ASA Voices » Biological Evolution

The Search for the Historical Adam

Randy Isaac — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 11:15:21 +0000

ASA has long been at the forefront of major developing trends in issues of science and Christian faith. Part of our mission is to explore and understand new scientific advances and their implications for our faith. Since 1954, more than two dozen articles have appeared in our journal where “Adam” appears in the title. In the last decade, the human genome project has catapulted the issue of historical Adam and Eve to the forefront. The cover story of the June 2011 issue of Christianity Today describes “The Search for the Historical Adam,” leaning heavily on key publications and talks from the ASA as well as the BioLogos Foundation.

Our goal continues to be to provide a forum for active discussion on seminal topics. The issue of historical Adam and Eve is extremely important to all of us. Scientific data now seem to dispel any alternative theories allowing for a one-couple human ancestry from the biological perspective. How does this impact our faith?

We encourage active and open discussion in this forum by ASA members to reflect the wide spectrum of views within our membership even as we are united in the body of Christ.

Specifically, members are encouraged to use this forum to comment on the following issues:

Is your own understanding of the Bible in conflict with the scientific views of the origin of humans? Your church’s? How are you dealing with it?
What actions do you feel are needed to make progress in this issue? What role can ASA play in bringing clarity to this issue?

Darwin As a Stalking Horse for Pelagius?

George Murphy — Tue, 17 May 2011 16:27:58 +0000

It’s no secret that evolution has raised questions about Adam and Eve as historical figures, traditional beliefs about their fall into sin and its consequences, and the saving work of Christ. If humanity evolved via natural selection, it’s hard to see how the first humans could have been even potentially sinless, so they couldn’t have “fallen.” Doubts are then cast on the idea of a condition of original sin in which we all share and the claim that Christ died to save us from that sin. Opponents of Christianity have used such arguments to attack the faith while some Christians have used them as arguments against evolution. Others may not go that far but use them to criticize Augustine’s idea of original sin and vindicate his opponent in the debate of the fifth century, the British monk Pelagius, who had a more optimistic view of the human condition.

My purpose here is not to argue for or against the historicity of Adam and Eve or to defend either Augustine or Pelagius. Nor – as anyone familiar with my work will know – is it to criticize Darwinian evolution. I do, however, want to try to remove some of the confusion about the idea of original sin that has distorted many discussions of these matters.

This confusion arises from the fact that “original sin” has two meanings. It may mean “the first human sin” which occurred at the beginning of the human race. Traditionally, of course, Genesis 3 has been seen as an account of this event. But “original sin” can also mean “the sinful condition in which every human life originates.” And it is this second sense which is the most important theologically.

Those who do hold to the latter view of original sin will then need to address the question of why our lives originate in that way if they want a coherent theology. Tracing that condition to “original sin” in the first sense provides one answer, though those who accept evolution won’t be able to take over conventional ideas about Adam and Eve without some modification. But they don’t need to answer the “why” question in order to hold the truth of original sin in the second sense.

Jonathan Edwards’ The Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin Defended is witness to this prioritization. Its long first chapter is titled “The Evidence of Original Sin from What Appears in Fact of the Sinfulness of Mankind.” This evidence to which he referred is not taken from secular history but from what the Bible says about the state of humanity. It is the fact that scripture speaks of all humans beings (except Jesus) without distinction as sinners that is the basis for the doctrine of original sin.

The ambiguity of the term “original sin” can be avoided by using the technical terms “original sin as originating” for an historically first sin and “original sin as originated” for the universal human condition, but these are clumsy. I have previously suggested as an alternative that we use “original sin” exclusively for the putative first sin in human history and another traditional term, “sin of origin,” for sin in which each of us begins life.

In any case, once we have resolved the ambiguity we can see that there is no fundamental conflict between an evolutionary origin of humanity and the Augustinian teaching that all human beings start out in a sinful state. If we realize that then we will see that there is no basis for the claim that the necessity of Christ’s saving work depends on the historical character of Adam and his sin. That idea has had the unfortunate result of “historical Adam” being raised by some Christians to the level of a fundamental dogma. But in turn, the difficulty of maintaining the traditional picture of Adam in view of scientific data has made this a convenient point of attack for opponents of Christianity.

