>GM>Finally and most importantly, nowhere dose the Bible say animals
>>reproduce after their own kind! Look at verse 24 above. Land is
>>the subject of the sentence, not animals. The land produces,
>>according to their kind, animals! Animals do not produce animals
>>according to their kind. The Bible is saying nothing about the
>>stability of species or genera.
>>
>>Why we have missed that distinction in the Genesis account I will
>>never know.
>
Stephen replied:
>There is no "distinction" here. The Bible clearly means to teach that
>both plants and animals reproduce after their kind, once they have
>been brought forth from the earth. Look at vv11-12. The fruit trees
>having been brought forth from the earth will reproduce via seed
>within its fruit "according to their various kinds.":
>
>Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants
>and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to
>their various kinds." And it was so. The land produced vegetation:
>plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit
>with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was
>good." (Gn 1:11-12)
>
Look at vv12 "The land produced vegetation: plants berring seed according
to their kinds."
This means that the teosinte seed does produce teosinte seeds and not
apple seeds. But once again, this does not say that teosinte can not
produce corn-- which is an entirely different species. Nor does it say
that Oenothera lamarckiana,a species with 14 chromosomes can not produce
O. gigas with 28 chromosomes. This new kind is unable to breed with the
original. Here we actually have an example of a plant reproducing a plant
NOT AFTER ITS KIND. Thus if you persist in saying that the Bible teaches
that plants can only reproduce after their kind, you force the Bible to be
wrong. Joseph Boxhorn wrote:
"The Russian cytologist Karpchenko (1928) crossed the radish,
Raphanus sativus, with the cabbage, Brassica oleracea. Despite the
fact that the plants were in different genera, he got a sterile hybrid.
Some unreduced gametes were formed in the hybrids. This allowed for the
production of seed. Plants grown from the seeds were interfertile with
each other. They were not interfertile with either parental species.
Unfortunately the new plant (genus Raphanobrassica) had the foliage
of a radish and the root of a cabbage."
Author: Joseph E. Boxhorn (jboxhorn@csd4.csd.uwm.edu)
Title: FAQ: Observed Instances of Speciation
======================================================================
ftp anonymous ics.uci.edu cd /pub/bvickers/origins
By golly, these plants reproduced plants NOT after their kind. So are you
going to agree that the Bible is wrong? Or will you grant that the Bible
does not mean what you want it to mean?
>GM>Thus I would contend that in spite of what we Christians often
>>teach, the Bible does not rule out evolution and may even teach it.
>
>The Bible nowhere teaches "evolution". Apart from the fact that
>the scientific understanding of evolution is that it is a mindless,
>purposeless, materialistic natural process:
>
>"Although many details remain to be worked out, it is already evident
>that all the objective phenomena of the history of life can be
>explained by purely naturalistic or, in a proper sense of the
>sometimes abused word, materialistic factors. They are readily
>explicable on the basis of differential reproduction in populations
>(the main factor in the modern conception of natural selection) and
>of the mainly random interplay of the known processes of heredity....
>Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not
>have him in mind." (Simpson G.G., "The Meaning of Evolution",
>Revised Edition, 1967, p279 in Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial",
>InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove Ill., Second Edition, 1993, p116).
>
Stephen, If God set it up and evolved life, then it can not be "a
mindless, purposeless, materialistic natural process"
You and Phil Johnson always seem to miss this crucial fact.
>the concept of evolution is Greek-pagan and quite foreign to the
>Hebrew-theism of the Bible:
>
>"The fundamental contrast between the Hebrew-Christian doctrine of
>creation and the Greek-modern doctrine of evolution is therefore
>crystal-clear. The Genesis creation account depicts a personal
>supernatural agent calling into existence graded levels of life by
>transcendent power. The Greek-modern theory depicts a simple
>primitive reality temporally differentiated by immanent activity into
>increasingly complex entities that retain this capacity for future
>development. In the evolutionary approach the principle of becoming
>is metaphysically determinative. Time is not merely the actualizer
>of new forms, but it originates them. Reality is intrinsically
>developmental." (Henry C.F.H., "Science and Religion", in Henry
>C.F.H., ed., "Contemporary Evangelical Thought: A Survey", Baker:
>Grand Rapids MI, 1968, p252)
>
As long as we continue in this vein, we will continue to loose the curious
and bright science students from our faith. As noted above, plants can
reproduce not according to their kind. If you say that there is no
possibility that the Bible means anything else, then one must conclude
that the Bible is wrong. One can not believe both things at the same
time. One must give.
>Perhaps Glenn would like to clarify exactly what he means by the
>word "evolution" when he says:
>
>"I believe that Genesis 1 teaches evolution" and "the Bible does not
>rule out evolution and may even teach it".
I believe that God programmed the biological system into the fabric of the
universe. When the conditions God foresaw and knew would come about,
life evolved. This is not mindless or naturalistic. This is theistic.
Since it is caused, it is not purposeless either.
glenn
Foundation,Fall and Flood
http://members.gnn.com/GRMorton/dmd.htm