> -----Original Message-----
> From: gordon brown [mailto:gbrown@euclid.colorado.edu]
> Sent: Friday, February 15, 2002 3:28 PM
> To: Glenn Morton
> Cc: asa@calvin.edu
> Subject: Re: Old-Earth Creationism
> I take OEC to mean anyone who believes in an old earth but
> denies common
> descent of all life from a primitive ancestor. Thus an OEC
> could believe
> in only one gap or many gaps. They could also disagree with
> one another as
> to why God made gaps in his creation. The TE's opinion that
> none of the
> gaps is real reflects his theology or philosophy of science.
> Until all the
> gaps are filled, the OEC can still be open to the possibility
> that some of
> them may indeed be real. An analogy might be someone putting
> together a
> jigsaw puzzle and not knowing for certain that all the pieces
> were there
> until it was essentially completed.
Gordon,
Thanks for putting into words what I had in mind. There is a variety of OEC
positions, and concievably, some may be quite consistent with the scientific
evidence. Gaps are often referred to as transitionals only because people
assume what they should be proving. Trends in the fossil record are very
difficult to establish. Statistically, it is difficult to distinguish
between a trend and random variation. SJ Gould makes a good case of this in
his book Full House. Yes, I realized that Gould is committed to evolution,
but his argument about variations vs trends need to be taken seriously even
by evolutionists.
Adrian.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Feb 18 2002 - 12:47:45 EST