Thank you

I think this has been a illuminating experience for me even if I have achieved nothing. It is so alien to both the academic environment I live in and my church fellowship. In one I have rigour of thought and a willingness to learn and in the other I experience people who accept the Grace of God and are interesting in knowing what the scripture mean in a post modern world and what the fellowship of the body of Christ means in practice. There is no greater that for Christians than understanding the meaning of pre-emptive grace and its consequent ethic.

I am accomplishing nothing here and find neither of these characteristics. I apologize if I have offended in my responses and in trying to maintain some integrity in the dialogue.

Now you can tear me to shreds as you are doing to those in the Church educational institutes that you cannot fathom. I remember with great sorrow the 1980′s and the loss of so many Godly people from the SDA community and am braced again for the same outcome.

Christian regards

“I believe that such rapid variation was made possible because of pre-loaded or pre-existing information within the gene pools of living things”.

1] I think you better explain the science behind that statement to me as I am just a simple scientist with a PhD in immunogenetics and I have never read anything about this in the scientific literature.

What is the precise mechanism for this? By way of background I presume in your 10 years of intense study on this topic you have become aware of some of the issues in population genetics and the critical effect of population size on survival?

Lets imagine we have 2 animals on the Ark.
Lets just pretend that they have the extremely unlikely fortune or design to be heterozygous at every loci.
That make 4 possible alternatives in the population for a gene.
Lets pretend that the mRNA and ncRNA world of regulation and SNP do not exist to make it simple.
Lets also pretend that crossover events are much much more frequent than currently observed.
Lets just image for one moment that the immune response genes with 4 alleles in the total population can effectively respond to the myriad of insults they are likely to encounter in a new expanding biosphere.
Do you seriously expect us to believe that these 4 alleles allow enough variation to respond to the other similarly highly variable organisms that fulfil this same criteria of huge genetic potential?

2] Perhaps you are thinking that there is gene duplication and expansion of the repertoire through multiple different copies of each of homologous genes and there has been loss of much of these since the flood? Is that the scenario you are proposing?

3] Indeed gene families as you will know are important components of the genome but you are running a risk here as I am usually told by experts such as yourself that random mutation is the only basis for evolution and this mechanism of genetic evolution through gene duplication and independent selection cannot occur or account for any variation or new genetic information. You of course would have to make an exception and suggest that it cannot occur except when it does by God’s hand.

4] Perhaps if you really were a scientist you could test this hypothesis. How would you do it. Perhaps you could take a bristle cone pine that was alive at the time of the flood and take some DNA and test its genome directly? You can get a total genomic sequence for about $4000 so I sure the readers on this site would contribute a few dollars to perform this critical test.

6] Maybe that wouldnt work for any of a number of reasons but perhaps you could compare pollen from the Greenland ice cores? According to your model the pollen in the deep cores would be older and those more than 4000 years old [wherever you might decide that is since you probably do not accept any of the ice core data] would have great genetic variations. Indeed according to your model they would have maybe 20x the genetic variation to compensate for the small population size. This is assuming that the minimal viable population size is around 30-35 as it is at present.

7] Maybe you dont think plants would be worth looking at since you may think that they would have survived by some mechanism outside the ark. I have heard you on 3ABN indicating that there was terrible destruction and the foundations of the deep were broken up and that the Devil feared for his very life so perhaps it was no simple flooding of a delta so I am inclined to the view that plants perhaps only survived in the ark.

5] Alternatively if you think this is not a good experiment you could take some DNA from an animal that died at the time of the flood. T Rex is obviously a candidate as you are again on video as saying that Mary Schweitzers data really does suggest that they were very recently present on the earth I can only presume less that 6000 years ago. That should give good DNA samples but I do note that there has been no sequencable DNA and Schweitzer et al are arguing against the odds for collagen sequence. So failing that the Mastadon that was also used as the comparator in her 2009 paper did at least fulfill the criteria set by others that were very critical of her work and suggested that the protein sequence data is bogus. That does seem to have some DNA.

