On the circus that is human origins theory.

Adam and the Genome and Hominid Fossils
Evolution News | @DiscoveryCSC

In his book Adam and the Genome, which we’ve been considering here, biologist Dennis Venema attempts to show that a traditional Adam and Eve did not exist. Instead, humans evolved, like any other species:

The evidence thus suggests that our lineage over the past 4 million years passed through an Ardipithecine-like species, on to an Australopithecine-like species, and then through various shades of Homo until our species is first preserved in the fossil record 200,000 years ago.

(Adam and the Genome, p. 59)

But in Science and Human Origins, Casey Luskin reviewed the fossil evidence including Ardipithecus and Australopithecus and showed:

Hominin fossils generally fall into one of two groups: ape-like species and human-like species, with a large, unbridged gap between them. Despite the hype promoted by many evolutionary paleoanthropologists, the fragmented hominin fossil record does not document the evolution of humans from ape-like precursors.

(Science and Human Origins, p. 45)

Adducing numerous authorities, the book showed that hominid fossils

…fall into two basic categories: ape-like fossils, and Homo-like fossils. This discontinuity between fossil types is well-known. Nonetheless, the hominin fossils have been interpreted as historical, physical evidence of our common ancestry with apes. Ernst Mayr, a well-known evolutionary biologist, acknowledged both the gap and the story-telling in his book What Makes Biology Unique:

“The earliest fossils of Homo, Homo rudolfensis and Homo erectus, are separated from Australopithecus by a large, unbridged gap. How can we explain this seeming saltation? Not having any fossils that can serve as missing links, we have to fall back on the time-honored method of historical science, the construction of a historical narrative.”

(Science and Human Origins, p. 17)

As for Ardipithecus, a fossil noted by Venema, Luskin cites authorities pointing out that this fossil was highly fragmented. This condition makes it difficult to establish whether it walked upright like humans, and, indeed, quite a few authorities believe it was not on the line that led to humans. Moreover, Luskin lists many differences between the australopithecines and our genus Homo, and he cites many authorities who have recognized this gap. Our old friend Casey documented all this and more in a range of articles online:

Ardipithecus as an unlikely human ancestor:

• “The Fragmented Fossil Record of Early Hominins”
• “Another Scientific Paper Challenges Ardi’s Place as a Bipedal Human Ancestor”
• “Nature Publishes Paper Critical of Ardi’s Status as Human Evolutionary Ancestor”
• “Is ‘Ardi’ All Washed Up? (Updated)”

For problems with citing the australopithecines as human ancestors or intermediates:

• “Later Hominins: The Australopithecine Gap”
• “My Pilgrimage to Lucy’s Holy Relics Fails to Inspire Faith in Darwinism”

The abrupt appearance of humans:

• “A Big Bang Theory of Homo”
• “Professor Who Indoctrinates Students on Human Evolution Pushes Them Away from Science”

Casey Luskin has a more extensive treatment of this subject in a chapter, “Missing Transitions: Human Origins and the Fossil Record,” in the recent book Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Critique. 

There, he writes:

The standard evolutionary view of human origins — generally accepted by theistic evolutionists — holds that our species, Homo sapiens, evolved from apelike species through apparently unguided evolutionary processes like natural selection and random mutation. Theistic evolutionists and other evolutionary scientists often claim the fossil evidence for this Darwinian evolution of humans from ape-like creatures is incontrovertible. But their viewpoint is not supported by the fossil evidence. Hominin fossils generally fall into one of two groups: ape-like species and human-like species, with a large, unbridged gap between them. Virtually the entire hominin fossil record is marked by fragmented fossils, especially the early hominins, which do not document precursors to humans. Around 3 to 4 million years ago, the australopithecines appear, but they were generally ape-like and also appear in an abrupt manner. When our genus Homo appears, it also does so in an abrupt fashion, without clear evidence of a transition from previous ape-like hominins. Major members of Homo are very similar to modern humans, and their differences amount to small-scale microevolutionary changes. The archaeological record also shows an “explosion” of human creativity about thirty to forty thousand years ago. Despite the claims of evolutionary paleoanthropologists and the media hype surrounding many hominin fossils, the fragmented hominin fossil record does not document the evolution of humans from ape-like precursors, and the appearance of humans in the fossil record is anything but a gradual Darwinian evolutionary process. … [T]wo top paleoanthropologists have admitted that “the evolutionary sequence for the majority of hominin lineages is unknown.” With the fossil evidence for human evolution so weak, why should our theistic evolutionist brothers and sisters insist that the church must adopt their viewpoint?

So, despite Dennis Venema’s statements to the contrary, there is no clear-cut lineage of fossils leading from ape-like hominids to modern humans. Want to learn more? A good place to start is here: “Human Origins and the Fossil Record: What Does the Evidence Say?”

Something fishy about Darwin splainin'?

