Senior Expert
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 11,321
Virginia, USA
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Hi JCL, Thank you for your thoughts on all of this. Here are a few of mine as well: Quote:
You can interpret the bible in two ways:
a) Religious interpretation: The bible is a book of parables that contain a deeper wisdom.
b) Superstitious interpretation: The bible is a book of miracle stories that literally happened.
Frankly, I do not like these classifications. The reason being is that the second one places people who believe this way in the realm of being superstitious, which is often looked at as being primitive. This may not be the case at all. I would much rather prefer the following two classifications:
a) literal interpretation: Taking the Bible at face value in most cases
b) non-literal interpretation: Alegorizing the Bible in many cases
I take a literal approach to interpreting Scripture and I will attempt to tell you why. I will also tell you that this approach has nothing to do with believing the Bible to be true or not. I believe this is a very important point.
Words have meanings and it is wrong to place meaning on words and/or phrases that the words/phrases do not necessarily carry. For example, if my wife says, "I love you!" I would be wrong to imply that she means that she believes a frog will cross the road lugging an AK-47 loaded with nuclear tipped bullets (obviously, I am being overly silly in this example  ). Instead, unless I have reason to believe otherwise, I am forced to conclude that her words mean simply what she stated. I bring this up because of this statement of yours:
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I was even told in my Christian education that the bible supports the Big Bang and the Evolution theories. ("Let there be light" - that's the Big Bang. "God separated the light from the darkness" - that's the background radiation. If you want.).
I look at the words "And God said, Let there be light." and I get this from it: God made a statement. His statement was "Let there be light" and the end result was light. Please note that I am not stating whether I believe this statement to be true or not. I am also not stating that anyone else should or should not believe that this is how light came into existance. What I am stating is that this is what the words say and therefore I should take them at that meaning no matter what I believe.
I suppose that what I am trying to say is that we should treat the Bible in the same manner that any other ancient document (or modern, for that matter) is treated. In other words, we read the words and take them for what they are. This has nothing to do with believing those words to be true or not, but we should not twist any document simply because we don't believe what it states or agree with its message. We may find an ancient text that gives details about the life of some ancient king. It may contradict what other ancient texts state about the same individual. But we do not change the meaning of the words of any of these texts. Instead, based on whatever evidence there is, we make a decision to believe the document or not. This should be how the Bible is approached as well. The words are often simple ("In the beginning God created ...") and therefore do not even lend themselves to another meaning. I contend that the Bible plainly teaches that God created the heavens and the earth and that it teaches that He did so via his word (i.e. "He said"). Someone may not believe that at all. That is fine. Do not change the text to read as you like simply because someone does not believe it.
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The normal Christian approach is a), therefore Christianity has no problem with science and evolution.
Some Christian sects however interpret the bible as in b). As we've seen in this thread, that gets you indeed into a lot of problems with science and the scientific observations in our world in general - not only in evolution.
Even the "not normal" Christian does not have problems with science . This idea is a total misunderstanding. What many Christians have a problem with is certain ideas or theories within science, not science itself. It is false to say a Christian has problems with science because he or she has problems with evolution. It simply means they have problems with the concept of evolution as they interpret the data, not with science. It would be nice if we were to keep these distinctions clear. There are many scientists themselves that are indeed creation scientists:
(Note: The following list is very incomplete. Inclusion of any person on this list does idoes not indicate anything about their religious beliefs.)
