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Taylor, Ervin
2012
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Here We Go Again: Goldstein vs. Evolution: Part I
Submitted: Mar 20, 2012
By Ervin Taylor
Just when one might have thought that my good friend, Clifford Goldstein, had decided that it was in his own best interest to write on topics about which he is better informed, he has returned—yet again—to one of his favorite subjects: biological evolution.
He is like a moth attracted to a flame – apparently not realizing that every time he approaches this subject, he gets burned. Since he is my friend, I really don’t want him to get injured. But what can I do? He keeps doing it to himself.
The title of his latest literary jihad in the Adventist Review (March 15, 2012) is “Changing the Debate.” He starts out with an amazing statement: “Those fighting Darwinism as a viable interpretation of Genesis are now deemed as narrow, parochial, and closed-minded.” I instantly was attracted to the comment about the “narrow, parochial, and closed-minded” part which characterized those Adventists “fighting” Darwinian evolution. I guess that is my “dark side” coming out.
However, on more serious reflection, it became clear that my good friend has regretfully mixed up several different issues in his statement. In the tradition of a well-crafted apologetic—of which Cliff is a prolific and effective producer—he has created a “straw-man” type of argument and then proceeds to argue against something which no reasonably informed person would have formulated in the first place.
As one interested in the culture history of indigenous American religions (e.g., LDS, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Science, and Adventism), I attempt to keep current on the debates from the right and left of Adventism over problems with a theological system caused by the scientific concepts of biological evolution and deep geological time. However, I am not aware of any past or present Adventist scientist or theologian of any ideological camp who argues or has argued that the Darwinian model (actually the Neo-Darwinian model, but let’s not get into the weeds here) of how biological evolution has proceeded over geological time represents “a viable interpretation of Genesis.”
Most educated individuals gave up trying to reconcile Genesis and Geology in the later 19th Century. The reason was that it was realized that these two ways of talking about “Origins” are addressing two very different kinds of origins—one dealing with the origins and development of the physical world and one dealing with the much more complicated and complex world of the nature of human consciousness and ultimate meaning.
The Neo-Darwinian model of how biological evolution proceeds is a scientifically-inspired narrative widely accepted in the contemporary scientific community because it provides a fully naturalistic explanation of how modern organisms developed from a common ancestor over hundreds of millions of years. This model has a massive body of physical evidence from a wide spectrum of scientific disciplines supporting the validity of major parts of the model.
Genesis or The Beginnings is an ancient Hebrew document that contains a theologically-inspired narrative that describes the creation of the cosmos, the earth, and all living things, including humans, through the supernatural actions of the Hebrew deity. It rounds out the narrative by adding a Hebrew version of the ancient Near Eastern “Great Flood” myth.
Trying to harmonize or reconcile these two incommensurable ways of talking about “beginnings” has been the source of a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding. Insisting that one is literally “true” and the other is literally “false” presents a completely false dichotomy. I regret that my good friend has again fallen into doing just that--again.
In Part II, we will further consider some of the misunderstandings contained in “Changing the Debate.”
PS As an entirely side comment, might I say that of all of the creation stories which have been preserved in various ancient Near Eastern textual traditions, my personal favorite is one story which is only found in the Hebrew version. It is the one that has a very intelligent snake having a philosophical and theological conversation with Eve, the Mother of all humans. You will notice that this conversation was not with Adam. In the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, a narrative much older than the Genesis account, Gilgamesh has his immortality stolen by a snake. Were Adam and Eve created immortal? I suspect that there is much more to the Hebrew “Talking Snake” story than we have typically understood. (I know, I know, later interpretations have the snake being the mouthpiece of Satan. But it would seem that this is clearly not what the original Hebrew story had in mind.)
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You say Cliff is drawn to the topic like a moth to a flame. That may also be you in the way you respond to something he has written.
By the way, who publishes or circulates Cliff's writings? How widely are they circulated? Are they really worth your time refuting them?
If the statement by Goldstein was amazing, I find this statement from brother Taylor even more so: "The Neo-Darwinian model of how biological evolution proceeds is a scientifically-inspired narrative widely accepted in the contemporary scientific community because it provides a fully naturalistic explanation of how modern organisms developed from a common ancestor over hundreds of millions of years. This model has a massive body of physical evidence from a wide spectrum of scientific disciplines supporting the validity of major parts of the model." Come again? "Massive body of physical evidence?" Give me a break! A massive body of physical evidence would include vast numbers of transitional fossils, showing the progression form simple forms to complex ones. Instead, all that exists (in spite of more than 150 years of searching), are a few "possibles," which are disputed by the experts. The evidence that does exist suggests that living organisms have not changed much over the millennia. And if the earth were as old as Taylor, et. al., believe, it is even more damaging to the theory, because with all that time available, it should have been easy to find those fossils. In fact, most fossils should be in a state of transition. But, no, what we find is organisms which bear a striking resemblance to their modern relative. Where's the evolution? It isn't there. Time to wake up from the fairy tale nightmare; the greatest hoax on earth.
But we’re getting nowhere, as usual. We can argue this ad nauseum (perhaps you think we already have :) ), and neither of us will convince the other. But don’t assume that because someone rejects the evolutionary theory, they are therefore ignorant. There are plenty of professional scientists out there who also reject it—for scientific reasons.
Lets say for a moment I agree, "scientific literature" is shot full of holes. How do these "holes" validate your beliefs? Not being able to explain something is not a logical criteria for believing in a creation myth. If you would just look at the theological history behind the genesis story I think you would be the one finding out that the story taken literally is "shot full of holes."
Evolutionary theory is backed now by powerful science such as genomics. We now have unequivocal evidence that each species did not need to be created individually by god. Even if a god started it all why would he/she not place in the fabric of life the ability to adapt and for species to change? Your problem as with most fundamentalists is that if science explains something it takes away your god. Actually, you can have them both. Its just that your faith is outside the purview of science.
On the transitional fossils get a good book by Stephen Jay Gould. You pick. You can even find some featherd dinosaurs. Look it up.
Regards
Dr. F
On the accusation side, I re-read Joes entries and I was finding it difficult to find an "accusation" per se. Those who insist genesis is a literal account of creation without acknowledging what even SDA theologians know, that it is a story, seem to me to be the closed minded ones. The "truth" in the story is what it says about humans and their ability to use stories to try to make sense of a complex world.
The fact that Genesis is an historical narrative (story), does not negate its validity as a history of how life began on planet earth.
And I'm still waiting for those transitional fossils. Even Dawkins recognizes the problem, as did Gould (hence his face-saving "punctuated equilibrium” hypothesis).
I am amazed at the wearisome attacks on science. If you propose a common designer it is up to you, not science to produce the evidence. What you are doing is saying the data is not up to your liking therefore there is room for your common designer/god.
Genesis is not a forensic history book on how our world and universe began. It is a recapitulation of the Babylonian creation myth.
On the probability arguments. In a universe where organized matter is highly improbable there it is right in front of you because the amount of matter is infinite. In a universe with infinite possibilities the rare events are guarnteed to happen.
Goldstein can only be appreciated by those Adventists who are devoted to the explanations officially given on this subject, most of who have little or no education in these sciences. Thus, Adventism sinks deeper into the beliefs of those such as JWs or LDS who need no historical evidence to document their beliefs: they were handed down from above and written in sacred books.
Many of those who do have education in these sciences and believe in evolution don't know what they're talking about. I went to a professional development seminar on drug interactions and one of the presenters told us this nice story about how the cytochrome P450 enzymes evolved. Nice story, but one based entirely on someone's imagination. It has nothing to do with reality and it is not based on any science or data. Most evolutionary explanations are like this - "just so" stories. It just so happened.....
You are confusing discussion and interpretation with evidence (specimens, data). But explanations about how evolution might have occurred, even if they are "just so" stories, are seldom based on nothing. And you don't have to believe those explanations anyway. Look at the data. Look at the evidence. If you don't believe the conclusions are warranted, don't accept them. But don't use that experience to somehow justify believing in something for which no supportive evidence at all exists. We should all be skeptical of anything that is "based entirely on someone's imagination." And where are we most likely to find this?
It is quite common for scientists with expertise on one topic to speak authoritatively about some other topic. It is also common for YEC folks who have expertise on whatever their expertise is in to speak authoritatively about scientific topics about which they have not the faintest clue.
So, there are also lots of people who have accepted evolution on the basis of what they were taught, and really do not understand much about it. Their faith may not be all that different from the faith others have in what they were taught in terms of religion.
Well said. Anectdotal stories validate nothing but ones personal experiences.
Did the Hebrews exist when the Genesis story was written?" I didn't think so. I don't believe Noah or those before him were called Hebrew. Of course, it makes sense that all the stories are similar because they came from ONE source back in time. This is where faith comes in. From all the others, Moses (?) chose this story because God inspired him to. (If we don't believe in biblical inspiration, then there is no debate.) Wouldn't God want the truest version to live on and protect it from the distortions of the others?