A Smell Test for Design v. Evolutionary Explanations
Evolution News | @DiscoveryCSC

If you’ve ever experienced sharing your home or kitchen with cockroaches, you know that these unpleasant critters seem to multiply faster than your can of Raid will spray, and they get into everything. Nevertheless, it’s good to report that some scientists have seen the value of trying to understand them and figure out why they are so successful. What they found is quite astonishing — and a good test case for comparing Darwinian with design explanations. The researchers published their work in Current Biology under the title, “Spatial Receptive Fields for Odor Localization.”

One of the reasons cockroaches are so successful is their keen sense of smell. Like many insects, including the more pleasing butterflies we all love, roaches smell with their antennae. We saw some micrographs of a butterfly antenna in  Metamorphosis — an intriguing structure, to be sure, but loaded with more complexity than apparent even at that level. The cockroach antenna is called a flagellum, which just means any whip-like thing. But this is no ordinary whip. It is loaded with complex specified information in the form of olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs). The authors focused, on just one odorant, a molecule that is one ingredient of the roach sex pheromone odor cocktail. Male roaches need to follow the “odor plume” of periplanone-B to find a female, even in the dark. They come well equipped. The authors estimate there are some 36,000 OSNs for this odorant on the antenna.

Animals rely on olfaction to navigate through complex olfactory landscapes, but the mechanisms that allow an animal to encode the spatial structure of an odorous environment remain unclear. To acquire information about the spatial distribution of an odorant, animals may rely on bilateral olfactory organs and compare side differences of odor intensity and timing or may perform spatial and temporal signal integration of subsequent samplings. 

In other words, having 36,000 sensors is not enough. A male roach will be out of luck if he hangs around where the odor plume used to be. To track his beloved’s perfume, he needs to localize its source as she is moving. Previous studies had shown that the male tends to navigate to the edge of the plume rather than race to the center of highest concentration, a strategy that may serve to amplify spatio-temporal changes. But that strategy is not going to work without having a battery of high-tech instruments and software to interpret it. Again, the roach olfactory system comes well equipped.

PNs’ terminals are broadly distributed in the MB, a neuropil involved in processes such as multimodal sensory integration and associative learning. Here, we have shown that S-PNs’ terminals display a stereotyped distribution, suggesting that the spatial information encoded in the MG can be relayed to the MB….

Whoa, what? That’s the trouble with reading papers on olfaction. The jargon tends to be specialized and dense. So rather than try to define projection neuron, Kenyon cell, mushroom body and other unfamiliar terms, let’s keep it simple. Even the mouthful “macroglomerulus” comes from Latin meaning “big ball of twine.” Let’s give ordinary names to the important parts, based on analogies with familiar things (that’s what the original name-inventors did, anyway; “mushroom body” looks like a mushroom but doesn’t taste like one. Scholars can wade through the open-access paper with its specialized jargon to their heart’s content). We can call the macroglomerulus the string ball. It receives twangs from the triggers on the whip (flagellum, that is), carried on waves by strings. What we want to follow is the process, not the nomenclature. That’s where the real fascination is.

So we discover 36,000 strings plucked by the pheromone, reaching out to the string ball, carrying waves of “encoded information” (they do use that term) from up and down the whip. Let’s add some more complexity now. The whip looks like a guitar neck with frets along its length. Just as a guitarist changes the pitch by position, the information coming from the whip encodes spatial information: the strings at the tip “sound” different from those at the base. And just as the strings each have their own character, the scientists found 12 different kinds of strings responding to this one odorant molecule.

It’s like having a 12-string guitar, but there’s more. There are thick strings and thin strings. All of them plug into the string ball at very specific points. It might be best to shift analogies here, and compare the string ball to a mixing console with lots of plug-in inputs. The scientists found that the thin strings plug into distinct layers around one another in the mixing console, and the thick strings plug into overlapping inputs. The thick strings “sound” pretty much the same from along the guitar neck, but the thin strings have more specificity. In fact, the thin strings can even inhibit the twangs, something like a guitarist performing a “stop” action to produce overtones. They apparently do this to maximize resolution. The scientists found that this gives the thin strings a response area to plucking as fine as 1 millimeter.

As any sound engineer knows, the point where you plug in an input is very important. Also important is how you send the sounds down the line to submixes and mains, to get the proper blend of sounds. The scientists wanted to know if this spatial information was maintained in the next devices in the chain. Sure enough, the submixes found in the mixing board also are identifiable in the mushroom body, which we can call the program console. We’ve all seen the control rooms at TV stations where dozens of consoles line the wall. The program engineer selects between these inputs with split-second decisions to present a unified TV show to the viewer. In the case of olfaction, something similar happens. The brain can’t afford to get swamped by TMI (too much information) when what it is interested in is whether to follow the female this way or that. And remember, the program engineer is not just monitoring this one screen about this one pheromone signal. He’s got thousands of other inputs responding to other odors. It’s like having thousands of other instruments each sending their strings of information in real time down to their own mixing boards and on to the program manager’s console.

