Wow, THIS is the best I have heard

[Vance]

I think this "position paper" by a group of Christian Scientists is the best I have heard on the question of origins. It is entitled "We Believe in Creation":

It should be well known to readers of the Journal ASA that the ASA does not take an official position on controversial questions. Creation is not a controversial question. I have no hesitancy in affirming, "We believe in creation," for every ASA member.

The Biblical doctrine of creation is one of the richest doctrines revealed to us by God. It reveals to us that the God who loves us is also the God who created us and all things; at once it establishes the relationship between the God of religious faith and the God of physical reality. It is because of creation that we trust in the reality of a physical and moral structure to the universe, which we can explore as scientists and experience as persons. It is because of creation that we know that the universe and everything in it depends moment-by-moment upon the sustaining power and activity of God. It is because of creation that we know that we are not the end-products of meaningless processess in an impersonal universe, but men and women made in the image of a personal God. It is by the formulation of "creation out of nothing" that we affirm that God created the universe freely and separately, and reject the alternatives of dualism and pantheism. To worship God as Creator is to emphasize both His transcendence over the natural order and His imminence in the natural order; it is to recognize that His mode of existence as Creator is completely other than our mode of existence as created. To appreciate God as Creator is to recognize that which He created as intrinsically good; the rationale for scientific investigation, the assurance of ultimate personal meaning in life, and the nature of evil as an aberration on a good creation are all intrinsic to such an appreciation. We believe in creation. It is unthinkable for a Christian to do otherwise.

It is because of this foundational character of the Biblical doctrine of creation that it is unfortunate when the word "creation" is used narrowly and restrictively to refer--not to the fact of Creation--but to a possible means in the creative activity, usually to that means known as fiat creation. When it is implied that creation and evolution are necessarily mutually exclusive, or when the term "creation" is used as if it were primarily a scientific mechanism for origins, a profound confusion of categories is involved. The implication is given, deliberately or not, that if evolution should be the proper mechanism for the growth and development of living forms, then creation would have to be rejected. To pose such a choice is to do basic damage to the Christian position. It is to play directly into the hands of those evolutionists who argue that their understanding of evolution does away with the theological significance of Creation. If such an evolutionist is wrong to believe that his biological description does away with the need for a theological description, the Christian anti-evolutionist is wrong to believe that his theological description must make any biological description impossible.

The key to much of the evolution controversy lies in the recognition of the necessity and propriety of descriptions of the same phenomena on different levels of reality. Even a complete biological description does not do away with the need for a theological description, any more than a complete theological description does away with the possibility of a compatible biological description. Evolution can be considered without denying creation; creation can be accepted without excluding evolution. Evolution is a scientific question on the biological level; it would be unfortunate indeed if a scientific question were permitted to become the crucial point for Christian faith.

Evolutionary philosophy--shall we say rather evolutionary religion--may well be something quite different. In its anti-Christian form, such philosophical evolutionism may involve an exaltation of man, a denial of the reality of moral guilt in any theological sense, and hence an interpretation of the life and death of Jesus as nothing more than a good example. In this view, continued development and improvement are inevitably assured as man, now become conscious of evolution, completes for himself the process of the ages. Such evolutionism is a faith-system which competes for the religious allegiance of men, and against which the Christian faith is called to stand. But, if it is true that the evolutionist must realize that he has little scientific support for extrapolating biological evolution into a general principle of life, the Christian anti-evolutionist must realize that he has little religious justification upon which to attack a scientific theory dealing with biological mechanisms. How tragic it often is when Christians, seeking to avoid the errors of philosophical evolutionism, promulgate the falsehood that the efficacy of faith in the atonement of Christ effectively depends upon the dogmatic acceptance of fiat creation and the dogmatic rejection of any evolutionary processes.

We believe in Creation. We praise the Lord for that faith. But let us avoid either posing creation and evolution as intrinsically antithetical alternatives, the acceptance of one demanding the rejection of the other, or presenting creation as a scientific mechanism alternative to evolution, as though good science must ultimately lead to the verification of fiat creation and a falsification of evolution.