One can certainly argue for the historicity of Adam on the basis of beliefs about the inerrancy and authority of scripture. It seems hard to square that with genetic data but those who are willing to be honest with the science are welcome to try. My point here though is just that the claim that Christ can’t be the savior of the world if there wasn’t an historical Adam is false. The world needs a savior because everyone is a sinner. It’s that simple.

While Augustine’s view of the human condition has been generally accepted by western Christians until recently, there have always been those who have been more sympathetic to Pelagius. It’s not surprising that many people prefer the view of the British monk to the gloomier one of the African bishop. Debates among Christians about these matters can be carried out on the basis of what scripture says about human capacities. But arguments for Pelagius’ position cannot be based simply on the fact that humanity has come into being through the processes of Darwinian evolution, any more than Augustine’s position can be proved by pointing to the deplorable historical record of human evils.

ASA Origins Survey with Correction

Richard Blinne — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:50:08 +0000

Recently the ASA sent a poll to its members concerning origins. Roughly half responded. The ASA is a fellowship of professional scientists and technologists who are Christians. The American Geophysical Union did a similar poll concerning global warming and found a huge difference of opinion between climatologists and petroleum engineers with 97% of climatologists affirming anthropogenic global warming and only 47% of the petroleum engineers. This got me thinking. Is there a similar kind of effect in our poll?

First here is how the results came in for the membership as a whole:

With 2/3 of our members accepting evolution of humans it’s probably pretty surprising to your average church goer. Is it the evil secular universities that Expelled railed against? We can look and see how the answers differed for those who attended secular or Christian universities.

My columns correspond to:

The Universe is 14 billion years old
The Earth is 4.6 billion years old.
Natural evolution. That is plants and animals evolved with natural causes.
Generic evolution. That is plants and animals evolved through either natural or non-natural causes. This is calculated by counting up who answered yes to either the natural or non-natural question.
Human evolution.

I’ve included a bar called all in all my charts so that the average response can be compared.

Nope. No difference. Another thing to explore is whether there is any difference between scientists who are currently employed full time and those who are retired. Presumably the former would be more aware of the current state of the evidence since they are in the thick of it.

So, at least in the minds of those who are currently full-time scientists, the state of the evidence is moving in the direction of natural and human evolution. The difference between the full-time scientists and the retired ones is 13-14%.

Now let’s look at the employers of the scientists. Since origins is basic and not applied research those who are in education, government, and medical should be more aware of the state of the evidence over and against industry and ministry.

Education, government, and medical all cluster together. I haven’t talked about the age of the Earth or Universe since there is mostly agreement regardless of category. Here we have a drop in support for an old Universe by those in the medical field. Hmm. We see more profound drops in support of natural evolution: 17% for industry and 31% for ministry. Human evolution drops 16% and 29% respectively.

Finally, let’s test my hypothesis that differences in opinions stems from differences in familiarity with the evidence by looking at the specific domain experts. I will look at full-time biologists, geologists, and physicists/astronomers. I will include engineers as a group of non-experts with which to compare.

100% of the physicists/astronomers affirm an ancient Universe and 100% of full-time geologists affirm an ancient Earth. 80% of full-time biologists affirm natural evolution and human evolution and 88% of them affirm generic evolution. The difference from engineers is 30% for natural evolution, 18% for generic evolution, and 24% for human evolution. The degree to which there is a difference of opinions on origins is not related to whether Christian scientists went to a Christian or secular school. Rather, it is related to the degree of familiarity with the scientific evidence. The greater the familiarity, the greater the degree of acceptance of mainstream science on origins.

So far, I’ve limited myself to areas where there is scientific consensus. The questions above are more in the developing stage where there is some evidence but more work needs to be done. See my blog post for one example. We still see a similar pattern where the domain experts see more of the evidence, probably because it’s more obscure. Still, only the OOL evidence was sufficient to warrant a bare majority (51%) of the experts. Multiverses were the exception where the physicists/astronomers scored it lower than the non-experts.

