9) Natural
Selection is another word for Evolution
OK,
to be perfectly honest, I can't recall hearing an evolutionist
actually say, “Natural selection is another word for evolution.”
Instead, what I hear are evolutionists who constantly use the two
words interchangeably. Here's are some excerpts from a PBS.org
article titled, Natural
Selection in Real Time:
Darwin
thought that evolution took place over hundreds or thousands of years
and was impossible to witness in a human lifetime. Peter and Rosemary
Grant have seen evolution
happen over the course of just two years.
Do
you see? The title says, “Natural
Selection”
in real time but the opening paragraph says the Grants “have seen
evolution
happen over the course of just two years.” PBS is immediately
beginning to confuse the terms. The article goes on to describe a
long drought in the Galapagos Islands and how finches with bigger
beaks could break open seeds while the birds with smaller beaks
starved. The article climaxes to say:
In
1978 the Grants returned to Daphne Major to document the effect of
the drought on the next generation of medium ground finches. They
measured the offspring and compared their beak size to that of the
previous (pre-drought) generations. They found the offsprings' beaks
to be 3 to 4% larger than their grandparents'. The Grants had
documented natural
selection
in action.
[bold added]
What
we see in this PBS article is typical of what I read from mainstream,
pop-science articles all the time. They shamelessly conflate natural
selection
and evolution
as though an example of one is evidence for the other.
Here's
another example from ScienceDaily
that I've used on my blog before.
Countering
the widespread view of evolution
as a process played out over the course of eons, evolutionary
biologists have shown that natural selection
can turn on a dime -- within months -- as a population's needs
change.
Look
how they changed from saying evolution
to natural
selection
in the same sentence. Have they no shame? Here's a still more
brazen example where this is done in an article
aimed
at educating children!
Natural
selection is the term that's used to refer to the natural evolution
over time of a species in which only the genes that help it adapt and
survive are present.
Tsk,
tsk. Natural
selection is the opposite of evolution. I dare say many
evolutionists don't even understand their own theory. I can't blame
all evolutionists, though, because I think the laymen have been
intentionally misled by the so-called elite. Scientists, and those
who publish the articles consumed by the general public, should be
more careful about how they use these words. They're not careful,
though. I think they're happy for the confusion because they can use
examples of what we do observe (natural selection) as evidence for
what we don't observe (evolution). They lie.
10) Evolution
is compatible with the Bible
From
a Nature.com
article, we read the following:
Scientists
would do better to offer some constructive thoughts of their own. For
religious scientists, this may involve taking the time to talk to
students about how they personally reconcile their beliefs with their
research. Secular researchers should talk to others in order to
understand how faiths have come to terms with science. All scientists
whose classes are faced with such concerns should familiarize
themselves with some basic arguments as to why evolution, cosmology
and geology are not competing with religion. When they walk into the
lecture hall, they should be prepared to talk about what science can
and cannot do, and how it fits in with different religious beliefs.
That's
curious. When I think about what the Bible says and about what
evolution or the Big Bang theories say, I see some immediate
difficulties:
BIBLE
: Earth before the sun (Genesis 1:1, Genesis 1:14-15)
EVOLUTION:
Sun before the earth
BIBLE:
Plants before marine life (Genesis 1:20, Genesis 1:24)
EVOLUTION:
Marine life before plants
BIBLE:
Birds before land animals (Genesis 1:20, Genesis 1:24-25)
EVOLUTION:
Land animals before birds
BIBLE:
Man created at the beginning of creation (Mark 10:6)
EVOLUTION:
Man appears near the end of creation
BIBLE:
Sin before death (Romans 5:12)
EVOLUTION:
Death before sin
The
plain words of the Bible are the opposite of some scientific theories
in many areas. It's not debatable. So how do scientists make their
theories “fit” with the Bible? Do they tweak their theories? Of
course not. In order to make the Bible compatible with evolution, we
must compromise on what the Bible says. That's exactly what too many
Christians do. There have been a plethora of theories invented by
Christians for the sole reason of making the Bible seem to agree with
scientific fads – things like theistic evolution, progressive
creationism, the Gap theory, the day-age theory, etc. These
questionable hermeneutics not only make a mockery of a
straightforward reading of the Bible, they seldom accomplish the
intended goal of making Scripture fit with evolution.
Look,
scientists
teach science. I get it. The prevailing scientific theories
regarding origins are evolution and the Big Bang so these are what
are being taught in science classrooms. Again, I get it. But their scientific credentials do not qualify them to tell me how to interpret Scripture! Why do they feel the need to say this? I'll
tell you: it's not because they really care how well their theory
comports with the Bible but, rather, they say it in order to trick
hesitant, creationist students into compromising on their beliefs.
Shame on them.
