On Fri, 12 Jul 1996 21:55:52, Glenn Morton wrote:
>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:
SJ>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'...The land produced vegetation: plants
>bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with
>seed in it according to their kinds.." (Gn 1:11-12)
GM>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.
Agreed. So what becomes of Glenn's original assertion that: "nowhere
dose the Bible say animals reproduce after their own kind!"?
GM>But once again, this does not say that teosinte can not produce
>corn-- which is an entirely different species.
The Bible says nothing about modern scientific classifications such
as "species". Carnell points out:
"And exactly what does Moses teach? First, that the unit of life
which God originally created, which is expected to remain 'fixed,' is
not the 'species' of science, but, rather, the 'kind' of the book of
Genesis, such as 'herbs yielding seed,' `trees bearing fruit,'
'birds,' 'cattle,' 'creeping things,' and 'beasts.' Observe,
therefore, that the conservative may scrap the doctrine of the
'fixity of species' also, without jeopardizing his major premise in
the least. The Christian, thus, can accommodate a 'threshold'
evolution, i. e., a wide and varied change within the 'kinds'
originally created by God." (Carnell E.J., "An Introduction to
Christian Apologetics", 1948, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI, p238)
If there is to be any comparison of the "kinds" of Genesis 1 and
modern scientific taxonomic categories (and I personally do not
necessarily say that there must be), then as Carnell points out, it
should be at higher taxonomic levels, such as orders:
"Let us not fail to grasp the logic of the argument. Both the
scientist and the Christian admit there are gaps between the orders
or 'kinds' of plants and animals. But, while the scientist, on his
scheme of 'total' evolution, must resort to the tenuous fabrications
of 'missing links' and 'mutations,' the Christian, with his
'threshold' evolution, can accommodate both the gaps which
paleontology reveals to exist between the orders, and the development
of the multitudinous `species' within these orders. It is
conceivable, then, that the 'orders' of the paleontologist correspond
to the `kinds' of Genesis....Whether the 'kinds' of Genesis
correspond exactly to the orders of science, only further exhaustive
research can tell us. The Bible simply sets forth natural divisions;
it is the job of the scientist to locate them." (Carnell E.J., "An
Introduction to Christian Apologetics", Eerdmans: Grand Rapids,
1948, pp239-240)
GM>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.
Only if Glenn defines "Kind" as the modern definition of
soecies as reproductively isolated communities. There is nothing
new in this. It is the evening primrose which de Vries in the 1880's
hoped would establish his non-Darwinian mutation theory:
"The last great speculation as to the cause of evolution was offered
about the year 1900 by Hugo de Vries. According to the two previous
attempts evolution was said to have come about very gradually, by
little, infinitely minute additions, so slowly and gradually as to be
unnoticeable. In the attempt to be considered now we have something
entirely new and different. De Vries was a botanist. While
experimenting in his garden with a plant called Oenothera (primrose)
he found that from it came forms such as he had never seen before.
These he called "new species." They appeared unexpectedly among the
offspring. As a result he offered the following explanation of how
living things evolved. "New species," he said, "rose suddenly,
spontaneously, by steps, by jumps. They jumped out among the
offspring." His speculation was called, therefore, the "mutation"
theory. This theory, while it aroused great hopes among
evolutionists for a few years, soon went the way of its fellows, when
it was learned that the "new" species of plants which de Vries
thought he had seen produced in his garden were discovered to be but
one of the many varieties of forms which the Oenothera is privileged
by the Creator to have. In an address at Toronto to the assembled
scientists of America, Prof. William Bateson said, "Twenty years ago
de Vries made what looked like a promising attempt to supply this
(evidence of new species appearing among natural offspring) as far as
Oenothera is concerned . . . but in application to that phenomenon
the theory of mutation falls. We see novel forms appearing, but they
are no new species of Oenothera. For that which comes out is no new
creation." (Science, Jan. 20, 1922) (Nelson B.C., "After Its Kind",
Bethany Fellowship: Minneapolis MN, Revised Edition, 1967, p100)
Or as Marsh pointed out 20 years ago:
"Among animals tetraploidy in roundworms and brine shrimps merely
produces new variants of roundworms or of shrimps. Heteroploidy in
evening primroses merely produced varieties of primroses."
(Marsh F.L., "Variation and Fixity in Nature", Pacific Press:
Mountain View CA, 1976, p62)
GM>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.