CORRECTION:

In the comments our executive director, Randy Isaac, noted a flaw in how I did the calculation and Doug Hayworth noticed my graph format was not helpful (N.B. for those who are unfamiliar with peer review Terry’s, Randy’s, and Doug’s comments are similar to what happens in the peer review process. The difference between this and real peer review is the intensity of the review and the domain expertise of the reviewers.) Randy noted that roughly 8% did not choose to affirm any of the statements. I interpreted this as no answer and didn’t include them in the calculations. For example, a young earth creationist would presumably also not select any of the options and by treating it the way I did his response would not be counted. So, the better approach is to treat this situation as “none of the above”. Treating none of the above as a proxy for YEC and since a non-domain experts maybe hesitant to give an exact answer to the age questions, 8% is probably the upper limit of YEC in our organization.

So, I redid the calculations and here are the comparisons.

There is still no real difference based on going to a Christian or secular college. This doesn’t explain any difference of views.

There is a 14% difference on evolution based on natural causes in the original calculation and 13% with the new one. The difference for human evolution 13% and 12% respectively.

The difference between education and ministry is 31% for the old calculation and 28% for the new for evolution with natural causes. The differences are 29% and 26% respectively for human evolution.

Expertise is the only area where the new calculation shows any substantive differences. 7% of the full-time biologists affirmed none of the statements. All the full-time geologists picked at least one of the statements and all affirmed an old earth. Engineers, physicists and geologists had a response rate than the biologists and had a higher response to the age of the Universe question.

For the old calculation, there is a 30% difference for the natural evolution statement between biologists and engineers and a 31% difference between geologists and engineers. For the new calculation this changes to 27% and 33%. Human evolution showed similar small changes between the new and old calculations.

So, my original thesis still appears to hold. Employed scientists are more likely to accept the consensus science than retired ones. Scientists employed in areas that are more likely to do basic science, likewise. Finally, the areas of expertise closest to the areas of age of the earth and evolution are also more likely to accept this than areas that are further away. Going to a Christian college versus a secular one has no bearing on whether the mainstream science is accepted.

Hamilton’s Rule

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 19:23:40 +0000

A recent poll of ASA members showed some interesting results.

1. 73% of Christian professionals in the sciences affirmed the following: “Plants and animals developed through evolutionary processes” (with natural and/or non-natural causes from ancestral forms)
2. 60% affirmed “Plants and animals developed through evolutionary processes with natural causes from ancestral forms.”
3. 61% affirmed “Biologically, Homo Sapiens evolved through natural processes from ancestral forms in common with primates.”

There was one key area where the support dropped that I want to explore. Only 27% affirmed “Human behaviors, like kindness, care for children, competition, or desire for revenge, developed through evolutionary processes with natural causes.” Note that this is less than the 40% that affirmed “Living organisms on earth developed through evolutionary processes with natural causes from non-living material more than 3 billion years ago.”

The reason for this in my opinion is that while the theory of evolution has great explanatory power there are areas where to date it hasn’t. One such area is cooperation or altruism. Furthermore, the implications of “nature red in tooth and claw” goes against our Christian beliefs. This kind of ambivalence to evolutionary theory by Christians goes all the way back to Darwin’s “Origin of Species”.

Darwin added the following quote of Charles Kingsley to his second edition:

A celebrated author and divine has written to me that “he has gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that He required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His laws.”

On the other hand, fellow evolutionist Alfred R. Wallace advocated to Darwin to use Spencer’s term “survival of the fittest” as a synonym for natural selection. Darwin did do this starting in his fifth edition.

From the use of this term, many Christians inferred social darwinism. (Whether social darwinism really is implied is historically dubious.) It is the social darwinism of laissez faire economics more than anything else that motivated William Jennings Bryan during the Scopes trial. He said the following on the age of the earth question: “It is better to trust in the Rock of Ages than to know the ages of rock.”

Since Darwin, evolutionary theory has struggled to explain cooperative or altruistic behavior in humans and eusocial creatures. One such attempt is known as Hamilton’s Rule.

Formally Hamilton’s Rule is genes should increase in frequency when

rB > C

where
r = the genetic relatedness of the recipient to the actor, often defined as the probability that a gene picked randomly from each at the same locus is identical by descent.
B = the additional reproductive benefit gained by the recipient of the altruistic act,
C = the reproductive cost to the individual of performing the act.