6 comments:
[9] "Evolution" is defined by biologists as change in the frequency of inheritable traits in a population over time. You may feel that such changes are constrained by some unknown phenomenon so that they cannot, e.g. change a population of monkeys into populations of chimpanzees, orangutans, humans, etc., but no such constraining force is known to science. You may feel, further, that "evolution" should not be used to describe changes in populations that you can reconcile with your theology, but the scientific community does not agree with you, and they decide on what the scientific definition of "evolution" is.
Natural selection is a cause of evolution. They are in principle distinct, but it is difficult to demonstrate natural selection acting on a population without showing that the frequency of inheritable traits in the population has changed. And conversely, fast changes in gene frequency are a strong indicator that something in the environment makes some traits more useful to survival than others.
Note that removing traits from a population leaves room for other traits to become more common, so natural selection can make traits more common as well as less common. And the need for mutation to add new alleles to the population does not mean that natural selection is unimportant as a cause of evolution.
You don't really understand evolution better than actual biologists do. The fact that they understand their ideas better than you does not make them liars.
[10] Evolutionary theory as such takes no position on whether the sun or the Earth originated first. I'm not sure that Big Bang theory takes such a position, and certainly that position is not a distinctive feature of big bang cosmologies (since the planetisimal theory of solar system formation is compatible with Big Bang, steady-state, and presumably any other old-universe cosmologies one might come up with).
You mean that evolution implies (contra a plain reading of Genesis) that marine animals appeared before land plants, since marine plants existed before land plants and are presumably coeval with marine animals.
It has been suggested since the 19th century that the gadolim tanninim of Genesis 1 are not "great whales" but "giant reptiles." Old Earth creationists tend to run with this idea, and hold that Genesis 1:21 makes birds coeval with dinosaurs, in agreement with mainstream paleontology.
Surely your next point should be simply "evolution holds that humans appeared more than three billion years after the first appearance of life on Earth, rather than a scant three days later." After all, creation was apparently pretty nearly done when God got around to creating humans "in our own image," so the order (if not the timing) actually fairly well agrees between Genesis and evolution.
The idea that the "days" in Genesis are not literal periods of time and hence do not provide a chronology goes back to Augustine (who, granted, was a young-Earth instant-creationist). The idea that they represent long periods of time goes back at least to the middle ages, before there was any need to reconcile Genesis and geology.
Is meteorology compatible with the Bible? The Bible attributes rain to God opening the windows in the sky (Genesis 6:11) to allow the waters above the sky to fall through them as rain (Genesis 1:7). That's somewhat in disagreement with modern ideas that attribute rain to purely material causes such as air pressure, humidity, and windspeed and temperature, and hold that the sky is not, in fact, a solid come with a supercelestial ocean atop it.
Is embryology compatible with the Bible? The Bible, to be sure, says little about the sequence of embryonic development, but simply states that humans are made in the womb by God, whereas modern developmental biology attributes the entire process to material causes such as gene activation and hormonal gradients.
Evolution -- even if you lump it in with the idea of the Big Bang and an old Earth -- is not the only set of theories in modern science that can be reconciled with the Bible only by some creative and non-literal readings of the text.
Steven J,
You said, “9) "Evolution" is defined by biologists as change in the frequency of inheritable traits in a population over time.”
“Evolution” has several definitions, even among biologists. It includes not only the change in the frequency of alleles but also “descent with modification” and the idea that all biodiversity on earth has descended from a common ancestor. The problem is, explaining how bears could become polar bears, for example, doesn't explain how dinosaurs could become birds – even though they both fit the definition of evolution.
You said, “You may feel, further, that "evolution" should not be used to describe changes in populations that you can reconcile with your theology, but the scientific community does not agree with you, and they decide on what the scientific definition of "evolution" is.”
I'm sorry but you're wrong. Of course scientists can use evolution any way they'd like when talking among themselves. However, when laypeople are talking about the theory, or when scientists are talking to laypeople, the “correct” definition is the one understood by everyone. Besides, when a scientist says that evolution is a fact, do you think he's not including the idea that men evolved from an ape-like ancestor?
You said, “Natural selection is a cause of evolution.”
Evolution indeed does require natural selection but natural selection doesn't necessarily lead to evolution.
You said, “You don't really understand evolution better than actual biologists do. The fact that they understand their ideas better than you does not make them liars.”
You know, I know, and the scientists who write these things aimed at the public know that natural selection and evolution are two different things. Yet my examples clearly demonstrate that they are not careful to describe them as different things. I may not understand biology as well as a PhD biologist but even I know that saying, “Natural selection is the term that's used to refer to the natural evolution over time of a species” is grossly misleading. It sure sounds like he's saying natural selection = evolution. I'm not sure of the credentials of the person who wrote that but if he's a biologist, I'd say he's lying because he is the one who should know even better than me.