Obviously the ancients did not have the same worldview as we do today. They would have believed in a flat earth (land) and water (seas) since they had not traveled far. With God came light and then all the other days. We don't know how or when God created the earth time of 24-hour days. (time differs all over the cosmos.) But it could not have included eons of death and violence. The story continues with a couple placed in a garden, and they make a choice. What it means is more important than all the scientific questions we throw at it.
I don't think it makes a difference whether the flood was worldwide or not. The "world" to these ancients was their familiar area with its comfort, ease, greed, luxury, and one unwritten language. Had they continued their evil, all communication with God would have been lost (with Noah's death) They would have destroyed themselves and/or the earth (the wages of sin is death).
Since Lucifer was thrown to the earth before man, after sin he could have taken some of the original creatures and distorted them by his own hand. I recognize this is imaginative speculation; but to me it sounds as logical as some other views.
There is a mixture of fact and fantasy in your comments, Ella.
There is no evidence of who wrote Genesis: It is only tradition that gives Moses credit for writing the Torah, even his death.
Many of the early stories recorded in Genesis are a combination of early Sumerian tales but one can decide if the original tales were inspired, or the ones found in the Bible that began with the earlier ones.
Recognizing that the early humans written about in Genesis understood their world very differently, we cannot accept that their belief is somehow sacred and inspired. How much of those stories are literally true and accurate cannot be determined.
That "Lucifer was thrown to the earth before man" is an Adventist, even Christian belief, but the Creation story does not claim that at all. It is a later addition. Also, the idea that Lucifer was given creative license (from God?) to mess with creation cannot be evidenced by the Bible, but extra-biblical sources. When the Bible is silent on such subjects, we should be, also.
Lucifer was another name given Satan in the NT and is derived from two Bible texts written nine centures apart that actually have nothing to do with each other:
1. Luke 10:18 "I beheld Satan fall as lightning from heaven."
2. Is. 14:12: "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning star."
When translating the Bible, Jerome substituted "Lucifer" for the morning star. In Rev.
God is said to be the bright morning star!
There are many reasons for remembering the context when reading any ancient book, and particularly the Bible which is one of the oldest documents extant.
Keep going! You hit the nail righ on the head. The faith argument aside your point about literal interpretation is spot on. You can take a story seriously without taking it literally. The ancients were in as much awe as we are today. We just have better tools that allow us to explain some things about our world and universe which the ancients could not. The ancients used "gods" to explain natural phenomena. We use an evidence based approach and experimentation. Faith is just that, a leap into the unknown. Sometimes religion on the faith premise suggests I check my skeptical intelligence at the door.
As Cromwell said, put your faith in God and keep your powder dry.
I plead guilty to being interested in how people (including me) come to the conclusions or beliefs that they hold about religious topics and my good friend Cliff is an interesting case study. For example, I happen to be a third generation Adventist and Cliff is a convert to Adventism. In my view, these simple facts explain a great deal—not all, but at lot.
As for Mr. Butler, I’m glad that he posts on this blog. How would the rest of us learn about the extreme ends of the spectrum of views which make up the contemporary Adventist Church? Also, it allows us to get a greater insight about what is called “folk Adventism.”
I know that Mr. Butler says he like facts. I have taken some time looking up the backgrounds of scientists—many of whom do indeed have earned Ph.Ds—who have publically stated that they “question evolution.” I have discovered an interesting fact that I suspect Mr. Butler will not like. Of the 20 or 30 whose backgrounds I have checked, I found that only one did their graduate studies in a scientific specialty dealing with evolutionary biology, geology, or paleontology at a major research university. This is Dr. Kirk Wise, a Harvard Ph.D., who is one of the few young earth creationists (YECs) and young life creationists (YLCs) who are intellectually honest about the basis of their beliefs about earth history.
Dr. Wise is quite open when he states that his beliefs about the history of life on this planet are based on his theology not on science. I find that to be a refreshing contrast after reading so much of the sad writings of almost all YECs/YLCs. It is too bad that more of the scientists at the Geoscience Research Institute (GRI) were as forthcoming. (To be clear, there is one GRI scientist who has publically admitted that his belief is based more on his theology rather on the weight of the scientific evidence. His honesty and courage should be honored and celebrated)
Believing the Bible—and/or what the Bible indicates that Jesus believed—is not ridiculous.
The criticisms that Horace Butler makes have been made - and thoroughly refuted - for decades. Continuing to put them forward is, to be sure, more to be pitied than scorned, but I guess some with less patience do occasionally slide over into scorn.
I look forward to Part II of Ervin Taylor's discussion, because I believe that scorn is the wrong approach, but clear, reasoned, evidence-based critique of the fallacies and misunderstandings put forward is the most effective approach.
The posts are not ad hominem attacks. They represent a spectrum of views. The views of Horace and others that follow a YEC/common designer paradigm, if honesty were to speak, get their beliefs from a theological perspective, not scientific one.
Something I said earlier today, in a different context, on the same topic:
"Make denying reality a requirement of joining your gang, and soon all you have in your gang are crazy people..."
Maybe it seems harsh, and maybe it is, but really... it kinda sums up the situation.
In science one must always be open to new evidence and new ideas. What one believes is constantly open to revision. This is uncomfortable for many who wish to always be correct or are committed to never changing their minds. While we may believe that there is such a thing as ultimate truth, we don't expect to ever fully pin it down or be able to define all aspects of its complexity. We "hold truth gently" and tentatively until the next specimen is examined and the data are in. Then we revise and ask the next question. Change is inevitable. Those who are unwilling to change their minds are left in the dust. Need I say that those who seek ultimate truth in ancient documents, and feel that there is nothing else worth learning, condemn themselves to deep ignorance. Literally, even ignoring the wonders of the natural world, while they desperately cling to what they believe to be ultimate and complete truth.
High levels of specified complexity and irreducibly complexity are detected in biological systems through theoretical analysis, computer simulations and calculations. Their is a sea of research in this growing field. (Behe & Snoke, 2004; Dembski 1998b; Axe et al. 2008; Axe, 2010a; Axe, 2010b; Dembski and Marks 2009a; Dembski and Marks 2009b; Ewert et al. 2009; Ewert et al. 2010; Chiu et al. 2002; Durston et al. 2007; Abel and Trevors, 2006; Voie 2006), "reverse engineering" (e.g. knockout experiments) (Minnich and Meyer, 2004; McIntosh 2009a; McIntosh 2009b) or mutational sensitivity tests (Axe, 2000; Axe, 2004; Gauger et al. 2010).
The digital codes for specific biological mechinery is found in widely separated phyla and kingdoms. Similar parts are commonly found in widely different organisms. This is often called convergent evolution and is a huge surprise to Neo-Darwinism. "Many genes and functional parts not distributed in a manner predicted by ancestry, are often found in clearly unrelated organisms." (Davison, 2005; Nelson & Wells, 2003; Lönnig, 2004; Sherman 2007)
Paleoecologist Simon Conway Morris observes that convergence of the same mechanical mechanism in widely different organs poses a major difficulty for Evolution.
"During my time in the libraries I have been particularly struck by the adjectives that accompany descriptions of evolutionary convergence. Words like, 'remarkable', 'striking', 'extraordinary', or even 'astonishing' and 'uncanny' are common place...the frequency of adjectival surprise associated with descriptions of convergence suggests there is almost a feeling of unease in these similarities. Indeed, I strongly suspect that some of these biologists sense the ghost of teleology looking over their shoulders."
(Simon Conway Morris, Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe, pp. 127-128 (Cambridge University Press, 2003).)
One case in point is a very interest article in "Molecular phylogenetic evidence for the independent evolutionary origin of an arthropod compound eye," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, Vol. 99(3):1426-1430 (Feb. 5, 2002): This article explains that the extremely similar compound arthropod eyes evolved multiple times independently. Why would these important new discoveries need to be shared only in a socialogy class and not the biology class, as some would have it?
While I often do not agree with my former senator, I agree with the statement attributed to him above, that a good education does not hide evidence and ideas from students in order to protect them from non-orthodox ideas.
BTW, "convergent evolution" is one explanation for finding similar traits in distantly related species, but it is not the only possible explanation. There are somewhat less surprising notions about how those characteristics might be based on conserved genetic mechanisms. The thing that is pretty cool is that the technology now exists to distinguish between conserved and convergent derived causes.
That is part of the VEN story I mentioned above. Making sense of evidence is challenging, and I am open to the examination of all explanations, as long as they remain in the tangible real world and are not mere fantasy based on imaginary dimensions. Speculation is fine, just don't accept it as fact until the evidence is in.
To the novice reading scientific journals or visitng exhibits, it is very easy to assume one's own interpretations, based on prior "warning" that such scientific information is all very biased and the poor souls presenting this are unfamiliar with the Bible which has the true story of origins. The inability to separate subjective belief from objective evidence results in the fundamentalist's position.
