Is it possible to believe in both Creation and Microevolution?

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   jlparkposted 11 years ago

   Is it possible to believe in both Creation and Microevolution?
   
   A comment on another question sparked this.  Those who believe in Creation often scoff at the idea of Evolution eg we can't be descended from Apes etc..Adam and Eve etc. Yet, someone answered with the idea that they believed in micro-evolution (being the small changes made as things develop in order to survive in changing enviroments (including humans)) and that you couldn't find a Christian who denied that. 
   So I wanna know - I'm an Evolutionist (is that a word?) and an Agnostic so you don't have to convince me. I'm wondering if it's even possible, or is it hypocritical to believe in both?

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   tussinposted 11 years ago

   There are Creationists who understand how all the different dog breeds came about due to selective breeding of traits in wolves, which is an example of evolution. I'm not sure if all Creationists believe that dog breeds came about this way.
   
   Differences of opinion exist within the the Creationism movement, for example there are "young Earth creationists" who believe the Earth is only several thousand years old. But not everyone believes that.
   
   Like any belief system, there are factions within factions.

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      lone77starposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, just like the sciences. I talked about this in my essay, "Outsiderness in the Scientific Community."
      
      And "Clovis First" was not the brightest moment in the history of science

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      jlparkposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Factions with factions - yup. I agree about that. Interesting to see what people have to say

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      CJ Sledgehammerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Tussin...selective breeding and variation within species has nothing to do with evolution. Just because I head south and acquire a tan, does not mean I am becoming a Mexican. My beard even seems to grow faster in the winter, yet I am not evolving.

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      jlparkposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      CJ - if you understoof evolution - both micro and macro - you would understand it does not happen that fast - it is a process over time. Notice we no longer have completely hairy bodies - not necessary any longer. Again - provide info with your claim

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   lone77starposted 11 years ago

   I'm a Christian and a scientist. I believe in micro-evolution and macro-evolution.
   
   I don't "believe" in creation, I know creation exists. I've experienced some creation first hand -- full-blown miracles that defy all my training in science, mathematics and logic. They prove that form really does follow function -- that spirit is superior to the physical.
   
   Now, I believe in evolution, but some details I remain uncertain about. How was life formed? It could've been God's creation and its laws accidentally combined in methods He knew would happen, or He stuck his spiritual "finger" into the mix and nudge it along. I don't know. I suspect it was "accidental." I suspect that science will make life in a test tube one day. That does not affect my faith one bit.
   
   How did Homo sapiens get here? Evolved from proto-apes? Perhaps. But I suspect they were a special case, whipped up on special order.
   
   I suspect this because of biblical interpretation.
   
   Science tells us that humans have been around for at least 200,000 years. A literal interpretation of Genesis leads to the birth of humans (Adam) at 4004 BC. Ludicrous! So a literal interpretation is wrong.
   
   Also, Ussher's date for the Flood is wrong, because there were too many humans running around Egypt and Sumer at the time.
   
   A new biblical timeline has been found that is compatible with those of science. It pegs the Flood at 27,970 BC, right when the real "daughters of man" were wiped out as a species.
   
   And the same timeline pegs Adam at 10,434,130 BC -- in the middle of the Miocene Epoch, when giants roamed the land -- giants that make full grown elephants look like miniature puppies.
   
   If Homo sapiens really did start 10.4 million years ago, then anthropologists would be wrong about the origins of humans. Humans would thus have originated long before their supposed great-great-grandparent species.
   
   This makes me wonder about the controversial examples million-year evidence of humans. It wouldn't be the first time professional bias got in the way. "Clovis first" dogma is still egg on the face of scientific professionalism.

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      jlparkposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Interesting answer.  Thank you.  I wanted to hear from someone like yourself, someone who has researched both aspects and is able to combine them in a coherent way instead of denying the possibility of one or the other.  Thanks

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      CJ Sledgehammerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      The fossil record does not support evolutionary claims. There are no examples of specimens (that we can study) that are actively experiencing change. Evolution cannot be studied, observed, or reproduced in any environment. Yet people believe anyway.

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      jlparkposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      CJ - rather than claiming this person is wrong - give us an answer with your claims explained in depth.  What you are currently doing is giving your statements as fact with no back up.  I can research everything this man has said, yet I cannot of you

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      scottcgruberposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Sledge: ever heard of antibiotic resistance? That is observed evolution.
      
      And the fossil record is full of evidence. Every fossil ever found is "experiencing change."

