Slex

Hmm, I didn't have time to read all the posts, so if someone else has brought up this please ignore me.

I personally have a question to theistic evolutionists: at what point did we get our souls then? Was it at the stage when we were still Homo Erectus, Homo Ludens or neanderthals, or maybe the soul evolved simultaneously with the evolution of the matter?

lpetrich

O VZ, Charles Darwin's great insight was that surviving in the wild could provide all the necessary "selection"; he compared surviving in the wild to being subject to selective breeding or "artificial selection".

VZ will be very surprised to discover what the first chapter of the Origin of Species was all about.

It was about pigeon breeding. Darwin noted how pigeon fanciers had created several different breeds of pigeon over the decades, simply by making appropriate selection of which pigeons to breed.

Except that that is not the case.

(tiger-stripe example...)

I think that that is a poor example, since the striping mechanism has not yet been located. However, there are numerous examples of evolution in action at the level of individual proteins.

What does VZ consider a "new gene"? Does he have any examples?

Except that it is NOT.

Except that some mutations are not-so-slight.

By duplication and modification of existing ones.

VZ, tell us how you would recognize a species.

There is lot that does not get preserved in the fossil record, like soft parts (at least most of the time).

VZ, why would you have to do that?

Doubting Didymus

Oh for heavens sake, it was only a hypothetical example. How about this one, which is based in reality: African elephant tusks.

The tusks of the african elephant are a large survival advantage. They are used for defense, intimidation of competing elephants, and also for digging up roots and other food. Elephants with the largest tusks are going to be naturally favoured by the ordinary pressures of everyday elephant life. He is better at surviving and reproducing than his fellows, and so large tusked individuals are bound to become more common than those with little tusks. Keep in mind that some elephants do have little tusks, and approximately one percent of the population have a mutation that gives them no tusks at all.

What if the environment changed? Imagine that suddenly, big tusks are a terrible disadvantage. Which individuals are now more likely to reproduce? It's the little-tuskers.

As a matter of fact this is exactly what has happened. Human Poachers are now a part of the ecological makeup, and they cause a huge disadvantage for the big tuskers by killing those with impressive dentition. Now, over the time that humans have been poaching elephants, the elephant population has evolved. Very very few elephants possess big tusks anymore, in fact, the poaching industry is in peril bacause of this. Not only are big tuskers rare, but littletuskers are now far more common, and most astoundingly of all, I recently read in national geographic (I think), that the once rare mutation for NO tusks now represents 40% of the african elephant population.

You might consider this selection 'artificial', but how hard is it to imagine that some other animal starts to favour attacking big tuskers, or some ivory-eating fatal virus finds its way into the population. Natural selection would do exactly the same thing, and remove tusks from the elephants. Keep in mind that no-one intended for elephant to lose their tusks. This was an unplanned and undirected improvement in a population ('improve' being dependant on an evironmental context, of course, not some objective yardstick).

If god had made elephants without the ability to evolve, that part of his creation may have since been poached out of existance. Just one of the benefits of using evolution to create.

GeoTheo

Well Vander,
Theistic evolution is really not a choice for me now that I know a smattering of biology outside of what one finds on animal planet. The only choice is wether to believe in God.

lpetrich

I think that one has to be careful with one's examples, because evolutionary biology has a tendency to turn into "Just So Stories" if one is not careful. So one may want to restrict oneself to examples where the genetic mechanism is either well-understood or readily-inferred.

However, that elephant example is a very good one. I've seen articles on similar effects on lion manes and the sizes of commonly-caught ocean fish. I wonder if there have been similar effects on deer antlers and the like.

Albion

Geo? Why is theistic evolution not an option?

Bubba

Actually as a thiest whose daughter has juvenile arthritis I find this the only way that I can reconcile thiesm with what I see in nature.


Bubba

Bubba

Here is a good question. If changing our view of God is a good thing, and if God exists, and if the evolution evidence is good, wouldn't we be worshiping with a MORE accurate view of God? I'm of the same theological stripe as Geotheo, and I would be afraid to be a creationist simply because if God works through evolution than creationism is indeed bad theology as well as bad science.

Bubba

[ November 05, 2002: Message edited by: Bubba ]</p>

GeoTheo

Yeah, I agree Bubba. If God is responsible for evolution, We should glorify Him for it. I think people paint themselves into a corner when they say things like "My God would never use such a ridiculous method as evolution to create."
Look out for lightening bolts!
If God used evolution then it must have been the best way. I really like your application of it to "theodicy" and I think we will see more of this coming out of Theological seminaries that study the application of evolution as it relates to theology. It hasn't caught on yet, but I think it has a lot to say to the problem of evil.

GeoTheo

The evolution part is not an option. I rely on faith to answer questions I otherwise could not answer. I do not use faith to hold opinions that are contrary to facts. So, I only think creationism is an option to people who don't have adequate information.