BTW that Virkotto would be Joel Duff's intentional misspelling of Vir Cotto
which is my user ID. More below-
<wrote " I think this leaves us with the argument that God
>created with the appearance of ancestry which opens a whole other set of
>questions."
>
>Yes. And, following Gosse's argument in OMPHALOS, the question is this --
>could He have done it any other way? Gosse argues (as I recall) that He
>could not. Gosse was a YEC, of course, but his argument does not seem to
>require a YEC approach -- it could also be applied to various OEC
>theories.
>
>The argument goes something as follows. Assume I am a mad scientist.
>(Some people always thought I was anyway).
>
>Today I decide to create a new being. Assume, for the time being, that
>there are no eagles on earth and I decide to create one.
>
>If I do a poor job, such as building a plastic model. nobody will think
>it real. So I do a better job. A "perfect" job (where "perfect" means
>"thorough") in fact. Now look at my eagle. An hour ago it was inanimate
>chemicals in my laboratory. Now it is an eagle as-we-know-them-to-be in
>reality.
>
>I assert I just created it.
>
>You (the reasonable skeptic) want to test my assertion, and I graciously
>allow you to take the eagle (I can always create another one) and test
>it.
>
>Every test you can think of is consistent with the prevailing scientific
>paradigm of evolutionary descent. It has to be, else my assumption
>(above) that I did a "perfect" job of building is negated!
>
>So -- if we assert that God created, and did (necessarily) a perfect
>(again, meaning "thorough") job of creation, then the result can not be
>distinguished from evolutionary descent. Or can it?
I would agree that maybe it these can't be distinguished. I wrote a little
about Appearence of Age a couple of months ago. The intersting thing about
this argument from the YEC perspective is that if true then what is the
point of resisting all the data pointing to common ancestry and evolution.
It is similar to that of the radiometric dating. Once one has used the
argument that the ages of "true" because they represent a world created old
then how can one then raise much of a stink about other dates such as those
for presumably post-flood artifacts. It would appear in this case that God
has not done such a great job of being thorough in his job of creation as
the same techniques and assumptions used to date materials do not yield (in
the eyes of some YECs) consistent results.
I have had the appearance of age argument used on me for even for data that
appear to suggest evolution. In most cases I say "fair enough" and let it
go at that. Usually when I press the point and ask "so do you think it is
possible that God may have given us the appearence that man had animal
ancestors?" there is an immediate withdrawal or rejection. Why is it
alright to admit God created some things with the appearance of age/history
while others he couldn't have? I have been attracted to the argument
myself at times but I have never been able to find anyone that could apply
in a consistent fashion. It seems more of an escape hatch than a
foundational argument.
joel duff
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Joel and Dawn Duff / | ' \ Spell Check?
Carbondale IL 62901 ( ) 0
e-mail: duff@siu.edu \_/-, ,----'
or virkotto@intrnet.net ==== //
or nickrent-lab@siu.edu / \-'~; /~~~(O)
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