You've put your questions in emotive and prejudicial language, that encodes some inaccurate assumptions, but OK.
Surely it's the task of the advocates of Intelligent Design to show how their theories make novel predictions, and then seek the evidence to test those novel predictions. That's how science proceeds (at least from a Popperian perspective, which your question seems to assume). The task of outlining the theory and its explanations clearly enough that it can be tested for falsification using evidence is a task for the scientist holding the theory. Other scientists can then both test the evidence and the inferential logic to see whether the claim is supported by all of the best available evidence.
The definition of science is not 'mindless and directionless', it is 'natural'. The domain of science is the natural (i.e. non-miraculous) world. Claims outside that domain have value - I don't subscribe to scientism - but they are not scientific claims. Saying that they are not scientific claims is descriptive, not pejorative.
Claims about supernatural involvement, then, are not scientific claims. The evidence required to support such claims is not natural, empirical evidence. Where there are claims for which natural, empirical evidence is the appropriate form of evidence, the claims are scientific - and therefore not supernatural.
Darrel,
I think you missed Joe's point. Intelligent design is not testable. It is arguable. Please design a set of experiments, not arguments where you can come up with a data set or sets of data that will argue for the "designer." I am all ears. In truth no one can do such a thing. Science is hypothesis driven and what "hypotheses" are we going to come up with to "test" the intervention of a designer?
It seems to me that just as the fossil record has become an even more puzzeling phenomena than Darwin's day--[fossil species most often appearing abruptly without similar precurors (Meyer, 2004; Lonnig, 2004; McIntosh 2009b and Gould),] the 'fossil genes' or junk DNA (over 90% of the genome) that was predicted to be useless left overs from millions of years of development has become one of Intelligent Design's strongest evidences.
That 'non-coding DNA is 'fossil junk 'in the genome was a logical prediction for evolutionary thinking. Intelligent Design's prediction was the opposite. That is that, most of the non-coding (non-coding for protein) DNA would have functionality. Fifteen years ago we didn't know who's view on this would be falsified as research came in. We are now discovering the "junk DNA" is actually part of the epigenetical 'operating system,' of the computors, not just the programs, but the amazingly complex lines of code that conducts the symphony of programs and adaptations to environmental neccessities that make life work. Examples include recently discovered surprised functionality in some pseudogenes, microRNAs, introns, LINE and ALU elements. (Sternberg, 2002, Sternberg and Shapiro, 2005; McIntosh, 2009a). I would say that the Intelligent Design has been overwelmingly non-falsified.
Probably better not to confuse the fossil record with the DNA record: two quite different things, with different standards of evidence and amounts of evidence available. You started off talking about the fossil record but the body of the post is all about DNA.
"That 'non-coding DNA is 'fossil junk 'in the genome was a logical prediction for evolutionary thinking."
No it wasn't. It was a tentative assumption, not a fundamental condition. Certainly the new knowledge that is being gained is fascinating, but (see my post above) it does not definitively support Intelligent Design (in fact, there are legitimate questions about whether it can), since there are also plausible naturalistic explanations for the observed phenomena.
I appreciate your use of the literature to edify your discussion on how the scientific community modifies and corrects its position. Ultimately a gene that is said to be "expressed" is in the form of some functional protein. 20 yrs ago we though that most of gene regulation occurred at the level of the sequence or as you descibed as the "junk" DNA that becomes "intronic" mRNA which is clipped out. Little did we know that this intronic RNA modulated mRNA translation. That discovery lead to the powerful tool SiRNA also known as the "ultimate antagonist."
Where I get lost in your argugment is that you seem to be using these current discoveries which illuminate our former understanding of gene regulation, somehow as evidence of non-falsification of the intelligent designer. Where in these papers or reviews you cite is an "intelligent designer" discussed? How does the body of literature discussing epigenetics argue for an intelligent designer? How is biological and physical complexity "evidence" of a designer? If complexity demands a complex designer then what "designs" the designer? You use the science to "argue" for an intelligent designer but the data itself does not argue for that conclusion. I find it interesting that people use science to justify what is ultimately a faith position.
In answer to your other question, about how one would falsify intelligent design, I'm just not sure how one would do that. There is no question at all (by anyone, as far as I know) that all aspects of genomes contain coded information--in a sense, that is intelligence. And, its seems to me that it is fair and appopriate to refer to all that coded information as both "intelligence" and "design." The difficulty comes in specifying how the design got there. Most ID advocates seem to say that if there is design, there must have been a designer. Some suggest that they know who the designer is/was. That does not seem to me to be a necessary conclusion. I see that there was a process that resulted in intelligent replicating molecules. I do not know how one would prove or disprove details of that process. Let's talk more about this.
What I should have added is 'Do you have a citation (or several) for Intelligent Design advocates predicting that 'junk DNA' was not in fact junk before the fact? I'm not aware of any, but it's not really my field. Retroactive 'predictions' don't count...
An impenetrable mountain of facts can obscure the deeper questions. ... scientists have coped with this by becoming more specialized with limited success; as a result they don't understand papers from other specialities...For the scientist, facts are just the starting place; every study raises 10 new questions. What makes science is ignorance. Ignorance will always grow faster than knowledge for all that we have come to know, there is far more that we don't know. That science is about the questions more than the answers should be a relief. It makes science less threatening and more friendly. It becomes a series of puzzles. Questions are more accessible and interesting than answers; answers tend to be the end of the process; whereas questions keep you in the thick of things. No one knows everything. Emphasizing ignorance is inclusive; it makes everyone feel more equal in the same way the infinity of space pares everyone down to size....
But if scientists would talk about the questions rather than boring us with jargon, and if the media reported not only on new discoveries but the questions and puzzles they created....then the public might be more interested in this great adventure of science and find it fun.
These same insights can be brought to theology as well. The Bible was written over many centuries yet provides puzzles built upon puzzles that give up their secrets to those who love them. But as soon as one questions is answered many more crop up. In heaven we shall find that we knew very little after all and will all be on an equal basis. Eternity promises to be all about learning.
Thanks for the site regarding "junk DNA," David. I haven't looked at that one yet, but I will. The "spin doctors" have been at work on this topic, so be aware that there has been some twisting of the information to suit biases. Some of the twists involve serious errors. Perhaps we would all be served well if scientists would state their discussions and speculations more often as questions than as conclusive answers. It would work well with the scientific process, as the formulation of testable hypotheses depends on carefully framing questions. It could remove some of the seemingly dogmatic discourse.
It is fine to vigorously attack what you believe to be an untenable argument. But the argument we attack should be the other person's - not our spin of that argument. What's the point of attacking someone for an argument they aren't making? Clearly, Goldstein did exactly that. He lazily distorted and misrepresented the position of Christian Darwinians. I'm glad you pointed out his fallacy. I hope it will prompt all of us (myself included) to raise our sensitivity level, and resist the temptation to advance our positions with logical fallacies.
No, but Dr's. Johnson and Watts, my colleagues study bacterial chemotaxis and they look at common genes for bacterial "motors" that provide motility for bacterium. I am in the world of the ovine and rat models studying the interaction between sympathetic nerves and cerebral blood vessel development and function. Specifically we look at how the nerves not only provide a motor influence to the blood vessels to modulate cerebral blood flow but how the nerves have an "environmental" influence as their function cause the blood vessel smooth muscle cells to develop the "contractile" phenotype. My interest in genomics comes from the tools we employ to look at gene expression. My colleagues and I have an article on nicotine exposure and modulation of the expression of the PKCepsilon gene in the heart. My contribution was all the catecholamine analysis in the heart in that model.
What I have learned from doing PCR technology and looking at cDNA sequences is the tremendous overlap of gene sequences for functional proteins between disparate species and phyla.
Currently I am working on numerous projects leading to grants. I will place a few papers below to give you some idea of what we do. I have a great career in teaching and research. By the way my name is John Buchholz. The moniker which Sean Pitman (a fundamentalist physician who has posted here) did not appreciate me using as he thought I was doing this to cover up my identity. Hardly. I use Dr F affectionately because about 7 yrs ago I was up in my office at 0300 working on a paper and a grant and 4 med students banged on my window. I opened up the my office door and one of them said "Dr. B you look very tired." Another then quipped that I looked like Clive Owen, the character in the 1930's Frankenstein movie." I guess the dark circles gave me away! So that is it! The name stuck!
I really enjoy reading your comments Joe. I gain much insight into how people think, evaluate and defend faith positions. Like you I think that religion and science are non overlapping magesteria. I think this blog is part of "life long learning."
Here are the papers. Selected from over 50. I have others in various stages of revision. Regards, Dr. F i.e. John B
Vanterpool, C.K., Vanterpool, E., Pearce, W.J. and Buchholz J.N. Advancing age selectively alters the expression of the major ryanodine receptor isoforms in adult rat superior cervical ganglia. J. Appl Physiol. 101(2): 392-400, 2006.
