On Tue, 27 Jun 1995 16:20:36 +0930 you wrote:
MP>(Abstract :) On the clearing up of misunderstandings.
>SJ>Glenn...Do you really believe that PC's claim
>that God directly and individually created "each species"?
>
>GM>Stephen...Mark made the suggestion that God individually made each
>species (at least that is what I understood him to say). I pointed
>out to him that that was more like TE than PC...
SJ>OK. Sorry if I misunderstood. I will await Mark's reply.
MP>I should also mention that I am not a hardened supporter of either
>TE or PC. What I have been trying to discover in these discussions
>is the strengths and weaknesses of different positions. To do this I
>may come over as supporting a particular position more strongly than
>I really do support it.
I think that is a problem with us all. This type of debate tends to
polarise. I said at the outset and I say again, that if evolution
could be proved, I would probably become a TE. Although I mightn't
show it, I have been genuinely impressed by some of the evidence that
Denis Lamoreaux (no longer on the reflector - I will send him this cc.
to tempt him to return) and Terry Gray (and yes even Glenn! <g>),
have
posted. I am still a PC, but I have shed some FC-type inconstencies.
See my Clarifications post later on.
MP>I must confess that I don't have a thorough grasp of exactly what
>the position of PC entails...
Join the club! This is a voyage of discovery. <g>
>As for what I was suggesting...
>
MP>I was not suggesting that God individually made each species (this
>being the biological definition). Indeed, I was rather vague,
>saying, "why not allow Progressive Creationists to make the claim:
>'God formed the animals by taking one animal and slightly modifying
>it to form another.'"
Well put. This is as good a statement of PC as any. I would also add
that the idea of an archetype "blueprint" in God's mind, could be
included. The teleology is an important aspect of PC, lacking in NE
and possibly TE?
MP>I was suggesting that at various points of time (unspecified)
>during the creation of the animals, God could have formed a new
>animal by supernaturally modifying an old animal. Whether you call
>these time points the creation of a new species or a new kind or
>whatever is really beside the point (I think). Perhaps this model of
>creation isn't quite the same as PC - I thought it was but I might be
>wrong. If so, what would it be called?
I think it is a good statement of PC, since it included the insights
from genetics, which is after all a coded set of commands. The
Creation account indicates that God created with *words* of
command (Gen 1:3; Jn 1:1).
>SJ>"..PC..is not meant to be a low level scientific theory, making
>detailed predictions. It is...a higher level model that tries to
>relate the Biblical data regarding creation and providence with the
>relevant scientific facts. It works on the basic assumption that the
>two books of God, the Bible and nature, have the one Author and hence
>must ultimately agree.
>GM>Then you agree with my criticism of PC?. It makes no predictions.
>At least we agree here. I fully agree that the Bible and Nature
>must be able to be joined into one view.
MP>It seems to me from what Stephen Jones has said, that PC is an
>umbrella for a range of possible theories. Perhaps what I was doing
>is describing _one_ theory living under the umbrella of PC? We
>observe that animals, though different, share many things in common.
>Some animals are more similar than others. Some body parts seem to
>play more of a role in some animals than others. Evolutionists make
>these observations and jump to the conclusion that new animals came
>from old animals through a genetics driven natural selection process.
Yes. A wholly understandable "conclusion" for non-theists who rule
out the possibility of a Creator. A bit more difficult to understand
in the case of theists (ie. TE's) though.
MP>A theory compatible with PC would say that new animals came from
>old animals through a supernatural modification of one animal into
>another at various points in history. Evolutionists suggest that
>between two animals A and C, we might be able to find an intermediate
>B. If we did, it would be morphologically somewhere inbetween A and
>C. Those who hold to my PC alternative would suggest that between two
>animals A and C, God may have created C through a sequence of
>supernatural creations, starting at A. We might then be able to find
>an intermediate B, which, just as with evolution, would be
>morphologically somewhere inbetween A and C.
(Wildly excited) Yes! By George he's got it! <g> Its always great to
see one's own ideas expressed better than one can express them.
MP>Evolution postulates a>purely genetics driven creation process,
>whereas my PC alternative postulates supernatural "boosters" at many
>key points in the creation process. Does this fit under the PC
>umbrella?
Don't worry we will let you in, or else get a bigger umbrella! <g>
You're doing fine, Mark.
MP>So long as the relationship between genetics and morphology remains
>poorly understood, I do not see how evolution can have any more
>predictive power than my (possibly misnamed) PC alternative.
Agreed. Except we know that morphology is 100% driven by a genetic
code that is universal for all life. Therefore it is not common
ancestry that is more basic but a common instruction set. A common
instruction set implies a Programmer. A Programmer can make
alterations to His own code and even add new bits of code.
SJ>I said it made no "detailed predictions". It's major prediction
>made in 1948-1955 (ie. before Gould's PE and Creation-Science) was
>that the major gaps in the fossil record would remain...
MP>But am I right in thinking that it doesn't spell out exactly how
>large a gap would be. That is, it proposes that there are
>significant gaps, but given what appears to be a large gap,
>it may be that it actually represents two smaller gaps. The
>"intermediate" defining the boundary between the two smaller
>gaps would be morphologically similar to the animals either side
>of the large gap.
Yes. The "gaps" are predicted because of See my Confessions post
later on. Bibical and philosophical and theological reasons.
Biblically Gen 1 describes God as creating in great discrete
classes of living beings called "kinds". Now I know this is argued
about, but it can at least mean great discrete classes of beings.
Philosophically pre-Darwinian thought (eg. Linnaeus) sought to
classify a great "chain of being" and he was largely successful. While
there are arguments about the definition of this or that species, the
living world is profoundly discontinuous at the higher levels:
"On the Darwinian theory, evolution is essentially undirected, being
the result of natural selection, acting on small fortuitous
variations. The argument specifically implies that nothing is exempt
from this evolutionary process. Therefore, the last thing we should
expect on Darwinian principles is the persistence of a few common
fundamental structural plans. Yet this is what we find. The animal
world, for example, can be divided into some ten great groups or
phyla, all of which are not morphologically as coherent and clear-cut
as we might wish for convenience in classification, but nevertheless
are stable and definable entities from the taxonomic standpoint. All
identifiable animals that ever have existed can be placed in these
groups" (Thompson W.R., "Introduction", Darwin C., "The Origin of
Species", Everyman's Library, 1967, J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd, London,
p.xvi).