* Gerald E. Aardsma (physicist and radiocarbon dating)
* Louis Agassiz (helped develop the study of glacial geology and of ichthyology)
* Alexander Arndt (analytical chemist, etc.) [more info]
* Steven A. Austin (geologist and coal formation expert) [more info]
* Charles Babbage (helped develop science of computers / developed actuarial tables and the calculating machine)
* Francis Bacon (developed the Scientific Method)
* Thomas G. Barnes (physicist) [more info]
* Robert Boyle (helped develop sciences of chemistry and gas dynamics)
* Wernher von Braun (pioneer of rocketry and space exploration)
* David Brewster (helped develop science of optical mineralogy)
* Arthur V. Chadwick (geologist) [more info]
* Melvin Alonzo Cook (physical chemist, Nobel Prize nominee) [more info]
* Georges Cuvier (helped develop sciences of comparative anatomy and vertebrate paleontology)
* Humphry Davy (helped develop science of thermokinetics)
* Donald B. DeYoung (physicist, specializing in solid-state, nuclear science and astronomy) [more info]
* Henri Fabre (helped develop science of insect entomology)
* Michael Faraday (helped develop science of electromagnetics / developed the Field Theory / invented the electric generator)
* Danny R. Faulkner (astronomer) [more info]
* Ambrose Fleming (helped develop science of electronics / invented thermionic valve)
* Robert V. Gentry (physicist and chemist) [more info]
* Duane T. Gish (biochemist) [more info]
* John Grebe (chemist) [more info]
* Joseph Henry (invented the electric motor and the galvanometer / discovered self-induction)
* William Herschel (helped develop science of galactic astronomy / discovered double stars / developed the Global Star Catalog)
* George F. Howe (botanist) [more info]
* D. Russell Humphreys (award-winning physicist) [more info]
* James P. Joule (developed reversible thermodynamics)
* Johann Kepler (helped develop science of physical astronomy / developed the Ephemeris Tables)
* John W. Klotz (geneticist and biologist) [more info]
* Leonid Korochkin (geneticist) [more info]
* Lane P. Lester (geneticist and biologist) [more info]
* Carolus Linnaeus (helped develop sciences of taxonomy and systematic biology / developed the Classification System)
* Joseph Lister (helped develop science of antiseptic surgery)
* Frank L. Marsh (biologist) [more info]
* Matthew Maury (helped develop science of oceanography/hydrography)
* James Clerk Maxwell (helped develop the science of electrodynamics)
* Gregor Mendel (founded the modern science of genetics)
* Samuel F. B. Morse (invented the telegraph)
* Isaac Newton (helped develop science of dynamics and the discipline of calculus / father of the Law of Gravity / invented the reflecting telescope)
* Gary E. Parker (biologist and paleontologist) [more info]
* Blaise Pascal (helped develop science of hydrostatics / invented the barometer)
* Louis Pasteur (helped develop science of bacteriology / discovered the Law of Biogenesis / invented fermentation control / developed vaccinations and immunizations)
* William Ramsay (helped develop the science of isotopic chemistry / discovered inert gases)
* John Ray (helped develop science of biology and natural science)
* Lord Rayleigh (helped develop science of dimensional analysis)
* Bernhard Riemann (helped develop non-Euclidean geometry)
* James Simpson (helped develop the field of gynecology / developed the use of chloroform)
* Nicholas Steno (helped develop the science of stratigraphy)
* George Stokes (helped develop science of fluid mechanics)
* Charles B. Thaxton (chemist) [more info]
* William Thompson (Lord Kelvin) (helped develop sciences of thermodynamics and energetics / invented the Absolute Temperature Scale / developed the Trans-Atlantic Cable)
* Larry Vardiman (astrophysicist and geophysicist) [more info]
* Leonardo da Vinci (helped develop science of hydraulics)
* Rudolf Virchow (helped develop science of pathology)
* A.J. (Monty) White (chemist) [more info]
* A.E. Wilder-Smith (chemist and pharmacology expert) [more info]
* John Woodward (helped develop the science of paleontology)
Each of the above individuals holds a doctorate in a science related field.
Here is an interesting quote from Science Digest(Larry Hatfield, "Educators Against Darwin," Science Digest Special (Winter 1979), pp. 94-96.):
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Scientists who utterly reject Evolution may be one of our fastest-growing controversial minorities... Many of the scientists supporting this position hold impressive credentials in science.
I give this list and the above quote only to support my concept that Christians and religious people who hold to a creationist view do not have problems with science, but with certain concepts and theories accepted within science itself.
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If you observe a stone flying through the air, and know the law of gravity, you can precisely calculate from which place it was thrown.
Actually, no. This is not correct. You would need to know at least the original amount of energy put into the stone (the original velocity of the stone). Without knowing this you cannot accurately determine the starting place of the stone's throw. For example, if a kid throws a stone and you only see it just before it hits the ground (i.e. at the point where the force of gravity is overtaking the inertia of the stone) or if someone fired the stone from a sling shot (more initial inertia) and you see it at the point just before it hits the ground then you are only seeing the stone (in both cases) with approx. the same amount of energy. You cannot therefore know from how far the stone was thrown or shot. There are just too many variables in this situation.
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Just like the crows example. A mutation leads to a change in behavior.
You state this as fact. Do you have any scientific evidence to support this claim?
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Early birds probably didn't have nests, but hatched their eggs on the ground. Later birds built nests on the ground, and this eventually evolved into building more sophisticated nests in trees.
This is quite an assumption and it is an assumption based purely on evolutionary thought, but it is an assumption that is not based on observation. Observation is a key to science. We come up with ideas and test them and then observe the results. We then modify our ideas best on what we observe. This is basic science.
If we study birds and their nesting habits then we find that some birds certainly nest on the ground, some in the rocks and some in trees, etc. What we do not observe is a type of bird nesting on the ground suddenly (or even gradually) nesting in the trees. For generation after generation the same type of bird nests in the same way without deviation. This observation would indicate that birds did not all begin nesting on the ground and then evolve into tree nesting animals. Instead, this observation would lend itself to the idea that a Robin has always built its nest in the same manner. This observation is further solidified by tests we can do (i.e. hatching a Robin egg in an incubator and then, when grown, observing the same bird build a Robin nest, etc). I would think that scientific observation would lead us to different conclusions then your "probability".