You said, “10) Evolutionary theory as such takes no position on whether the sun or the Earth originated first.”
OK, quibble noted. I'm using “evolution” in this context as an umbrella-term that includes all secular theories of our origins. Unlike evolutionists who equivocate over the word, “evolution,” I believe anyone reading my post will know what I intend the word to mean in this post.
In the rest of your comment, you're dealing with apples and oranges. Anyone can cherry pick a sentence or verse and see it's obviously an expression. That doesn't mean any passage in the Bible that doesn't square with scientific opinion must me figurative. If I said, “I could eat a horse,” most people would immediately understand I'm using hyperbole. If, instead, I wrote two chapters in a book describing how I'm going to hunt, kill, butcher, and cook a horse, most people would immediately understand that I mean I'm really going to eat a horse. That's the difference between the verses you cite and the detailed description of the creation.
Consider too that, in Exodus, God referenced the 6 days of creation in the middle of the 10 Commandments. Paul talked about Satan being in the Garden. Jesus quoted from Genesis 1&2 when talking about the first male and female; He mentioned Abel by name; He compared His second coming to the world at the time of Noah's Flood. They're obviously not using expressions but are talking about real events.
Besides all that – this is an exercise of language. I could see this being done in an English class – not a science class. It should be discussed by theologians – not biologists.
Thanks for visiting. God bless!!
RKBentley
I'm using “evolution” in this context as an umbrella-term that includes all secular theories of our origins.
Even old-Earth creationists like Hugh Ross do better. There is a certain arrogance in demanding that scientists somehow express themselves in a way that takes into account every possible way that laymen misunderstand and misuse scientific terms.
Anyone can cherry pick a sentence or verse and see it's obviously an expression.
"Anyone" is a very broad term. Even today, there are people like Gerardus Bouw who interpret, e.g. Psalm 93:1 to mean that the Earth, in fact, is fixed immobile in space (a view that was, of course, much more common before the 17th century). Before that, we know from surviving texts from Flavius Josephus and the book of Enoch that Jews in the first centuries BC and AD routinely interpreted the Bible as teaching that the sky was literally a solid dome, with hatchways, over the flat disk of the Earth. There's nothing "obviously" figurative in such language; it makes perfect sense read literally (as generations of readers read it); we simply happen to know (and here you agree with "scientific opinion") that on these points the plain sense of the Bible is wrong (so, you hold, it can't possibly be what the Bible really means -- while insisting that it can't possibly be figurative when it comes to, e.g. the age of the Earth).
Side note: you yourself note that Genesis 1 puts the origin of the Earth before that of the sun. Is that not very odd, from a heliocentric viewpoint? It's like building a house, and then digging the foundation. Omnipotence could accomplish this, of course -- but omnipotence could create fish and keep them alive for a while before later creating an ocean for them to swim in, or create herbivores before creating plants to eat. Genesis 1 seems to be an attempt to describe foundations being created before things that need them are created -- but making the Earth before the sun only makes sense on a geocentric (or flat-Earth) model (which, again, was of course the traditional reading of the text). Again, you don't really read the Bible in the "obvious" sense, but in a sense that reconciles its various passages with each other and with so much of modern thought as you embrace.
Oh, and there's nothing in Genesis to suggest that the serpent was Satan; why should snakes be condemned to leglessness just because one serpent was taken over and mind-controlled (to the extent that snakes have minds) by an evil spirit? Paul though that the serpent was Satan because his theology couldn't blame the Fall on a talking reptile.
Steven J,
You said, “There is a certain arrogance in demanding that scientists somehow express themselves in a way that takes into account every possible way that laymen misunderstand and misuse scientific terms.”
Scientists call the descent of all biodiversity from one common ancestor, “evolution.”
Scientists call dinosaurs turning into birds, “evolution.”
Scientists call the percentage of dark moths in a population changing from 45% to 50% in successive generations, “evolution.”
It's everyone else who must consider every possible meaning of the word, “evolution” when it is used by evolutionists.
If laymen misunderstand scientific terms, it's often because scientists misuse them. I'm not asking that we further muddy the water; I would like more clarity. Evolutionists need to understand that, in the creation/evolution debate, the contention is over ape-to-man type evolution, not wolf-to-dog. What am I saying?! Of course evolutionists understand this! They just continue to call any kind of change, “evolution” so that they can use something like a change in the number of dark moths in a population as evidence that apes could turn into men.
Oh, and don't forget, they often say, “evolution” when they mean, “natural selection” and vice versa. I don't really buy your argument that biologists seem to conflate the terms because they understand their theory so well.
Thanks for visiting and for your comments. God bless!!
RKBentley
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