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Evolution does not threaten fundamental theology

One common way employed by special creationists to evade the fact that the evidence for common descent and large-scale evolutionary change is beyond rational dispute is to play the heresy card, and assert that the fundamental principles of the Christian faith are threatened by evolution. Such an argument has marginal tactical advantages, as it immediately presses all the right emotional buttons, neatly shutting down the rational side of the brain that is needed to  critically evaluate why evolution threatens Christianity, and creating the right sort of  moral panic that allows many people to acquiesce to the usual excommunications that follow such artificial crises. Strategically, it's insane. If you explicitly link Christian orthodoxy to science denialism, you are simply ensuring that any scientifically literate, intellectually honest believer will take you at your word, and reject Christianity once they realise that evolution is a fact.

How to detect expertise (or why cranks are not entitled to their opinions)

Discussion on evolution, creation and the ancient Near Eastern background of the creation narratives is often marked by uninformed opinion, almost always by special creationists, who invariably fail to respond substantively to the points advanced by evolutionary creationists, and offer opinions on highly technical areas in which they clearly have no professional expertise.

Earlier this year. philosophy lecturer Patrick Stokes remarked on one of the points he makes to his students:

I say something like this: “I’m sure you’ve heard the expression ‘everyone is entitled to their opinion.’ Perhaps you’ve even said it yourself, maybe to head off an argument or bring one to a close. Well, as soon as you walk into this room, it’s no longer true. You are not entitled to your opinion. You are only entitled to what you can argue for.” 

A bit harsh? Perhaps, but philosophy teachers owe it to our students to teach them how to construct and defend an argument – and to recognize when a belief has become indefensible.

The problem with “I’m entitled to my opinion” is that, all too often, it’s used to shelter beliefs that should have been abandoned. It becomes shorthand for “I can say or think whatever I like” – and by extension, continuing to argue is somehow disrespectful. And this attitude feeds, I suggest, into the false equivalence between experts and non-experts that is an increasingly pernicious feature of our public discourse.

Christadelphians and Human Evolution - Fifty wasted years (Part 2)

Geologist and evangelical Christian Davis Young has expressed his frustration with the refusal of his faith community to even acknowledge the evidence for human evolution, let alone engage with it in any meaningful way:

“The modern evangelical church is extremely sensitive about open discussion of scientific issues that bear on Genesis 1-11. Enough Christians are so afraid of what might turn up in such discussions that anyone who does try to explore the issues is in ecclesiastical jeopardy. The prevailing atmosphere of fear tends to squelch attempts to deal with these issues. The issue of the origin of humankind is especially sensitive. It seems that the church is afraid to look into paleoanthropology. Where is the curiosity about the physical history of human beings? Among the multitude of evangelical commentaries on Genesis, hardly any of them addresses the problems of anthropology. Geology is often discussed. Some of the commentators have admitted the possibility of a local flood; others are not yet sure of the legitimacy of geological findings. But virtually all of the commentators assume the anthropological universality of the flood without any engagement whatsoever with the archeological and anthropological data relevant to the question of the flood’s impact on the human race. It’s as if the hundreds, perhaps thousands of ancient human sites around the world didn’t exist. [1]

David Young’s gloomy observation unfortunately is equally applicable in my faith community, the Christadelphians. Nearly 50 years ago, bro. Ralph Lovelock made a brave attempt to acknowledge the evidence for human evolution and synthesise it with a relatively conservative reading of Genesis. For his efforts, he was disfellowshipped. Unfortunately, in the forty-seven years since the arranging brothers in his ecclesia implored our community to solve these problems “unhindered by the rumours, mistrust, suspicion and hasty judgments that have been all too prevalent among us in recent times”, not only has there been no real effort to address the considerable fossil evidence for human evolution, any attempt to raise the issue is met with hysteria, bullying, privileging of ignorance over reason and at times the threat of disfellowship. If we want to avoid losing the next generation of educated believers and marginalise our community, then we need to take up the challenge which we’ve shamefully neglected for nearly half a century.

