MPE Homeschool Conference

Yesterday and today I manned the ASA booth at the MPE homeschool conference. Thanks for all those who stopped by to visit. Please feel free to post any questions or comments here if you like. The ASA Homeschool Resource Site is at http://asa3online.org/homeschool/, where we will post curriculum reviews and supplements as time and volunteers are available to do the work. In the meantime, visit the ASA main site, http://www.asa3.org, for various articles on topics of interest.

1.9.1 Godless Embryologists: An Origins Parable

Over the years, there has been a great deal of blood spilled, or at least ink spilled, over the creation science and origins debates. What follows is an "intelligently designed" attempt to illustrate the differences between various positions on origins, using a somewhat humorous but generally accurate parable. This is presented in the form of position statements on the fictitious but highly controversial "embryology versus Bible" debate.

BACKGROUND

The science of embryology says that a baby is formed through natural processes, starting with the "conception" when a sperm cell joins with an egg cell. These two cells join their DNA and subdivide into multiple cells, which becomes a fetus. Over time, the fetus grows in size through cellular division, and various biological structures gradually develop into distinctive body parts. After approximately nine months, a normal pregnancy will come to full term, and the baby is born.

By contrast, the Bible declares that babies are made by God. Psalm 139:13-14 (NIV) declares, "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." Also, "Thus saith the Lord, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord that maketh all things" (Isaiah 44:24); and "Did not he that made me in the womb make him? and did not one fashion us in the womb?" (Job 31:15).

Does God create babies, or are they formed through gradual biological processes? The following statements outline various theological positions in this controversy.


ATHEISM / MATERIALISM

Babies are formed through purely natural processes of biological development. These processes can be studied and examined scientifically, and follow regular patterns of natural cause and effect. There is no reason to think that a divine being or miraculous intervention are required in order to help this process along. Physical matter is all there is, and nature is quite capable of getting the job done without the action of a god or gods.


NEW ATHEISM

Same as above, and anyone who still believes God is involved in the process of human birth is either a lunatic, an idiot, or both.


YOUNG EMBRYO CONCEPTIONISM (YEC) with APPEARANCE OF AGE and CATASTROPHISM

The godless embryologists tell us that babies are formed through naturalistic processes in the absence of God. This is known as "materialism". They also mistakenly believe that babies are formed gradually over a process of many months, which is based on their naturalistic assumption of "uniformitarianism" - the belief that processes of biological development only take place uniformly and gradually. Yet they have no explanation for all the complex interactions that lead to the development of the various systems in our bodies.

Holy scripture, on the other hand, declares that God knits us together in our mother's womb, and that He is the creator and maker of our physical bodies as well as our souls. Who are we to believe, human scientists with limited and incomplete knowledge, or God who knows all things and has declared Himself to be our Maker?

Since God is all-powerful, there is no reason to believe that He needed all those months and laborious activity in order to create a human body. Whereas secular, anti-Christian science declares that it takes nine months for a baby to form, the Christian assumption of "catastophism" says that things don't have to necessarily happen slowly over long periods of time, but can actually develop quickly through a rapid succession of stages. New research indicates that babies may actually be formed in about ten seconds through a rapid process of development, not the nine months as generally assumed by materialistic scientists. All the presumed length of time and gradual steps of development over months of time, including the detailed history implanted in the memory of the mother, sonagram pictures, and doctor's office records, actually just indicate an appearance of age and not actual age. God creates babies in ten seconds and implants a supernatural soul just before their eventual birth, but due to the effects of "appearance of age" it merely seems like it has taken place over a long period of time.


OLD EMBRYO CONCEPTIONISM (OEC)

The science of embryology is generally correct with respect to the physical sequence of the creation of babies, including the time of development from conception to birth, and the processes of fertilization, implantation, and gradual biological development. Yet science cannot explain exactly how the body of a fetus develops new body parts and internal organs, the development of the complexities of the eye, the circulatory and immune systems, etc. All they can do is presume that nature is capable of doing these things in the absence of God, without providing any sort of complete explanation.

Scripture provides the answer to these problems that continue to stump materialistic scientists. It says that God forms us in our mother's womb, but it also says that God "fashions" us, using language similar to the working of an artisan, such as a potter. A potter uses raw materials such as clay and the spinning motion of a potter's wheel, yet he imparts intelligent action at various points in order to shape the clay. In the same way, naturalistic forces and materials by themselves are unable to account for all the amazing complexity of the human body. God intercedes at various points during the process of fetal development in order to miraculously create elements of bodily function, yet in between times, He allows the natural process of biological development to proceed in normal fashion. Most notably is the injection of the human soul, which is an act of divine fiat and cannot be explained in naturalistic terms.


