Scientific American: Most Important Science Stories of 2006
Humans controlled computers with the power of thought, built an invisibility cloak, cracked the mystery of a 3,000-year-old computer, discovered a new element, unearthed a missing link and kicked Pluto out of the planet club–and those are just the highlights.
Interesting article. Amazing stuff. Thanks, Michael.
Thanks for the article. I am amazed at the fossil article. I haven’t read all there is to read about it, but the gist seems to be that a specie is discovered and then the leaps of logic and speculation begin immediately. Maybe I’m too old school, but there has to be demonstrated logic from point a to point b. I didn’t see it in the article. All I read was name-calling and caricatures. It would appear that the only ostriches in that discussion are putting sand over their heads in the misguided notion that this discovery is going to bring back a horribly flawed theory from the dead.
I would really like to see what Phil Johnson’s take is on this, if he is even interested. Also, Michael Behe’s Irreducible Complexity might give us a notion of what it takes to get us from this specie to landlubbers. That isn’t clear from the article.
They say science is marching on without us skeptics. If science is what they are doing, then I am very glad that they ARE marching on without me.
Rusty B
LOL
Come on, Rusty. What do you really think. 🙂
Here is my take. From Genesis 1, I believe that God did something utterly unique at three points in the story, indicated by use of the word “bara.”
Gen 1:1: Created (bara) the material world.
Gen 1:21: Created the nephesh, the soulish creatures.
Gen 1:27: Created humanity.
All other references in the passage seem to indicate formed or molded. I think it is entirely possible for God to have evolved species. At least nothing scripturally precludes such a conclusion.
The question then becomes one of science. I have read Behe and I am aware of the irreducible complexity issue. It is indeed hard to see how one species could evolve into another because of the complexity involved. However, science limits its observations to observations in the material world. For that reason, it is a limited form of knowledge. ID inserts non-material causes into the study of the material world because we have concluded that what we see before us unimaginably complex based on what we know today. It is a “God of the gaps” claim.
Some evolutionist have arrogantly and belligerently dismissed people of faith because they have taken a methodological approach (assume natural causes in scientific research) and extended it into matters of ontology about which they have not authority to speak. They may be getting their comeuppance. However, I would be exceedingly cautious about dogmatically asserting “irreducible complexity” and making that the lynch pin upon which faith in God exists. What happens in a few more decades when we discover dynamics at work that make the irreducible complexity not so irreducible? What does it do to the authority of the Word?
A friend of mine describes historical biology as assembling a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle but having only 100 of the pieces. By looking at the configuration of what we do know, we can guess at what adjacent pieces might look like. The same is true with study of evolution. Based on what we know, scientists develop educated cases about what they might find in various parts of the world in various geological strata. They go digging and they frequently find just what they expected. The evolutionary theory has strong predictive value.
Therefore, I see no need to discount over reaching claims about evolution by some scientist by making over reaching claims for ID. Personally, I think ID may be true but it is not a theory in the scientific sense.
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