tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030110973061875792.post3817740463844203810..comments2024-03-16T21:32:23.088-04:00Comments on A Sure Word: Answering the Critics about the Five Lies of EvolutionRKBentleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00566375018731000081noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030110973061875792.post-19089104474516549642010-08-22T21:54:00.402-04:002010-08-22T21:54:00.402-04:00Steven J,
Thanks as always for your comments. It...Steven J,<br /><br />Thanks as always for your comments. It's been fun but I cannot devote all of my time to these points. I'm sure I'll address some of these again from various angles so keep visiting. Also, you might read some other posts I've already made on related topics:<br /><br />http://rkbentley.blogspot.com/2007/11/where-evolution-fails_8232.html <br />http://rkbentley.blogspot.com/2007/11/real-origin-of-species_6045.html <br />http://rkbentley.blogspot.com/2007/12/evolution-in-action_3142.html <br />http://rkbentley.blogspot.com/2008/01/microevolution-and-macroevolution_8669.html <br />http://rkbentley.blogspot.com/2009/06/peppered-moth-evolution_03.html <br />http://rkbentley.blogspot.com/2009/12/funny-thing-about-facts_01.html <br /><br />Also, you said, “By the way, I like the new look of your blog. I finally figured out what your avatar is: a Christian wielding the sword of the Spirit and wearing the full armor of God (but isn't that breastplate of righteousness a little big?).”<br /><br />Thanks. I was wondering what people thought of the new look. I'm still a little worried that the colors make it hard to read. And you couldn't make out my avatar before? I apologize. I know that some computers display my blog differently but I had no idea some people couldn't see that. I really didn't have Ephesians in mind when I chose that but that's a good comparison. I was thinking more of a “Christian soldier” angle with a little “childlike faith” thrown in. I also thought it was appropriate for my blog theme, “A Sure Word” (from Psalm 19:7), “making wise the simple.” That's one thing that's so great about art; it's means a lot of different things to different people.<br /><br />God bless!<br />RKBentleyRKBentleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00566375018731000081noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030110973061875792.post-30568770880963006162010-08-12T03:06:01.641-04:002010-08-12T03:06:01.641-04:00Regarding point ("lie") five, I see your...Regarding point ("lie") five, I see your point; I just don't see the point of your point. No one is claiming that time <i>alone</i> suffices. You practically note that yourself, when you rephrase the claim as "change and time are the only things we need." "Change" includes changes at the genetic level during reproduction: mutations. Change and time are more than time alone.<br /><br />"Microevolution" includes mutations. Granted, in some cases of microevolution, the mutations may not have figured in natural selection: the traits that spread through the population may have existed for a very long time in the population at low levels. But in some cases, such as the (micro)evolution of antibiotic resistance in monoclonal (genetically-identical) bacterial colonies, the mutations occurred during the experiment.<br /><br />I also noted the variety of observed mutations. To say (as some creationists have said, and as you may have been thinking of saying) that mutations cannot "add information" is to say, basically, that no possible change to the genome could "add information." That's pretty much the same thing as saying that a bacterium and a blue whale contain equal amounts and values of information ... which doesn't seem to argue against common descent.<br /><br />By the way, I like the new look of your blog. I finally figured out what your avatar is: a Christian wielding the sword of the Spirit and wearing the full armor of God (but isn't that breastplate of righteousness a little big?).Steven J.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15638850493907393069noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030110973061875792.post-91825766542862970812010-08-12T03:05:35.123-04:002010-08-12T03:05:35.123-04:00Regarding point (or "lie") three, I thin...Regarding point (or "lie") three, I think I failed to make myself clear.<br /><br />First, when I was listing items that creationism doesn't explain, my point was that evolutionary theory <i>does</i> explain them. They are potential tests and actual confirmations of the predictions of evolutionary theory. It is certainly not the point that anything that creationism can't explain is evidence for evolution. It is, rather, that data that evolutionary theory <i>can</i> explain are evidence for evolution -- and there are many, many such facts. <br /><br />If they were, viewed another way, evidence for creationism, then creationism could explain them: it could say that, given the methods and design philosophy of the Creator, we can predict that these things would be <i>this</i> way rather than <i>that</i> way. I was arguing against the common creationist position that different assumptions yield contrary, equally reasonable and scientific explanations of the evidence: creationism <i>doesn't</i> explain the evidence, and evolution <i>does</i>.