This spatial information has to be preserved, but it’s constantly changing. Each mixing board is updating its signal constantly. If you watched the “Pacific Salmon’s sense of smell” animation in Living Waters, it’s like that, and even more complex than shown. The proof of its effectiveness is the behavior: the salmon loses the scent on one tributary, and turns around to follow it up the adjacent one. The roach loses the odor plume in one direction, so it continually adjusts its steps to adjust to the constantly changing signal. The reason the roach follows the edge of the odor plume is because that’s where the concentration gradient and the dynamical information is likely to be greatest, giving the strings more nuance These animals respond faster than a program engineer does for TV. It’s amazing. Are you getting a little more respect for those household pests?

At the risk of overkill, let’s pile on more design by mentioning that all this complexity is constructed during development from a single egg. Furthermore, it has to be upgraded and improved, without breaking anything, during the 11 molts the cockroach goes through on its way to adulthood.

Let’s miniaturize it some more. News from the University of California, Riverside describes olfaction in fruit flies and mosquitoes, which are much tinier than cockroaches, yet just as responsive to odors. Here’s all you need to hear:

Odor receptors are proteins that festoon the antennae and sensory appendages on the heads of fruit flies. Odorant molecules plug into them like a key into a lock, activating the odor-detecting machinery in the fly brain to trigger behaviors such as homing in on ripe fruit. Deciphering the odor-detecting machinery has been incredibly difficult, said Ray, because the fly has more than 100 different odor receptor proteins, which feed into an even more complex odor-processing circuitry in the brain.

If you’re getting the idea that olfaction is a challenge to evolution, you’re right. That’s why Illustra took time to show it in Living Waters. That’s why it was (and still is) one of the most difficult senses to figure out. Even with our simplified analogies, the half is not being told. It remains an active area of research, and attempts to build “electronic noses” have been about as minimally successful as artificial intelligence. One thing we know is that every time we see a functioning system with similar complexity, we know it came from an intelligent cause.

So now, for our grand finale: let’s hear the evolutionary explanation! How will they tackle the following observations:

The use of highly specialized sub-compartment of the cockroach olfactory circuit as a model system has been instrumental in revealing a fine mechanism for the acquisition of spatial information on the olfactory surroundings. The direct correspondence of the antennal surface with a stereotyped antennotopic structure within the brain, coupled with continuous active sensing of the surrounding air space, provides the neuroanatomical means to generate an internal representation of the pheromone distribution.

The Darwin spokesperson steps up to the microphone to explain how this originated. Get ready: get set…

The distribution of [specialized neurons] within the macroglomerulus have [sic] evolved through hundreds of millions of years of selective pressure to efficiently localize the sexual mate and increase individual fitness.

All of this simply…“evolved.” That’s it? That’s it? Yes, that’s it. Simple as that.

On Darwinian trickery.

Evolution a Creative Trickster? Heretic Bioengineer Says No
Jonathan Witt

headline at Science Daily announces, “Evolution Plays Many Tricks against Large-Scale Bioproduction.”The headline paints evolution as a creative wunderkind, a mischievous Br’er Rabbit brilliantly outsmarting the Br’er Bear of industrial bioproduction.

There is mischief here, but it’s the vandal kind, not the creative sort.

“Ultra-deep DNA sequencing of thousands of cells uncovers many competing mechanisms of evolution as a threat to efficient scale-up of biobased chemicals production,” the article reports. “Evolution plays an underestimated role in bioprocesses and limits yields much more than previously anticipated.”

I passed this along to my Heretic co-author, distinguished Finnish bio-engineer Matti Leisola. When he wrote back, he said the instability of bio-engineered strains in such cases is a well-known problem. He encountered it years ago at Cultor, an international bio-engineering company where he served for several years as a research director before returning to academic life. He said:

We had in Cultor two 350 cubic meter (17 m high) and ten 50 cubic meter reactors. We were at that time the largest producer of glucose isomerase enzyme used by ADM to produce high-fructose corn syrup. The bacterial strain we used had over 100 copies of the needed gene but lost the extra copies during the fermentation process almost completely, and we had to start every new production process with an original freeze-dried engineered strain.

Leisola was underwhelmed by the Science Daily article’s talk of evolution in action:

The story is actually really funny. The word evolution is used to mean degeneration, as is so often done. This is how they describe it: “We discovered that a wide diversity of genetic disruptions turned producing cells into non-producing when we deep-sequenced thousands of production organisms over time.”

That’s a crucial point. Modern evolutionary theory purports to explain how fundamentally new biological machines and other forms originated. But many of the oft-cited examples of evolution in action involve devolution. In each such case, an organism or molecular machine devolves in a way that gives it a niche advantage, but at the cost of overall fitness.

Michael Behe describes some examples in The  The Edge of Evolution (e.g., antibiotic and malaria resistance). And in this ID the Future conversation, he discusses another example, polar bears. David Klinghoffer summarizes the podcast as a conversation “about evolution’s dark secret: When we can show it at work, in the lab or in the wild, evolution is very often engaged in breaking things, not building them.”