INTELLIGENT DESIGN (ID)

The intricate processes and systems in the human body are amazingly complex and cannot be accounted for in terms of materialistic assumptions. Systems such as the human eye, DNA, immune system, etc., have surprising levels of complexity and specificity which are best viewed in terms of information theory, using Shannon's theorems. The degree of complex specified information (CSI) present in DNA and many other biological structures and systems are best explained as a designed system that originated from some intelligent source, rather than through a series of random, chance events.

Intelligent design is a scientific claim about design being evidenced by the information content, not a theological or philosophical claim. ID makes no claims as to the identity of the "intelligent designer" -- it might have been from a God or gods, an alien, or possibly an intelligent stork that is capable of producing these designed features within an otherwise natural process. ID also makes no statement as to the length of fetal development -- it could be ten seconds or nine months, but that conclusion is beyond the kind of scientific assertion that ID is able to make.


THEISTIC EMBRYOLOGY (TE)

The science of embryology is very well developed and has a great deal of accurate knowledge of bodily processes inherent in the development and birth of a child. While science cannot (and perhaps never will) have complete knowledge of every detailed step in this developmental process, the general conclusion that human fetal development occurs through essentially natural processes seems to be an inescapable conclusion based on the evidence at hand. There is no reason to assume that supernatural miracles are necessary in order to progress a fetus from one stage of development to another, and science continues to fill in gaps in our limited human knowledge as to the details of this process.

However, science is limited to studying only the natural, "secondary" causes and effects, and has nothing whatsoever to say about the presence or absence of a divine Creator. The belief in a divine Creator is a theological position, which is entirely justified based on the evidence, but which can neither be conclusively proven nor disproven by science. Among the evidences that point to a divine creator is the very fact that something exists rather than nothing, and the fact that life bears evidence of a beginning and progress toward a final end, rather than an eternal self-existence. As theists, we absolutely believe that God is the Creator and sustainer of all things, including fetal development, and that He is the "primary cause" of all things. The fact that He chooses to create human bodies through a progression of apparently natural, secondary causes is not surprising, because that is how all of nature appears to work from a scientific point of view.

Theistic Embryologists differ over the degree or manner of God's involvement in fetal development. Some believe that God's providence is universally and completely present within and through all things at all times, so that the development of a fetus is simultaneously the work of Providence (primary cause) and natural processes (secondary causes). Others prefer a view known as "front-loading" or "fully gifted conception", which holds that God only needed to create the initial blueprint of how cells can fertilize, reproduce, and develop. After that, no more interventions or miraculous acts are required to progress the fetus through its development. TEs also differ on whether the soul is a supernatural creation that is implanted into the physical human body, or whether the soul is an emergent property of humankind.

1.9 Comparing Theories of Creation and Evolution

The previous sections have discussed several different varieties of creationist theories and several different evolutionary theories from the natural sciences. Each one proposes or implies a variety of scientific evidence and philosophical rationale for its position. How are we to evaluate these various theories and compare between them?

This section illustrates and compare these various theories in several different ways. One method of comparing them is to look at what aspects of science (including various forms of evolution) are accepted by the different creation science theories, and which aspects are rejected. Then one can compare the relative strength of the scientific evidence.

	<1800	YEC	OEC	TE
Microevolution	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Age of earth > 4 b.y.	No	No	Yes	Yes
Stellar Evolution	No	?	Yes	Yes
Age of universe > 13 b.y.	No	No	Yes	Yes
Macroevolution	No	No	No	Yes
Chemical Evolution	No	No	No	?

None of the above points accepted by modern science were in wide acceptance before the year 1800, because the evidence had not yet been widely studied. Most advocates of creation science in all modern varieties are willing to accept evidence of microevolution (small changes within species), where it was once thought that species were individually created by God and were fixed and unchanging. Old Earth Creation is willing to accept the age of the earth and the universe and its development over time, but is unwilling to accept macroevolution. Theistic Evolution accepts all of these (with the provision that God is in indirect control of all these things), but is split over whether the first development of life (chemical evolution) could have happened through explainable natural forces, or whether this is an example of where God’s direct supernatural intervention was required. Intelligent Design is not included in this table, because ID advocates do not claim to take a position on these issues.

A different form of this comparison is found at Craig Rusbilt’s page “Definitions and Comparisons in Logical Scientific Evaluation of Evolution and Creation) (http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/origins/logic.htm).

1.8.4 Microevolution and Macroevolution

Microevolution and Macroevolution

Within the subject of biological evolution, the terms “microevolution” and “macroevolution” are used. Microevolution is used to refer to those small changes that occur over generations, generally within a given species or sub-species. Macroevolution usually refers to the large-scale changes between major groups, such as plants and animals, amphibians and mammals, etc.

It used to be believed that since God created all things to reproduce “after their kind,” all species must remain unchanged after their appearance on the earth. This idea was based on the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, and the work of Carolus Linnaeus in the 18th century. Linnaeus was the one who provided the basis for biological classification into such groupings as kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species.