6] In passing I am not sure if you actually believe in an ice age or when it might have occurred within your 6000 year history but there are DNA samples have been obtained from other specimens preserved in ice. Even Tyrol man may be a candidate.
According to your model you predict that there will be great genetic variation in the pre flood animals probably as a result of genetic engineering by the great antedeluvian minds. Do you think that the genetic engineering may have left some fingerprints in the sequence? Since your site is really dedicated to that task how do you propose that this design will be detected and what experiments are you planning to do in order to test it?

This is great fun! Complete stream of consciousness I can see why you like your role as crusader against infidels. We can say whatever comes into our minds and those that know no better will give us accolades for holding firm against modernity. A real scientist however proposes an explanation and a model that is testable and is honest enough to actually test it.

What you have proposed is testable. Do you have the integrity to actually test it? If you do not feel strongly about this particular model then perhaps you can propose a bit more explicit one that is testable. Until you do this it is just so much “lets pretend” and not at all science however you may dress it up.

You can have any religious conviction you want but as soon as you propose some biological mechanism you are fair game for scientific enquiry and experimental invalidation.

I would predict that your model is incorrect and that no matter where you look in the ice cores or in ancient animal remains as far back as you look and have extractable DNA you will get sequence that fits a phylogenetic analysis that is consistent with extant material. In contrast your prediction, unless you are so weazly as to resile from your stated position is that somewhere in the genomic history of life there is a point where there is great genetic potential. Do you really believe this and are you prepared to do an experiment.

Pre-emptively, since I expect you to say I should the one to take on the experimental proof, I would state that I do not have the time or resources to do such an experiment and do not consider that it is any more likely that you are correct in this than that the myriad fringe medical cures I hear of every day are likely to withstand scrutiny.

@BobRyan: OK you would like a direct approach. First some chastisement and then some comment that I unfortunately have not much hope you will read or comprehend… (obligatory rant deleted)

Skipping forward to some point where Pauluc might have content in his post…

Pauluc said … You show a gross inability to parse the meaning of a simple …

Nope – not there yet. Surely there is some point at which Pauluc makes a point in that post… fastforwarding… please wait.

If you had parsed my comment properly you would recognise that I was not suggesting I was totally ignorant of the content of scripture

I will admit thatin your prior claim to be ignorant of scripture – you had a bit more credibility as demonstrated in your post. I was inclined to believe you having demonstrated the point beyond reasonable doubt.

After all – you said…

Pauluc said:
Cannot the Church now like the early Church accept variance of opinion on major issues? Do you have the hubris to suggest you are the harvesters at the end of time and have the role of rooting out the “weeds”?

And as of this point in your post – you have given no reason at all for us to doubt your word regarding what you apparently claim not to know about the Bible or inspiration.

Pauluc said:
Lets get down to specifics. I believe that you and Darwin would totally agree on a number of critical points.

No question about that. Darwin admitted that there is no way to marry the Bible to Darwinism.

Darwin said:
I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation…. But I was very unwilling to give up my belief; I feel sure of this, for I can well remember often and often inventing day-dreams of old letters between distinguished Romans… which confirmed in the most striking manner all that was written in the Gospels. But I found it more and more difficult, with free scope given to my imagination, to invent evidence which would suffice to convince me. Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct.

. Why a natural mechanism? I might ask you and Pitman the same question. Which do you prefer? God is continually miraculously creating new species for the last 4000 years

1. Irish Wolf Hound -> Chihuahua … variation within a static genome (static in terms of coding genes present – not coding genes activated) — over a very short period of time.

2. hint: Not the act of God in making the variations.

3. This does nothing for your opening “I said I was ignorant” of the Bible but then hopefully “not really”?? –

Pauluc
Why if you choose the second option do you then criticize Darwin and Wallace and the majority of life scientists since then for taking that same option?