Again, only if: 1. the Biblical "kind" is identical to the modern
definition of "species"; and 2. the Bible intends to teach
modern 20th century science.
GM>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."
This is not new either. The cabbage (Brassica oleracea) and the
radish (Raphanus sativus) are in the same family Brassicaceae"
("Encyclopaedia Britannica", 15th edition, 1984, Benton, Chicago,
ii:421 and viii:381). Creationists who hold that the "kinds" of
Genesis 1 are originally created basic types (I don't necessarily)
would simply see a common ancestor to both cabbage and radish as
being the "kind", not the modern defintion of "species".
Besides, Raphanobrassica was an artificially created species that
could not arise or survive in nature, as Marsh and Nelson, observe:
"Some interesting allopolyploids have been produced in the
laboratory. One of particular interest has already been
mentioned-the intergeneric hybrid between radish, Raphanus sativus,
and cabbage, Brassica oleracea, made by Karpechenko. Both parents
have nine pairs of chromosomes, and individuals of the first hybrid
generation have eighteen univalents. The individuals of the first
hybrid generation are nearly sterile; most plants produce no seeds at
all, but some do produce a few. These seeds from this generation
give rise to individuals with thirty-six chromosomes in each cell
(tetraploid). These plants are irregularly fertile. Unfortunately,
this hybrid has a root like the cabbage and a top like the radish.
This feeble and variable plant, which must be pampered in order for
it to continue, has been named Raphanobrassica, a fusion of the
generic names of the radish and the cabbage. The production of
allopolyploids in the laboratory reveals a mechanism in nature which
may have functioned to some limited extent in producing complexity
within original kinds. However, these forms usually show such great
irregularities in the distribution of their chromosomes, accompanied
with prevalent infertility, that they very likely would not be able
to compete successfully in nature and thereby survive." (Marsh F.L.,
"Variation and Fixity in Nature", Pacific Press: Mountain View CA,
1976, p57)
"a Russian named Krapechenko (1928) managed to get a cabbage pollen
to fertilize a radish ovum. From this there came a plant monstrosity
which grew and grew in the greenhouse, but was never able to produce
a flower. The germ cells of the two distinct species, cabbage and
radish, were able to unite and the different elements in the germ
cells were elastic enough to adjust themselves to one another
sufficiently well to produce a plant body, but were not able to
adjust themselves well enough together to produce such delicate and
vital structures as the flowers." (Nelson B.C., "After Its Kind",
Bethany Fellowship: Minneapolis MN, Revised Edition, 1967, p160-161)
This type of experimentation says little if anything about evolution:
"A geep, a crossbreed between a goat and a sheep. Does such a
curiosity contradict the biological definition of a species? No,
because this geep was produced not by sexual reproduction, but by the
in vitro mingling of cells from a goat embryo and a sheep embryo."
(Mader S.S., "Biology", Wm. C. Brown: Indiana, Third Edition, 1990,
p322)
Indeed, Davidheiser regards it as "scraping the bottom of the
barrel":
"The classic example of a new species produced by polyploidy is
Rhapshanobrassica, a combination of radish and cabbage. It has a
root like a cabbage and a top like a radish, so it is of no value
except to demonstrate that this sort of thing can happen. It is
fertile with others of its kind, but not with either of the parent
species. It is, however, a combination of certain properties
inherent in cabbages and radishes. It is a mustard, as are cabbages
and radishes. It is something new only in the sense that it has been
produced by a new combination of previously existing hereditary
factors. New combinations of genes and interactions of these
hereditary factors in such a hybrid do not result in the sort of
thing which must have happened if all the living things which we
observe came from simple beginnings... When hybridization and
polyploidy are cited as methods of producing evolution, it appears to
be a case of figuratively to find evidence which is simply not
there." (Davidheiser B., "Evolution and the Christian Faith",
Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing Co: Nutley NJ, 1969, p217)
GM>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?
See above. They reproduced "NOT after their" *species*. Only if
"kind" = species is Glenn's point valid. If kind = order, then they
have "reproduced...after their kind"!
>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.
SJ>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:
>
>"...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).
GM>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.
