. There's no way those things happened over trillions of generations amongst trillions of beings. You've invalidated your own argument.
Yeah, a billion years pass in the blink of an eye... /sarcasm
What amazes me is how people can disregard piles and piles of evidence by deliberately narrowing their focus to logical fallacies and yet actually feel secure in their beliefs. So what if something is improbable? So what if something is complex? So what if something happened by chance? So what if not every individual detail is known about specific processes? Until creationists present empirical data instead of hollow attacks and theology they will continue to be sidelined in academia.
ah, yet another example of creationists twisting disagreements among scientists to confuse people into believing in their cause. In fact, your arguments could be taken from just about any old "creation science" website. Yes, the mechanisms of geomagnetic reversal are not 100% agreed upon by scientists but the evidence of these reversals is literally recorded in the rocks, specifically in the basalt that has spread out from mid-ocean ridges over millions of years. Also, your suggestion that the half-lives of isotopes are not accurately measured is also bogus. What does magnetic field reversal have to do with radioactive decay? A radioactive rock in the ground is not going to decay at a different rate because of fluctuations in the magnetic field. Case in point: the predictable age of the moon rocks brought back from the old lunar highlands and the younger volcanic lowlands. (the moon has not had a magnetic field for a very long time...ie no "recharging" as you put it) Creationists seem to forget that all of these different areas of science converge. For example, the age of the rocks near the continents is dated to be older than the age of the recently molten rock near the sea floor ridges. This dating system fits in nicely with the theory of plate tectonics, which fits in nicely with the geological history of the land, which fits in nicely with the similar types of fossils found in similar types of rock on continents that were formerly joined, which fits in nicely with the theory of evolution taking place over long periods of time, etc, etc, etc. There is rarely such a thing a single fact of science that does not have itself invested in many seemingly distinct areas of study.
"I just understand that if it does not fit with scripture it is not interpreted correctly."
I think this quote says it all! What is the point of answering someone's questions about the facts of science when they will deliberately ignore or twist anything that contradicts something that they believe is absolute and infallible? You are basically admitting to willful ignorance... not the type of person who is going to come around no matter how many of his bogus criticisms are answered.
I just don't have any idea how often interferes miraculously with the laws that he set in place at the beginning of time.13bn years and still not finished tinkering. He's flunking Cosmoconstruction 101.
Comments?
A string produced by quantum processes does contain the maximal amount of information. Do not confuse Shannon (and Kolmogorov, etc.) information with what Number Two was trying to beat out of Number Six.
A "lifelike" career in science?!?
Hmmm, it should have read "lifelong" but there are times when it's seemed rather "lifelike."
(I realize this is long but sometimes the quick soundbytes of the Behe's of the world are misleading and the truth takes a little time. Sorry for the effort required)
Behe, as so often is the downfall of those without the critical thinking skills necessary to appropriately evaluate evolution, falls into the trap of drastic assumption. This is easy to do when you investigate an area of science with a preconceived agenda to instead of with an open, subjective mind.
He assumes flagella have and always have existed for the sole purpose of locomotion. (Which is to say, he is assuming it was "added" as he would add it to an organism. Which is to say, he is assuming "intelligent design" and working backward).
But in reality, the flagella has a multitude of purposes on an individual bacteria and in across all bacteria has almost countless purposes.
So his "experiment" idea is misleading in that it assumes that bacteria went directly from zero protrusion to a single purpose locomotion flagellum. In real life a scientist would need to be able to correctly identify all of the other possible functions (which may have led to the intermediary forms) and somehow recreate the exact environmental situations (without a "reverse" crystal ball that allows him to look back several million or billion years) in order for that experiment to work.
So once again, we have an example of an
1) ID proponent who
2) over simplifies the situation to
3) make it more appealing to lay readers while still
4) laughably ignorable by scientists in order to
5) create the impression of a victory when scientists don't respond.
I'm to take it that you are the author of the blog?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.