Christadelphians and Human Evolution - Fifty wasted years (Part 1)

Nearly 50 years ago, Ralph Lovelock, a British Christadelphian gave a series of addresses on "The Origin of Man" in which he argued that:

a race of man-like creatures existed prior to the coming of Adam. These creatures were man-like in everything except that they had no knowledge of God, and consequently no relationship with Him. Adam was formed, in a way not described, from these creatures and became representative of them. God gave Adam special qualities (powers of leadership and longevity) and a revelation. Adam sinned and was expelled from the garden to die. He made known his way of life to the surrounding man-like creatures and they thereby became men. Adam’s descendants and the man-like creatures were able to intermarry, and from these sources the world was populated (that is, through Adam’s direct descendants, through the direct descendants of the man-like creatures, and through intermarriage between the two.) [1]

The controversy sparked by his thesis was considerable, and unfortunately resulted in his disfellowship two years later in 1966. To their credit, the arranging brothers of his ecclesia recognized that the scientific questions surrounding the origin of man were real, and needed to be examined rationally:

We wish to make it perfectly clear that we are not closing our eyes to the problems that confront us when the theories of modern scholarship are compared with the understanding and interpretation of the early chapters of Genesis commonly accepted among us, although we we would emphasize that there is by no means complete agreement among scientists themselves concerning the ideas they advance, and a so-called fact of one generation may sometimes become merely the fancy of the next.

At the same time, we are strongly of the opinion that the problems that undoubtedly exist should be frankly admitted by us as a community, for we do naught but dishonour to the word of God by pretending that these problems are not there. Our Brotherhood bears a responsibility to those in search of Scripture truth, and especially to those of tender years, to turn its attention to the solving of these difficulties in an atmosphere of calm, sincere, conscientious study, unhindered by the rumours, mistrust, suspicion and hasty judgments that have been all too prevalent among us in recent times. [2]

 Forty-seven years have passed since the Watford arranging brothers penned these words, but unfortunately our Brotherhood has let down those of tender years who are confronted with an avalanche of evidence for human evolution from a fossil record that is considerably larger than it was in the early 1960s when bro. Lovelock formulated his views. Rather, our community has retreated into a defensive fundamentalism, where even old earth creationists and advocates of a local flood are regarded with deep suspicion. This denial of reality will erode the faith of those who are honest enough to accept the scientific evidence and take in good faith any assertion that the 'purity of the faith' is contingent on rejecting evolution. Once again, science denialism creates unbelief.

How to turn Christians into atheists? It's as easy as Y.E.C. (Part 2)

John Pople, author of the anti-evolution polemic [1]  at the Christadelphian Facebook site which is the subject of this two-part series, has previously argued that God has created the universe with the appearance of age [2-3], an argument popularised by 19th century biologist John Gosse, and rejected by his fellow believers as one which made God to be a deceptive creator. This track record of fundamentalist exegesis and science denialism show that Pople’s arguments on this subject need to be subjected to more than the usual degree of scrutiny.

Pople claims:

The difficulties with Theistic Evolution, are more scriptural than scientific (although the scientific problems are non-trivial, but this is a religious forum). The alterations that are required to be made to the early chapters of Genesis, and the parts of the NT that hang thereon, are so considerable to be basically tantamount to a rejection, rather than interpretation, in my view.

Unfortunately, Pople has already poisoned the well by implying that evolutionary creationists (I do not use the term theistic evolution [4] as it is not an accurate description of my position) are altering the early chapters of Genesis. Rather, I am arguing that the fundamentalist, literal interpretation that Pople advocates is internally inconsistent, ignores the ancient Near Eastern context of Genesis, and leads to a flawed reading of Romans. Furthermore, his reading of the Pauline corpus owes more to Augustine’s flawed reading of Romans 5v12 than to sound exegesis.

Living on the Edge - The Real Richard Dawkins

The New Atheists are often guilty of the same intellectual crimes carried out by the special creationists they rightly condemn - making sweeping statements in areas about which they are abysmally informed. When you hear a biologist or cosmologist blithely dismissing the historicity of the Bible or alleging that Jesus of Nazareth never existed, odds are they have no idea what they're taking about, and can be safely ignored. From the forthcoming Living on the Edge book:

The Real Richard Dawkins

Whilst Dawkins is a well respected and highly qualified biologist, and a genuine expert in his particular field, his status in the broader scientific community should not be exaggerated; he is not a ‘genius’, nor is he considered particularly influential in the scientific community. In a 40 year career, he has published on average less than one academic paper per year; of these papers, only eight (out of 35), appear in the highest ranking journals ('Nature', 'Science', and the 'Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, B, Biological Sciences').

He is not found at all in ISI Highly Cited (an index of the most influential scholars in science).[1] His books are all popular works, none of them academic publications except for ‘The Oxford Book of Modern Science writing’ in 2008. However, even in this case he only served as editor; he did not contribute any articles.