Reflectorites
Again, apologies this is late.
On Sat, 18 Nov 2000 08:48:15 -0600, Susan Brassfield Cogan wrote:
[...]
>>CC>I meant that you blindly quoted it without checking to see if the passage
>> >you quoted was in fact *true*.
>SJ>As I pointed out to Chris, it seems that what Kelly said *was* true, about:
>>"Despite a close watch, we have WITNESSED no new species emerge in the
wild
>>in recorded history." (Kelly K., "Out of Control," 1995, p.475. My emphasis)
SC>it actually is *not* true. It was not true when Kelly wrote it. Kelly's
>book was published in 1995 and the study I cite below was done in 1990.
>This is quoted from "Finding Darwin's God" by Ken Miller which I strongly
>recommend to Stephen and everyone else on this list.
>
>--------------
>Rhizosolina is a genus of diatoms, single-celled photosynthetic organisms
>that produce intricate and distinctive silicate cell walls. When their
>owners die, these glass-like walls fall to the ocean floor and produce a
>sediment so dense that it can be mined as a diatomacious earth (and used as
>a filtering matrix for swimming pools). Two distinct species, Rhizosolemia
>praedbergonii and Rhizosolenia bergonii, are known from sediments dating to
>1.7 millions years ago. If we trace these species backwards in time, we
>gather data that duplicate, with uncanny precision, Darwin's drawing of
>speciation.
>
>Beginning at 3.3 million years before the present, we can see the
>increasing range of diversity of the ancestral species, leading to a
>broadening at 2.9 million years that splits into two distinct lineages in
>less than 200,000 years. The continuous deposition of diatom shells has
>provided a complete record covering nearly 2 million years. Thomas Cronin
>and Cynthia Schneider, who reported this study, were lucky enough to find a
>speciation event right in the middle of their data.
>
>T.M. Cronin and C. E. Schneider, "Climatic Influences on Species: Evidence
>from the Fossil Record," Trends in Evolutionary Biology and Ecology 5
>(1990): 275-279.
Talk about "blindly quoted"! Susan needs to read Kelly's quote again, in
particular his words: 1) "witnessed"; and 2) "recorded history".
No one is doubting that new species have emerged in the past. What Kelly
was claiming is that no one has actually *observed* new species emerging
in the wild.
[...]
SC>It is just not a good idea to stake the veracity of your religion on
>continued human ignorance. It's not a good bet. Your God either created the
>universe and everything in it--including evolution--or he did not.
The point is that if there is a God who created, then He could have done a
whole lot more than creating evolution. The necessary starting point of
naturalistic evolution is that either there is no God, or if there is, He never
intervened in the history of life to do any more creating.
SC>Saying
>that "science doesn't know X therefore my religion is true!" hurts science
>not at all and is devastating to your religion when ignorance becomes
>knowledge.
I don't say "science doesn't know X therefore my religion is true!" I have
stated many times that I would have no problem with my religion if
evolution was true. In fact for about 15 years as a Christian I believed that
evolution was probably true and just God's means of creating.
To me the question is: *is* evolution (i.e. 100% naturalistic evolution)
true?
SC>I'd suggest you drop that line of debate but that's the gist of
>all creationist arguments isn't it? "If evolution is true then my religion
>is destroyed, therefore evolution must be proved to be false at all costs."
See above. I never took that "line" in the first place.
SC>Often that cost is the personal integrity of the person doing the refuting
>but what the heck, if it saves Christianity, right?
No. See above.
SC>The big problem is, that evolutionists often argue exactly the same thing:
>"if evolution is true, then religion is false."
The point is that if Christian is true, then there is a God who has intervened
repeatedly in human history to introduce new information and direction.
That mean that the naturalistic evolutionist assumption that all change in
the unobservable past must have been fully naturalistic and undirected is
dubious, to say the least.
That is why almost every Biology textbook starts its section on evolution
with a strawman debunking of the Christian doctrine of creation. There is
no other science that feels the need to do that.
SC>It is the one point upon
>which evolutionists and creationists warmly agree. That line of
>argumentation is not required by either science or Christian theology. I've
>actually never made that argument myself (she takes a little bow). My line
>of argument has always been "evolution is true (and here's why) and that
>means nothing about the truth of Christianity."
Then why is Susan (and her ilk) always bringing up the subject of
"Christianity" in the context of "evolution" (as she does in this very post)?
This is something curious that Berthajane, a non-Christian, has pointed out.
The Christians try to talk about the evidence for evolution and the
evolutionists often counter with evidence against Christianity!
[...]
Steve
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"Paleontologists had long been aware of a seeming contradiction between
Darwin's postulate of gradualism, confirmed by the work of population
genetics, and the actual findings of paleontology. Following phyletic lines
through time seemed to reveal only minimal gradual changes but no clear
evidence for any change of a species into a different genus or for the
gradual origin of an evolutionary novelty. Anything truly novel always
seemed to appear quite abruptly in the fossil record." (Mayr E., "Toward a
New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist," Harvard
University Press: Cambridge MA, 1988, pp.529-530)
Stephen E. Jones | Ph. +61 8 9448 7439 | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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