Natural Selection, Darwin, and the Biblical Worldview
What should a Christian’s view of natural selection be? Is it an invention? Is it nature’s great creative force? Is it good? Is it natural?
What should a Christian’s view of natural selection be? Is it an invention? Is it nature’s great creative force? Is it good? Is it natural?
Darwin saw evolution as a slow and steady process with species gradually transforming into new species over long time. He thought that the fossil record should provide evidence for his theory. However, the needed evidence proved to be elusive.
The theory of evolution has pervaded most fields of knowledge. Therefore, it is important to know the fundamentals of this theory in order to understand how this ideology influences interpretations of data from nature and differs from the biblical creation model of the origin of life forms.
The denial of miracles is a recent phenomenon based on how modernity has chosen to understand the workings of nature and what is possible in it. Belief in a personal God (theism), however, argues that through God’s actions, an event that is naturally impossible can be transformed into a real historical event. This article was originally published in Perspective Digest, v. 24/2.
Ancient Near Eastern views should be considered part of the history of the idea of evolution. The biblical Creation account, in describing the divine actions through which God actually brought the cosmos into existence, was likely deconstructing the alternative theories or speculations of origins available in the Ancient Near East. Consequently, the biblical narrative can be used as well to deconstruct contemporary cosmogonies and evolution. This article was originally published on Perspective Digest, v.24/3.
Why are we trying to find extraterrestrial intelligence, using our intelligence, while at the same time precluding the possibility that an intelligence was involved in the origin of our world?
How can some people be so certain about evolution, while others, with the same certainty, deny it? Part of the answer can, in broad terms, be boiled down to the difference between what is seen and what is not seen. More specifically, and in the context of evolution itself, this disparity arises from the difference between microevolution and macroevolution. What are these two concepts, and how does the difference between them help explain much of the controversy surrounding the theory of evolution? This article was published on the August 2019 issue of Signs of the Times.
A living being is more than the collection of the multitude of organic components of which it is made.
A review of the book, Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Philosophical and Theological Critique. Theistic evolution, the notion that God is the director of Darwinian-style evolution, is a vain attempt to combine contradictory views of earth history. Published in Origins, n. 65.
With the scientific knowledge we currently have of nature, is it still reasonable to believe in miracles?
In a world drowning in information, there is an even stronger search for ultimate truth. It seems the information age expects each of us to sort out misleading advertisements, internet “facts”, and professionally perpetrated misinformation in our own attempts to determine what is true.
There is no simple clear definition of what life is. This is appropriate as life is a wonderful, complex, beautiful, enigmatic phenomenon that defies any effort to over-simplify it. Still, most people have no difficulty recognizing living things and differentiating them from non-living things.
The scientific method uses inductive reasoning to generate theories that explain data. Deductive reasoning is used to generate testable hypotheses that must be true if a theory is true. When the hypothesis is tested, it may fit well with the new data generated, thus supporting the theory (but not proving it true). If the hypothesis is inconsistent with data, then the theory is inconsistent with data…
There are still some rules that we have to follow if we are to do any science, including biology. The first is that empirical data is the authoritative test of all ideas in science.
Biology is the scientific study of life. But what is “science?” And what is “life?” Most of us use these words all the time and have a general idea of what we mean by them, however, it is common for scientists themselves to not have a clear understanding of what science is and this is not as surprising as it sounds. Philosophers of science struggle to define their own area of study, with different…
Suppose we consider science to be a game. What are the rules of the game, and what difference would this approach make? Published in Origins, n.. 64.
However one defines the scientific method, the role of predictions is of significance. A researcher, from his/her knowledge of a topic, makes a prediction of a phenomenon to be found or verified by future research. Published in Origins, n. 64.
The philosophy of Naturalism dominates scientific thinking, for reasons that can be understood from review of the history of scientific thought. This article evaluates the nature and implications of Naturalism. Published in Origins, n. 64.
A review of the book "Biological Information: New Perspectives," The papers are all critical of the current neo-Darwinian synthesis. Although most of them are from intelligent design advocates (including a few creationists), two papers are specifically from advocates of self- organizational theory who do not believe in intelligent design. Published in Origins, n. 64.
Texbooks describe the fossil record as the ‘best evidence’ for evolution. They claim that the fossil record proves evolution because there seems to be a succession from simpler to more complex life forms, and a succession from marine to terrestrial forms. Charles Darwin suggested that all life has a common ancestor. “All the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth may be descended from some…