Behringer, E.K., Leite, L.D., Buchholz, N.E., Keeney, M.G., Pearce, W.J., Vanterpool, C.K., Wilson, S.M. and Buchholz, J.N. Development and Long-Term Hypoxia Alters Calcium-Induced Calcium Release in Sheep Cerebrovascular Sympathetic Neurons. J. Appl. Physiol. 107: 1223-1234, 2009.
Charles, SM., Zhang L., Cipolla MJ., Buchholz, JN. And Pearce, WJ.: The roles of cytosolic Ca2+ concentration and myofilament Ca2+ sensitization in Age-dependent cerebrovascular myogenic tone. Am. J. Physiol. Heart and Circ Physiol. 299: H1034-H1044, 2010.
Lawrence J., Chen M., Xiao D., Zhang H., Buchholz J.N. and Zhang L.: Fetal Nicotine Exposure Causes PKCe Gene Repression by Promoter Methylation in the Heart. Circ Res. 89: 89-97, 2011.
I thought he had a Doctorate in Religion or such. If not I stand corrected. He has come to LLU but I do not know when or if he visited any of the SS discussion groups. Indeed he would not get away with his particular debate style here. I think Erv Taylor has wanted him to come to the Centennial SS to do a presentation but not sure if he would accept such an invitation. I wish he would as I think I would learn a lot from an intelligent fundamentalist. Cliff is a paragon of the "fundamentalist eye" that you so articulately defined for us. I really enjoy your historical perspective on Adventism and theology for that matter.
Regards
Dr. F
Doctorf,
It is easy to become jaded when one has been too long on the merry-go-round and while it may not be over creation/evolution/ there have been many in our history that were just as volatile, even more so: Brinsmead, Ford, QOD? Andreasen? There will be another one when this one has run its course with no answers acceptable to all.
Isn't that as it should be? A SEARCH for truth, rather than it has already been found and we own it? Is "truth seeker" an appropriate name? Shouldn't it be "Truth Owner"?
I remember when I was a graduate student and listening to Dr. Maxwell's comments regarding the bru ha ha of Desmond Fords illumination of the Daniel prophesies. I also listened to Dr. Ford and for the life of me cannot understand why the SDA theological community got is underwear all in a bunch over his proposals. I think the 1844 myth proposed by the early SDA's was a convenient way to explain their way out of the great disappointment. HELLOOOO, Jesus did no show up!
One of the first of the complexities to challenge molecular biology's paradigm of a single DNA sequence encoding a single protein was this ‘alternative splicing,’ discovered in viruses in the 1970s.
Exons, which carry the instructions for making proteins, are interspersed with non-coding introns (non-coding for proteins that is), which used to be called 'junk-DNA' are in fact part of the operating system for celluar competors. In alternative splicing, the cell snips out introns and sews together the exons in various different orders, creating messages that code for different proteins.
It seems correct to think of DNA as a whole as both data and programming. James Shapiro's article espiecially is instructive. DNA, in combination with cellular structures and processes, are so much more complex than programming we do today. Typically, we separate code from data, and we don't think of code as data, but we're starting to as programming languages advance.
It appears more and more that the entire cell functions both as a product of DNA code and as a feedback mechanism to modify the DNA as needed. It’s like a program that contains functions for changing its own logic. How cool is that!!
The sophistication of this is truly astounding. The epigenetic revolution is year by year completely undermining natural selection based on mutations (of all things!) as a creative mechanism. That would be a prediction!
“Fearfully and wonderfully made,” indeed!
Epigenetics allows some explanation of how humans having no more functional genes than a fruit fly can be yet so phenotypically diverse from the fruit fly. What epigenetics does is expands the discussion of evolution. It does not trump it. I like your interjection of the "creator" as some sort of presumed fact. You start with God. That is fine from a faith position. Science does not because science only assumes natural causes. Supernatural causes cannot be tested.
So, among other books I read at that time was Kuo Zing-Yang's Dynamics of Behavioral Development: An Epigenetic View (1967 edition). I was studying behavioral genetics at UC Davis with Robert Murphey, and we were training Drosophila and testing various aspects of behavior. Davis was really at the "cutting-edge" of genetics and genomics in those days. Francisco Ayala and his mentor, Theodozius Dobzhansky, had recently arrived from Rockefeller, and Dobzhansky was especially interested in our work with fruitflies. More about him and Ayala later. But, suffice to say, I was deeply and passionately interested in the possible mechanisms that might better explain some epigenetic phenomena, and in possible mechanisms that might be introducing more variability into genomes and gene expression in individuals. After all, variation is the raw material which natural selection requires.
So, across the years I have been increasingly interested in seeing the discovery of many additional mechanisms that promote variation--including introduction of epigenetic variation in individuals. The explosion of research in virology associated with cancer research and efforts to understand and combat AIDS, has been especially productive. So, now we can see the kind of "arms race" that has long been going on between viruses and their hosts, as each changes and adapts in response to each other, in something one could characterize as a "self-designing" process. As you mentioned, Darrel, "alternative splicing" is one of the processes that introduces variation. And the feedback loop that clearly exists is, indeed, remarkable.
So there is much about genomic sciences that can be productively studied regardless of one's perspective on origins of life. As far as I'm concerned, everyone is free to speculate on causes or to offer explanations. I do see much value in looking at comparative primate and virus genimics and the interplay that exists. For example, the TRIM5alpha story with regard to primates and their lentiviruses (including HIV) is especially interesting and compelling.
How is it that Cliff has an advanced degree in Hebrew and yet cannot recognize genesis as a metaphorical story? I REALLY would like to hear a presentation by Cliff sometime in his area of expertise. As a scientist I mean that sincerely. I would like to hear of his understanding of how the bible was pieced together.
Good, Horace. We are together with Cliff in his careful analysis. This goes around and around and where it stops we committed SDAS know! I'm glad we have a spokesman like Cliff who tells it like it is.
MARANATHA!
Here we go again......part 2693
Or, to reframe a little:
"There is a narrow range of subjects that the non-believing liberals like to concentrate on."
Non-believing in what or whom? As far as I know *all* the posters in this thread believe in God. Claiming otherwise is judging or lying or both - and both activities are condemned in Scripture. Or does it mean 'not believing exactly as I do'? Which places yourself in the role of perfect arbiter of orthodoxy. It was a bad idea for Paul to say 'I wish others were like me', and an even worse idea for someone who has already demonstrated judgementalism or dishonesty.
"When criticising the president or the church's beliefs has had its time",
For better or worse, the Seventh-day Adventist church is run along democratic lines. That means that healthy debate about the policies of the president is a sign of a healthy democracy. The system where debate about the policies of the leader is not allowed is totalitarianism, and while I'm sure that has some attractions for the authoritarian mind, it is not how this church operates. The church's beliefs, too, are open to legitimate critique and scrutiny: the SDA church had its genesis in such scrutiny of beliefs of the Protestant churches from which its members separated themselves, and 'new light' has been the cry throughout its history.
"when pushing cheap grace with no responsibility and no need for law has been covered",
When teaching exactly what the Bible teaches on the gospel... We have a responsibility to accept Jesus' sacrifice and then walk within his will. We are not responsible for our own salvation, and cannot be. This is indeed a debate that goes around and around, however it is one in which the two 'sides' are essentially identical except for matters of emphasis. It comes down to whether someone chooses to rejoice in the freedom from sin and condemnation offered by Jesus, or to labor on, working out their own salvation with their own works: a dismal and doomed endeavour.
"and then when the gay agenda has run its course",
Treating all human beings with dignity and acceptance: the same kind that Jesus showed to the drunkards and tax collectors he hung out with, and the various women of loose virtue he befriended and saved. The Woman at the Well, the Woman Caught in Adultery, Zaccheus... all people on the outside of their society, who he reached with genuine love and acceptance. If following His example is wrong... well, it's not wrong. The culture that adjudges it to be wrong is itself wrong. Jesus is the standard for our belief... and he said nothing about homosexuality at all, but showed us the way in his attitude to the other social outcasts he encountered.
"it's back to pushing evolution".
AKA acknowledging the nature of reality. The body of evidence for evolution is immense. Closing your eyes and putting your hands over your ears and going 'Lalalala' will not make that go away. A mature faith must engage with the world, and the Word, as it is, and must read the Book of Nature as well as the Book of Scripture.
"Unbelieving liberals" describes it pretty well, and you helped illustrate his point, David, when you showed that you do not believe that the apostle Paul was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write what he did. It follows, therefore, that you also do not believe what he wrote to Timothy in his second epistle (II Tim. 3:16).
You proved his point again when you said, "We are not responsible for our own salvation." So, when Paul says to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, apparently he had a gross misunderstanding of the gospel Apparently Jesus was confused, as well, when He said that only those who endure to the end will be saved. You sound just like the Baptists.
Everything pagophilus said is correct, but you took his words and twisted them; a favorite tactic of liberals and "progressives."