This is known more informally as kin selection. Since this only explains sacrifice for related creatures the self-sacrifice for the “unrelated” is still unexplained. That was until an apparently little-noticed paper two weeks ago in Science.

Hamilton’s rule states that cooperation will evolve if the fitness cost to actors is less than the benefit to recipients multiplied by their genetic relatedness. This rule makes many simplifying assumptions, however, and does not accurately describe social evolution in organisms such as microbes where selection is both strong and nonadditive. We derived a generalization of Hamilton’s rule and measured its parameters in Myxococcus xanthus bacteria. Nonadditivity made cooperative sporulation remarkably resistant to exploitation by cheater strains. Selection was driven by higher-order moments of population structure, not relatedness. These results provide an empirically testable cooperation principle applicable to both microbes and multicellular organisms and show how nonlinear interactions among cells insulate bacteria against cheaters. [Emphasis mine.]

Here’s how Smith et al generalized the rule:

To bridge the gap between theory and data, we derived a generalization of Hamilton’s rule that does not assume additivity or weak selection and whose parameters are empirically measurable (21). We found that cooperators increase in frequency if

r . b – c + m . d > 0 (1)

Distributions can be described by their moments: parameters that measure their shape and location. The relatedness vector r = {r1, r2, …} measures how the distributions of social environments encountered by cooperators and noncooperators differ in each of these moments (fig. S2). r1 is equivalent to r in Hamilton’s rule (5). The other terms are higher-order relatedness coefficients (22, 23). Any smooth function can be expanded into a Taylor polynomial series whose coefficients measure its linear, quadratic, and higher-order components. The benefit vector b describes noncooperator fitness as a function of social environment (red lines in Fig. 1) in terms of its Taylor coefficients. c is the cost of cooperation when all neighbors are noncooperators. m d is nonzero when benefits depend on recipient genotype (Fig. 1C). m is the moments vector for cooperators. d is the difference between the Taylor series of cooperators and noncooperators. Unlike Hamilton’s rule, Eq. (1) disentangles fitness effects from population structure and is valid for arbitrarily complex forms of social selection. When fitness effects are additive, Eq. (1) reduces to rb – c > 0.

Fig. 1. Measuring the costs and benefits of cooperation in microbes. Blue, cooperator fitness; red, noncooperator fitness. (A) In Hamilton’s rule, b is the slope of fitness against the frequency of cooperators among social neighbors; c is the fitness difference between cooperators and noncooperators for a given social environment. Fitness effects are nonadditive when benefits are (B) nonlinear or (C) depend on recipient genotype.

Putting this into English, it was the population structure rather than kinship that selected for cooperators of M. xanthus over cheaters, aka Richard Dawkin’s “selfish gene”. Furthermore, this work takes Hamilton’s rule from a heuristic to an empirically useful structure to look at other social structures. So, I suspect we will see a lot of followup on this in the coming years. It also challenges our intuitive concept of what constitutes the “fittest” which survives.

One thing that those of us who are critical of intelligent design are fond of saying is that it promotes a God of the gaps. The study above shows that we should be careful of our own gaps. Whether it’s research like this or the RNA World concerning origin of life or even multi-verses we should be careful that our apologetics doesn’t lean too heavily upon a lack of a natural explanation. History has shown that such an explanation often does come along even if it takes a long time. I’ll close re-quoting Kingsley’s warning to us about gaps — this time as he wrote Darwin in 1859:

I have gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of Deity, to believe that he created primal forms capable of self development into all forms needful pro tempore & pro loco, as to believe that He required a fresh act of inter-vention to supply the lacunas wh. he himself had made. I question whether the former be not the loftier thought.

Thoughts on Craig Venter’s Synthetic Cell

Terry M. Gray — Thu, 27 May 2010 19:17:05 +0000

On May 10 ScienceExpress published on-line Craig Venter’s Creation of a Bacterial Cell Controlled by a Chemically Synthesized Genome. A talk by Venter given last year at TED.com is a good introduction to the work.

Venter’s achievement is remarkable and embodies two critical accomplishments–first, the use of a chemically (vs. biologically) synthesized chromosome. Venter’s chromosome had never seen a cell prior to its “booting up” in the new host. Of course, the sequence was based on a known bacterial chromosome, but contained modified genes to distinguish it from the host cell and with “watermarks” (more on that later).