This can be found here:

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1971/JASA12-71Bube.html#We%20Believe%20in%20Creation

 

[Didaskomenos]

Very good for the most part. However, the description of "philosophical evolutionism" is not common today like it once was (Lewis critiqued it way back in his day). I'm afraid this paper gave the impression that non-Christian evolutionists all believe that way. Not one on this board actually does.

 

[seebs]

I think that "philosophical evolutionism" died out as an unteneble viewpoint.

 

[Vance]

I agree, I think they were trying to get to philosophical naturalism, which is a belief that the for every question about the natural world, there is a natural answer exclusive of any *super*natural element. An atheistic evolutionist would believe this, and too many YEC's want to equate philosophical naturalism with the methodological naturalism used by scientists every day.

 

[Micaiah]

Quoting from Jonathan Sarfati's book 'Refuting Evolution', he states that Professor D.M.S. Watson was one of the leading biologists and science writers of his day. He demonstrated the atheistic bias behind evolutionary thinking when he wrote:

Evolution [is] a theory universally accepted not because it can be proven by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly unacceptable.

D.M.S. Watson, "Adaptation," Nature 124:233, 1929

 

[gluadys]

Quoting from Jonathan Sarfati's book 'Refuting Evolution', he states that Professor D.M.S. Watson was one of the leading biologists and science writers of his day. He demonstrated the atheistic bias behind evolutionary thinking when he wrote:

Sarfati did nothing of the sort. He only demonstrated that Professor Watson held this opinion. And if Watson could see the amount of evidence in favour of evolution which was unavailable in 1929 it is unlikely that he would have said evolution was lacking in logical coherent evidential support.

 

[notto]

Quoting from Jonathan Sarfati's book 'Refuting Evolution', he states that Professor D.M.S. Watson was one of the leading biologists and science writers of his day. He demonstrated the atheistic bias behind evolutionary thinking when he wrote:

From the same article by Watson:

"Evolution itself is accepted by zoologists not because it has been observed to occur or is supported by logically coherent arguments, but because it does fit all the facts of taxonomy, of palæontology, and geographical distribution, and because no alternative explanation is credible."

(and today, we can add genetic evidence to the list).

It looks like Sarfati is wrong and is clearly trying to mislead. Creationism doesn't fit the evidence. Evolution is accepted because all presented alternatives do not fit this evidence. This is not 'atheistic bias', this is good science.

http://members.cox.net/ardipithecus/evol/lies/lie031.html

 

[Micaiah]

Read the statement carefully again Notto, and also the full quote which I have posted below. Sarfati's comments are correct. You have missed the point of the statement in your zeal to defend the beloved TOE. That is what is known as bias. Bias affects the way we interpret things, including evidence. That is what Watson was saying. He is admitting to a philosophical bias that leads to certain conclusions in spite of the lack of evidence. It is not often we witness such frankness and honesty from the evolutionary community, and it is nice to acknowledge those instances when it does occur.

The extraordinary lack of evidence to show that the incidence of death under natural conditions is controlled by small differences of the kind which separate species from one another or, what is the same thing from an observational point of view, by physiological differences correlated with such structural features, renders it difficult to appeal to natural selection as the main or indeed an important factor in bringing about the evolutionary changes which we know to have occurred. It may be important, it may indeed be the principle which overrides all others ; but at present [i.e. 1929] its real existence as a phenomenon rests on an extremely slender basis.



The extreme difficulty of obtaining the necessary data for any quantitative estimation of the efficiency of natural selection makes it seem probable that this theory will be re-established, if it be so, by the collapse of alternative explanations which are more easily attacked by observation and experiment. If so, it will present a parallel to the theory of evolution itself, a theory universally accepted not because it be can proved by logically coherent evidence to be true but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible.

 

[Micaiah]

From the same article, here is a bit of background information on the gentleman in question

Professor D.M.S. Watson, who held the position of the Chair of Evolution at the University of London for more than twenty years.

Your article questions the mans credentials, which I find a little unkind. I'd expect that someone who was in that position for twenty years would have some influence and respect in the scientific community of his day.