The "body of evidence for evolution" is miniscule or nonexistent. The spin doctors have duped you and many others. I have much more faith in the Bible than I do it pseudo scientists who deny any possibility for origins other than evolution. That's not science, it's blind faith in an unprovable hypothesis.
I enjoyed reading your interjection of your faith as some fact. You have the personal prerogative of rejecting the evidence but that does not help your argument. So I guess I join the ranks of "pseudo scientist"? My publication record says otherwise. It seems to me you lack a fundamental understanding of what science is, what it can and cannot do?
What would a doctorate do for him? How do you figure he travels on tithe dollars? Of course we know his salary is from tithe but travels?
Good questions. On the travel issue, if he is traveling on church business but receives no compensation he can write off his costs against his tax bill.
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding;" - Proverbs 3:5
Science is based on nothing more than the understanding of man. Man is flawed, and our understanding is limited. People like going on and on about the "mountain of evidence" that is 100% based on man's understanding and explanation of things. It has always baffled me to hear people say they believe in God and then try to limit God to working within parameters that they can know and understand. The problem with Mr. Geelan's statement above is that it seeks to place the "Book of Nature" on even ground with the Word of God. People do not want to admit that they have traded in faith in God for faith in man's understaning of the "natural world". Life rule #1...nothing trumps the Word of God! Nothing! Those who believe in darwinian evolution have declared that it is the best explanation of how we got to this point in human existance. Whose explanation is it? Whose understanding is it based on? Mankind's or God's? If we look at the "mountain of evidence" and come to the conclussion that God's Word is wrong, whose understanding are we putting our faith in? As the Proverb above says, God asks us to put our faith and trust in Him. God's Word says the He created all life on earth, a relatively short time ago, and the only "mountain of evidence" I need to trust Him is Calvary.
Quantum is a human theory. You would not be able to post on this internet forum without it.
Evolution is a human theory that is as well supported as quantum.
I'll say, with Galileo "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
Young earth creationism is a relatively recent innovation in Christian doctrine: just in the past century and a half or so. It is *not* the inevitable and only possible understanding of the Bible, no matter how many times that claim is repeated.
I'll leave it there, I guess, and what on Part II of Erv's discussion, which I'm looking forward to.
Where have you been? Not that I know you (then again, do I?), but your point about being baffled by people who “say they believe in God and then try to limit God to working within parameters that they can know and understand” was basically the point of my fairly recent blog entitled Help Me.
If the Bible is not reliable insofar as what it says about the God it describes, then what is the point? (Besides isn’t it in the Bible where we find the information—about “Nature’s Book”—that “the heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth His handywork”?)
Darrel,
Wow! I could not have said it better. If I could, I surely would have by now; that’s for sure.
Horace,
Thanks for hanging in there brother!
Just went and read your Help Me blog and i don't know how I missed that, but it was very well stated. When I have some time I will certainly read through the discourse that resulted. Don't know if we have ever met, but reading through your bio, it is very possible you might have known my father Ron Lindsey, or my grandfather Harold Lindsey, as they both spent time at Oakwood.
What is called the "Word of God" is only man's word and description of God as he perceived Him. Which is more reliable: the evidence of God in all of nature, or man's idea of God who he has never seen? Man's ideas of God has changed over the centuries; nature is a constant reminder of the unchanging seasons, the certainty of continuing life which can always be relied upon: the sun always rises in the east; summer follows spring; gravity is unchangeable; the speed of light is constant; the moon cycles every 28 days.
Claiming that the objective evidence is PROOF of a designer? Not so much.... But at least the objective evidence can get us all on the same page, if we can be sure to not decide in advance where the evidence leads. Let's keep working and obtaining information and follow the evidence--not the interpretations of the evidence.
In Satan, we are dealing with an adversary that can rape our five senses, till we don't know up from down. I mean he even appeared to Christ Himself as an angel of light, and what did Christ rely on to overcome this assault on His senses? The Word of His Father. Extolling the virtue of man's understanding, above the Word of God, plays right into Satan's hands. People even do it when relegating the Bible to nothing but man's book on his perception of God. By saying that the Bible is just as flawed as the men that put pen to paper, you put more faith, in the flaws of men to insert their error into scripture, than you do in God's ability to preserve His truth throughout scripture.
Accusatory personal denigrations:
" Clearly you have not studied the Word of God enough to understand the bigger picture of the conflict between Christ and Satan"
have no place in civil discourse. This is both a personal insult and an indicaion of arrogancy on the part of the writer. Either present a reasoned argument or refrain from such ad hominem attacks which indicate a paucity of objective responses.
Mr. Geelan, denigration and insult were not my intent. I do apologize.
There is a notation at the end of comment to "preview" which allows one to read back his comment and check it for errors or inaccuracies before "add comment."
I can see why Ron drew the conclusion that he did, however. And I don't think it rises (descends?) to the level of an ad hominem attack. At worst it was an unsubstantiated assumption.
Onward!
Galileo was on trial for spreading the heretical notion that the earth orbits the sun. The church based on an erroneous human interpretation of Scripture claimed that Galileo's work contradicted the Word of God.
I assume (and hope) all those now posting accept that the sun is at the centre of our solar system. They were not convinced of that by Scripture, but by the empirical evidence: and corrected their interpretation of Scripture in the light of that evidence.
It is this interpretation layer that is often neglected by or invisible to the proponents of Young Earth Creationism. They say 'the Bible says' when they ought to say 'my interpretation of the Bible says'. And even if the Bible itself is assumed to be inerrant, human interpretations have erred before and will err again.
Science admittedly looks at all evidence from the perspective of "God must be left out of any and all explanations". How on earth can any person not see the problem with that if in fact God does exist? Science has no business dealing with the origins of man because science boldly says that any and all explanations must leave God out. That is fine when designing an internal cumbustion engine, but not when dealing with our origins.
David, you still have not addressed any of my questions dealing with the greater conflict between Christ and Satan. Do you believe Satan even exists, and if so do you believe he has an agenda? If he does, how does YEC fit into that agenda, and how might Darwinian evolution fit? Do you know of anyone who has ever been lead away from God because of their belief in YEC? Can you honestly say that a belief in Darwinian Evolution has never lead a person away from God? Do you seriously not see the spiritual implications between the two world views? If Darwin's theory is based on science and science stipulates that no explanation can include God then where does that leave us? Where does that leave God?
Galileo's position did not require that God be removed from the explanation. Darwin's position does.
I am also not a fan of black and white oppositions. I have seen all sorts of rubbish written: if you're not a fundamentalist you must be a liberal, if the Bible is not verablly inspired and inerrant then it is full of mistakes, if Ellen White is not an inerrant prophet then she is a false prophet, etc. Teh fact is that the world is not so simple. There are far more options than merely the two extremes so many want us to choose between. The humanness of both the Bible and Ellen White causes many questions to be raised, but I'd rather live with some uncertainty from not being able to all the questions than choose an extreme that cannot be supported by Scripture, reason, nor any other means, and that inevitably results in people losing their faith.
Scientists do not have the luxury when doing scientific investigations of ascribing causation to God. Science does not say you can't believe in God. It just says, if you move outside the physical dimension, the methods of science no longer work.
True, there are times when what is learned from the scientific process does not conform with what is thought on the basis of what are believed to be nonphysical (e.g., spiritual) sources. There can be no scientific basis for confirming or denying that a spiritual dimension exists. That is a self-defined limitation of the scientific method. It is not a denial of God nor rebellion against God.
Science studies what it can study. Its results are always incomplete and subject to evidence-based revision. This flexibility makes some people very uncomfortable. They want more certainty. Methods in science have been developed to help estimate levels of certainty (actually, levels of "confidence"). BUT, remember, all that is done in science has to be within the tangible, physical world.
It seems to me that when people choose to believe things about the physical world based on nonphysical (e.g., spiritual) information, they begin to encounter difficult problems. In a sense, the burden of proof is on them to show that nonphysical data are superior to physical data. And that is very difficult. Perhaps the solution would be for the spiritual dimension to be put to use to solve spiritual problems, whatever those are, rather than trying to challenge science at its own game.
Joe, in the greater narrative of the Creation Myth, perhaps that desire "for more certainty" drew Eve to the shadow of the apple tree, in pursuit of "knowing"; in other words, hypothesizing that she could know the difference between good and evil via an obsservable "test". Perhaps the gilded serpent himself, who did NOT yet die, brought forth fasle assumption, and said "surely you shall not die" because he himself was still alive, arguing the physical evidence to posit spiritual conclusion).
In the myth, God is silent on so much. How long did He strive with lucifer to bring him back from the abyss? A view of a grace-based, merciful to a thousand generations loving God who seeks to save the prodigal, the coin, the one sheep- that NONE be lost surely suggests (at least to me) a LONG time.
