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Know thy enemy
Published: 31 January 2015 (GMT+10)
In ideological debate, as with many areas of life, it is important to, in the words of Sun Tzu, ‘know thy enemy’, i.e. understand what one’s ideological opponents say. However, many skeptics of biblical creation fail to do this—they often rehearse the same fallacious arguments we have dealt with many times before. Today’s correspondent raises the old canard that abiogenesis and microbes-to-man evolution are separate issues. However, these instances can give us the opportunity to rehearse the strength of our responses, as well as introduce newer readers to the arguments and where to go to get fuller treatments of them. CMI’s Shaun Doyle carries us through these ‘old arguments’.
J.O. from the United States writes:
I admire what you have done with this website. It is rather remarkable how much research you’ve done. However, I must say (and I speak for many Christians) that your beliefs are archaic and above all else, silly. I believe in God as much as you do, but the idea that the Earth is 6000 years old is, quite frankly, asinine. Also, I read through your “15 Questions to Evolutionists” and noticed that at least 4-6 of them had to do with abiogenesis, not evolution. See, this is where the fundamental problem with your “debate” arises. We argue two different things: how life was created (abiogenesis vs. creation) and how life changed (evolution vs. whatever). I realize that creation says that life was created as is, but if that were the case, we would be going extinct rather soon because 99% of all life has done that. Lastly, your 15 questions weren’t hard enough. I could answer them with ease. It’s merely a matter of perspective.
CMI’s Shaun Doyle responds:
If you can answer our 15 questions with ease, then by all means enlighten us! And we agree that there is an element of perspectival bias in the origins debate, but since the assumptions evolution rests on shoot themselves in the foot and do nothing but spin unverifiable fairytales, pardon us for having a degree of incredulity towards them. But first, please address yourself to previous attempts at rebutting our 15 questions before rehashing the same arguments we’ve already dealt with: Responses to our 15 Questions: part 1, part 2, and part 3. Second, please also make sure that we haven’t addressed your concerns elsewhere on the website; a quick perusal of our Q and A hub or use of our search function will help you to find any relevant information.
I have to say though, that your response doesn’t engender confidence in your ability to refute us. You offer only two actual attempts at argument, both of which you would have been quickly disabused of if you had taken the time to read any of the research you remark upon. First, we have addressed the notion that abiogenesis can be neatly separated from evolution on the website, and even in the articles I cite above. In fact, the first response and rebuttal to the first question of our ‘15 questions’ is this:
Answer 1: Abiogenesis is not relevant to the discussion of evolution—it is a separate topic (this has been a very common claim).
Rebuttal: No one claimed that abiogenesis was irrelevant to the evolution debate until evolutionists realized they were losing the debate on it. Indeed, abiogenesis is also often called ‘chemical evolution’ (see Natural selection cannot explain the origin of life, and here is just one example of a paper by evolutionists proving the point, titled, “On the applicability of Darwinian principles to chemical evolution that led to life”, International Journal of Astrobiology 3:45–53, 2004). It doesn’t matter how well one can or can’t explain how the first life could evolve, if you can’t explain how it got there in the first place, the theory is literally dead in the water (or the (non-existent) primordial soup, as the case may be). Notice also that, as we stated clearly above, creationists believe in changing allele frequencies over time. Therefore, since both sides claim this as part of their model, the debate must lie outside this area. Hence, the origin of life is fair game for discussions on whether or not evolution is true.
Evolution can’t get started without some sort of abiogenesis event, so any argument for evolution must address itself to the origin of life as well. [The article Evolution: not just about biology confirms that Harvard University’s own website supports our position on this issue.]
Your second attempt at argumentation is worse: if you had actually read anything we’ve written on speciation and created kinds or baramins, then you might be aware that we do not believe God created everything exactly as we now see it. We believe in biological change, even radical and fast biological change. We just don’t believe in the sort of undirected change required to derive biologists from bacteria. Two articles to get you started are Basics of biblical biology and Can mutations create new information?
Now, concerning your estimation of our beliefs: “silly”, “archaic”, and “asinine”—you have offered no reason for such derisive language. “Archaic” is only a problem if one thinks that ‘archaic = false’. After all, belief that Jesus was really raised from the dead is ‘archaic’, just like belief in special creation. As for “silly” and “asinine”—where is your proof? It’s certainly not our intent to embrace “silly” and “asinine” ideas. And is it really “silly” or “asinine” to read the Scriptures in support of our position, as Jesus, the biblical writers, and Christians and Jews for the vast majority of church history have done? Is it really “silly” or “asinine” to take Jesus’ word as the arbiter of truth on this matter? Or is the science of deep time so obviously right that even Jesus and the Father must have been wrong on basic history? Does that mean God is “silly” and “asinine”? I would encourage you to rethink deriding us so, especially since you have demonstrated ignorance of what we actually believe.
