By labelling all these structures “gills” the implication is that the structures are all identical and that is where the whole failed “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” lie came from.  You know, the “fish” stage of human development, and all that rot.

My point is that you were responding to me I thought, but somehow ended up talking about some site I’d never seen before. Incidentally, I scouted through it and found a few other probs. But the site and its claims weren’t a part of my arguement. It touched on a related subject but that was the end of it.
Check out the site, it attacks the Bible for contradictions but some of the ones it choses are rubbish. I can think of better ones than the colour of Jesus robe when they tortured him.

As for “gills”, I thought the embryo clues to our history thesis was pretty much discredited.
But I do think we came from fish or some sea creature. (Barramundi? May as well be classy!)

Owen Atkins - 31 December 2008 06:22 PM

Derek
Thanks for that clarification
However I have a problem with it.
That leads down another road. It is the road of little to no progress in science.
“Why is X like it is?”
“Because God made it that way, no worries.” Why do men have nipples?
God made them that way. End of enquiry. Oh, you may argue that we should proceed anyhow, but you see, answered questions kill progress. Now, admittedly that is irrelevant to the truth, but I suspect that the fact of scientific progress unbound by the resolving statement “God did it that way.” is a clue. If we impose theology onto science then it has a dampening effect.

Hi Owen
Here’s my attempt at an answer

(i) Science has limitations - it can’t discover all truth.
The scientific method helpful as it is has limitations - it basically deals with observations and logic. You can’t find God by sight or by logic. So neither can science say authoritatively that “God made it that way” - because such knowledge is not accessible by the scientific method / science.

I think some of the problem is that people think that science / the scientific method can provide all the answers. This is impossible - science is massively overhyped (for various reasons) in our 21st century society. Science can’t answer the questions of a child (as John Lennox noted) - why is human life precious? or what happens when we die?

So if we depended only on science for truth then our understanding of reality would be quite stunted. The reality is that people find out truth from other sources not just science ie people find the truth that eg humans have value from their family or friends or from the bible.

(ii) Truth is objective and doesn’t depend on what we think the truth should be.
I think a sincere scientist should be interested in finding out the truth regardless of whether he or she is “impos[ing] theology onto science” or not. The important question is : what is the truth of the matter (of eg the origin of human life) rather than is the question I ask or the answer I come up with going to contradict the philosophy of science as commonly understood.

And if we are really searching for the truth (rather than just conforming to the scientific method which helpful as it cannot discover all truth) then we have to ask such questions that don’t have scientific answers : is there a supernatural being, is there life after death, did people evolve or were they created whatever.

So I don’t think admitting the possibility of a supernatural cause to an natural event has a dampening effect - rather it has a liberating effect. To not admit that possibility is to encourage the censorship of the mind. To bar even the consideration of the possibility of a supernatural cause is to deaden the scientific search.

(iii) There is a tension between science and theology (ie crudely a tension between knowledge obtained through reason, and knowledge obtained through revelation).
I don’t know how to resolve the tension except to say that both approaches are relevant and that ultimately knowledge revealed by God trumps knowledge revealed by our senses.

I think the clue leads in the direction that the discovery of gravity lead us. That is; God has set in motion a whole bunch of operating principles in place. Gravity, evolution, speed of light, thermodynamics. It may also be said He operates through in an immediate way with those principles.

And
The redundant code has lead to a lot of progress in medicine I understand. Evolutionary biology is a useful field. YECSian biology has offered us what exactly?
It can’t because the enquiry stops at “God made it that way.”

The scientific method is great for understanding all sorts of natural phenomena. The fact that some (perhaps many?) scientists consider that the world was made by God, does not in the least stop scientific enquiry. On the contrary, the theistic scientist now has a framework of understanding of why the world exists which helps him or her in their scientific discovery.

I think others write far more persuasively on this than I.

regards
Derek
##################
Perhaps I should be posting in a different thread - what I am posting about is not really relevant to the thread title “Noah and the Flood”
(I just had a thought - do dead horse threads that go off topic experience a second dead horsing ... or does a dead horse die just once :) ... hmmm)

I take your points Derek but to me the prob is still, put theology into science in the form of “God done it” and reason goes for a walk and enquiry goes to the bar for a beer. It may not be true for you but for the majority it is true.

As for evolution, it is a natural phenomenon, so science is good for it. So is geology, astronomy… it’s all natural and all good for science to have a squiz at and make statements about.

Re dead horsing a dead horse that’s er.... deceased. Does it matter. It’s only weeks from being a massacre of horses of all sorts.

Owen Atkins - 31 December 2008 09:14 PM

I take your points Derek but to me the prob is still, put theology into science in the form of “God done it” and reason goes for a walk and enquiry goes to the bar for a beer. It may not be true for you but for the majority it is true.

Hi Owen
I’m enjoying the conversation. I’ve little desire to have society have some sort of oppressive “religious” form of governement that removes discussion of the natural world from the public square. But neither do I want a society where religion is not allowed in the public square. It’s hard to get the right balance in this fallen world.

The idea that science and theology are somehow mutually exclusive I reject as illogical. If theology is real it has to somehow connect with the world in which I live.

As for evolution, it is a natural phenomenon, so science is good for it. So is geology, astronomy… it’s all natural and all good for science to have a squiz at and make statements about.

:)

Re dead horsing a dead horse that’s er.... deceased. Does it matter. It’s only weeks from being a massacre of horses of all sorts.

I guess we’ll find out if there is a second death ... for horses that is ... fairly soon :)