» Two of a kind?
Monday, November 24th, 2008
Answers in Genesis is a web site whose purpose “is to illustrate the importance of Genesis in building a creation-based worldview, and to equip readers with practical answers so they can confidently communicate the gospel and biblical authority with accuracy and graciousness“. With a purpose like that you might expect them to be honest and up front with the arguments they present, in the normal Christian manner. I think this is why when I come across arguments like this this one espousing the accuracy of Noah’s flood to be so interesting.
The opening paragraphs seem completely honest:
“….ultimately, the Bible must be accepted by faith, not by sight. Those without faith just can’t understand.”
Yep, you read that right. Ultimately the Bible does not have any evidence supporting the central tenants of the faith, nor can it cannot be scientifically, or even logically, explained. Those who do not accept the Bible do so out of a lack of faith, not a lack of evidence. The article admits that leaps of faith are mandatory if the Bible is to be understood and accepted as truth. Science on the other hand takes nothing on faith - everything is up for grabs, which can be unsettling for those who believe they have all the absolute answers they will ever require. (OK - they have one answer, “goddidit”).
If you believe the Bible is the in-errant word inspired by the creator of the universe then it cannot be the book that is illogical or wrong, but your understanding of it. Anyone truly holding such a belief has no option but to reject opposing evidence lest your entire mental house of cards collapses, leaving you exposed to the stark truth. It’s much easier to write off apparent discrepancies to misunderstandings, rather than face this truth - the book is flawed, thus not the work of a perfect being.
However, what is much more interesting to me is the diluting of literal interpretations of Genesis to include the theory of evolution - although it goes in disguise under the name of “metamorphosis”:
“Kircher, a Jesuit priest and scholar, concluded from his research that some of our modern species of animals were not on Noah’s Ark because they originated from other species after the Flood by a kind of divinely guided metamorphosis. In other words, after the Flood, some animals changed and generated new species.”
This verbal sleight of hand is not much more than a magicians trick - get your audience looking the other way, then perform your magic in plain sight. Evolution is metamorphosis - one species turns into two or more others over long periods of time. Tiny changes in each generation build into massive differences given enough time. When a population is geographically separated (say by rising mountains, moving continents, natural migration, or changing climates) these tiny changes can occur in mutually exclusive isolation, leading to different populations in different areas. Since there are no real genetic boundaries between species it is not surprising that many species emerge from this process.
The author (Todd Charles Wood PHD) goes on to say he has started researching “new methods” of study based on (shock horror) statistics:
“Over the past decade, I have worked to develop new methods of studying created kinds using statistics. This research is still very new and preliminary, but a pattern is beginning to emerge.”
A pattern sure does emerge - species that look familiar are actually related. We commonly witness dogs giving birth to more dogs, lions give birth to lions, and llamas give birth to (guess what) llamas. This comes as no surprise - not even to an “evolutionist” for no organism can escape its ancestral history. However, this is not the point the author is trying to make.
Todd wants us to believe that God “divinely guided metamorphosis” so that a single ancestral dog spawned all dog like animals on Earth, and a single llama like animal gave rise to all llama like animals, but there was never an animal from which both dogs and llamas emerged - how could there be? Of course the genetic evidence points to exactly this conclusion, as does the fossil record, as does a completely intact nested set classification of all life on Earth, as does…..
Once can only hope Todd Charles Wood PHD continues his research unimpeded by religious dogma, but given he is “Director of the Center for Origins Research” I do not have much faith, but hope springs eternal.
What is not clear in this “biblical world view” is exactly what prevents one species from changing so much it actually becomes another species? Once again, fancy verbal footwork easily distracts the fundamentalist mind:
“There is evidence that the camel, horse, cat, dog, penguin, and iguana families are each a created kind….I would put the coyote, wolf, jackal, and dog in the same kind, and I would include the fox. I would put the lion and house cat in another kind, and the llama and camel in yet another kind. Today these species (i.e., llama and camel) look amazingly different, but they seem to have been generated after the Flood from information already present within their parent kind.”
Ahhhh - nothing here actually prevents one species from changing into another. In fact the exact opposite is true - one “kind” of animal, a divinely preserved pair, can give rise to multiple species within the space of a few thousand years (if we are to believe the universe is only 6,000 year old). A wolf cannot mate with a dog, or a coyote with a jackal - they are by definition separate species. This is super-evolution which requires a massive rate of change between successive generations - a rate which would almost certainly result in death of the species.
Moreover, if we take the flood out of the equation (thus removing the artificial event horizon beyond which no fundamentalist can see) it is abundantly clear what they are describing here - the theory of evolution. Modern species do look amazingly different to each other, and amazingly different to their ancestors. One point on which they are completely wrong is where the information comes from, which is clearly known to those open to the data.
Once assumes these facts are overlooked by fundamentalist reader who just know they are right, and refuse to honestly question the information presented to them, or even themselves. I find this extraordinary sad.
Tags: Answers in Genesis, Evolution, Genesis
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