Leisola said there is ample evidence that in competing environments microbes tend to lose unnecessary genes that are only an extra load for them. In a 2014 Bioscience article,“For Microbes, Devolution is Evolution,”writer Marcia Stone describes some of that evidence, and quotes J. Jeffrey Morris, a member of Richard Lenski’s famed Michigan State University lab. “Species are in a ‘race to the bottom,’” Morris said, “deleting the genes for as many costly functions as they can get away with.”

Even when evolution has a small, step-by-step path to a modest complexity advance, that pathway may be foreclosed by a more attractive devolutionary path. Matti and I discuss this in  Heretic: One Scientist’s Journey from Darwin to Design:

It is generally assumed that a multi-step mutational evolutionary path is possible if all the intermediary steps are functional and can each be reached by a single mutation. The activity produced in this way may, however, be so weak that the cell must over-express the hypothetical newly formed enzyme — in other words, produce too much of the enzyme, causing a huge strain on the cell because it has to use extra synthetic capacity for this. Therefore it is likely that the cell would shed such a weak side-activity. The modest benefit wouldn’t be worth the strain caused by the overproduction.

 Ann Gauger and her colleagues studied what happened in such a case under laboratory conditions. They introduced a mutation that partially interfered with a bacterial cell’s gene for the synthesis of the amino acid tryptophan. Then they introduced a second mutation into the gene that completely abolished the ability to synthesize tryptophan. Cells with the double mutant could, theoretically, regain weak tryptophan synthesizing ability with only one back-mutation. Given more time, cells with the one back-mutation might then undergo one more back-mutation to regain full tryptophan-synthesizing ability. This might demonstrate how a cell could gain a new function with just two mutations. But this did not happen. Instead, cells consistently acquired mutations that reduced expression of the doubly mutated gene. The experiment suggests that even if the cell could acquire a weak new activity by gene mutation, it would get rid of it because weakly performing functions of this sort exact too heavy an energy burden.

The beginning re:John1:1

Was" and "Beginning" in John 1:1


"in beginning was the word, and the word was with the god, and godwas the word."

ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. 


In an on-line discussion I discussed "was" and "beginning" as used in John 1:1 with a young trinitarian scholar (YTS). She claimed that the author of 'The Johannine Prologue' speaks of the ETERNALWord, but the only relevant evidence she showed for this that I found was in her interpretation of the words "in the beginning" and "was." ('Poetic structure' and the alleged significant contrast between "was" and "became" are extremely weak arguments indeed and far from being anything more than wishful thinking.)

"Beginning" (arkhe or arche) means a certain point in time, and despite all the terminology, verbose speculation, and wishful thinking, it still remains a set point in time. It does not indicate eternal (for which the scripture writers had adequate terms when they wished to use them). "In the beginning" can refer to numerous things, but it never means that thing existed before. 

For example:

"In the beginning, John was afraid to jump out the airplane door." This has nothing to do with eternity. It is a single point in time when John first attempted to jump from an airplane.

"In the beginning" at John 1:1 may refer to the point in time, before the angels were created. Or more likely, it refers to the point in time when the universe (or the earth) was created. In any case, the Word could have existed for some time prior to that time, but would not necessarily have existed eternally!

Yes, if John had wished to mean 'eternal' he would have said "frometernity the Word was" or its equivalent.

The young trinitarian student (YTS) showed the connection between Proverbs 8 and Wisdom/Word. Proverbs 8:22 is quoted by her as: 

"Proverbs 8:22-23 says of Wisdom, 'The Lord created me at thebeginning . . . from of old I was poured forth, at first, before the earth was created.' Thus, while, unlike the Word, Wisdom was created, it existed at the beginning before the creation of the world."

But Wisdom here (according to even many trinitarian scholars and most - if not all - early Christian writers of the first 3 centuries) is supposed to be an important element for John's understanding of the Word! So to deny the creation of the Word and accept thecreation of the Wisdom of God at the 'beginning' is not reasonable. - See "Wisdom" and Christ in the BWF study.

Jesus was called the Wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:24), which we see being created at the beginning in Prov. 8.


Jesus is called the "beginning of God's creation" (Rev. 3:14).

Jesus is called "the Firstborn of Creation" (Col. 1:15). "Firstborn" means that there are others "born" or created after him. The firstborn of (not 'over') creation means he was the first to be created by God (the beginning) and then through him came the rest of creation. - See Firstborn (Prototokos) in the BWF study.


