On Fri, 29 May 1998 09:41:21 +0100, Adam Shohet wrote:
AS>I joined this list about a week ago and perhaps now is as good a time as
>any to introduce myself. I am a 23yr old evolutionary biologist and I am currently
>studying for a Ph.D in the area of sexual selection.
Welcome.
AS>Right that's the introductions over with. Now I have a question. How much
>discussion of actual issues is conducted on this list? I don't mean this
>as a slur against anyone, but to date about 75% of postings that I have
>read have dealt primarily with accusations against individuals. If someone
>could fill me in on the current thread under discussion I would be very
>grateful.
At the moment we are going through a difficult patch, due to my defence of
Christian apologists from destructive criticism by a Theistic Evolutionist and
challenging that same TE for what I perceived as ad hominem attacks
against myself. I have terminated the latter thread, but the former is still going.
But hopefully we will soon get back once more to "actual issues".
For yourself and other newcomers, my position on the Creation-Evolution spectrum
is Mediate Creation. It is close to that of Phil Johnson:
"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. I am not a defender
of creation-science..." (Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial", InterVarsity Press:
Downers Grove Ill., Second Edition, 1993, p14)
and David Wilcox:
"I have no metaphysical necessity driving me to propose the miraculous action of
the evident finger of God as a scientific hypothesis. In my world view, all natural
forces and events are fully contingent on the free choice of the sovereign God. Thus,
neither an adequate nor an inadequate "neo-Darwinism (as mechanism) holds
any terrors. But that is not what the data looks like. And I feel no metaphysical
necessity to exclude the evident finger of God." (Wilcox D.L., "Tamed Tornadoes",
in Buell J. & Hearn V., eds.,"Darwinism: Science or Philosophy?", Foundation for
Thought and Ethics: Richardson TX, 1994, p215).
Specifically, I have no problems (Biblical or personal) with the Earth being 4.6 billion
years old, or man having had hominid ancestors. I do not even have a problem with
the most extreme forms of `blind watchmaker' Neo-Darwinism, since the Biblical God
is fully in control of apparently `random' events (Proverbs 16:33; 1Ki 22:34).
But I believe the actual evidence (when considered as a whole) is against fully
naturalistic evolution, and in fact better fits a broad creationist model like Mediate
Creation. But Naturalists just refuse even to consider the possibility that there
is a God, who might have intervened at strategic points in life's history (eg. origin
of universe, origin of life, origin of life's complex designs, origin of consciousness, etc).
Steve
"Evolution is the greatest engine of atheism ever invented."
--- Dr. William Provine, Professor of History and Biology, Cornell University.
http://fp.bio.utk.edu/darwin/1998/slides_view/Slide_7.html
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3 Hawker Avenue / Oz \ Steve.Jones@health.wa.gov.au
Warwick 6024 ->*_,--\_/ Phone +61 8 9448 7439
Perth, West Australia v "Test everything." (1Thess 5:21)
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