That one CANNOT, as you rightly suggest, test the spiritual on the basis of the observable physical is perhaps suggestive of the schism between the brains hemispheres. Psychoneuroscience provocatively suggests that the anterior fissure between anterior/posterier quadrants further precludes mans ability to have unity, both within himself, as well in the broader sense between individuals, and churches.
It is hard to be a left-brain christian in a right brain church. Just ask Jesus!
Agreed on the nonphysical, but at all about God?
I believe God does act in the physical world, most of the time in very predictable ways, occasionally in unpredictable ways. Could the study of the predictable non-changing laws of nature be a study of God?
Would be interesting if science could observe a supenatural post creation God intervention. There are plenty in the Bible, but unfortunately they aren't reproducible. Should science conclude, or make any statements about, Biblical or extra Biblical purported supernatural interventions just because it can't reproduce them? If God does intervene supernaturally in the physical world, any claims that scientists make that all physical reality has a natural cause are faith claims.
Did Mary have irrefutable proof of God? The angel visit and her pregnancy.
I don't see any reason why we shouldn't be able to scientifically discover evidence of supernatural actions in the natural world. The crux of the matter is whether a scientist must rule out the supernatural? I don't see why (s)he should. If God exists and acts supernaturally, then science that denies His existence and His actions will always find many wrong explanations when studying a supernatural intervention (like creation).
The science of the study of God, is it not theology?
Nature irrefutably speaks of wonderment that man cannot in its totality contain. Some try...
Science, through the study of the natural does not try DENY existence of God, at all, (although there are individuals within science who wish to do so)but seems certain individual christians (literal biblicist creationists, not Christianity as a bloc) wish to deny science (yet claim it 'proves' God).
Is this not height of disengenuous contradiction?
Man's christianity can neither claim contain all of Theology - although the exclusive claim is too oft made...
Scientists (who are just humans) can and do have opinions about the existence or actions of God in the physical dimension, but those really are only opinions--and they can range from being highly consistent with physical evidence to not at all consistent with that evidence. If a scientist says God does not act on the physical world, this is merely an opinion. He can, of course, honestly say, it is his belief that there is no God--but he cannot scientifically prove that.
The closest we can come with science is to measure that which we can measure physically and see how much of the variance we can account for. We can hardly ever, if ever, account for all the variance. One could claim that some of the unaccounted for variance was accounted for by supernatural factors, but science has no means of measuring non-natural factors.
So, once again, it is not science as a method of knowing or as a body of evidence that denies the existence of God. Individual scientists may, but when they do they are expressing an opinion--not POLICY of science.
When science falsifies conclusions about the physical world that people have reached on the basis of spiritually based information, it has not denied the existence of a spiritual dimension--it has only falsified the conclusion about the physical world. An honest person must then question whether the conclusion about the physical world was accurate, or whether there could be some other explanation for the disagreement.
I do not think people who are spiritually committed need to deny that science could have reached conclusions that are valid and disagree with what they had believed.
"I don't see any reason why we shouldn't be able to scientifically discover evidence of supernatural actions in the natural world."
What are you suggestions to how such scientific tests could be performed? IOW, how can an objective and falsifiable test have undeniable evidence of supernatural action?
"Supernatural" has been in the eye of the beholder. It was common in past ages to attribute miracles to events that we now can understand. Were they "supernatural" then but explained today by our ability to more carefully examine actions? What is the meaning of "supernatural"? To someone who knows little if anything about the scientific world, many things appear miraculous; but to the informed expert, the explanations are rather simple.
Almost immediately after the prayer, as I watched and photographed the clouds, the incoming storm seemed to veer miraculously to the left, away from the church, and though a few yards from the church property the rain pelted the ground in celestial torrents, the church and it's unfinished roof stood tall on dry land. "Wow!" I thought. "What a miracle." Soon we saw motorists pausing on the roadway, waving at us and honking horns, and word of the miracle raced up and down Main Street. It was an amazing show of Almighty force that evoked comments from the public throughout the week.
Only later did I discover that meandering weather fronts were actually quite well known in that particular area next to the airport, in particular to long-time residents. The population at large was not as invested in the natural phenomenon created by currents of weather coursing through the complicated valleys and alleys of the local mountain range, but the oldtimers new. "Well, you know what they call this area, don't you?" one old-timer challenged me. "Sun Valley. People build their homes here because a lot of the weather seems to bypass us right here. We don't understand it, but it's been going on for as long as anyone's lived here. That's why it's called Sun Valley."
To the newby, the left-veering storm was a clear evidence of divine Providence intervening in an oracular way to honor the faith of that roof-building team and its devout pastor. It may well have been, I don't know, but the miracle occurred within the context of a natural phenomenon known to more experienced residents of the area to have been happening for many decades. There seems to be an anxious thirst among some Christians for "miracle stories" that vindicate trust in an intimate and personal God watching over his children. While as a Christian I recognize that someone up there is watching, and watching to preserve good things and good people on earth, the Adventist Great Controversy theme contains an underlying motif that God CANNOT and WILL NOT work supernaturally to defeat Satan, except in extraordinary circumstances—Jesus himself refused to throw himself from the temple cupola, citing Bible teachings that we are not to "test" the Lord, our God. There is a sense in the Great Controversy theme that some kind of rulebook signed by the parties in the controversy limits God's ability to preserve and protect his children, lest his followers follow him simply for the advantages of protection. It has been my experience that most miralces are "explainable" without appealing to the supernatural. God appears to be bound by the laws of nature, at this time; he can intervene, but most of the time he seems bound to use conventional laws of nature.
ED
Ed has provided a classic illustration of the problem of objectively verifiying supernatural events. If one wants a "miracle" it should not be too difficult to be part of an experience with a low probability of occurring. Since I have had those experiences, I assume that almost all individuals have. It is not that supernatural events may occur, the problem is that there is no means of objectively determining their cause. If one wishes to say that a "miracle" occurred, I'm not aware of any reason to question that an individual believes some event to have been a miracle or of supernatural origin. The problem comes when one is expected to believe that the supernatural event of someone else has any meaning beyond the individual who has expereienced and believes in it.
The observation about extension of credibility beyond the individual who experiences a miracle is on-point. Miracles are most meaningful to the direct recipient(s). While their testimony about that miracle can be powerful to create faith among those who hear it, it does not have the same power. Oh, how I wish we could hear more of those testimonies so we could catch a greater sight of God's love at work in our lives!
Let me tell you about the miracle I saw just two weeks ago. We have a young family in our church with three children who were living with the wife's parents. His business had collapsed and they had lost their home so they were struggling to get back on their fiscal feet and re-establish themselves as a family unit. The time came that they found an apartment. They needed help moving. I got a text message about it on Thursday and that evening put out an e-mail to the church asking for helpers on Sunday. I never know how many people will show up, what resources we will have, or how long the work will take. What was more, my back was hurting so I couldn't do any heavy lifting. Still, we had five pickups, two vans and 11 volunteers. The work was done in about three hours, including delivery of a washer and dryer that they needed. To the family it was a great surprise and miracle. It was a great blessing to those of us who were God's hands that day. What they shared at church spread the blessing and had multiple impacts that I observed with the faith of others being strengthened and more people wanting to get involved on similar projects in the future so they can be part of delivering miracles.
As I have mentioned before, I am a scientist, I am not an atheist, I am not a "believer," and I am not a disciple of Chuck Darwin. "Darwinists," I think, make a little too much of what the man knew 150 years ago and see a little too much of him in current discoveries. The man simply did not know much about genetics or the mechanisms of evolution. He did recognize the power of "natural selection" when Alfred Russel Wallace pointed it out. We may never know whether Darwin independently thought up that concept. Both of them could see the powerful implications of selection, but both also knew it would not explain everything, because it was also necessary to explain the origins of genetic variation.
I am not an "atheist" because I do not think all the evidence in the world can PROVE the nonexistence of God (or anything else).
I am not a "believer" because I found no concept of God that I can honestly accept.
So, I am left with recognition of science as a means of gaining and evaluating knowledge--knowledge held gently and tentatively while the questions it raises are explored.
This does not diminish my awe and appreciation of nature. It seems wonderful to be part of a dynamic and constructive process that has endogenous self-correcting and self-designing intelligence. And "natural selection" is just a term that describes one part of that process. We can demonstrate that artificial selection occurs. Why do people have such difficulty with the concept of natural selection?
Perhaps the too-tightly clutched literal view that 'God selects everything' (how? perhaps through natural law we are not aware of? Predetermined? Individual -and arbitrary? etc) precludes willingness to try see beyond this one teeny bit of "truth".
I cannot believe that my belief in God would foreclose HOW he does certain things.
Natural selection perhaps is just as immutable law as gravity, or conception, or thermodynamics.
What exactly is the implication of a christian who believes he knows all there is to know of God's agencies, inspite His apparent deafening silence in scripture? Seems He spoke first through nature to first man, if one ascribes veracity at all to the creation narrative. Dare we be so arrogant to so limit God to OUR (even changing) understanding?
