On Fri, 19 Apr 1996 10:50:14 -0500 (EST) you wrote to Art Chadwick:
AC>It means we should reconsider all of our philosophical bases.
[...]
AC>You are so right. When I asked a week ago if anyone was willing to
>do so, all I heard was silence. And all I asked was for someone who
>believed in evolution to share with me what they perceived to be the
>weaknesses of *their* brand of evolution. My reason for asking is
>transparent. I would like to know how well those who hold to
>evolutionary doctrine understand the weaknesses of their positions.
>I guess I will have to go back and read Kerkut again. I suppose I
>didn't really expect a response.
LH>I didn't immediately respond to your post last week because (aside
>from being generally too busy), I thought this had been pretty
>thoroughly covered recently.
>
>I've been "reconsidering my philosophical bases" in earnest since joining
>this discussion group. I've posted a few lists of "perceived
>[philosphical and theological] weaknesses" of both evolutionary
>creationism and progressive creationism (check the January '96 archives).
>I pretty much agree with Mike Behe on what are the scientifically weakest
>points of macroevolutionary theory (development of irreducible complexity,
>etc.) and I included those in my _World_&_I_ article. I've even suggested
>a few scientifically testable predictions (using present-day equipment and
>techniques) which would cause me to switch my preference from EC to
>PC (check the November '95 archives).
>
>That's hard work --- not so much to personally consider these issues, but
>to elucidate them in a public forum! I don't take silence from discussion
>group members as lack of understanding or willingness to examine
>weaknesses; I take silence as general agreement for what's already been
>said recently.
>
>I hope that gives you some hope.
I think its only fair to acknowledge your openness, Loren. You do not
appear
to be a fully committed evolutionist and I hope you will eventually
move
(if you have not already <g>) to a PC position.
May I share with you my main reasons for preferring PC* over TE (not
necessarily in order of priority)?
1. Genesis 1 teaches God creating, making and forming by successive
acts over time. This involves both God's supernatural word of command
plus natural processes (apart from ex nihilo creation in Gn 1:1).
2. Genesis 1 depicts a clear discontinuity between the Creation week
and subsequent Providential work of God.
3. "Evolution" is not a Biblical term or concept, whereas Creation is.
4. Theistic evolution minimises the transcendence of God over against
His immanence.
5. The overall "flavour" of the Bible is of a God who intervenes
supernaturally.
6. There are major discontinuities that science has not filled,
namely: the origin of the cosmos; the origin of life; and the origin
of higher taxa.
7. TE must include some PC elements to survive as a Christian theory
(eg. supernatural intervention in origin of life; origin of man, etc)
8. PC has some hope of uniting Christians (eg. Johnson's book is sold
in YEC book stores), whereas TE has no hope of this.
9. PC has a prophetic witness against our scientific culture. Eg. Phil
Johnson. TE has little or no such witness and is largely ignored.
10. I expect PC to grow as naturalistic evolution becomes more
punctuationist and un-Darwinian and YEC wanes. By 21st century I
predict that TE and YEC will diminish and the main debate will be
Naturalistic Evolution vs Progressive Creation.
Problems of PC include:
1. PC is frankly supernatural and the success of naturalism
threatens it. Then again, so is Christianity.
2. It is difficult to propose a scientific test between PC and TE.
But PC is more in tune with the supernaturalist Biblical picture and
is at least as plausible as TE.
3. PC is falsifiable. If science does succeed in filling in the gaps
in 6. above, then PC will be increasingly difficult to maintain.
* By PC I mean God progressively creating supernaturally over time
possibly using existing natural processes. This does not require the
de novo creation of whole organisms. It may be subtle and involve
a whole series of planned changes over milennia. The emphasis is
on new or changed *designs* rather than "kinds". Its nearest human
analogies are artificial selection (intelligent control of heredity
and
environment to achieve a planned purpose) and genetic engineering
(intelligently inserting new genetic information and modifying
existing code).
God bless.
Steve
"During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and
begging him, `Come over to Macedonia and help us.' " (Ac 16:9) :-)
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