James McGrath on Young Earth Creationism

NT scholar, Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in NT Language and Literature at Butler University correctly regards YEC as a menace to Christianity. His latest blog post on the subject as usual hits the spot:

Young-earth creationists claim that the being who made the Earth and humankind is neither trustworthy nor honest. Their concept is of a God who makes the universe look like it is a particular age, and the Earth look like it is a particular age, even though they were created much more recently, and then condemns people for believing that evidence.

Young-earth creationists do not believe the Bible's testimony (in particular in Romans 1) that the Creator can be known through observation of and reflection on the created order.

Young-earth creationists believe that the Creator responded to human sin by introducing flesh-eating bacteria, killer viruses, hurricanes, tornados, floods, and carnivores into the world, just to name a few things.

Young-earth creationists believe that it is perfectly acceptable to repeat lies, promote misunderstandings, distort scientific publications, demean the character and credibility of Christians as well as others who work in the natural sciences.

You can read the rest here.

Examples of poor Christadelphian anti-evolution arguments - 6

One strategy often used by special creationists is to assert that when the Bible is read literally, it provides scientifically accurate information about the natural world which was unknown at the time of writing. From this, they conclude that the Bible is indeed of Divine origin, and subtly imply that the creation narratives likewise are scientifically accurate.

Experimental physicist and YEC Richard Palmer utilises this argument in his 2011 talk "Bible and Science: Conflict or Consistency?" He asserts:

Genetic Evidence for Human Evolution - Shared Genomic 'Errors' (B)

The evidence for human evolution: Shared genetic errors (B)

In part 2 we looked at the basic concepts behind the evidence for common descent as shown by shared 'genetic errors' such as pseudogenes, retrotransposons and endogenous retroviruses. A few examples will follow, in order to highlight why the evidence for common descent just from this branch of science is regarded as overwhelming.

Shared pseudogenes

The enzyme cytochrome P450 C21 is of critical importance in the biosynthesis of  steroid hormones. Humans have both a working copy of the CYP21 gene (which has eight exons)0 C21, as well as a pseudogene, which is damaged in three main ways:

• An eight base pair deletion in exon 3 of the gene
• A one base pair substitution at codon 318 of exon 8
• A single nucleotide insertion in exon 7

Kawaguchi et al analysed the DNA of humans, orangutans, chimpanzees and gorillas to clarify how and when the defects in the CYP21 pseudogene occurred:

The primary purpose of this study has been to determine the evolutionary origins of the three defects characterizing the human CYP21P gene. The study shows that the 8-bp deletion in exon 3 is present in the chimpanzee but not in the gorilla or orangutan genes, whereas the T insertion in exon 7 and the substitution generating the stop codon in exon 8 are restricted to human genes. [1]

In other words, the 8 base pair deletion occurred in a common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees, while the substitution and insertion occurred after the human-chumpanzee speciation event:

Genetic Evidence for Human Evolution - Shared Genomic 'Errors' (A)

The evidence for human evolution: Shared genetic 'errors' (A)

If you were marking examination papers, and found that the papers from four students seated next to each other had exactly the same answer to each question, complete with the same spelling errors in the same words, you would conclude that they had cheated. The alternative explanation, that the students had independently arrived at the same answers and made the same mistakes, would be dismissed out of hand as preposterous. When we examine the genomes of humans and other animals, we find plenty of examples of shared genetic 'mistakes' at exactly the same place in their genomes. This is correctly regarded as overwhelming evidence for common ancestry, with the original genetic error occurring in a species ancestral to the currently living ones, and subsequently being inherited.

Genetic Evidence for Human Evolution - Chromosome 2 Fusion

The subject of evolution and the Flood have been recently  debated at the main Christadelphian Facebook page. Inevitably, human evolution has been raised, with one of the resident evolution denialists asking:

But your wholesale dodge of a really important question still requires address. I repeat: could you please clarify whether you believe Jesus (on his mother's side) is ultimately descended from the apes? [1]

Whether the question is meant in good faith or not, or simply meant to poison the well and make rational discussion impossible is beside the point. The question is one which is definitely on many people’s minds.

What do you mean when you say that all humans share common descent with apes? The only thing I can agree on is that God created both apes and humans but we do not come from apes. God formed man Adam from the dust of the earth. I don't know what genetic evidence you are referring to anyway. [2]

I am sorry but I believe in creation and that humans did not come from apes. If we did it would have been in the bible that we did. So I will never buy that. Oh and I do not believe that Jesus ever descended from apes. That is silly. I agree. [3]

OK. So if we are going for exact terms... Do you...believe that apes form part of our human ancestry. In otherwords if we go back far enough, do you believe that our great great great....... (n'th degree) grandfather was an ape...We share DNA with cabbages, but that doesn't mean we descended from them! Please clarify your response. Thankyou. [4]

Clarinda it is only when in creation that some say that we share some of the same DNA with apes when we clearly do not. To me that is the offensive part. In death humans and animals die the same death. We go back to the dust of the earth but the difference between humans and animals is that humans that have decided to follow Jesus have the hope of the resurrection as the animals do not. The only thing we have in common with animals is when we die and cease to breath and turn back to dust. [5]

Speaking as someone who actually knows something about human molecular genetics (that sort of knowledge comes with the turf when you're a medical doctor who has studied for post-graduate examinations) these responses betray a complete ignorance of the subject of human genetics and evolutionary biology by those making them. In the spirit of disabusing people of their ignorance, here is an outline of the evidence for human-ape common ancestry, which contrary to what many in our community think, is overwhelming.

Once again, my aims for this website

John  Bedson is a Christadelphian atheist (to use his term which I regard as something of an oxymoron, but nonetheless am willing to use as he prefers it) has made a few comments over at the Facebook page. In light of these, a summary post at the blog is indicated.

My goals here are fairly simple:

Christadelphian theology has nothing to fear from evolution or the New Atheists. Here's why

There's an old saying which says that if you can only afford one newspaper, buy that of the opposition. Sound advice. For years I've followed sceptical / atheist blogs and forums mainly to see what they consider to be the 'killer arguments' against Christianity. Although it would be a mistake to consider your average internet atheist polemic representative of the sort of argument that would cause your average Christian to stop and ponder, [1] as these are the arguments to which your average young believer will be exposed, lurking at sites such as Freethought Blogs will give you a ready feel for the depth and nature of arguments that are trotted out.

Have the New Atheists driven a stake through the heart of Christianity? Well, that depends on what instantiation of Christianity you are talking about. If your theology is contingent on the literal descent of every human being alive today from two people who lived 6000 years ago, maintains a penal / satisfaction theory of the atonement and believes in the innate immortality of the soul, then you do have problems. However, as Christadelphians, we are in the position of having a theological position which not only is unaffected by evolution, but is not logically or morally incoherent.