Daggah

He's probably intentionally misinterpreting the verse that claims that the earth is a circle.

Happy Wonderer

Aha! Thank you! Now we can get this discussion on a track that will let us stay in the "Evolution vs Creation" forum. I may be wrong, but don't some scientists have a bit of a problem with the biblical account of where all the critters came from?

HW

[ February 16, 2002: Message edited by: Happy Wonderer ]</p>

Gringo

Many Christians believe in a special creation that occured circa 6,000 years ago and a slow creative process through evolution. In <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0801022266/qid=1013982713/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_7_2/102-7492198-9897754" target="_blank">Science, Life & Christian Belief</a>, Malcolm Jeeves and R. J. Berry offer Biblical interpretations based on biblical scholarship and what they know through Science to show sensible interpretations of the Creation story. This <a href="http://www.asa3.org" target="_blank">site</a> too also has a lot of scientfic and religious articles to explain how the Bible does not contradict theories of evolution. This <a href="http://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/Evolution/PSCF12-93Fisher.html#Part1" target="_blank">article</a> by Dick Fischer in particular addresses this issue. Here's a clip from the beginning of Fischer's article:

Human beings appear to be related by common ancestry that extends back in time 100,000 years or more. If Genesis has accurately presented the surrounding environment in the beginning chapters, and if weight is given to recent archaeological findings, Adam's niche in time and space is about 5000 to 4000 BC in Southern Mesopotamia, thus precluding his being the progenitor of the entire human race. The garden of Eden probably required irrigation via a canal network to sustain Adam and his immediate family. Although Adam may very well have been specially created by God, intermarriages between the covenant line of Adam and the indigenous populations assure even Adam's descendants a link to the distant past. All this can be deduced not only from archaeological finds and ancient cuneiform tablets, but from clues in the Scriptures as well.

[ February 17, 2002: Message edited by: Gringo ]</p>

Kosh

Despite all the mental contortions this site
requires for belief, neither modern scientific
observations or the text of the Bible leave room
for this "theory".

Happy Wonderer

I'm not sure that Fischer's article addresses evolution that much. What I get out of it is a special pleading for Adam -- that we are misinterpreting "X begat Y" so perhaps Adam is as old as science thinks early humans are. There is also the claim that perhaps he wasn't the first human. For example:

That doesn't really get into the contradiction of the Genesis account and evolution. The special creation of Adam (or not) doesn't seem to be the main bone of contention for science. If humans evolved and HeSheIt later decided to create something that was (physically) exactly like a human, evolutionary theory would not be affected.

It is a neat way of avoiding the problem of how the critters that became us came about, and here Genisis clearly differs from what science tells us.

The other links that I followed seemed to accept that the Bible and science differ, in many cases with the conclusion that science is wrong. I did note a few "humans are imperfect interpretors of God's word" but no real justification for how the text could be read in any way that doesn't contradict science.

I didn't read everything in all the web sites so I could easily have missed some cogent argument, my apologies if I did so. I've had a long day of house remodeling. (We need a sleepy gramelein.)

Thanks!

HW

[ February 17, 2002: Message edited by: Happy Wonderer ]

[ February 17, 2002: Message edited by: Happy Wonderer ]</p>

tronvillain

Gringo:
The model assumes a constant population size and random mating. Human mating is non-random, not only because humans mate locally, but also because of assortive mating.

If we come back to reality, there is essentially no chance of everyone on the planet being descended from Abraham. Maybe eventually, but it is not an especially impressive prediction in any case, especially since there is a good chance of it being retroactive.

lpetrich

However, there weren't any really big events at that time that are apparent from the geological record. Also, humanity was already ~100,000-200,000 years old and dispersed over most of this planet's larger landmasses.

In fact, the only "big" event that I know of at that time was the beginning of the Indo-European dispersals, which was caused by some people just north of the Black Sea domesticating horses and using them in warfare.

However, there is no hint of that in the Bible; there is no recognition of the Indo-European language family, let alone anything about its origins.

smalso

It's easy to point out accurate predictions of modern science from the Bible if one is very selective in what one points out. Modern "psychics" and astrologers make many predictions and emphasize the hits. The misses are either ignored or modified to fit present circumstances.

It is not remarkable that given the many different observations made by many different writers over a rather longish period of time adding into the mix numerous copyings and translations, that there would be some "hits". But to cite these as proof of the accuracy of the Bible is misleading. Science calls it "the fallacy of proof by enumerating favorable instances," by which almost anything can be proved.