On Thu, 27 Jul 1995 00:13:43 -0400 you wrote:
>Stephen wrote:
>
SJ>I accept you are not a Darwinist in the same sense as, say Dawkins.
>But in all your posts you seem to champion a "fully naturalistic
>evolution..
GM>...A being needing a particular function can travel along the small
>tunnels from cavern to cavern....
Here we seem to have a form of Lamarckism? According to Darwinism,
"need" has nothing to do with evolution. Please clarify.
GM>Now. if God made a real cavern system, and placed you in it. He
>has delimited where you can go. You can not go through the walls.
>Similarly, if God created the "cavernous" phase space of DNA, He has
>delimited what sequences of DNA are successful. This is not
>naturalistic. God set out the pathways before the foundation of the
>universe.
It's interesting in another post you are claiming there are no limits
to genetic change, yet here you are claiming there are limits.
Again, please clarify.
I agree with this cavern analogy up to a point. Clearly God has
created all the "phase spaces" (as you put it). What I disagree with
is your assertion that God has no active role in the selection of
which "caverns" are entered. You seem to deny God any ability to
intervene in His world?
One could equally apply your cavern analogy to human history. God has
set the bounds within which human history is played out (Ac 17:26).
However, God has not left history entirely to itself. He has still
intervened in that history from time to time at strategic points. It
would seem that a random search mechanism is either too slow or too
inaccurate to be left entirely to itself to bring about the type of
world that God wants. By analogy, the same applies to biological
history.
GM>I wish you would quit saying "fully naturalistic". That does NOT
>represent my position and I have told you so on numerous occasions.
>Please listen to what I am saying. If God is involved at all, it is
>not 'fully naturalistic".
I am genuinely sorry if this upsets you Glenn, but your position does
seem to be "fully naturalistic", once the cavern system is set up.
Your "beings" seem to just wander around the caves without any further
divine involvement. If it is not so, please clarify.
>I wrote:
>GM>Yes, and no, depending upon what you define as "current
>evolutionary theory". If by that you mean everything must be
>gradually changed from one form into another, I would say that is
>inadequate.
>SJ>Could you expand on that?
GM>Stephen, that seemed fairly clear what I am saying. I wrote:
>If you mean what is being learned in the mechanisms of developmental
>biology, then it is adequate to handle those types of change.
>Stephen replied:
SJ>What "types of change"?
GM>Major morphological change.
What "Major morphological change" exactly? Does it explain how a
Mesonychid became a whale, for >example.
GM>Stephen wrote of the Lizard Leg example:
SJ>This is perhaps an overstatement? The chicken's legs were still
>chicken's legs. The bones just grew longer when normal constraints
>were removed:<<
GM>They were the darned funniest looking chicken legs anyone has seen.
Of course they were! Any legs would look funny if normal restraints
were removed at the embryonic stage. :-)
GM>The point is that the only difference between chicken legs and
>"lizard legs" is in the controls for how much each bone grows. That
>is not much of a difference.
Well of course every living thing has the same DNA, and all
vertebrates have a similar body-plan. PC would see it as quite
possible that God modified an existing design. The real question is
whether this was a purely naturalistic mechanism. To date, you
haven't demonstrated this. Hempe's human intervention supports
intelligent design, not the blind watchmaker.
>You quote Pitman:
SJ>"...Developmental manipulation of chick embryos by Frenchman
>Armand Hampe 'allowed' the fibula to attain the same length as the
>tibia...Where the evolutionist sees Hampe's results as an expression
of ancestral relationship in leg-bones, the creationist sees it as a
>modification, suitable for most birds, in the vertebrate programme."
>(Pitman M., "Adam and Evolution", 1984, Rider & Co., London, p224)<<
GM>So, what is the difference between the "modification in the
>vertebrate programme" and evolution? The program IS the DNA.
>Mutation changes the program! Due to the fact that the travel path
>of the DNA sequence through its phase space can not go in certain
>directions, it seems that mutation should be able to account for
>travel through the phase space.Thus it would seem to me that Pitman's
>point actually supports evolution.
No. It supports Progressive Creation. The modification was done by an
intelligent designer, namely "Frenchman Armand Hampe".
>Stephen wrote:
SJ>As I have posted, PE's like Gould do not embrace these homeotic
>mechanisms to the extent that you do. It only applies to segmented
>forms. It does not explain how a Mesonychid became a whale, for
>example.<<
GM>You and I will have to agree to disagree on this.
My point was that even leading evolutionists like Gould disagree with
you in the *extent* that you claim these homeotic mechanisms work!
:-)
God bless.
Stephen