Bravus:

Re: " . . .phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny. . ."

This was a very old classic dictum that I was taught in my biology classes to be discarded by just about all informed people.

However, in my recent readings in biology it appears to me that it is comming back, and is being accepted, on some levels at least, by some people. I think that I currently see it as being resurected in some evolutionary works.

Please correct me if some of you think I am wrong.

I face a contextual problem in discussions such as this. That problem is: Evolution, what is it?

There are many parts to what is called "evolution". Some, I beleive are clearly demonstrated by science, and I do not believe are against the Biblical witness.

Other parts, I believe are still not proven in a scientific sense (as if any theory of science is ever proven), and are in violation of what I believe to be Biblical teachings.

That then raises the question: Is my understanding of what the Bible teaches an accurate understanding of what it actually teaches? I am not 100% certain in every area of life that my understanding is 100% correct.

Now, if I accept certain tnents of evolution as being correct, and not against Biblical teachings, and reject other tenents, am I am evolutonist? If I am, in what sense am I an evolutionist?

That is why I have a hard time responding to questions as in the above.

You know, the whole quesion of evolution and creationism is so emotionally loaded that most people who advocate a position neither hear nor listen to the other side. Communication simply does not take place between the two sides.

But I think maybe it can, and is, here...

This is probably a bit -- however -- I found it an extremely interesting article, about a modern "Scopes monkey trial" taking place in Dover, PA ...

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/01/10/evolution/index.html

I think this one is open to public viewing without a subscription, but you can get a day pass for Salon if need be.

I was hoping for a more detailed postings for the case of evolution. So far, this discussion has not panned out as I have hope. Not to say that I have not appreciated the posts, but rather the discussion has not been as forth coming as I had hoped. So, having said all that and since I have put forth arguments FOR EVOLUTION, let me now put forth a summerized article that is claimed to be 'flawed" by the evolutionists. And yet, it makes a case.

This article was found on a web site FOR CREATION [ hereby known as “Intelligent Design] .It was written by Stephen Meyer. The article is talking about one of Evolution’s key supports substantiating the theory. Here is a summation rebuttal to that support.

The argument of Meyer's article can be summarized in eight statements:

(1) The origin of morphological novelty during the history of life is increasingly recognized as a fundamental and unsolved problem in theoretical and evolutionary biology.

(2) The problem of the origin of biological form is a manifestation of the problem of the origin of biological information.

(3) Biological information can be distinguished from Claude Shannon’s purely mathematical conception of information. Whereas Shannon's classical information theory provides a mathematical measure of the complexity (or improbability) of a string of characters, biological information refers to strings or structures that are both complex and functionally specified. As such, biological information constitutes an example of “specified complexity,” or what William Dembski calls “Complex Specified Information” [hereafter CSI] -- a term he and others have used to distinguish functionally specified information from mere Shannon information or information-carrying capacity.

(4) The Cambrian Explosion constitutes a paradigmatic example of the origin of functionally specified biological information (CSI). During the Cambrian many novel animal body plans appear to have arisen during a geologically short interval of 5-10 million years. Whether the Cambrian Explosion was this abrupt or not, the emergence of these new body plans would have required the origin of large amounts of genetic and epigenetic biological information.

(5) Neo-Darwinism [hereafter ND] cannot account for the origin of the many novel genes and proteins that arise during major episodes of biological innovation such as the Cambrian explosion. Thus, ND cannot account for the origin of the genetic information necessary to build new animal body plans.

(6) Constructing novel body plans such as those that arose during the Cambrian Explosion also depends upon new epigenetic (as opposed to just genetic) morphological information. Natural selection acting on random genetic variations alone cannot produce the necessary epigenetic morphological information. For this reason, neo-Darwinian mechanisms cannot -- in principle -- account for the origin of novel body plans such as those that emerged during the Cambrian Explosion.

(7) No other current materialistic evolutionary theory solves the problem of the origin of biological information exemplified by the Cambrian Explosion.

(8) The need for new biological information suggests actual, not just apparent, design in the history of life. Indeed, the theory of intelligent design [hereafter ID] provides a causally adequate explanation for the origin of the information necessary to build novel animal forms.

You can find Meyer article in a more complete form at the web site provided.

This article is an argument for theistic evolution or staged creation rather than for traditional, 7 day, 6000 year ago creationism, though. It acknowledges the Cambrian Explosion in species on earth, and acknowledges that it occurred millions of years ago, and that different species arose at different times, all in one week.

I hope everyone has read the distinction I've made elsewhere about types of origins theories, and knows that there aren't just two - recent creationism and atheistic evolutionism. There are also (at least) ancient creationism (staged creation is a subset of this) and theistic evolutionism.