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Yes, this is the basic creationist belief, but as they failed so far to give any proof for this other than their faith, I consider this belief unfounded.
It has nothing to do with a "creationist belief". It has to do with science. Do we have evidence of a random mutation adding information? What scientific evidence of this kind do we have? On the other hand it has certainly been observed that random mutations can decrease or take away information.
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Simple math tells you that a random mutation mostly is information neutral, but sometimes adds information ("alleles") to the gene pool. This usually happens when a changed DNA sequence codes a different proteine with a new property that didn't exist before.
I am sure you have heard the old phrase, "You can't get something from nothing!" How can a mutation (and a random one at that) add information that was not there before? I could understand a re-aranging of information already present and/or the loss of information resulting in differing behaviors, but not something completely new added. For example, if you take away one of a dog's legs so that he only has three then he has lost something, but behaves a bit differently than other dogs. No new genetic code has been added, but the behavior has changed a bit to compensate.
I think an example that we can understand is the breading of dogs. It is clear that all dogs, no matter their size, come from wolves somewhere along the line. When we breed dogs we are not breeding IN new information in order to make a poodle or a Great Dane. Instead, we are actually breeding OUT undesirable traits in order to keep only the traits we want. As a result, while it seems many of these dogs (pure breads) aquire new traits in actuality they do not. In fact, pure bread dogs tend to have a lot of physical problems (heart problems, respritory problems, etc) ... problems that their cousins, the wolves, do not exibit. These problems stem from a loss of information, not a gain. And the benefits (greater speed, larger bodies, longer ears, etc) are not a result of new genetic information gained, but by information being lost thus allowing other traits (traits that were already in the gene code) to dominate. It could very well be possible that random mutations could cause a loss of information that could cause recessive data to dominate where once they did not and this is what we are observing as "new" data.
Many, many years ago scientists would observe a piece of cloth in a jar and later see worms in the jar with the cloth. Based on this observation they would conclude that the worms came from the cloth or that life came from non-life. Today we laugh at such an idea and, yet, these ideas that new information comes into existance via random mutations sounds very much like it. We see the cloth and later worms. We see the animal and then a new behavior. I am certain I am not making my point very clearly, but I am guessing we will one day look back and laugh at this notion of mutations creating new information.
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The materialist view is that a complex enough brain automatically develops consciousness.
And based on this we feel that if we simply make a complex enough machine it will eventually develop a consciousness as well. This is, after all, the stated goal of computing ... to create an artifically intelligent and self-aware machine. But this is an interesting thing to me. Whether we will ever achieve a true artificial intelligence or not is not what I want to debate here. But there is something to see in this process. These machines, if they ever develop a conscious, will not do it alone. It will happen because mankind worked toward this goal. The machine may or may not turn out as we expect, but we will have had our hand in its beginnings. Consciousness will come from unconsciousness by the guiding hand of man (in this case) ... it will not come about by random chance.
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Further mutations let the birds only drop the nut in certain situtions, i.e. when the traffic stopped, and only in front of the wheels. Learning probably was also involved - for instance, pick up the nuts only when the traffic wasn't going.
Are you actually saying that the birds that crack nuts under the wheels of cars have experienced a mutation and that those that do not have not experienced this mutation? In other words, if we were to take an egg from one of these birds, hatch it in an incubator and then release it (where there aren't any of its kind, but there are streets, cars and stop lights) that this bird will start to crack nuts under the wheels of cars at stop lights? I don't think so. If it was an actual mutation then there should be some way to check this and see. There should be something different in the genetic code of these birds than others of their kind that do not exhibit this behavior.
Frankly, I think the example of birds cracking nuts at stop lights only shows us that these animals are quite intelligent. If I wanted to postulate an idea on how this all came about I would guess it went something like this:
The bird dropped a nut on the street (it could have been anywhere, but it was a street ... I saw this at my home in Israel because there were nut trees lining the street near our home). The bird intended to crack the nut the same way it always did, but a car came a scared the bird. After the bird returns it find the nut cracked open by the wheel of the car. After this happens a few times the bird would begin to purposely bring the nut to the street. It may not understand how the nut got cracked open, but it would begin to associate the street with the cracked nut. Later, as the bird keeps fleeing from the sound of oncoming cars he begins to not only associate the cracked nut with the street, but with the street and the sound. This would teach the bird to bring the nut to the street and to wait for the sound in order to get a cracked open nut.
I could go further, but I think we can see the point. No new information was needed genetically. No random mutation was necessary. All that was needed was an already existing level of intelligence for the bird to observe some very simple things in its environment and to use them to their advantage. If a single bird could learn via this simple method then others could learn via observing as well as their own experiences. These birds only exhibit the difference between learned behavior and instinct and nothing more.
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