It is now well accepted even by most creation scientists that organisms do undergo genetic mutation, adaptation, and speciation (dividing into new species or sub-species). These kinds of changes can actually be observed over relatively short periods of time. However, most creation science advocates hold that such changes are limited to the species level, or to a more vague grouping of a Biblical “kind” that possibly includes the scientific classification of genus, or even “family.” Sometimes they will use another term such as “adaptation” to avoid the dreaded “E” word.

One of the problems with creation scientists saying that “microevolution within kinds has occurred, but macroevolution hasn’t” is the fact that their categories of “kinds” are not well defined. They may allow in some cases that a “kind” includes genus as well as species. Thus, “microevolution” within a “kind” might take in quite a lot of biological change, and yet must necessarily fall short of being macroevolution, because they have created their own unique definitions to be mutually exclusive. What it seems to come down to for many creation science advocates is that “microevolution is any sort of biological evolution that I am willing to accept, and macroevolution is any evolution that I am unwilling to accept.”

Macroevolution, or changes from one major group of organisms to another, is much more difficult to observe directly, because it presumably takes vastly longer periods of time to accomplish. Much of the evidence for macroevolution comes from comparison of fossil evidence of growing diversity of species over time, and the observable features and genetic relatedness between various groups of organisms. One of the really bad arguments made by creation scientists involves a confusion or distortion over what macroevolution really means. Caricatures or cartoons of hippos giving birth to whales may be comical, but as an attack on the scientific arguments for macroevolution, they fall far short. Scientists don’t believe, for instance, that some crocodile gave birth to the first bird. Rather, they say that reptiles and birds share a “common ancestor” at approximately some geological epoch, and that successive changes brought about diversity between the two lineages until distinct species developed.

Scientists in the field of biology, if they do use the distinction of micro- and macroevolution, generally believe that they are part of the same thing, and that there is no clear distinction between micro- and macroevolution. They observe that small changes occur within the species. They observe evidence for one species dividing into two distinct species, which can no longer mate with each other. They see other evidences of change over time in physical characteristics, genetics, and fossil progression through the geological record, and they conclude that macroevolution is simply microevolution that has been at work for a very long time. Some of these issues will be discussed later, but suffice it to say there are evidences for macroevolution having actually occurred (see “29+ Evidences for Macroevolution”, by Douglas Theobald). Whether such evidence is convincing or the conclusions are justified is certainly a matter for debate.

1.8.3 Biological evolution, Darwinism and Neo-Darwinism

Biological evolution is the theory that all existing species of plant and animal have developed from common ancestors. It has to do with the survival and adaptation of existing biological forms of life, and is thus distinct from other varieties of evolution, such as stellar or chemical evolution. It is also the one which receives the most popular attention and controversy.

Charles Darwin’s book On the Origin of Species is most commonly credited with the development of the “theory of evolution,” based on his observations of geology and the variety of species, but there were others around the same time proposing similar theories (such as Alfred Russel Wallace). Previous to Darwin’s time, a common view was that all of nature was specially designed for specific purposes, and biological species were thought to remain unchanged as originally created. Darwin suggested that organisms change over time, branching out from a common ancestor (“descent with modification”), and that competitive pressures will lead to the survival of organisms that can pass on traits which make their continued survival more likely (“natural selection”). Thus, biological evolution is sometimes referred to as “Darwinism”.
However, at the time Darwin wrote, neither he nor anyone else had knowledge of genetics (later discovered by Mendel and others), DNA, and a variety of other mechanisms which have since been discovered in biological organisms. Darwin himself proposed that parent species acquired new observable traits during their lifetimes which were passed on to their descendents (later termed “Lamarckism”, which has since fallen out of favor in the scientific community). The modern scientific theory of evolution is sometimes referred to as “neo-Darwinism”, because it retains the original ideas of Charles Darwin, but has been modified and synthesized with other theories.

Darwin’s theories of natural selection and common descent are central to current biological theory, but in many ways the modern synthesis of evolutionary theory is different from Charles Darwin’s original writings. Most scientific publications don’t generally use the term “Darwinism.” The term seems mostly to be used by creationist organizations in their rhetoric against “the godless, atheistic alternative to the Biblical creation account.” They are describing a philosophy rather than a strictly scientific account of nature. For these reasons, the term “Darwinism” is fairly useless today for describing the current scientific theory of biological evolution, because it means vastly different things to different people.

It should also be noted that even though some people credit Charles Darwin with striking a fatal blow against religious belief and promoting merely blind chance in place of divine providence, Darwin’s theory did not exclude the influence of a divine Creator. Even though he personally went through periods of theism, deism, and ended up an agnostic, he was never an atheist. His view of nature always acknowledged some sort of belief in intelligent design, as he could not bring himself to think of the wonderful complexities of nature occurring completely on their own (http://www.ualberta.ca/~dlamoure/3Darwin.htm). In the sixth edition of On the Origin of Species, the phrase “by the Creator” was added to the final paragraph: “There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”