I would argue that recent creationism is extremely difficult to support with *scientific* evidence: as Nico has noted, if you're going to believe in this, you shouldn't even bring science to the table, just pure faith that that's the way it happened.

On the other hand, any of the other three possibilities is consistent with the scientific evidence, and depending on the way you read the scriptures, two out of the three can also be considered to be consistent with the scriptural account (something that people have vehemently denied here but that is nonetheless the case).

Neil, what you're asking for - a brief precis of all the evidence for evolution - is impossible in the context of this thread: there are thousands of huge books on the topic that adduce a large number of different kinds of evidence.

The point I've made before is that evolution requires three things: mutation, natural selection and time. And we see mutation and natural selection occurring in the world now. There remain hard questions, certainly, about evolutionary mechanisms, selection and speciation, and any sophisticated understanding of evolutionary theory will understand this, but such questions do not invalidate the theory as a whole.

While I don't concider myself as one locked in an isolated corner, I also did not understand the distinctions between different types of creationisms...

"recent creationism" is one that most adventists tend to believe, me thinks as it is the most literal of all other creationistic theorys out there. You can read it in the bible and that is good enough for most biblical "scholars" [aka scientific layman]. I also tend to think that most evolutionists think that this is what creationists think of when they talk about 'intelligent design' or "creationism".

Now I understand that there is other types of creationism that have labels-
ancient creationism
staged creation
theistic evolutionism

Perhaps a definition of these could be posted here so that we could understand a bit better what these are concidered.
Most laypeople understand or at least have heard of the merging of evolution and creationism, but are under either a misunderstanding of the implications when you merger the evolution/creation concepts [ie it's just a way for evolution to delute the concept of God personally being involved in the creation and thus undermine the bible] or there is a misunderstanding of meanings and words between people such that we just don't understand what the other one is saying when we compare to what we think they are saying.

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a brief precis of all the evidence for evolution - is impossible in the context of this thread: there are thousands of huge books on the topic that adduce a large number of different kinds of evidence.

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But isn't that the purpose of this thread, Bravus...to stimulate thinking and pondering? What else are we to do? Argue without reason? My comment to that is simply, 'that's illogical and unrational."

Perhaps we can read a good book or two on this subject. Any suggestions for the layperson who has a smattering of scientific understanding?

Where is Dwight Hornblower when you need him????

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The point I've made before is that evolution requires three things: mutation, natural selection and time. And we see mutation and natural selection occurring in the world now. There remain hard questions, certainly, about evolutionary mechanisms, selection and speciation, and any sophisticated understanding of evolutionary theory will understand this, but such questions do not invalidate the theory as a whole.

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Indeed. I have to admit that when you take a wild fox, and breed it thru 10 generations, by the 10 generation, thru your selecting of approved characteristics, that the fox will look more like a dog than a fox. This has been demostrated by russian fox breeders and explains our current breed(s) of dog. Interestingly enough, foxes and dogs are still the same type of animal [ canine]. They have mutated, not necessarily evolved. You can do the same thing with fruit flys. They are still fruit flys, but there are different species within the catagory of fruit fly.

At this stage of earths history, it will definately be difficult to determine the difference between mutation and evolving....

Briefly:

Recent creationism: belief that the earth and life (and in some cases the entire universe) were created recently (6-10,000 years ago). This belief tends to also require the use of the Flood to explain lots of observations in the world, although that's a supplementary belief.

Ancient creationism: belief that the earth and life were created at some time in the ancient past, on the order of millions of years ago.

Staged creationism: belief that the universe was created, then the solar system and the earth, then life, and in some cases that life has been created in 'jumps' like the Cambrian explosion where God decided to dramatically increase the number of species. Compatible with a 'day = an age' reading of the first chapters of Genesis

Theistic evolutionism: belief that God created the universe, the earth and life, but used natural mechanisms including evolution to do so. God caused the Big Bang (fiat lux) then allowed the natural laws He had created to operate, culminating in the world we see around us.

Intelligent design: not related to a particular time or method for creation (i.e. consistent with any of the above), but just the statement that the structures of living things show evidence of having been designed by an intelligent being, rather than having randomly arisen via evolutionary mechanisms.

Atheistic evolutionism: belief that God does not exist and all natural processes are random consequences of natural laws.

All of these alternatives except the last one are compatible with different readings of the Genesis account, and all are held by many sincere Christians.

I do not have time now, and I am not certain when I will, if ever. But, Adventism has a spectrum of creationist beliefs. Within Adventism, few informed people believe in a creation within the past 10,000 years, let alone 6,000 years.

Personally, it is my belief that the 6,000 year concept is NOT Biblical, but comes from an extra-Biblical source not EGW.