"The BAGD, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature by Walter Bauer, William F. Arndt (Translator), F. Wilbur Gingrich, and Frederick W. Danker (Editor), has been revised as the BDAG. On page 138, the interpretation of Rev 3:14 that '[arche] of creation' means that Christ was createdhas been upgraded from poss. [possible] to prob. [probable]


"BDAG states that the meaning 'beginning = first created' for ARXH [arkhe]  in Rev 3:14 'is linguistically probable.'  The sense 'origin'  or 'source' hardly seems to fit the context of Rev 3:14. This meaning of the word does not seem to figure in biblical usages here or elsewhere. See Job 40:19." - quoted from a NT Greek theology group on Yahoo. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/greektheology/message/11097 


So, at some point in all eternity, there was a beginning ofsomething (probably the creation of our universe) and at thatpoint the Word existed. He could have come into existence at that point, but since he created all other created things, he probably was begotten/created some time before so that he could be the master workman through whom God created the universe.
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As for the word "was" (considered to be in the imperfect tense), it can be seen simply by examining the many other uses of "was" (ἦν   - looks like nv in Greek characters and when using the Symbol font is represented with the 'hn' keystrokes.) in the writings of John that it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with eternity. This examination YTS refused to do.

She was presented with evidence from grammar texts that certain forms of the imperfect have a starting point, a beginning:

- See Dana and Mantey, pp. 190-191 ("Inceptive Imperfect") andMoule, p. 9 (Inceptive Imperfect is "frequent in the N.T.").

In the introduction of the NASB it says: “Greek Tenses: 1. A careful distinction has been made in the treatment of the Greek aorist tense (usually translated as the English past. “He did”) and the Greek imperfect tense (rendered either as English past progressive, “He was doing”; or if inceptive, as “He began to do” or “He started to do”); …. “Began” is italicized [in the NASB] if it renders an imperfect tense, in order to distinguish it from the Greek verb for “begin.” - The Lockman Foundation, 1971.

We also can find this readily-found concept in Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics by Daniel B. Wallace (1996) which also says of the "Ingresssive (Inchoative, Inceptive) Imperfect": 

"1. Definition - The imperfect is often used to stress thebeginning of an action, with the implication that it continued for some time. 2. Clarification and Amplification - The difference between the ingressive imperfect and the ingressive aorist is that the imperfect stresses beginning, but implies that the action continues, while the aorist stresses beginning, but does not imply that action continues." - p. 544. Wallace, by the way, certainly doesn't mind frequently quoting from and referring to A.T. Robertson's classic Grammar (in spite of YTS' firm rejection of it).


http://www.wmcarey.edu/crockett/greek-syntax-summary.pdf 

"GREEK SYNTAX SUMMARY
"James A. Brooks and Carlton L. Winbery, Syntax of New Testament Greek.
Lanham: University Press of America, 1979.


"Imperfect Tense - Linear, progressive action (in past time)
"1. descriptive imperfect (progressive, most common)
2. durative imperfect (continual action that is completed)
3. iterative imperfect (repetition of action, custom)
4. tendential imperfect (attempted but not completed)
5. voluntative imperfect (expression of desire)
6. inceptive [aoristic] imperfect (emphasis on the beginning of the action)"

A Greek Grammar for Colleges, Smyth, p.426, #1900:

“Inchoative Imperfect - The imperfect may denote the beginning of an action or of a series of actions ….” http://books.google.com/books?id=TK9MAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA723&dq=smyth,+greek+grammar&as_brr=1&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false 


Here's what YTS was presented with in my previous posts (which she refused to address):


Let's look at a few examples in the writings of John (since we are investigating John's intended meaning here):

John 9:8 - "they that saw him aforetime, that he was [ἦν] a beggar" - ASV.

These people knew that the blind man had continued to be a beggar for a long time. .... And yet we certainly shouldn't try to put an "eternal" (or even a future 'continuing') meaning on it. The blind man certainly was not a beggar for all eternity. He was not a beggar before he was born on earth. He probably was not a beggar as a newborn infant. He probably became a beggar as a young man or youth. So en ("was") here still indicates something that had abeginning and then continued [up until the time the Jews said or thought it and probably did not continue after that]. 


John 9:16 - "there was [ἦν] a division among them" - ASV.

The division was over whether the one who had just cured the blind man was from God or not. Since the blind man had JUST been healed, it is obvious that this particular "division" actually BEGAN("was") at this time. It obviously means, "At this time there began to be [or 'came to be'] a division among them." 

John 10:22 (or 23) - "it was [ἦν] winter" - ASV.

Whether it is called an imperfect tense or not, it is still very clear that it hadn't been winter for all eternity. It either means "winter had just begun at this time" or "winter had begun a short time [months at most] ago." But there can be absolutely no doubt that it had recently come into existence. 

John 12:6 - "he was [ἦν] a thief" - ASV.

I hope no one insists that Judas was really a thief from all eternity! However, if they do, it is no more unreasonable to insist that Jesus was "with God" from all eternity in the same sense that Judas "existed as a thief from all eternity."

John 8:44 tells us of Satan: "that (one) man-killer [or 'manslayer,' Strong's Concordance; NAS Concordance; Thayer; etc.] was [ἦν] from the beginning." 