Granted the quote is a little out of date. Here is something a bit more current.


Here is a quote from Professor Richard Lewontin. Safarti states he is a geneticist, and one of the world's leaders in promoting evolutionary biology. He wrote the following:

We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagent promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance fo the scientific community for unsubstantiated just so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine foot in the door.

Richard Lewontin, "Billions and Billions of demons,"
The New York Review, January 9, 1997, p.31

These are the kind of scientists that the TE's have placed their faith in, in preference to the word of God. That sounds a lot like the children of Israel who turned away from the true God of the Universe to worship the dumb idols of the surrounding nations.

 

[Micaiah]

Sarfati did nothing of the sort. He only demonstrated that Professor Watson held this opinion. And if Watson could see the amount of evidence in favour of evolution which was unavailable in 1929 it is unlikely that he would have said evolution was lacking in logical coherent evidential support.

Huh ??

 

[gluadys]

Read the statement carefully again Notto, and also the full quote which I have posted below. Sarfati's comments are correct. You have missed the point of the statement in your zeal to defend the beloved TOE. That is what is known as bias. Bias affects the way we interpret things, including evidence. That is what Watson was saying. He is admitting to a philosophical bias that leads to certain conclusions in spite of the lack of evidence. It is not often we witness such frankness and honesty from the evolutionary community, and it is nice to acknowledge those instances when it does occur.

You read the statement carefully Micaiah. Watson is not speaking of a philosophical or religious bias. He is talking about practical difficulties in scientific research that have nothing to do with theology.

The extraordinary lack of evidence to show that the incidence of death under natural conditions is controlled by small differences of the kind which separate species from one another or, what is the same thing from an observational point of view, by physiological differences correlated with such structural features, renders it difficult to appeal to natural selection as the main or indeed an important factor in bringing about the evolutionary changes which we know to have occurred. It may be important, it may indeed be the principle which overrides all others ; but at present [i.e. 1929] its real existence as a phenomenon rests on an extremely slender basis.

Remember this statement was made in 1929. The statistical tools to measure the impact of natural selection on reproductive success had not been developed yet. This was way before Kettlewell's work on the pepper moth, and that research was plagued with difficulties. We now have much more evidence that natural selection is a real phenomenon.

The extreme difficulty of obtaining the necessary data for any quantitative estimation of the efficiency of natural selection makes it seem probable that this theory will be re-established, if it be so, by the collapse of alternative explanations which are more easily attacked by observation and experiment. If so, it will present a parallel to the theory of evolution itself, a theory universally accepted not because it be can proved by logically coherent evidence to be true but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible.

He was certainly right about the difficulty of obtaining necessary data. The work verifying natural selection in the Galapagos finches took 20 years and massive gathering of both morphological data in finches and their food sources and of corresponding climatological data.

I think we can say now, however, that he was wrong about natural selection being established only through the collapse of alternate theories. We have more and more positive evidence of natural selection and no longer need to rely solely on the weakness of alternate theories.

The whole article also shows that his characterization of special creation as "clearly incredible" is not based on an anti-theist bias, but on the fact that special creation is clearly out-of-synch with the evidence.

 

[gluadys]

Here is a quote from Professor Richard Lewontin. Safarti states he is a geneticist, and one of the world's leaders in promoting evolutionary biology. He wrote the following:



These are the kind of scientists that the TE's have placed their faith in, in preference to the word of God. That sounds a lot like the children of Israel who turned away from the true God of the Universe to worship the dumb idols of the surrounding nations.

Again, this is only one person's opinion. And it says nothing at all about the validity of a scientific theory which must pass muster with scientists who do not share that opinion as well as with scientists who do.

It is not the personal philosophies of scientists which establish a theory. It is the preponderance of the evidence.

 

[notto]

Quoting from Jonathan Sarfati's book 'Refuting Evolution', he states that Professor D.M.S. Watson was one of the leading biologists and science writers of his day. He demonstrated the atheistic bias behind evolutionary thinking when he wrote:

I still don't see it. Watson clearly states that evolution is accepted because it explains several independent lines of data found in several fields of science. There is no other theory that does this. This is not atheistic bias, it is a known fact and good science.