You miss two key points.

1. Darwin postulated long ages of time between the origin of the first cell to the origin of man – ages the he had no way to mashup into scripture.

2. Darwin’s natural selection proposed a method entirely foreign to “God spoke” and “evening and morning where the 5th day”.

Thus just stating the obvious at this point.

Pauluc
The second point that should be stressed that influences this decision is the argument from the rest of science including physics and astronomy. The nature of the heavenly bodies had been described by natural law and understandable predictable forces from Newton onwards. If miracles were no longer needed to describe the nature of mechanics and astronomy why should not the natural living world be subject to the same laws?

A nice fiction. At no point did newtonian physics of Darwin’s day predict how the universe formed or how the solar system came into being. The fiction that knowing the inverse square law for energy somehow “negated the Bible” on God forming the sun on day 4 – is a persuit of a rabbit trail that can hardly be taken seriously.

This is the magasteria of science the explanation of the physical world by natural process. As a Christian I would readily claim that there are limits to this endeavour but it is foolish to pretend it has no explanatory role.

Obviously the acceptance of the Bible has never required that we ignore the fact that “weeds grow in the yard” nor did it stop Christian scientist from inventing the radio, flight, calculus … though some evolutionist like to imagine an “either-or-fallacy” that would do just that.

Pauluc
I freely admit that where you would disagree is on the limits of that process. You would arbitarily and without any compelling evidence suggest that there is some magical limit to the ability of natural mechanisms to make changes in life forms.

Ok so the obvious point is reached.

But the alchemists “birds come from reptiles no matter what the Bible says to the contrary” is the point you are still dancing around… and it is THE point of the LSU doctrine on origins.

The ark and deluge account however does have some problems without significant miraculous interventions.

At what point does the text of Genesis say “and so a world wide flood just so-happened. It was not a direct act of God – rather it is something that just occurs on its own from time to time”.

What did I miss??

The “proof by puzzle” argument against the Bible that is of the form “yes – but how did God do…” is a pointless exercise if the conclusion is “I refuse to Believe the Word of God on subject-A until I know what God knows about this topic”.

Everyone sees it.

Why is this point so difficult for our evolutionist friends and those that suppose that evolutionism is just a great “big tent idea”??

At this point 3SG 90-91 is “instructive” to the unbiased objective reader that also accepts the Ex 20:8-11 tieback to Genesis 1:2-2:3.

in Christ,

Bob

Lets get down to specifics. I believe that you and Darwin would totally agree on a number of critical points. At least Major Pitman would appear to do so in that he suggests that evolution is a process that is continuing to occur and a mechanism that he sees as the the explanation for the diversity of species that exist in the post-deluge world today.

I do not believe that Darwinian-style evolution is responsible for the phenotypic variation that has taken place since the Noachian flood. Rather, I believe that such rapid variation was made possible because of pre-loaded or pre-existing information within the gene pools of living things. Mendalian variation is a well-known example of the potential of pre-loaded information to produce very rapid phenotypic variation.

I freely admit that where you would disagree is on the limits of that process. You would arbitarily and without any compelling evidence suggest that there is some magical limit to the ability of natural mechanisms to make changes in life forms. Darwin saw no reason for any limits on this process and suggested that the same process that gave rise to the myriad extant species could in fact be the same process that lead to diversification of all living species from some distant common ancestors.

Darwin saw no reason for any limits to RM/NS because Darwin didn’t have the information we have today. There are very clear limits to evolutionary progress based on RM/NS. If you think otherwise, please show me an example of evolution in action producing any qualitatively novel system of function which requires at least 1000 specifically arranged amino acids at minimum to work (single or multi-protein system). As far as I’ve been able to tell, there are no such examples. Why not?

