C-J letters on evolution and creation
Today's C-J has two letter-writers who take an August 16th letter-writer to task. I could blog at great length on these topics (and probably will sometime). But for now, I'll be content to take pokes at all three of them.
It's interesting that the 8/16 letter-writer never endorses the young-earth/six-day creationism of which he's accused by Beasley.
Walton commits a common fallacy (or employs a common rhetorical tool) in conflating the various meanings of "evolution". To be fair, Womack was not careful enough in his use of the same term. The combined result is far more heat than light-- as the two men simply talk past each other.
And so, to paraphrase Walton, the (defining) issue is: "how many times do evolution and creation need to be defined before people understand that" both terms are used for multiple concepts which are conflated out of ignorance or rhetorical convenience?
Evolution is often used to refer to small changes within species. And it's often used for a supposed comprehensive "explanation" for the development of life (good luck with that!). I'm not sure micro-evolution and macro-evolution are the best terms. But at the least, they are somewhat descriptive and help people avoid the far larger error of conflating two phenomenally different concepts.
Likewise, "creationism" is usually reserved for the young-earth variety (again, out of ignorance or convenience). But many believers are old-earth creationists. And either position can be supported Biblically. Thus, this is not something over which Christians should divide. In addition, it's not something that should be overlooked by those who purport to represent each side of the debate.
C'mon folks...we can do better!
posted by Eric Schansberg @ 5:30 PM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
Eric,
The August 16th letter writer refers to Adam and Eve (implying a young origin for humanity if not for Earth); he refers to his familiarity with "astrological" evidence for creation; he misunderstands the term "theory" referring to evolution; and he misuses the second law of thermodynamics. The letter writers of August 20 correct him on each of these points. I cannot see this as anything but a complete loss for your side.
In your own comments, you make an egregious error: attempting to distinguish between "micro" evolution and "macro" evolution. Biologists make no such distinction as it is abundantly clear from multiple lines of evidence that the exact same processes responsible for small-scale evolution are also responsible for the major changes of life throughout the history of life.
After all I have read on this subject (including six or seven books promoting intelligent design), it is clear to me that intelligent design (creationism, young Earth or old) is not science. For me, this would leave only the possibility of theistic evolution (God creating life by creating evolution and allowing evolution to progress, with no intervention detectable by science). But, in my own personal path, I am afraid to acknowledge that for various reasons, I have simply become agnostic.
William
William,
Thanks for taking the time to reply.
The Adam and Eve reference does not necessarily imply young origin (although it is quite possible that the writer is young earth).
I agree that he should have been corrected on the meaning of "theory" in the context of science (as I noted) and "astrological" (what a slip, huh?!).
A loss for my side? I guess so-- although aside from scoring a few rhetorical points, I don't see where anyone wins here. The bigger issue is the loss for all of us when people fail to use clear and coherent definitions.
I know that many biologists don't like the macro/micro distinction (thus, the caveat I included). But one must have and use different terms to refer to such different things-- even if they are that closely related. So, choose whatever terms you like, but we shouldn't pretend that the two are equivalent.
Likewise, your conflation of ID, creationism, young-earth and old-earth is unfortunate and distracting. They are, again, somewhat related but quite distinct.
As for your personal journey, I hope and pray that you earnestly continue to seek out truth-- and that in doing so, you find grace and peace along your chosen path.
I always appreciate someone trying to be precise, but as I see it, you're trying a bit too hard to balance on a split hair.
Whether Womack is a young earth or old earth creationist his understanding of science and the issues involved is nil.
Neither do I see the point, so desparately clung to by creationists between micro and macro evolution. If small heritable changes occur and accumulate steadily over time, they will have to result in something quite different than the original. We've seen that happen, even in the very short timespan we can directly observe. As I once pointed out, if I start walking East from Louisville I'll eventually wind up in West Virginia even if it takes quite a while. There is no barrier to crossing the boundary, as some creationists seem to think.
Dear Eric,
I'm afraid almost all biologists would deny a distinction between micro and macro-evolution. It's a distinction largely created by opponents of evolution for rhetorical purposes.
And my conflation of ID/young Earth/old Earth creationism, while not exactly correct according to the literal definitions of the terms, was deliberate -- I wanted to suggest that from the perspective of mainstream biology, there really isn't any difference between these in that all of them serve a religious agenda and none of them offer any testable hypotheses (the efforts of Behe or Demski not withstanding). I would recommend, by the way, a particularly good book on this point: Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design, by Forrest and Gross.
Best wishes,
William
Alcibiades,
Thanks for your thoughtful reply.
I'd rather split hairs (if that's how precision is characterized here) than acquiesce to the nearly constant conflation of terms in such a heated debate.
I did not defend Womack, but critiqued him for the same conflation.
As for micro/macro, each small heritable change is fact. But the if/if/if is still (quite) an if. In any case, why is it optimal to use the same term to equate your first step in Louisville with a 300-mile journey?
William,
That's funny. I thought that macro/micro was a distinction largely ignored by proponents of evolution for rhetorical purposes! ;-)
Such biologists don't deny the distinction. They just don't use those terms to make a distinction.
Considering Alcibiades' post. He drew a distinction between a small heritable change that we directly observe and a tremendous number of small directly-unobservable heritable changes that are supposed to "explain" how we got from A to Z.
Call the two things what you will, but how appropriate is it to insist that they are equivalent?
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