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From: mikes@tekecs.UUCP (Michael Sellers)
Newsgroups: talk.origins,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Creation, Evolution, and Flood
Message-ID: <7643@tekecs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 16-Sep-86 19:16:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: tekecs.7643
Posted: Tue Sep 16 19:16:51 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 22-Sep-86 23:47:27 EDT
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Xref: linus talk.origins:52 talk.religion.misc:113

[Preface:  I am a Christian, and have extensive background in the sciences
 and the philosophies thereof.  I see no contradiction between them, only
 partial ignorance.  Naive beliefs like some in the original posting
 below bother me, because I am concerned that someone would become disturbed
 to find out that large (though non-scriptural) parts of their faith were
 clearly not true, and then begin to doubt the rest of their faith.]

> Actually, I don't assume evolution is not part of God's plan.  I don't
> pretend to have been around when God created the world.  I am convinced
> that it happened just the way the Bible describes it.  I get ticked
> off at both creationists and evolutionists because of the irrational
> basis of both theories.  
> 
> Evolutionist:	The only alternative to evolution is special creation.
> 	Since God doesn't exist, this is clearly impossible.  Therefore
> 	evolution is true.  (Despite the evidence.)

Despite *what* evidence?  All the available, non-corrupted evidence supports
some variety of the theory of evolution.  Also, your reasoning is faulty.
People researching natural selection and/or evolution do not begin with
the belief that God does not exist (Darwin was a religious person), only
that we cannot let our matters of faith modify what we see around us.  
The book of Genesis *is not* a textbook of how things happened, step by
step, and should not be treated as such.  It is a figurative account (if only
in that God did not describe each action bit by bit) of how the earth was
created.  Viewed this way, it does not contradict science at all.

> Creationist:	Evolution was conceived by heathen, therefore it could
> 	not possibly be Biblical (i.e. true).  (No science required.)
> 
> The waters are further muddied by the 'apparent age' problem which
> makes any scientific consideration of creation impossible.  (Science
> is only concerned with what we can observe.)

I'm not sure what you mean by 'apparent age', nor can I see how this makes
scientific consideration of creation impossible.  Science begins with what
we can observe now, and attempts to make theories about what we will be 
able to observe in the future, or to make theories that join seemingly
disparate current observations.

> My conclusion: both creationism and evolution are totally unscientific
> and should not be taught in science classes.  (I mean general evolution.
> Specific evolution is well proven.)  Perhaps 'cosmology' would be an
> appropriate name for the subject.

This conclusion was obviously attained after much considered thought, but
after very little, it would seem, in the way of outside contact.  Just because
an idea may be wrong, or may violate what *you* think to be right, does not
make it unscientific.  The theory of evolution is scientifically based (this,
I am sure, has been explained enough times on the net already), while the
Genesis story of creation, right or wrong (i.e. holy writ or myth), IS NOT
science and SHOULD NOT be taught under that guise.  It can and should be 
taught in comparitive religion classes and in Bible study classes, though
with different emphases, neither of which is scientific.  Your statement about
general versus specific evolution only shows how little you know about
the subject.  Very little in the way of "specific evolution" is known;
the cases of the anchovie and the British peppered moth are examples of
natural selection, not evolution.  "General evolution" on the other hand is
much better understood.  It is clear from a number of different types of
evidence that species have evolved in response to environmental pressures
and by the processes of natural selection and random mutation; anything much
more specific than this is still open to debate.
  Unfortunately cosmology is already taken as a name, as it means something
different (the study of the universe from either an astronomical or meta-
physical point of view).  Changing the name of something wouldn't change 
what it is, anyway.

> I think a subject more approachable from the scientific view is the
> Noahic flood.  Let's have some discussion on the net about the Flood.
> 
> Here are some facts from the Bible

Better, "Here are some Biblical assertations of fact", for the non-faithful
among us.

> Duration:	40 days of rain.  The earth covered by water for more
> 	than a year.
> 
> Onset:		Sudden.  Only the seven in the Ark had (100 years worth
> 	of supernatural) warning.

A nit: I thought it was more like 40 years of warning.  I could be wrong.

> Water source:	the 'floodgates of heaven' and the 'fountains of the deep'.
> 	(The objection that there is not enough water in the atmosphere
> 	and polar caps is not sufficient.)

Actually, I would think from a skeptic's point of view this would be a pretty
good objection.  I would counter that neither of us can say if there is or
could be enough water (the question is not central to the issue), but to
say the objection is not sufficient without explanation is itself not
sufficient.