According to the same reasoning of some concerning the "eternal" [ἦν] ("was") "in the beginning" of Jesus at Jn 1:1, Satan himself must be "eternal," and by this specious reasoning must, therefore, be God Himself! Either was" [ἦν] in this scripture doesnot mean an eternal existence, or, if it does, then Jesus can certainly be just as "eternal" as Satan himself and still not be God! (Of course, Satan had a beginning and will have an end!)
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Added later:

The word [ἦν], like the other "be" verbs, simply shows existence. It obviously does not indicate the length of that existence. Even the very early Christian scholar, Tertullian [ca. 200 A.D.], who many trinitarians claim was one of the founders of the Trinity Doctrine, said the same!

Tertullian wrote concerning the word 'was' [en, Septuagint] at Gen. 1:1, 2: "But you [the heretic Hermogenes] ... say: 'There is the 'was,' looking as if it pointed to an eternal existence, - making its subject, of course, unbegotten and unmade....' Well now, for my own part, I [Tertullian] shall resort to no affected protestation, but simply reply that 'was' [ἦν] may be predicated of everything - even a thing which has been created, which was born, which once was not .... For of everything which has being, from whatever source it has it, whether it has it by a beginning or without a beginning, the word 'was' will be predicated from the very fact that it exists." - 'Against Hermogenes,' Ch. xxvii, as translated on p. 492, The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. III, Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1993 printing.

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Also examine the following uses of the imperfect 'was' (ἦν) and the equally imperfect 'were': John 1:10; Jn 1:39; Jn 2:1; Jn 2:23; Jn 3:26; Jn 4:6 (hour); Jn 5:1; Jn 5:9 (sabbath); 5:35; Jn 6:4; Jn7:42; Jn 18:1 (garden); Jn 18:13 (2); Jn 19:14 (2); Jn 19:31(preparation); plural form: John 20:26; Rev. 4:11 "theywere"; Rev. 17:8: "the beast you saw was (ἦν), but is not," 2 Peter 3:5 there were heavens long ago [which God had created "in the beginning" according to Genesis 1:1].

For example: John 1:10 - "He was [ἦν] in the world that had come into being [egeneto] through him, and the world did not recognise him." - NJB. 

YTS:  "However, the writer of the Johannine Prologue by design deliberately contrasts the imperfect ἦν (was) with the aoristegeneto (he/it came to be) in this context to contrast the logosWord/word) to be seen as extant in linear aspect, having no beginning nor ending, with the 'all things' that egeneto ("came to be") at a definitive point in time (John 1:3) and, especially, again with the use of the self-same egeneto ("came to be"), over against John the Baptist who 'came to be' at a point in time (John 1:6)."

So, to paraphrase YTS above: 

"However, the writer of the Johannine Prologue by design deliberately contrasts the imperfect  hn [ἦν] ("was") of John 1:10with the aorist egeneto (he/it came to be) in this context to contrast the logos (Word/word) to be seen as extant in linear aspect, having no beginning nor ending 'in the world,' with the world that egeneto ('came to be') at a definitive point in time". 

Or, in other words, The writer of this verse is 'deliberately contrasting' the Word's eternal time existing in the world with the point in time when the world began!

This is clearly nonsense! Obviously the verb 'was' (ἦν) here in the Prologue itself cannot mean eternal or "having no beginning nor ending"! The Word could not have been eternally "in the world"before the world even began!!


John 7:42 - "... Bethlehem, the village where David was [ἦν]." -NJB.

Bethlehem was the city of David's ancestors. Most of his life was not spent there. Therefore, in spite of the imperfect 'was' [hn, ἦν], David was certainly not eternally there (before, during, or after his life). Instead he had his beginning ("in the beginning") there!!


Rev. 4:11 - "Worthy art thou, our Lord and our God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power: for thou [the one seated on the throne, the Father - see Rev. 5:6, 7] didst create all things, and because of thy will they were [hsan - inceptive imperfect], and were created." - ASV. 

You will find that many Bibles even translate the imperfect "were" [hsan], here as "they came into existence," e.g., NAB; ISV NT; GodsWord; Weymouth NT; C.B. Williams. 


Rev. 17:8 - "The beast that you saw was [ἦν], and is not, and is about to come up out of the abyss" - NASB. 

Surely no one would say that the beast had existed for all eternity making it equal to God!

There are many more such uses of "was" which clearly show that the word seldom - if ever - denotes eternal existence, but are clearly shown to be describing a point in time or a period of time which had a beginning.

Therefore, the appeal to the meanings of "in the beginning" and "was" in John 1:1 as somehow showing that the Word had an eternal existence is totally specious.

File under "well said" LIX

“You must not mistreat a foreigner. You know how it feels to be a foreigner. You were foreigners in Egypt." :Exodus:23:9International children's bible.

King of the planets?

 

Now why didn't I think of that?

