Comment on Walla Walla University: The Collegian Debates Evolution vs. Creation by Ron.
@Sean Pitman:
Actually, I am not trying to claim anything right now. What I am trying to do is find out what you believe in. I know you don’t believe in evolution in the broadest sense, of “amoeba to horse”, to use Bob’s term. Right now, I don’t really care what you DON’T believe in, I want to know what you DO believe in. I know you believe in some kinds of genetic change. When is genetic change “adaption”, and when is genetic change “evolution”?
Darwin described adaption of finch’s beaks as an example of evolution, i.e. a change in response to selection pressures.
Darwin called it evolution and he did not describe any particular mechanism. When he wrote, the Bohr atom hadn’t even been described, let alone DNA. So, when we talk about Darwinian evolution, we are talking about what ever mechanism causes finches beaks to change (and probably lots of other mechanisms as well). When you say that you don’t accept Darwinian evolution, without any further qualification, then you are saying that you don’t believe that any species has any ability to respond to selection pressures of any kind. That’s a problem.
Is that what you think Mrs. White believed? If not, why not. (references please).
I am not trying to make you say that you don’t believe in ANY change. I am not. I am trying to define what kinds of change/evolution, you believe in, and what kind you don’t. I want to get specific, concrete and as detailed as we can while remaining at a laymen’s level. However, I am having trouble finding any change that you will endorse. I am intentionally picking examples I think you would endorse, as being OK in a YEC model, but for some reason you seem afraid to actually say yes or no.
Do you agree that changes in finches beaks, and lizard legs is evolution?
If not, what is YOUR definition of evolution?
Why do you chose to use a different definition?
Do you believe that the color of populations of moths, (not individual moths) can evolve in response to the selection pressures of pollution?
If yes, then is it not proper to talk about how the population curve evolves over time?
Do you believe that the genome of the HIV virus can evolve differently in different population groups? This is likely a different mechanism.
Do you believe Mrs. White when she talks about amalgamation, or do you believe that amalgamation is not possible?
What do you think amalgamation means?
Would you agree that it means at a minimum, the creation of new phenotypes due to hybridization? e.g. a mule.
Is it possible that it could mean more than that? Maybe it even refers to inter-species gene transfer.
We talked about donkey to horse gene transfer through the vehicle of (rare) fertile mules. Could this be an example of what Mrs. White refers to as “amalgamation”?
Remembering that the term evolution makes no intrinsic judgment as to whether, something is good, or bad, but only that it is responding to selection pressure, wouldn’t this be an example of a “degenerative evolution”, i.e. a response to the selection pressure caused by the presence of sin?
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Ron Also Commented
Walla Walla University: The Collegian Debates Evolution vs. Creation
@BobRyan:
How much post creation evoltion is allowed?
Walla Walla University: The Collegian Debates Evolution vs. Creation
@BobRyan</
I never even implied a proto life or anything other than a six day creation. I am talking about what happens after creation.
Sean thinks that at least some Darwinian evolution takes place now. How does that happen?. Did god create the mechanisms originally, and they now happen atheistically, or does He continue to be active in the process?
Walla Walla University: The Collegian Debates Evolution vs. Creation
Sean, So I think I am hearing from you that a Biblical creation model would allow for basically any kind Is htof evolution there is, or which we might discover as long as it is destructive in nature, or is not too complex. is that right? You don’t believe that it is possible to believe that significant improvements are possible and still be a creationist.
Are you able to define that bounday between significant and minor theologically?
Recent Comments by Ron
Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
Sean Pitman: No one is demanding that they “get out of the church”. . . . . anti-Adventist views on such a fundamental level.
You don’t see how characterizing a dedicated believer’s understanding of truth as “fundamentally anti-Adventist” would drive them out of the church?
I guess that explains why you don’t see that what you are doing here is fundamentally wrong.
Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
Professor Kent: Nothing saddens me more than the droves who leave the Church when they learn that many of their cherished beliefs regarding this evidence don’t hold up so well to scrutiny.
I agree. I am sure that Sean and Bob don’t mean to undermine faith in God, but every time they say that it is impossible to believe in God and in science at the same time, I feel like they are telling me that any rational person must give up their belief in God, because belief in God and rationality can’t exist in the same space. Who would want to belong to that kind of a church?
Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
Sean Pitman: and have little if anything to do with the main point of their prophetic claims
And by analogy, this appears to be a weak point in the creation argument. Who is to decide what the main point is?
It seems entirely possible that in trying to make Gen. 1 too literal, that we are missing the whole point of the story.
Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
Regarding falsifying the existence of God through the miraculous:
While it is true that one can’t falsify the existance of God and the Biblical miracles at a philosophical level, it seems to me that it is possible to falsify it at a practical level. For instance prayer for healing. How many families who pray for a miracle for a loved one in the Intensive Care Unit receive a miracle?
While the answer to that question doesn’t answer the question of the existence of God at a philosophical level, it does answer the question at a practical level. After 36 years of medical practice I can say definitively that at a practical level when it comes to miracles in the ICU, God does not exist. Even if a miracle happens latter today, it wouldn’t be enough to establish an expectation for the future. So at a practicle level it seems it is possible level to falsify the existence od God, or at least prove His nonintervention which seems to me to be pretty much the same thing at a functional level.
Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
@Sean Pitman:
Sean, what is your definition of “Neo-darwinism” as opposed to “Darwinism” as opposed to “evolution”?