<br /><br />My main point with regard to the Bible isn't that it isn't peer-reviewed. As I noted, even peer-reviewed articles are not assumed to establish facts in their own right that cannot be contradicted by other observations. And I argued that your point about rival interpretations based on different assumptions applies to the Bible itself, arguably more than it applies to, e.g. comparisons of homologous pseudogenes or organs. The Bible is a whole lot of data, but "Genesis is a literal inerrant account of how things began by the Person Who began them all" is not the only plausible account of those data.Steven J.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15638850493907393069noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030110973061875792.post-70084377604346471182010-08-12T03:05:23.908-04:002010-08-12T03:05:23.908-04:00Regarding point ("lie") two, I am a nonb...Regarding point ("lie") two, I am a nonbeliever and regard Genesis as myth and legend, and perhaps you will dismiss my argument on that ground (after all, if I don't buy it myself, why should you?). But I read the article about taking the Bible literally, and it seems to me that you are rather too blithe about how obvious it is whether various biblical passages are figurative or literal. <br /><br />When Jesus says that he wishes he could gather Bethsaida under his wings, okay, that's pretty clearly figurative, as the Bible is pretty clear that the Word did not become <i>chicken</i> flesh. But are "pillars of the Earth" <i>obviously</i> figurative? If you think the Earth is a flat disk (and we know that, e.g. Josephus the Jewish historian, Theophilus of Antioch the early Christian, and many others believed exactly that, because they flat-out said so -- so it isn't obviously impossible that the authors of the Old Testament also believed these things), then it isn't at all implausible or absurd that the flat Earth rests on pillars. Likewise, if you think that the sky is an opaque, solid dome over the flat Earth, references to the "windows of heaven" could be as literal as references to the mountains or the sea.<br /><br />What you think of as "obviously" literal or figurative depends heavily on what you think [a] science has actually demonstrated about the universe and [b] the biblical authors knew (or were prevented by divine inspiration from contradicting) about what science has shown about the universe. If you think that the Old Testament writers knew that the Earth was a globe that orbited the sun, then you assume that references to the "pillars of the Earth" or the immobility of the Earth are figurative. If you think they knew about common descent, you assume that the creation accounts in Genesis are figurative.Steven J.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15638850493907393069noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6030110973061875792.post-1398724377540968912010-08-12T03:05:11.598-04:002010-08-12T03:05:11.598-04:00First, thank you for your response to my post.
...First, thank you for your response to my post. <br /><br />Regarding point (or "lie") one, when evolutionists say that "evolution is a theory and a fact," they mean "evolution is both common descent with modification, which is supported by evidence to such an extent that it would be perverse not to accept it until (if ever) strong contrary evidence surfaces, and an explanation for how speciation and modification take place." In other words, the idea that we share ancestors with gorillas and goldfish is the "fact" and mutation, natural selection, genetic drift, etc. as the cause of that fact is the "theory."<br /><br />"Evolution is a fact" cannot be separated from point (or "lie") four, "evolution has been tested and proven." Evolutionists accept common ancestry because it is supported by evidence ranging from fossils to details of anatomy like the recurrent laryngeal nerve in different vertebrate species and embryonic teeth and hind limb buds in baleen whales, to the tree pattern of shared genetic traits, such as the pseudogenes and endogenous retroviruses I mentioned in an earlier post. Within our own species, we consider such shared genetic variants to be compelling evidence of shared ancestry (e.g. in paternity tests). Unless we assume <i>a priori</i> that changes in populations over time must be limited to "kinds" acceptable to creationists.<br /><br />Making predictions is not missing the point; it is the point: testing predictions is how one tells whether a theory should be counted as true or false.Steven J.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15638850493907393069noreply@blogger.com