I imagine we could also use a break from the science story that is dominating headlines, so let’s dig a little deeper for something else to talk about: fossils. There were a pair of stories about discoveries encased in amber. Both are dated around 99 million years old and come from Myanmar. (You can read more about the recent boom in Myanmar amber and its complicated ethics.) One of the fossils is a tiny dinosaur, likely from the branch of the dinosaur family tree that gave us modern day birds. The other fossil is perhaps less appealing–a cockroach caught in or recently after the act of eliminating–but for a certain kind of scientist it is a rare and exciting find, and I think it’s pretty cool that the scientific community is as diverse in its interests as the tree of life is in its offerings.
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fossil record
The Mechanism of Creation – The View from Science, Pt. 2
This is the second part of a series of three posts dealing with the mechanism of creation from the point of view of science. These will be followed by a series of posts addressing questions and concerns that Christians might have about this scientific view.
In my previous post, I pointed out that evolution is a loaded word that has multiple meanings for people and that part of the conflict between Christianity and science in this area is due to misunderstandings about the meanings of the word. There are four basic meanings relevant to our discussion:
- change over time
- common descent
- a mechanism (natural selection)
- a justification for atheism.
The first three meanings are scientific conclusions while the fourth is a metaphysical interpretation of the scientific findings which I will talk about later in this series. In today’s post we’re going to consider the second scientific meaning of evolution, common descent. [Read more…] about The Mechanism of Creation – The View from Science, Pt. 2
The Mechanism of Creation – The View from Science, Pt. 1
There are two main points of tension between the scientific account of natural history and the creation account in Genesis 1. In my last two posts I discussed the tension around the timing of creation events. In the next three posts I’m going to discuss the scientific view of the mechanism of creation. Then in several following posts I will talk about questions and tensions that Christians may have concerning the scientific view.
The theory of evolution is the dominant scientific explanation for the history of life on earth. Evolution is a loaded word that can mean different things to different people. There are four basic meanings relevant to our discussion:
- change over time
- common descent
- a mechanism-natural selection
- a justification for atheism.
[Read more…] about The Mechanism of Creation – The View from Science, Pt. 1