An Open Letter to the Amazing Randi

David Berlinski
Discovery Institute

Dear Amazing Randi:

I just read your widely publicized letter to the Smithsonian about its decision to air The Privileged Planet, Discovery Institute's film on intelligent design. You find it "impossible to comprehend" why the Smithsonian has chosen to screen such a film. And, I see that you are willing to pay the Smithsonian Institute $20,000 so that they don't do it. 

I want you to know, you're doing the right thing. I figure the American people are dumb as posts. Who knows what ideas a film like that could put into their heads? You haven't seen the film either, am I right? See no evil, see no evil is what I always say.

But here's the thing, Randi. I was sort of planning to screen the film right here in my apartment in Paris. I've got a little screening room I call The Smithsonian right between the bathroom and the kitchen, I sort of figured I'd invite some friends over, open a couple cans of suds, sort of kick back and enjoy. Now you fork over $20,000 to the Smithsonian not to show the film and right away I'm showing the film here in Paris — that's just not going to work for you, if you catch my drift.

But hey, what are friends for? I mean for $20,000, I can make my screening of the The Privileged Planet go away too. An extra $10,000 and we spend the evening reading aloud from Daniel Dennett's autobiography. I hear it's a real snoozer, no chance at all that anyone's going to walk away from an evening like that with poor thoughts about the cosmos or anything like that. You handle the refreshments — nothing much, some cocktail franks maybe, a few kegs of French beer — and I knock ten percent off the price. What do you say?

Now I know what you're thinking, Randi, because to tell you the truth, I've been thinking the same thing. You;re thinking, hey, I'm out forty thousand seminolas to can this film in Washington DC and Paris, and right away, some yutz is going to figure it's show time in Oklahoma or Nebraska or even in New York, and what do I do then? I'm way ahead of you on this one. I've talked with my buddies at the Discovery Institute and for the right kind of donation, we poleax the film completely. That's right. It disappears itself, if you catch my drift. You get to keep the negatives, we keep the director's cut in our safe for insurance. Is this some sort of deal, or what? Now I know what you're thinking because I've been there myself. I know what you're thinking, the Discovery Institute? Bunch of right-wing weirdoes, am I right? Hey, it's not like that at all, Randi, I got to tell you. We here at the Discovery Institute, we're businessmen, if you catch my drift. We want to do the right thing and we want to do it at the right price. Look at it this way. The right kind of donation gets you total peace of mind. You really can't buy that kind of protection, only in this case you can. 

So give me a ring, or send me a note. I'd like to tell you we take checks, but you're a businessmen, too, am I right? It's got to be cash. More than you've got lying around? Not a problem. Just give George Soros a call. Tell him it's for a friend. Do it now. 

You'll sleep better at night.

Your admirer,

David Berlinski

PS: I write a lot of stuff for Commentary, too. For the right price, I don't have to write anything at all. Think it over. Let me know.

David Berlinski received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University and was later a postdoctoral fellow in mathematics and molecular biology at Columbia University.

Darwinists v. The real world?

Here Is How Evolutionists Respond to the Evidence
Cornelius Hunter

Mutations are rare and good ones are even more rare. One reason mutations are rare is because there are sophisticated error correction mechanisms in cells. So according to evolution, random mutations created correction mechanisms to suppress random mutations. And that paradox is only the beginning. That is because error correction mechanisms, as with pretty much everything else in biology, require many, many mutations to be created.

If one mutation is rare, a lot of mutations are astronomically rare. For instance, if a particular mutation has a one-in-a-million (one in 10^6) chance of occurring in a new individual, then a hundred such particular mutations have a one in 10^600 chance of occurring. It’s not going to happen. How do evolutionists reckon with this scientific problem?

First, one common response is to dismiss the question altogether. Evolution is a fact, don’t worry about the details. Obviously this is not very compelling.

Second, another common answer is to cast the problem as a straw man argument against evolution, and appeal to gradualism. Evolutionists going back to Darwin have never described the process as “poof.” They do not, and never have, understood the process as the simultaneous origin of tens or hundreds, or more mutations. Instead, it is a long, slow, gradual process, as Darwin explained:

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case […] Although the belief that an organ so perfect as the eye could have been formed by natural selection, is enough to stagger any one; yet in the case of any organ, if we know of a long series of gradations in complexity, each good for its possessor, then, under changing conditions of life, there is no logical impossibility in the acquirement of any conceivable degree of perfection through natural selection

The Sage of Kent could find “no such case”? That’s strange, because they are ubiquitous. And with the inexorable march of science, it is just getting worse. Error correcting mechanisms are just one example of many. Gradualism is not indicated.

What if computer manufacturers were required to have a useful, functional electronic device at each step in the manufacturing process? With each new wire or solder, what must emerge is a “long series of gradations in complexity, each good for its possessor.”

That, of course, is absurd (as Darwin freely confessed). From clothing to jet aircraft, the manufacturing process is one of parts, tools, and raw materials strewn about in a useless array, until everything comes together at the end.

