From: Walter Hicks (wallyshoes@mindspring.com)
Date: Sat Nov 01 2003 - 23:03:57 EST
"D. F. Siemens, Jr." wrote:
>
> OK, Walt, if all you are trying to say is that we do not yet understand
> how evolution works in adequate detail, I agree wholeheartedly. What I
> took you to be saying is that, because the engineering attempts are not
> fully successful, evolution fails. My point was that the engineering
> application and the natural situation are so different that one cannot
> ascribe failure of the latter to failure of the former.
Close but not 100%. I draw a sharp line between the THEORY of evolution and
the data or facts. Blurring that line only leads to frustration for me. The
engineering is not applying evolution; it is applying evolutionary THEORY and
models. Those, I say, are failing to produce results. My subject line does
say that evolution has failed. It says THEORY and that is exactly what I
mean.
>
>
> Evolution is a "done deal" only in that life has changed during the
> history of the earth. As a theist, I hold that all change was under God's
> providential control, which we cannot distinguish from natural law and
> random occurrence. To what extent God intervened directly, I do not have
> evidence for a certain answer. Assuming that eventually we sequence the
> genomes of all (a sufficient number, anyway) creatures, we may find that
> all genes go back to an original set, or that there are some that must
> have been introduced /de novo/. The latter would indicate that Gordon
> Mills' view that God had to introduce new genes from time to time was
> probably correct. The former, monophyletic descent and the death of ID.
> More likely, there'll be a maybe. But certainly there will be some who
> hold on to their views no matter what the evidence. I don't want to be in
> that group.
Again you fail to distinguish between the evolution of organisms on earth and
the THEORY about how. Just what does it take to get straight talk?
People on this list accuse YECs for intentionally obscuring things. I have to
say that I feel the same way about the failure to distinguish between
evolution and the scientific THEORY of evolution. Sometimes I think that
everyone is afraid to admit that it (the THEORY) is a work in progress
because then a YEC could say "AHA! See it could be creation after all!". If
so, that is a pitiful thing. (It is imitating your enemy)
IMO
Walt
-- =================================== Walt Hicks <wallyshoes@mindspring.com>In any consistent theory, there must exist true but not provable statements. (Godel's Theorem)
You can only find the truth with logic If you have already found the truth without it. (G.K. Chesterton) ===================================
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