Comment on Wisbey talks about LSU and what he wants you to know by David Read.
Geanna, the chrono-genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 (A lived X years, then gave birth to B, then lived another Y years, for a total of Z years) seem to rule out skipped generations. Your best tactic for lengthening the chronology is go with Septuagint numbers, but even with those, you absolutely cannot get a world older than 10,000 years.
There is one huge alteration to your world view that will solve all of your problems: The clock is running down. Everything, all life, was better, more fine, fertile, fecund, flexible, and fruitful in the beginning. With this in mind, the creationist short chronology makes sense. The problem you are having is because you are trying to plug the mainstream scientific hypothesis for explaining genetic change in to the short chronology, and it doesn’t make any sense. Obviously, the improbable, and certainly slow and painful, hunt and peck method of natural selection acting on random DNA copying errors cannot possibly explain the extremely rapid post-Flood speciation and diversification. But I wouldn’t suggest anyone try to make it do that job. There are other, as yet unknown, methods of genetic change. But the main point is that genetic potential, the potential for multiple phenotypes, was much greater at the beginning than it is today.
David Read Also Commented
Wisbey talks about LSU and what he wants you to know
Sean, I didn’t say that “much of the genome is non-functional evolutionary garbage.” Sometimes it is hard for me to believe you’re not actually a lawyer.
When you get to pages 459-460 of my book, you will read a story of how introns made a gene more functional. I write, “This story illustrates that although we may not understand the role ‘junk DNA’ plays in regulating organic processes, it is becoming very clear that non-coding DNA has a role, and that it is not ‘junk.'”
At pages 525 to 529 I discuss a theory that the rapid post-Flood speciation and diversification that is a feature of most creationist models was aided by mobile genetic elements and horizontal gene transfer, as suggested by Todd Wood, a protege of Kurt Wise. His article is here:
http://www.grisda.org/origins/54005.pdf.
I see that Wood has a more recent article in “Origins” that I will have to peruse.
I do believe that there were genetic mechanisms that aided rapid post-Flood speciation, but since we now see greater species stability, it is a reasonable inference the mechanism(s) “turned off” somehow. Thus, I would not be surprised to find that the genome gives evidence of past functionality that is no longer functioning. That isn’t inconsistent with a creationist position. There is much we do not know about how life works, and dogmatic certainty is premature.
Wisbey talks about LSU and what he wants you to know
@Geanna Dane:
Geanna, regarding the clock running down, it is an inference that can be made based upon what is known. One thing Sean mentioned is that given the rate of mutation observed today, the human race should be extinct if it is really around two hundred thousand years old. A reasonable inference is that in past, the rate of harmful mutations was lower and has increased as time has gone on.
I’m not an expert in the molecular genetics, but the genome of humans and most species contains a very high percentage of non-coding DNA once termed “junk DNA.” Much of this code may have been functional in the past, but no longer is. For example, pseudogenes appear to be genes that were once functional but became non-functional as a result of mutations. Another example is the abundance of mobile genetic elements like transposons and retroviruses, which hint that, in a period in the past, the genome was far more flexible and amenable to useful and rapid change and modification. If the genome were studied with the assumption that “the clock is running down” rather than with the assumption that functionality and complexity are increasing through random replication errors, it would be much easier to understand and make sense of.
Wisbey talks about LSU and what he wants you to know
I like the story of the Dutch delegate who told Randal Wisbey that she would love to pick up the entire university and move it to Holland.
That makes two of us.
Recent Comments by David Read
The Reptile King
Poor Larry Geraty! He can’t understand why anyone would think him sympathetic to theistic evolution. Well, for starters, he wrote this for Spectrum last year:
“Christ tells us they will know us by our love, not by our commitment to a seven literal historical, consecutive, contiguous 24-hour day week of creation 6,000 years ago which is NOT in Genesis no matter how much the fundamentalist wing of the church would like to see it there.”
“Fundamental Belief No. 6 uses Biblical language to which we can all agree; once you start interpreting it according to anyone’s preference you begin to cut out members who have a different interpretation. I wholeheartedly affirm Scripture, but NOT the extra-Biblical interpretation of the Michigan Conference.”
So the traditional Adventist interpretation of Genesis is an “extra-Biblical interpretation” put forward by “the fundamentalist wing” of the SDA Church? What are people supposed to think about Larry Geraty’s views?
It is no mystery how LaSierra got in the condition it is in.
The Reptile King
Professor Kent says:
“I don’t do ‘orgins science.’ Not a single publication on the topic. I study contemporary biology. Plenty of publications.”
So, if you did science that related to origins, you would do it pursuant to the biblical paradigm, that is pursuant to the assumption that Genesis 1-11 is true history, correct?
The Reptile King
Well, Jeff, would it work better for you if we just closed the biology and religion departments? I’m open to that as a possible solution.
The Reptile King
Larry Geraty really did a job on LaSierra. Personally I think it is way gone, compromised beyond hope. The SDA Church should just cut its ties to LaSierra, and cut its losses.
As to the discussion on this thread, round up the usual suspects and their usual arguments.
La Sierra University Resignation Saga: Stranger-than-Fiction
It is a remarkably fair and unbiased article, and a pretty fair summary of what was said in the recorded conversation.