No. We both say that God *could* have used "a natural evolutionary
process" if He chose to:
"The last subject I should address before beginning is my personal
religious outlook, because readers are bound to wonder and because I do
not exempt myself from the general rule that bias must be acknowledged
and examined. I am a philosophical theist and a Christian. I believe
that a God exists who could create out of nothing if He wanted to do so,
but who might have chosen to work through a natural evolutionary process
instead." (Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial", InterVarsity Press:
Downers Grove Ill., Second Edition, 1993, p14).
But the question is *did* He:
"If scientists had actually observed natural selection creating new
organs, or had seen a step-by-step process of fundamental change
consistently recorded in the fossil record, such observations could
readily be interpreted as evidence of God's use of secondary causes
to create. But Darwinian scientists have not observed anything like
that. What they have done is to assume as a matter of first
principle that purposeless material processes can do all the work of
biological creation because, according to their philosophy, nothing
else was available." (Phillip E. Johnson, "Shouting `Heresy' in the
Temple of Darwin", Christianity Today, October 24, 1994, p26)
GM>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)
GM>As long as we continue in this vein, we will continue to loose the
>curious and bright science students from our faith.
I doubt it. If we taught these "bright science students" the
problems of naturalistic Darwinian evolution and its real
implications, and then gave them the Biblical picture of progressive
mediate creation, then it would actually *strengthen* their "faith*.
Certainly I agree with Glenn that if "bright science students" had to
believe young-Earth, 6 x 24 day fiat creation and a global Flood,
then they would have a major conflict with their "faith".
GM>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.
See above. Even apart from the definition of "kind", the general
principle (even with Glenn's rare examples) is that plants and
animals *do* "reproduce...according to their kind". The Bible is
always concerned with the general language of appearances, that the
ordinary man uses every day, in all cultures, in all times. To claim
that the Bible is wrong, because a scientist in a laboratory managed
to cross a cabbage and a radish, and then it reporoduced after its
(new) kind, misses the point. Even then, it is an example of God's
bringing order out of chaos, which is the *real* principle behind the
statements "according to their kinds".
GM>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".
GM>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.
The above is possible, but it does not match the acts of progressive,
mediate creation depicted in Genesis 1. If God wanted to teach a
one-off act of programming "the biological system into the fabric of
the universe" there would be just *one* statement necesssary: "In
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Gn 1:1).
Unlike the Greek-evolution picture of development from within, the
Hebrew-Biblical picture is of an exogenous, transcendent Creator,
progressively introducing new information into His creation by His
word of command:
"Seven times we are told that God saw "that it was good," and in v.
31 this is particularly stressed. Furthermore, the creation account
is told in terms of fiat and fulfilment. There are eight of these
fiats, e.g., "Let there be light" (v. 3). Seven times the
fufillment is stated, e.g., "and there was light" (v. 3); and six
times the phrase "and it was so" is employed, thus stressing that the
purpose of God had been fully carried out" (Young E.J., "An
Introduction to the Old Testament", 1949. Tyndale Press, p52)
Calvin, in the sixteenth century, before the rise of modern
science, recognised that the Biblical picture is of "progressive
steps", not of a "work of creation" that "was accomplished...in one
moment":
"With the same view Moses relates that the work of creation was
accomplished not in one moment, but in six days. By this statement
we are drawn away from fiction to the one God who thus divided his
work into six days, that we may have no reluctance to devote our
whole lives to the contemplation of it. For though our eyes, in what
direction soever they turn, are forced to behold the works of God, we
see how fleeting our attention is, and how quickly pious thoughts, if
any arise, vanish away. Here, too, objection is taken to THESE
PROGRESSIVE STEPS as inconsistent with the power of God, until human
reason is subdued to the obedience of faith, and learns to welcome
the calm quiescence to which the sanctification of the seventh day
invites us. In the very order of events, we ought diligently to ponder
on the paternal goodness of God toward the human race, in not
creating Adam until he had liberally enriched the earth with all good
things. Had he placed him on an earth barren and unfurnished; had he
given life before light, he might have seemed to pay little regard to his
interest. But now that he has arranged the motion of the sun and stars
for man's use, has replenished the air, earth, and water, with living
creatures, and produced all kinds of fruit in abundance for the supply
of food, by performing the office of a provident and industrious head
of a family, he has shown his wondrous goodness toward us."
(Calvin. J., "Institutes of the Christian Religion", Volume 1, 1536,
Beveridge H. (transl.), Eerdmans: Grand Rapids MI, 1964 reprint,
p142)
God bless.
Steve
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