The answer is because of an exponential decline in the ratio of potentially beneficial vs. non-beneficial sequences in sequence space with each step up the ladder of functional complexity. As this ratio declines exponentially, the average time necessary for RMs to find the next beneficial sequence via a random search of sequence space increases exponentially as well…

This is the basic problem for the evolutionary mechanism of RM/NS in a nutshell. It just doesn’t work beyond very low levels of functional complexity even given trillions upon trillions of years of time.

Sean Pitman
http://www.DetectingDesign.com

OK you would like a direct approach. First some chastisement and then some comment that I unfortunately have not much hope you will read or comprehend despite your protestations that you are interested in educating truth.

1] You show a gross inability to parse the meaning of a simple comment on a blog so I am not surprised you are unable to provide any sound and convincing exegesis of scripture. A failure to understand the nature of inspiration of either the bible or inspired writers such as EG White is really the basis for the lack of any comprehension of a non-literalist understanding of scripture.

2] If you had parsed my comment properly you would recognise that I was not suggesting I was totally ignorant of the content of scripture nor of the writings of Ellen White but I am aware that there is much much more to scripture than is ascertained by your hokey and beloved plain reading. This is an inspired document that I believe was written by men as they were moved by the very spirit of God. It is the message of God written by human hands. It was written in a time and place with a primary audience and to gloss over this is to fail to even attempt to understand the plain meaning let alone the nuances of what is there.

3] Lets get down to specifics. I believe that you and Darwin would totally agree on a number of critical points. At least Major Pitman would appear to do so in that he suggests that evolution is a process that is continuing to occur and a mechanism that he sees as the the explanation for the diversity of species that exist in the post-deluge world today.

This question of the origins and source of the vast diversity seen in the worlds extant creatures was precisely the point that Wallace and Darwin sought to answer in the early 19th century. To understand Darwin you must have context and a minimal grasp of history. After Carl Linnaeus began a systematic classification of species in the 18 century there was a rapid expansion of the number of recognized species. Much of this was achieved through travel and exploration and it is not surprising that both Wallace in his travels to Borneo and Darwin with his voyage on the Beagle to the Gallapagos were in the first instance primarily concerned with documenting diversity and collecting specimens.

In doing so one could not help but ask the question where did this diversity come from? By the time of Darwin and Wallaces description of natural selection, the idea of fixity of species and the possiblity of all the existing species on the earth having been housed for 6 months on an ark as rendered in detail by Kircher was in serious doubt. Not surprisingly some mechanism of continuous creation was proposed by Aggaziz at that time. The alternative however was that there was some natural mechanism for the creation of new species from pre-existing species.

Why a natural mechanism? I might ask you and Pitman the same question. Which do you prefer? God is continually miraculously creating new species for the last 4000 years to occupy all the ecological niches on the earth since all of the lifeform on the earth were taken on an ark and would likely be insufficient to account for the present species? Or there has been diversity of lifeforms albeit within strict boundaries or kinds over that period of time from a limited number of ancestors.

Why if you choose the second option do you then criticize Darwin and Wallace and the majority of life scientists since then for taking that same option?

The second point that should be stressed that influences this decision is the argument from the rest of science including physics and astronomy. The nature of the heavenly bodies had been described by natural law and understandable predictable forces from Newton onwards. If miracles were no longer needed to describe the nature of mechanics and astronomy why should not the natural living world be subject to the same laws?

Just as you would for the sake of parsimony accept a natural cause for the diversity of life after the Ark, there is no need to invoke miracles when you can explain the world in terms of natural processes. This is the magasteria of science the explanation of the physical world by natural process. As a Christian I would readily claim that there are limits to this endeavour but it is foolish to pretend it has no explanatory role. I refer back to my earlier comments on epilepsy natural explanation and the spirit world.

Up to this point from what I can glean from Major Pitmans publications he believes that micro-evolutionary processed have been responsible for much of the diversity we see in the world today. I can only assume you agree with him. If so you and Darwin would then totally agree on both mechanism and process for his primary observations and explanations.