The second accomplishment is that the synthesized chromosome was inserted into a host cell (with different DNA from a different species). The system was engineered so that the original host cell DNA would be destroyed and that the new chemically synthesized chromosome would be preserved. This happened and the cell was transformed to function according to the new “program”, the new synthesized chromosome.

This is a remarkable achievement and paves the way to all sorts of future experiments. In principle, however, this is merely a large-scale and chromosome level version of already existing recombinant DNA technology. Venter calls this a “synthetic cell” and at this point I consider this to be mostly hype. Future experiments may result in something that could be called a “synthetic cell”, but for now this is an already existing cell transformed by a chromosome replacement. Thus, the ethical implications of this seem minimal to me.

The ScienceExpress paper notes:

Phenotypic effects of the recipient cytoplasm are diluted with protein turnover and as cells carrying only the transplanted genome replicate. Following transplantation and replication on a plate to form a colony (>30 divisions or >109 fold dilution), progeny will not contain any protein molecules that were present in the original recipient cell. This was previously demonstrated when we first described genome transplantation. The properties of the cells controlled by the assembled genome are expected to be the same as if the whole cell had been produced synthetically (the DNA software builds its own hardware).

Thus within 30 generations, the proteins of the bacterium have been completely determined by the new chromosome. Presumably this would eventually be true of cellular components synthesized by these proteins.

Starting off with a living bacterial cell (even if the DNA has been destroyed) limits the claim of “synthetic cell.” Again, I’m not in the least trying to minimize Venter’s accomplishment, but he started with a living system and synthesized a chromosome that used the same genetic code as the starting living system. I will wait for “booting” the DNA without a starting living system before I apply the moniker “synthetic cell.” That seems a bit more difficult. Since the entire chromosome is synthesized, why not alter the genetic code, i.e. change the aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases so that there is a completely novel relationship between the DNA and amino acid sequences. At first glance this would require booting from scratch, without the presence of the pre-existing living cell, but accomplishing this would be a convincing proof of concept.

Questions have arisen about such experiments in eukaryotes. Could we regenerate a Neanderthal, or a woolly mammoth, or a Tasmanian wolf (organisms for which the code exists “digitally”)? Epigenetic factors in the fertilized egg into which the synthesized chromosome was “booted” would influence development at first. (Think about the chimp with human DNA in Michael Crichton’s Next). But, if it is true that the original epigenetic factors are diluted after a number of generations as in the bacterial case, then perhaps we would end up with something very close to the organism originally coded for by the synthesized DNA. No control exists, however, so we will never know if we have the real Neanderthal or just something very close.

In the TED video Venter comments on the success of this project as showing that via genome acquisition and incorporation, fast and large-scale evolution is demonstrated. Indeed, Mycoplasma capricolum evolved into Mycoplasma mycoides in one generation (or at most 30 generations).

Venter’s watermark is fascinating, and I think somewhat relevant to the intelligent design debate. Venter’s synthetic chromosome spells out the following “words” in some sections of the coded proteins using the one-letter codes of the amino acids coded for by the synthesized gene:

VENTERINSTITVTE
CRAIGVENTER
HAMSMITH
CINDIANDCLYDE
GLASSANDCLYDE

Without overly simplifying the ID argument, it has often struck me that if God wanted to give us a definitive proof of His hand in Creation he could have done such a thing by writing out a message in English (or whatever language you like) using the one letter amino acid codes. (Think about Sagan’s Contact and the message encoded in the digits of pi.) How does the ID argument fare even here? Are these “watermarks,” which we know are intelligently designed, detectable?

The Resignation of Dr. Bruce Waltke: Sad News for the Dialogue on Evolution

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 14:23:28 +0000

I am deeply saddened by the resignation from Reformed Theological Seminary of Dr. Bruce Waltke, renowned evangelical Old Testament scholar. Apparently Dr. Waltke felt compelled to resign from the seminary after he stated on a video clip that he felt if evangelical churches don’t come to terms with data overwhelmingly in favor of the reality of biological evolution, it will face a crisis of not really interacting with the world and “not using our gifts and trusting God’s Providence that brought us to this point of awareness.”