The idea that every single biological structure and design can be constructed by one or two mutations at a time, not only has not been demonstrated, it has no correspondence to the real world. It is just silly.

What evolution requires is that biology is different, but there is no reason to believe such a heroic claim. The response that multiple mutations is a “straw man” argument does not reckon with the reality of the science.

Third, some evolutionists recognize this undeniable evidence and how impossible evolution is. Their solution is to call upon a multiverse to overcome the evidence. If an event is so unlikely it would never occur in our universe, just create a multitude of universes. And how many universes are there? The answer is, as many as are needed. In other words, when confronted with an impossibility, evolutionist simply contrive a mythical solution.

Fourth, another common response from evolutionists is to appeal to the fitness of the structure in question. Biological designs, after all, generally work pretty well, and therefore have high fitness. Is this not enough to prove that it evolved? For evolutionists, if something helps, then it evolves. Presto.

To summarize, evolutionists have four different types of responses to the evidence, and none of the responses do the job.

Sons of Adam and Eve?

Adam and the Genome and Neanderthal Cave Art
Evolution News | @DiscoveryCSC

As if on cue, science news today reports a remarkable discovery: cave art in Spain from upwards of 64,000 years ago, apparently by Neanderthals. The  Wall Street Journal  aptly summarizes the takeaway:

Neanderthals, once considered the low-brows of human evolution, may have been among the world’s first artists, creating cave paintings long before modern humanity arrived on the scene…

“Once considered”? This is timely because in the book  Adam and the Genome, which we’ve been reviewing here, theistic evolutionist and biologist Dennis Venema discusses DNA that has been extracted from fossils of extinct members of the genus Homo, including Neanderthals and the recently discovered Denisovans. He claims these groups were “not members of our own species” (p. 62). Yet apparently, they were so genetically similar to humans that we could interbreed with them.

And Neanderthals, as the journal Science now reports, had the capacity to create art. In the photo above, that is what looks like a ladder, suggesting that the artist was capable of “a much richer symbolic behavior than previously assumed.” The paintings, in three separate caves, are evidently not by “modern humans” since the latter would not reach Europe for another 20,000 years.

Very interesting. We have virtually no fossil evidence for Denisovans, so it cannot be said that they represent a non-human-like form. As for Neanderthals, here we have plenty of fossil evidence, and what we know shows that they were virtually indistinguishable from modern humans. Dennis Venema notwithstanding, some would consider Neanderthals to be members of our own species.

Casey Luskin explains in “The Genus Homo: All in the Family”:

Though Neanderthals have been stereotyped as bungling, primitive precursors to modern humans, in reality they were so similar to us that if a Neanderthal walked past you on the street, you probably wouldn’t notice many differences. Wood and Collard make this same point in drier, more technical language: “The numerous associated skeletons of H. neanderthalensis indicate that their body shape was within the range of variation seen in modern humans.”

He concludes:

We saw earlier that Leslie Aiello said “Australopithecines are like apes, and the Homo group are like humans.” This is consistent with what we see in the major groups of Homo like H. erectus and Neanderthals. According to Siegrid Hartwig-Scherer, the differences between these humanlike members of the genus Homo can be explained as microevolutionary effects of “size variation, climatic stress, genetic drift and differential expression of [common] genes.” These small differences do not supply evidence of the evolution of humans from earlier ape-like creatures.

Now exactly what the DNA evidence of Neanderthals and Denisovans means for Adam and Eve is still not completely clear. Here’s how Ann Gauger, Ola Hössjer, and Colin Reeves interpret Denisovan and Neanderthal DNA in their chapter “An Alternative Population Genetics Model” in the book Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Critique:

Archaic Populations, Humans or Not? As mentioned in Section 4, significant fragments of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA have been found among present day humans, so researchers suggested that some interbreeding took place between archaic populations and the ancient humans that supposedly emigrated out of Africa. This admixture is believed to have happened at least 50 000 years ago, and probably later on as well. It is in fact well known that gene flow between closely related populations is helpful in order to increase genetic variability and to avoid inbreeding, and indeed, the archaic introgression is believed to have had positive effects, like helping the Tibetans to adapt to high altitudes, and the non-Africans in general to adapt to colder temperature and to ward off infections. But the common descent model predicts a split between humans and archaic hominins more than 500 000 years ago. It would therefore be remarkable if two populations, after such a long time of separation, were still able to have fertile offspring.  But even if this were possible, because of the long separation, it is reasonable to believe that the offspring had low fitness, since our archaic ancestors had, most likely, accumulated many alleles which were deleterious for humans, before the admixture took place.

In view of this, it seems that the large fraction of archaic DNA among present-day humans is more reconcilable with a unique origin model, in which Neanderthals and Denisovans are descendants of Adam and Eve and hence our fully human relatives.

Even if they did exist as groups that were distinct from our own species, Homo sapiens, that in no way precludes the possibility that Adam and Eve were real people who were the progenitors of all modern humans.