I freely admit that where you would disagree is on the limits of that process. You would arbitarily and without any compelling evidence suggest that there is some magical limit to the ability of natural mechanisms to make changes in life forms. Darwin saw no reason for any limits on this process and suggested that the same process that gave rise to the myriad extant species could in fact be the same process that lead to diversification of all living species from some distant common ancestors.

The ark and deluge account however does have some problems without significant miraculous interventions. These include 1] the nature of genetic bottlenecks and the minimal population required to avoid extinction which is significantly more than 2 or seven. 2] The issue of biogeogrphic diversity and dispersion.

I personally think that a literalist must invoke a 3rd universal post-flood creation to be compatible with the geology and distribution of life we see now. I am surprised that this is not recorded in the bible. Perhaps taking a plain reading we are not to assume this third creation but that does create problems as we would then have no alternative to the slippery slope of 4000 years of hyper-evolution.

Some of us are acutely aware of our ignorance of what the bible is really saying and of science and the immensity of existing scientific knowledge

…Cannot the Church now like the early Church accept variance of opinion on major issues? Do you have the hubris to suggest you are the harvesters at the end of time and have the role of rooting out the “weeds”?

First of all – cudos to those who are arguing for the inclusion of the evolutionist doctrine on origins out of a self-proclaimed position of ignorance about what the Bible says.

At least we can all see that same problem with their argument.

There is a “happy fiction” that to reprove error is to be “divisive” or “less than loving”.

Christ firmly reproved error in Matt 23.

Paul firmly reproved error in 1Cor 5

And though Geraty imagines that neither Genesis 1-2:3 nor the Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 – are written well enough to support God’s summary of Genesis 1 ( given in Ex 20:8-11 stating that the creation of all life on earth takes place in 6 literal days), and though he apparently promoted that fiction while at LSU, the burden of proof rests with those who argue against the straightforward exegetically sound rendering of the text – as apparently Geraty would perfer to do.

As for remaining neutral on this point -

“If God abhors one sin above another, of which His people are guilty, it is doing nothing in case of an emergency. Indifference and neutrality in a religious crisis is regarded of God as a grievous crime and equal to the very worst type of hostility against God.” {3T 280.3}

“I have been shown that the most signal victories and the most fearful defeats have been on the turn of minutes. God requires promptness of action. Delays, doubtings, hesitation, and indecision frequently give the enemy every advantage. My brother, you need to reform. The timing of things may tell much in favor of truth. Victories are frequently lost through delays. There will be crises in this cause. Prompt and decisive action at the right time will gain glorious triumphs, while delay and neglect will result in great failures and positive dishonor to God. Rapid movements at the critical moment often disarm the enemy, and he is disappointed and vanquished, for he had expected time to lay plans and work by artifice.”
{3T 497.4}

Shake off your spiritual lethargy. Work with all your might to save your own souls and the souls of others. It is no time now to cry, “Peace and safety.” It is not silver-tongued orators that are needed to give this message. The truth in all its pointed severity must be spoken. Men of action are needed –men who will labor with earnest, ceaseless energy for the purifying of the church and the warning of the world. {5T 187.3}

Many of us are inclined to stick with the teaching of Paul in Titus 1 and 1Cor 5 on this point of correcting error that arises within the church.

Christ was pretty direct on that point in Matt 23 – and I think the other quotes given above indicate a “direct approach”.

BTW – Question on Doctrines pg 44 and 45 has an interesting perspective on this idea as well. Might want to read it when you get a minute.

in Christ,

Bob

If our church truly believes in “Sola Scriptura” then the teacher who is the “rotten apple in the barrel” needs to be given a janitorial job in place of continuing to “spoil the barrel”. If it does not accept the Bible only, then I for one shall renounce my association with the Seventh-Day Adventist church and refuse to hand out church literature or promote the Seventh-Day Adventist church as God’s remnant church in the future. [edit]