> Consequences:	the flood caused profound changes in the earth's ecology.
> 
> 	Before:		It never rained until the flood.  The earth was
> 			watered by a mist from the ground.
> 			Average human lifespan was 900+ years.
> 			There were no seasons.

I think some of these things are open to debate.  Does the Bible say or imply
that there were no seasons and that the average person (not selected persons
mentioned) lived 900+ years, or are these your conclusions?

> 	After:		Rain was a regular event; rainbows were seen.
> 			Typical human lifespan dropped quickly to 120+ years.
> 			Between Moses and David lifspan dropped further to
> 			70 years.
> 			Seasons took hold.
> 			Eating meat was condoned by God.

I'm not sure that the Flood had a direct part in some of these things...
again, the lifespan issue bothers me (though perhaps you have some Biblical
evidence?), as does your assertation about the seasons.

> Thoughts:
> 
> 	Did the flood split the super continent in a year?  (As opposed
> 		to millions of years.)

No.  If you believe the theories of plate tectonics, esp. regarding the
existence of Gaia and Pangaea (which I do), then you must accept the evidence
that the split took a very long time, and happened long ago.  While there is
geologic and fossil evidence about similar conditions existing, for example,
on the east coast of South America and the west of Africa, there is no 
evidence for (and much to the contrary) that the event was either recent or
rapid.  We would expect to see animal and plant populations either dieing out
in mass numbers or living nearly identically either currently or in the
recent past.  Instead, we see a time when there appeared to be commonality
between the two continents, whereas now there is only the most distant of
relationships.
  I'm not sure what this has to do with the flood anyway.

> 	When did the flood take place?

This is a good one.  Who knows?  It kind of depends if the flood really
did cover the whole earth or if it covered only a small area. (Pet theory:
note that the fertile crescent area is mostly low elevation situated between
the Mediterranean, Black, Caspian, and Red Seas.  How much would it take to
flood this area?  And what would it matter if early human setlements in 
northern Europe and Eastern Asia were not affected?  They were not members
of the races God was communicating with, at least so far as we know, so
they may have been exempt.)

> 	Changes in lifespan and weather indicate to me that radiation
> 		based dating would be totally off base for events
> 		prior to the flood.  (I.e. carbon 14).

And this statement shows how off base your thinking about carbon dating is.
Radio-carbon dating is accomplished by measuring how much of the radioactive
carbon has decayed since the thing *died*.  This rate is constant reagrdless
of previous lifespan, since the carbon is not being replaced at all.  And
how you make the connection between weather and radioisotope systems of dating
is beyond me.

> 	Evidently, some species were able to survive the flood without
> 		being in the Ark.  (E.g. insect eggs, fish eggs, plants,  etc.)
> 		The Bible says that everything that breathed died (Gen 7:22).
> 		Only breathing creatures were in the Ark (Gen 7:15).
> 
> 	Was the flood the demise of dinosaurs?  (They were too big
> 		to fit in the Ark?)

Why would God single out the dinosaurs?  And why does the Bible not record
elsewhere anything about these great creatures who lived on the earth for
(by scientific estimates) over 350 million years, while humans have been
around for less than 2 million (and in societies for less than a quarter
of that)?  If such great beasts had been around with Noah, surely the
society would have made use of them or at least mentioned them.  This is
ignoring the vast amounts of evidence that shows that humans missed the
age of the dinosaur by 50 million years or so...

> 	What kind of sediment layers (mixed with creatures) would the
> 		flood produce?

I think that during Darwin's time Catastrophism was a prevalent belief.
This was basically the view that the history of the earth was mostly placid,
with rare but devastating catastrophies that served to change things.  This
was used to explain the changes in species and, for example, the Noahic
flood.  Darwin, among others, successfully refuted this view based on
geological observations.  I can't give a full defense of his findings here
(though Darwin does eloquently himself), but there is basically no evidence
for a world-wide flood in the geological strata.  I'm not saying that the
tale is fiction or an exaggeration; who am I to say what could or could
not happen by God's will?  There is, however, little or no clear geological
or biologcal evidence in favor of such a catastrophe.

> Stuart D. Gathman	<..!seismo!{vrdxhq|dgis}!BMS-AT!stuart>

-- 

		Mike Sellers
	UUCP: {...your spinal column here...}!tektronix!tekecs!mikes


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