Can you point out specifically the comments of Watson that point to an atheisitc bias behind evolutionary thinking?

As for the rest of you comments, materialism in science works, it is the only way science can work - why should biology be any different than any other science. If I proposed that gravity is the work of angels or that Jesus (aka Chick Track) is what hold atoms together, would you consider that good science? Why or why not?

 

[Vance]

You know, if evolution is on such shaky ground, why don't Creation Scientists just falsify it rather than digging back into the archives to find quotes from scientists (who all believe in evolution) to show the weaknesses of evolution?

Why don't they just do what other, real, scientists do when they believe a theory is not true? Find a prediction that evolution would make (real evolution, not their own strawman version of it) and show that it does not occur. It really is that simple.

But since the Creation Scientists (who KNOW this is all it would take to overturn evolution) can not do this, here is what they do:

1. They say "it is just a theory" (which shows their ignorance of science)

2. They provide "puzzles" and say "aha! solve that one!"

3. They come up with unsupported alternate theories that are easily falsified, but they hang on to them anyway.

None of which is science.

 

[Vance]

You know, this same issue has come up over in the Creation and Evolution forum. Creationists constantly quote atheistic scientists making atheistic statements about evolution and then claiming that this proves evolution is founded on atheism, or that evolution and atheism are "inextricably intertwined".

This, of course, is a logical fallacy. Just because atheists believe in evolution, and even attempt to further atheistic ideas by using evolution, this does not mean they are correct, either about atheism or evolution's support of atheism.

It is like an atheistic historian who studies the middle ages. He, and many other colleagues study and learn about many atrocities of the Church. The pogroms, the inquistions, corruption, etc. The atheistic historian (unlike his colleagues) uses these facts to write a book about how the Church is false and can not possibly hold any truth.

Now, the fact that this historian uses these facts to come to atheistic conclusions does not, in any way, invalidate the facts themselves. The facts are what they are. His statements do not provide any evidence whatsoever, that the study of medieval history is inextricably intertwined with atheism.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

You know, this same issue has come up over in the Creation and Evolution forum. Creationists constantly quote atheistic scientists making atheistic statements about evolution and then claiming that this proves evolution is founded on atheism, or that evolution and atheism are "inextricably intertwined".

This, of course, is a logical fallacy. Just because atheists believe in evolution, and even attempt to further atheistic ideas by using evolution, this does not mean they are correct, either about atheism or evolution's support of atheism.

It is like an atheistic historian who studies the middle ages. He, and many other colleagues study and learn about many atrocities of the Church. The pogroms, the inquistions, corruption, etc. The atheistic historian (unlike his colleagues) uses these facts to write a book about how the Church is false and can not possibly hold any truth.

Now, the fact that this historian uses these facts to come to atheistic conclusions does not, in any way, invalidate the facts themselves. The facts are what they are. His statements do not provide any evidence whatsoever, that the study of medieval history is inextricably intertwined with atheism.

This is a good point and is well worth thinking about.
Gould, Dawkins, Dennett, Lewontin when they write that evolution is materialistic are speaking as human beings with a world view, speaking from that world view. They are speaking not as biologists but as metaphysicians, as a man of faith, a faith in materialism or naturalism or evolutionism. It is to this faith in naturalism that the Christian must speak. But the YECists don't seem to want to engage at this level, they wish to force the discussion down into one of the supporting legs of the atheistic argument, down into the world of science. Bong. Don't do that, address the issues at the appropriate levels, to the necessary categories, using the arguments and tools appropriate to that level. It is a human being that is in rebellion towards God, it is the issue of faith, address it at that level.

By making it seem like it is a creation science vs an atheistic evolutionary science, a massive confusion of levels is occurring.The categories are all mixed up, that is the reason evolution=/= atheism, that the T in theistic evolution, or the P in providential evolution distinguishes the metaphysics derived from evolutionary biology. Metaphysics =/= biology. The metaphysics is derived from the science, it is not inherent to the science, it is not nascent in the science, it is not contained in the presuppositions of science. ToE fits the world as far as we can see. But the ToE is not sufficient to order a human ideology, it is by our nature that we extend it into a world view. Science is not sufficient as a means of ordering our lives, it is a deliberately truncated view of reality, by design.