I will end on a more positive note. You mentioned that you think the amount of research we have done is remarkable. Thank you for that compliment. But now let me challenge you on it. Since we have done all that research, might that not behove you to read and carefully consider the arguments found in that research before so quickly pronouncing our position to be silly and asinine? We are here to help, and we are open to reasonable dialogue on such matters. We even have reasonable dialogues with atheists every once in a while. Surely someone who claims the name of Christ for his own could be more courteous toward his fellow brothers than an atheist, even if he seriously disagrees with us.
Readers’ comments
Both on your website and in my conversations, many argue that abiogenisis is not part of evolution.
I agree with you that they only started making this distinction when they realized they didn't have an answer.
Nevertheless, I grant the point. When you restrict evolution to mutation and selection, how it got to the starting point is a separate question.
This helps avoid pointless arguments.
But then I come back with, it's still a valid question for evolutionists that I'd like to hear an answer to.
It doesn't matter to me whether they consider it part of evolution or not.
HTH
Brad
A cow evolving from a sea sponge is "laughable"
Random polymerisation of nucleotides creating volumes of information is chemically, philosophically, mathematically ridiculous. I am looking hard for scientific evidence and rational thought but don't see it! I must be missing something, I love evolution, you can sort of make up anything?
Regarding the use of 'abiogenesis', the commenter used it first, not us; and they showed a clear understanding of what it means. I was well within my rights in the context of this exchange to use the term without needing to define it, and most people who would read this exchange should be able to discern the basic meaning of 'abiogenesis' when the commenter contrasts it with 'creation'; it means that life was not created, but arose naturally. It's the contrary of 'creation', and there is no third option for the origin of life.
Finally, I agree that Genesis by itself doesn't save; Jesus does. But then it's very easy to show that Jesus agrees with us on this issue. Jesus said: "From the beginning of creation He made them male and female" (Mark 10:6). He puts humans right at the beginning of creation, based squarely on Genesis 1 and 2. The billions-of-years history of the universe puts humans near the end of that history. Who is right, Jesus or the billions-of-years history? If you don't trust us, trust Jesus.
When I come across a person who does not care, I then do not care if they know. Atheists are the not caring category. I tell everyone the simple version. Here are the facts... if you choose to follow them great, if you do not, you have the free will to go to hell. I leave it at that.
Keep up the good job.
If the origin of life is ignored the other aspects of evolution still fails because natural selection only works on the phenotype or existing living organism and knows nothing about potential function of an accidental nucleotide sequence change in the cell. This only leaves random unguided mutation to drive evolution and here it fails because of the near-impossibility of mutations adding information to DNA, given the discovery that DNA encodes two layers of coding in the same space. Changing one letter affects both codes. The (evolution vs. whatever) has been delivered a technical Knockout (TKO) on just this alone! A simple search for “duons”, “Dual Gene Code” would reveal the nature of the TKO.
The creation/evolution controversy is not a scientific debate, but a spiritual issue. Do you believe God who was there or do you believe your own ideas?
1 Corinthians 2:14 “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
1 Timothy 4:3 “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions”
This relationship is either a good or bad experience for us: "For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. And who is adequate for these things? For we are not like many, peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God."(2 Cor 2:15-17 NASB).
But, if anyone doubts this, let him consider our Lord Jesus Christ - God in the flesh who lived among us circa 2000 years ago. The incarnation is not the act of a cold, dispassionate and distant God! Instead, it is the supreme act of our creator God who is completely committed to his creation.
However, there is no difference in historical consequence between a 'deistic' or 'panentheistic' conception of divine action in the world on theistic evolution; evolutionary history plays out the exact same way in both systems. The difference is in the theological error they fall into; deism makes God too transcendent to be immanent, and panentheism makes God too immanent to be transcendent. Deism presents us with an uncaring deity, and panentheism presents us with a weak and sentimental deity; neither is the biblical God of sovereign love revealed supremely in Jesus.
I think you make a mistake that many do - both pro- and anti- evolutionists - in merging the philosophical concept of evolution with the scientific.
JM:Science, to put it very simply, is about providing effective explanations of observed phenomena.
JM: In terms of evolution the observations are the diversity of life on Earth, the fossil record and more recently the genetic structure underlying life.
JM: Whether you accept it or not, the science of evolution tries to explain these observations, primarily with data going back only to the Cambrian explosion. Evolutionists believe they have a theory that fits these data.
JM: It may be both philosophically and scientifically interesting to search for an explanation of the origin of life, such an answer cannot change the observed data and therefore cannot alter the validity of any theory that tries to explain those data.
JM:To use an analogy, creationists and mainstream scientists differ as to the origins of the moon, but there is no dispute as to the current physics of the moon. Its origins do not change its observed behaviour.
JM: The same is true for evolution and this is why evolutionists are being reasonable to say that the question of abiogenesis does not effect the correctness or falsehood of the theory of evolution.
Best regards,
Jack M.
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