"I am not an "atheist" because I do not think all the evidence in the world can PROVE the nonexistence of God (or anything else).
I am not a "believer" because I found no concept of God that I can honestly accept.
Are they not the statements of an agnostic: One who can neither prove or disprove a god? If that cannot be done, there is no reason to believe is there?
Belief can be difficult. Have you tried asking God to reveal himself to you so that you will truly know what He is like and whether or not you can believe in Him in spite of how others misrepresent Him? His answers since I made that request have changed my life and replaced dogma with faith.
To be completely candid, however, I have not tried what you suggest lately, nor do I feel any inclination to do so. It would be easy for a believer to conclude that I have committed "the unpardonable sin," and consequently no longer feel the urgings of the Spirit. That explanation does not seem valid to me. It seems to me like just another part of a system contrived to answer all questions.
Since asking God to reveal himself to you worked for you, I can understand why you suggest that method to others. Why it works for some people and not for others is somewhat of a mystery, isn't it? I would say it might depend on how sincere one was when the request was made, but I cannot imagine being any more sincere about anything than I was about that request during that phase of my life.
I now suspect that prayer changes the one who is praying, rather than summoning external aid. My thirst for knowledge and understanding continues unabated, and I feel quite fulfilled with friends, family, and the awesomeness of nature. I also enjoy my professional colleagues and friends, especially those in a society I incorporated more than 35 years ago, the American Society of Primatologists, which meets every year. I just do not read into reality some of the things I was taught as a child or believed as a young person--although, to be fair, I should also say that learning to value truth and beauty and honesty and nature sunk in pretty deeply and continue to sustain me. I feel fortunate to have a changed perspective on life and its meaning.
I've been in your shoes.
Are you listening and watching for God's answers? Or, are you demanding the answers to certain arguments and letting the volume of your complaints drown-out God's gentle answers? That was me a number of years back until I reached such a point of spiritual desperation and hopelessness that I literally had no more fight left in me and I would never really know Him. Thankfully, faith truly is a gift from God. At my point of greatest darkness, when I felt as if I was trapped in a room with no light, He did not suddenly open a window and blind me with His glory. Instead, He poked a pinhole in my wall of hopelessness to gently remind me that He loved me so much that He was willing to look past what I was and work inside me to make me what He wanted me to become.
Its time to ask God again.
For those who grew up with this heritage, it is imossible to ignore the idea of "God." One does not have to believe in God to find it one of the most important philosophical questions.
There are many stories of dragons and unicorns, yet none exist: the fact that language exists for a concept does not guarantee that there is a reality that corresponds to that language.
I am not making the argument that God does not exist, I am challenging a poor argument for God's existence. There are better ones.
But this is also off topic: evolutionary theory is not atheism, and atheism is not evolutionary theory. There is correlation but not direct causation. For that reason, discussion of theism or otherwise is a different discussion from whether evolutionary theory is the best available naturalistic explanation for the world we see around us.
The question "Why" is deeply ingrained in humans, and is evident from early childhood on. When people cannot answer the question adequately, or just get tired of trying, they make up answers. Sometimes these are guesses, but often they are designed to end a sequence of questions. "Because that's the way God made it" is one such answer. But, of course, that just begs the question, "why?"
Of making many questions there is no end. Maybe it is better to just get used to it.
Humans seem to have invented gods or a God as a part of their effort to understand things and gain power over one another. Even the use of Santa Claus and other invented characters to get children to "be good" testifies to the value of using imaginary beings to control others. And the seriousness of the message increases when the imaginary is presented as more real than reality and transcendent beyond our lifetimes into eternity, and the point is drummed in daily and weekly throughout one's young life. How could those of us reared as SDAs not come away from our early experience with some deeply embedded feelings about God, eternal life, life's meaning, etc.? And we are not the the only ones who have been programmed in this fashion. Every child is constantly learning a "style of life" from its family context.
BTW, adding an "ology" onto something does not make it use scientific methods--maybe the meaning is more like "seeking understanding of," which could use scientific methods or not. "Theology" is a bit like "psychology" in that sense. Even though many psychologists define their field as "the scientific study of behavior and cognition," others see it as "the application of methods that foster mental health," or something else. In much of life, we find various shades of meaning and fulfillment.
I'm not saying we should not invent meaning for our lives. I'm not even saying we all need to be aware of when we have invented meaning. But I am not always comfortable living within meanings invented by others, especially if they are presenting something they or others invented as if it is an absolute reality within which I must live and accept their story (and forego paradise and burn in hell, to boot). And if that makes me seem to be a rebel, so be it. At least it is honest.
Thank you very much Joe. I can't help but think that some anger toward abusive religion has predisposed many of us to naturalism. I understand! Naturalism oviates the need to worry about ultimate truth and meaning. I would simply say, this is the wrong path; it is not leading us to freedom or clear thinking.
Dr. Richard Rorty, Richard Dawkins, Will Provine, among others have well stated the reductionistic case.
Reductionism negates any ability to come to any meaning of anything that is actually 'true.' The very foundations of any epistimology is destroyed. “The idea that one species of organism is, unlike all the others, oriented not just toward its own prosperity but toward Truth, is as un-Darwinian as the idea that every human being has a built-in moral compass—a conscience that swings free of both social history and individual luck.”
”Untruth and Consequences,” The New Republic, July 31, 1995, pp. 32-36.
Darwin himself understood these implications of naturalism, “The horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?”
Darwin, Letter to William Graham, Down, July 3rd, 1881. In The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin Including an Autobiographical Chapter, ed. Francis Darwin Appleton and Co. 1887), vol 1 Pg. 255
Shall we not agree to avoid this "bridge to nowhere."
"We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."
Richard Lewontin, Billions and billions of demons (review of The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan, 1997), The New York Review, p. 31, 9 January 1997.
I certainly do not think of myself as a reductionist. It is clear to me that levels of organization and function exists that are more than the sum of their parts. It also seems to me that at any point where functional organization exists, variability exists, and where there is variability, there can be inequality of effectiveness--such that the more effective variants are more likely to be sustained and the less effective variants are likely to be eliminated. This means, among other things, that characterizations of biological function at various levels, along with environmental contexts are informative and worthwhile--regardless of where it leads.
So, I'm not sure that any assertions about the "rightness" or "wrongness" of such an approach holds any weight. Those who do not wish to obtain the values of such approaches need not engage in them. There is some freedom in that. And I do think "clear thinking" requires an open approach that is not constrained by "knowing" in advance what conclusions will be reached.
Anyway, thank you for your reasonableness and your willingness to examine and think about things.
I have discovered that it is easy to miss the mark and be misunderstood in these blogs. I am figuring them out slowly.
God bless
"Fear God, and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth . . . "
Martin
Dr. Taylor has objective evidence on his side of this debate. I have appreciated Dr. Lindensmith's interest in examining objective scientific evidence. That is a step forward. While it is clear that some will believe what they have been told and wish to believe without regard for evidence, it is refreshing to see that some SDAs are willing to openly consider evidence on its merit.
It is clear, however, that traditional brittle dogma is alive and well--even pervasive--among this sample of SDAs. The attitude is prevalent that "it is as it is because I believe it to be so."
"Creation science," however, unnecessarily incorporates a bias in its very name. It is out to prove a particular point of view based on assumptions that cannot be proven. It just seeks to prove itself. How? By seeking to falsify all possible alternatives? Is that even possible? Of course, many socalled "creation scientists" have abandoned a "young earth" position because the evidence falsifying the 6000 year old earth is so compelling that even they discard it as not possible.
There are people who call themselves "evolutionary biologists." For the most part, they are not seeking to validate evolution as a process. They are trying to see how biological change has occurred across time. For them, the question is not IF evolution has occurred (many biological changes certainly have happened), but HOW it has occurred in the past and continues to occur in the present. They are not tied to trying to defend what Darwin or Wallace said 150 years ago, because it is not assumed that what they said was true in every detail. In fact, scientific studies continue to reexamine previous data and ideas, and revise, and replace them with more accurate information, which are also open to revision on the basis of new information.
Your assertions essentially claim that science is mostly invalid regardless of its orientation is, itself, nothing more than an assertion, and a pretty bizarre and erroneous one too, that cannot stand up to examination and argument. The point I keep trying to make, is that one must carefully examine objective EVIDENCE, and recognize that explanations and interpretations are just that. It takes some skill to examine evidence in an appropriate context and to figure out and explain what the evidence means. Not everyone will agree on what evidence means. That's fine. But to claim that physical evidence is not really evidence, and that the methods that have been devised to help us better obtain and evaluate physical evidence are equivalent in epistemological value to ideas people have invented regarding some dimension for which no physical evidence exists, is nothing more than bizarre magical thinking, I mean, "that's crazy talk." And, ultimately, you are correct that discussion is useless (if a party to the discussion seriously believes what you assert).