Is the world friendly towards us or not is not a scientific question, it is a religious question.
Is universe is indifferent to our fate? either as a species or as individuals? you can not tell from looking at the book of nature, that God cares for us is a theological revelation. Lewontin can't see it, all he can see is matter in motion, for these religious things are seen by eyes trained in Scripture, spiritual eyes.

Well talk to him at that level. If you attempt to engage him at the level of endogeneous retrovirus do not support ToE then you lose, due to a confusion of levels, a mixing of categories.

This is one of the great errors of YECism, the systematic desire to push the discussion down the hierarchy of levels, to confuse world view with science, to confuse Lewontin's statement of the atheism of science with a scientific statement, it is not, it is a metaphysical statement.

 

[Vance]

This is a good point and is well worth thinking about.
Gould, Dawkins, Dennett, Lewontin when they write that evolution is materialistic are speaking as human beings with a world view, speaking from that world view. They are speaking not as biologists but as metaphysicians, as a man of faith, a faith in materialism or naturalism or evolutionism. It is to this faith in naturalism that the Christian must speak. But the YECists don't seem to want to engage at this level, they wish to force the discussion down into one of the supporting legs of the atheistic argument, down into the world of science. Bong. Don't do that, address the issues at the appropriate levels, to the necessary categories, using the arguments and tools appropriate to that level. It is a human being that is in rebellion towards God, it is the issue of faith, address it at that level.

By making it seem like it is a creation science vs an atheistic evolutionary science, a massive confusion of levels is occurring.The categories are all mixed up, that is the reason evolution=/= atheism, that the T in theistic evolution, or the P in providential evolution distinguishes the metaphysics derived from evolutionary biology. Metaphysics =/= biology. The metaphysics is derived from the science, it is not inherent to the science, it is not nascent in the science, it is not contained in the presuppositions of science. ToE fits the world as far as we can see. But the ToE is not sufficient to order a human ideology, it is by our nature that we extend it into a world view. Science is not sufficient as a means of ordering our lives, it is a deliberately truncated view of reality, by design.

Is the world friendly towards us or not is not a scientific question, it is a religious question.
Is universe is indifferent to our fate? either as a species or as individuals? you can not tell from looking at the book of nature, that God cares for us is a theological revelation. Lewontin can't see it, all he can see is matter in motion, for these religious things are seen by eyes trained in Scripture, spiritual eyes.

Well talk to him at that level. If you attempt to engage him at the level of endogeneous retrovirus do not support ToE then you lose, due to a confusion of levels, a mixing of categories.

This is one of the great errors of YECism, the systematic desire to push the discussion down the hierarchy of levels, to confuse world view with science, to confuse Lewontin's statement of the atheism of science with a scientific statement, it is not, it is a metaphysical statement.

I am not surprised that no YEC has bothered to address this issue.

 

[bluejeans]

You know, if evolution is on such shaky ground, why don't Creation Scientists just falsify it rather than digging back into the archives to find quotes from scientists (who all believe in evolution) to show the weaknesses of evolution?

Why don't they just do what other, real, scientists do when they believe a theory is not true? Find a prediction that evolution would make (real evolution, not their own strawman version of it) and show that it does not occur. It really is that simple.

But since the Creation Scientists (who KNOW this is all it would take to overturn evolution) can not do this, here is what they do:

1. They say "it is just a theory" (which shows their ignorance of science)

2. They provide "puzzles" and say "aha! solve that one!"

3. They come up with unsupported alternate theories that are easily falsified, but they hang on to them anyway.

None of which is science.

Vance,can you tell us what science is please?

 

[bluejeans]

Col.2:8 warns about the vain philosophy of man.

 

[Vance]

Vance,can you tell us what science is please?

Sure.

Science is the study of the natural aspects of God's Creation.