His statements seem to be stating the obvious to many Christians in science. But the fact that the seminary was so upset over these statements that Dr. Waltke felt he had to give up his job over this, because of his desire to honor and protect the seminary, and that the seminary felt compelled to accept his resignation, is extremely disturbing. Whether or not one agrees with Waltke’s views, his sudden departure speaks of fear and defensiveness on the part of evangelical leadership, rather than reasoned and appreciative engagement. Dr. Waltke has written some clarifying statements to reiterate his orthodox views regarding the the inerrancy of Scripture and the historical Adam and Eve, and to reaffirm his belief that an evolutionary process of God’s creation is entirely in line with these views. Nevertheless, as of this writing, the outcome for his seminary professorship has not changed.

What message does this send to seminarians trying to understand the full spectrum of beliefs about harmonizing Scriptural interpretation with scientific discovery amongst committed Christian scholars? What message does this send to young Christians in science, or those considering entering the study of science, wanting to explore nature freely? How can scientists and theologians and clergy better understand one another, if there is a real fear of losing one’s job as a penalty for open discussion? What message does this send to non-Christians regarding the Truth-seeking of believers?

And how can Christian institutions retain a confessional faith identity while yet nurturing and encouraging honest and open scholarship and dialogue?

For more background, see articles in USA Today, BioLogos, and the Gospel Coalition.

Jennifer Wiseman

Smithsonian Human Origins Initiative

Randy Isaac — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:07:34 +0000

The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History has announced its new Human Origins Initiative. Their website was launched yesterday. On Wednesday March 17 they will open the new David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins which features a major new exhibit on what it means to be human. As part of this initiative, the Smithsonian has convened a Broad Social Impact Committee (BSIC), acknowledging the spectrum of responses that might greet the exhibit. I have the privilege of being asked to be part of this committee which represents the wide range of religious and cultural traditions in America. The BSIC website lists the attendees but has not yet posted any of the collective input. The committee had no opportunity to influence the content of the exhibit. Rather, the objective was to help edit the FAQ section both in the exhibit and on the website. We have also been asked to help advise on the training of docents.

On Sunday March 21 from 5pm to 7pm, the committee will hold a press conference to talk about some of the reactions. Our committee met last June in a stimulating session sharing each of our representative groups’ potential reaction to the exhibit. We were able to view some of the back room activities in the museum as well as look at the exhibit construction in progress. We will meet again on March 21 and 22 and be able to view the final product. Those of you who are planning to come to the ASA meeting in Washington DC are encouraged to take the time to visit the exhibit.

To help me provide some input at the March 21-22 meeting, I’d appreciate your browsing the website and submitting your comments here.

BioLogos as alternative to terms EC or TE

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 22:07:06 +0000

Over at BioLogos there has been discussion of use of the term BioLogos rather than Evolutionary Creation or Theistic Evolution. This comes out not in the post but in the comments.

http://biologos.org/blog/report-on-biologos-reasons-to-believe-dialogue/

I chimed in with my thoughts:

I prefer to use the term Evolutionary Creation rather than Theistic Evolution for at least two reasons:
1. EC makes it crystal clear that we stand in the same position as YEC and OEC in that we all believe “In the beginning God”
2. The noun is creation rather than evolution which indicates a better emphasis, ie we are creationists who also accept evolution not evolutionists who accept theism.
Yes I am probably tilting at windmills using a different definition, but this is one case where IMO it seems important but Biologos is fine by me if and when it gets accepted.

I certainly had not understood that this was their proposal but maybe I missed most of the early posts on the topic.

What do people think of the proposal?

Another very pleasant surprise is that Gregory Arago seems to be taking a much more reasonable position or maybe he is just expressing it in a better manner. He still objects to the use of evolution in contexts other than biology but then I object to the term TE although not in the fashion that he tends to.

Chromosome 2 Fusion

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:41:30 +0000

I’m going to pull these chromosome 2 fusion comments into a new post. Interestingly, everyone acts as if this is new data. This has been known for decades, as long as karyotype analysis and chromosome banding studies have been around. The sequencing data has merely confirmed more dramatically the argument for a . . . → Read More: Chromosome 2 Fusion

Godless Embryologists

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 22:09:04 +0000

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.