What in the world is an "accessory tone?" All I'm saying is that you cannot successfully make the point that opinions based on tangible evidence are equivalent to opinions based on...what? Nothing? Or, at best, idle speculation, or spiritual authority. If you wish to live in the spiritual world, fine, do that. But do not claim that opinions about evidence from the tangible physical world have no more credibility than opinions based on "evidence" from the spiritual dimension. You cannot win such an argument and no sane person should allow you to do so.
That is to say, if any of Jesus’ reported or recorded miracles actually took place, then reliance on so-called tangible evidence for anything, insofar as anything contradicting the Bible’s account (of anything), is rendered meaningless.
Do you understand my question? If so, do you agree? If not, why not?
The quality of evidence varies in terms of objectivity, measurability, documentation, durability, replicability, physical trangibility, etc. The credibility of the source of the information is also a clue.
The extent to which we see something as a "miracle" has to do with whether it conforms with common experience or not. To be a "miracle" an event must be unusual and must apparently contradict what we usually think of as the cause-and-effect relationship we see in the physical world, e.g., turning water to wine, walking on water, etc. And many so-called "miracles" are transient, so the only "evidence," in many cases, is a report by an individual, or, a little better, of additional witnesses. Eye witness reports, however, are known to be remarkably unreliable, even when the various witnesses are otherwise quite honest and credible people.
So the best we can have with regard to the miracles of Jesus seems to be the reports in scripture of these events. Perhaps the reports are accurate. One can believe they are, or believe they are not, or simply recognize that we cannot know one way or the other. Demonstrating that they COULD have happened, does not provide any tangible evidence that they DID happen, and in a sense, detracts from the claims that they were "supernatural." To believe one must simply rely on "faith."
By contrast, one can evaluate genomic information or fossil specimens repeatedly, and the contexts can be thoroughly evaluated and measured in multiple ways. Estimates and interpretations will vary, but if additional measures are needed to answer questions, these are often possible. If someone doubts the veracity of the chimpanzee genome, it is possible (and advisable) to evaluate aspects of the genomes of other chimpanzees. Individual differences and population differences are more likely to be found in some aspects of the genome than in others. The findings from chimpanzees and gorillas and humans and orangutans and rhesus monkeys and mouse lemurs and dugongs and elephants can all be objectively obtained and compared. The brains and hearts and livers and bones can be compared. These are tangible physical realities. They can be compared with physical specimens from extinct animals that died more than 10,000 years ago, and their morphology can be compared with fossil specimens from hundreds of thousand and many tens of millions of years ago.
So what in the world are you asking of me, Stephen? Are you asking me to compare reports from a couple of thousand years ago regarding events that one can believe might have actually occurred, with tangible physical evidence that any sighted person can see and often even touch, that can be repeatedly measured, etc.? The quality of evidence is hugely different, and the tangible evidence is far more credible to me, than is belief in reports of transient events.
As I've said before, the physical evidence does not falsify the concept of God or of God the creator. What it does falsify is that the story of the creation occurred as described in Genesis when interpreted to mean that the events described occurred about 6000 years ago. I do not think that alone needs to knock down the house of cards that many believers have built for themselves, or have been blindly led to believe. Personally, I think faith should be able to handle accurate and tangible evidence.
Someone should write a book and call it "Speaking truth to faith."
I suppose it is a hypothetical question, and of course you don’t need to answer it. The point is that if Jesus performed miracles that defied laws of physics or gravity or biology, or whatever; then those laws and any scientific or tangible evidence that contradicts any Biblical claim is irrelevant for practical purposes of belief.
My thinking is that Jesus performed these miracles to provide proof that God can do anything He wants to do; and that there is a reason for faith.
If Jesus hadn’t performed any miracles, or if others had not been scripturally recorded, I would have NO REASON to believe that God can hear and answer prayer.
It is only because I believe that God can and does answer prayer that I’ve experienced and witnessed answers to prayer.
If belief in miracles is necessary to be a Christian, the church will lose millions of members overnight. Silly me, I always thought that a Christian was known by his love and desire to follow Christ's teachings, not his reported miracles.
I can only tell you what (and how it) works for me. I would not believe that Jesus was the Son of God or that His statements were any more valuable or His life more worthy of emulation or His philosophy of love any more meaningful than anybody else’s if he had not performed the miracles. That may not say much for me, but it is what it is.
If I did not believe that He raised people from death, or made blind people see, or walked on water, or fed a multitude with a one person’s lunch, etc., I would not be a Christian; nor would I believe that God hears and answers prayers in Jesus’ name.
To be even more frank, I probably would not believe that He Himself was raised from the dead, or notice—or recognize—that He provides for and protects me if there weren’t (so many) scripturally recorded miracles; i.e. unexplained or inexplicable stuff. (I am generally quite skeptical—and cynical.)
I'm with Stephen on this one.
Yes, Jesus definitely was a man who lived in Palestine 2,000 years ago. However, the documentation for the events were only from His followers; not that they were insincere, but Herodutus was most sincere in his "Histories" but much could not be verified. There was no evidence outside the NT to verify the many acts that were attributed to him, as miracles, by there very nature or subjective and cannot be "proved."
Two Jewish contemporary writers, Philo and Josephus, wrote that they had heard of a man named Jesus but neither had seen Him. Mormons are happy to validate everything about the early Mormon history in America in the first century, but validation? It's all in the Book of Mormon, just as the record of Jesus is in the Bible, and just as the miracles of Mohamed is recorded in the Koran. All called "sacred scriptures."
The argument that no one would risk his life for something that is a lie needs to explain why thousands of sincere Muslims have been willing to do that; or that Jim Jones' followers did not sincerely believe him, or that hundreds of Mormons were also willing to go to their deaths for their beliefs. Is that the way truth is to be evaluated? How many wars have been fought for religious reasons; each side claiming the "truth"? Millions of Jews gave their lives in the Holocaust, refusing to abdicate their religion and ethnicity. The Jews and Palestinians have been engaged in a long struggle because they refuse to surrender their religious beliefs that God gave them their land.
The disciples most sincerely believed that miracles proved that Jesus was the Messiah. Does Christianity rise or fall on believing in miracles? I hope not.
The principles left us should far outshadow reported miracles. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved." It did not say "Believe on the miracles Jesus' performed and only then will you be saved.
Why would anyone believe another person to be God without some supernatural evidence?
People are very willing to die for a lie. People who are, or have been, willing to die for a lie generally believe it to be true; do they not?
Horace’s point is that people are not willing to die for that which they know to be a lie; and that there were numerous eyewitnesses to Jesus’ miracles who were the earliest Christians.
Who said anything about Jesus believed as God when he walked the earth? That was a later belief written in the Gospels, approximately one generation later which was time for beliefs to be fostered. Always it should be remembered that the Gospel were not written at the same time of the events but much later.
No, people will die for what is "truth" for them. Nowhere did I say that people would die for a known lie. Belief does not depend on the truth, but only a subject decision. "Followers" designate those who believe in the principles of a leader, i.e., Martin Luther, Gandhi, etc.
A parallel question, of course Horace, is what and who are you reading? I suspect by the way you describe them you are not reading (at least with an open mind) the 'very liberal skeptics'. If you confine yourself to an echo chamber of creationist literature it's unsurprising that you incorrectly believe the balance of scientific evidence favours recent creationism.
Not assuming, asking: what do you read?
My intention is not to convince Christians but to help them to understand why they have decided to reject all other beliefs and accept Christianity or Adventism. Without comparing other beliefs, how can one be certain this is the only possible truth?
Is truth defined by popularity? Just as those who have always lived in a small village tucked away in the mountains and have never visited outside are positive their village is the very best in the world. This is based on their most limited exposure but mostly because they are very comfortable with the known--and are very uncomfortable with change--a good description of Fundamentalism.
If you only read the "law and testimony" how can you be so certain that they alone have all the truth necessary? Do you not interpret while you read? Or do you accept others' interpretation?
These are the same rules that JWs and Mormons apply to their beliefs. They are true because they have been told not to investigate anything else. No critical thinking required, simply believe. How can anyone know for absolute certainty that their beliefs are correct in every detail, compared to what? Who needs to think when he merely accepts?
An old saying Erwin - "what goes around comes around". One would therefore conclude that with your PhD in the field of science it would be in your best interest to write on topics about which you are better informed and not dally in the field of womens ordination as some of your other blogs indicate.
On the other hand, I left the church forty years ago. My training and expertise is in biological psychology and primatology. So, when I comment regarding equity and fairness for women in the church, it is as an outsider, viewing an issue in the church that similar to one that has been pretty successfully addressed in academia. From outside, organizations not committed to gender equity and fairness look out of touch with reality, at least in North America, and surely also in many other places.
Nor, do any of the G.C. president or vice presidents have qualifications that give them expertise in the sciences. It has never prevent them from pontifcating on all aspects. Hmmm--could this be why the SDA church is so behind the times, scientifically?