Russell Williams
Well-Known Member
About 25 years ago I came up with a question to ask those who say that there is no evolution.
"Some scientists are talking about people who are trying to create new types of germs or to change existing germs into much more deadly types of germs. Others say that these attempts must either be monitored very carefully or completely forbidden. Is it your position as a creationist that these experiments should be monitored carefully because some new type of bacteria might be created or is it your position that any monitoring of these things is a total waste of time and tax money because there is no way to create a new form of life"
I called up three fundamentalist schools and asked them the above question. I got three different answers.
One) since there is no evolution there are not going to be any new forms of germs and it is a total waste of time and tax money.
Two) yes these things must be monitored very carefully because while there is no evolution there is change and so some type of current germ might change into a new type of germ.
Three) (this answer left me looking at the phone wondering if the person realized what they had just said) yes it must be very carefully monitored because while God cannot create new life forms man can.
What is your answer to this use of taxpayer money?
Some questions that creationists have not answered. Why did God create seven different tuberculosis lineages "the two oldest families of tuberculosis germs begin in West Africa, where they are still found. four more lineages took hold around the Indian Ocean and in East India, East Asia and Europe. Further migration and colonization led to a greater spread. Still unclear: Why the slave trade did not establish the west African lineages in the Americas." Of course one answer to the seven different lineages is that the tuberculosis germs did not evolve, they changed. That produces the question of, "at what point does a change stop being change and become evolution"? Scientific American July 2013, page 83, top left.
The whole question of God making man a perfect creature does not explain why seeming imperfections are actually signs of perfection, " non-coding sequences of DNA were dismissed a jump when discovered, but scientists now are realizing that these segments are copied into RNA in precise patterns that orchestrate gene expression during development. Learn how what once was thought to be junk actually holds the secret understanding human evolution, development, diversity, and cognition". Ibid. page 39
I cannot find the article I was reading in the last couple of days. Someone took a particular bacterium and spread it into X number of jars. Every so often the scientist would take some of the bacteria out of X jar 1.1 and start a new jar which would be 1.2. In time he would take some bacteria from jar 1.2 and put it in a jar which he would label 1.3. He would then take bacteria out of jar 2.1 and put it in the new jar which would be jar 2.2. In time bacteria would be taken out of jar 2.2 and put into a jar which he would label 2.3. For perhaps 10 years he has been doing this. Now each of the bacteria colonies that started from a common ancestor has evolved, or changed in quite measurable ways. Each jar is not only significantly different from the bacteria in the starting jar. Each bacteria jar contains bacteria significantly different from each of the other jars yet all of the jars started from a common ancestor. One can call it change or one could call it evolution. If one chooses to call it change than one can say, yes mankind did not evolve from simpler ancestors, mankind changed from simpler ancestors into what mankind is today.
"Some scientists are talking about people who are trying to create new types of germs or to change existing germs into much more deadly types of germs. Others say that these attempts must either be monitored very carefully or completely forbidden. Is it your position as a creationist that these experiments should be monitored carefully because some new type of bacteria might be created or is it your position that any monitoring of these things is a total waste of time and tax money because there is no way to create a new form of life"
I called up three fundamentalist schools and asked them the above question. I got three different answers.
One) since there is no evolution there are not going to be any new forms of germs and it is a total waste of time and tax money.
Two) yes these things must be monitored very carefully because while there is no evolution there is change and so some type of current germ might change into a new type of germ.
Three) (this answer left me looking at the phone wondering if the person realized what they had just said) yes it must be very carefully monitored because while God cannot create new life forms man can.
What is your answer to this use of taxpayer money?
Some questions that creationists have not answered. Why did God create seven different tuberculosis lineages "the two oldest families of tuberculosis germs begin in West Africa, where they are still found. four more lineages took hold around the Indian Ocean and in East India, East Asia and Europe. Further migration and colonization led to a greater spread. Still unclear: Why the slave trade did not establish the west African lineages in the Americas." Of course one answer to the seven different lineages is that the tuberculosis germs did not evolve, they changed. That produces the question of, "at what point does a change stop being change and become evolution"? Scientific American July 2013, page 83, top left.
The whole question of God making man a perfect creature does not explain why seeming imperfections are actually signs of perfection, " non-coding sequences of DNA were dismissed a jump when discovered, but scientists now are realizing that these segments are copied into RNA in precise patterns that orchestrate gene expression during development. Learn how what once was thought to be junk actually holds the secret understanding human evolution, development, diversity, and cognition". Ibid. page 39
I cannot find the article I was reading in the last couple of days. Someone took a particular bacterium and spread it into X number of jars. Every so often the scientist would take some of the bacteria out of X jar 1.1 and start a new jar which would be 1.2. In time he would take some bacteria from jar 1.2 and put it in a jar which he would label 1.3. He would then take bacteria out of jar 2.1 and put it in the new jar which would be jar 2.2. In time bacteria would be taken out of jar 2.2 and put into a jar which he would label 2.3. For perhaps 10 years he has been doing this. Now each of the bacteria colonies that started from a common ancestor has evolved, or changed in quite measurable ways. Each jar is not only significantly different from the bacteria in the starting jar. Each bacteria jar contains bacteria significantly different from each of the other jars yet all of the jars started from a common ancestor. One can call it change or one could call it evolution. If one chooses to call it change than one can say, yes mankind did not evolve from simpler ancestors, mankind changed from simpler ancestors into what mankind is today.