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      gordymckposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I've tried to contact you via genesiscode.net, but the content is mostly about a year out of date.  I am eager to get hold of your book (The Bible's Hidden Wisdom) and wondered if you had a date for finishing.
      
      Many thanks,
      Gordy
      Scotland

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   gregbeckhamposted 11 years ago

   In my opinion, the best way to answer this question is to first ask if you WANT it to be possible to believe in both Creation and Micro-evolution without being hypocritical. If your answer is YES, you will certainly discover how it IS possible to believe in both and not be hypocritical. If your answer is NO, then most probably you would look for (and find) how it IS NOT possible to believe in both without being hypocritical.
   
   In this case, the question isn't if either belief is true, it is - "is it possible to believe in both and not be hypocritical?" I say, of course it is. It becomes POSSIBLE through finding correspondence and metaphor between each belief system, thus accepting them as truth (which is simply an agreement frame between parties and does not necessarily have to do with reality).
   
   I wrote a book examining the power of our stories (beliefs) and how they shape our lives, and in my research over the years, I have studied science, history, spirituality, metaphysics and religion. As a result of my studies, I have been able to draw validating correspondences and metaphors, which I find to be personally acceptable truths, between all of them (including creation and micro-evolution).
   
   Another way of answering this great question is to say that the answer is an ever evolving one. As we gain a deeper understanding of the science of existence, what used to be expressed as abstract, divine or mystical, can become increasingly 'regular' or mundane. This can cause miracles to lose their mystique and gravitas, and thus believers can lose their emotional connection to their beliefs (the typical existential crisis and a common cause of depression and lack of self-esteem).
   
   What if it were simply that creation is unexplained or mysterious that made it ‘magic or divine?' Wouldn't we all seek a truth (which is simply an agreement frame between parties and does not necessarily have to do with reality) to explain it? Sure we would...
   
   Recently, in quantum experiments, it has been shown that the observation of photons causes them to react differently than when unobserved. I think there is an important correspondence here. Our stories, scientific, religious or otherwise, create our lives and how we respond to the world. Everyone seems to want to have a good creation/existence story, right? It's what gives many people the juice to keep going - we all need an emotional connection to our beliefs - even the agnostic! Without it, we are not alive.

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   calynbanaposted 11 years ago

   Of course it is! I want to start my answer by saying that this is what I currently believe and understand. I am not stating my beliefs as absolute fact, I am simply outlining where I stand given the information I have taken in. I am also not saying that my position will never change, given new information my understanding is bound to change and my beliefs develop from there.
   
   Often people believe that the Bible says the earth is only 6000 years old. It never says that. It never says the age of the earth, or of humanity. What it does say is not to be concerned with genealogies. The 6000 year figure comes from doing exactly what Paul says not to do, adding up genealogies.
   
   Another interesting point is that it is possible that the Bible does not cover every generation in it's description of the genealogies.
   
   That being said I believe that the universe was created 13+ billion years ago. The earth I think is said to be placed at around 4.5 billion years. This makes sense to me, and does not in any way conflict with the Biblical account. Actually I think that the Bible account and the Big Bang theory complement each other. That is unless you think creation happened in literally 6 days (which is ridiculous since our conception of "day" isn't created until the fourth "day" so how would the first three even be measured? These are God's "days" who knows how long they were).
   
   This means that there is no reason to believe that the Bible disagrees with the idea that there animals existing for many years before humanity.
   
   The Bible says that God created animals after their kind. It doesn't say that God created every single species in a particular way and that they can never change. Again in the story of Noah's ark Noah brings each Kind on the ark. I am taking this to mean something along the lines of genus. God created the animals and told them to go multiply. He gave the animals the ability to multiply, and to adapt. What is to say that the animals he created did not slowly adapt to the environments in which they lived and continued to multiply? We cannot deny these changes, we do have pet dogs after all, and specially bred cats and all sorts of results of these changes. We can observe adaptation, and micro evolution.
   
   There is nothing in the Bible that makes evolution and creation mutually exclusive.
   
   However I do not believe in a Universal common ancestor for a number of reasons which I cannot fit in this box. If interested check out my hub on creationism.

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   scottcgruberposted 11 years ago

   Based on my vast experience arguing with Creationists, I've found that it's certainly possible to believe in any number of conflicting ideas simultaneously while also disbelieving other ideas that are only semantically different.
   
   This is one of them. Creationists have been forced by the facts to accept "micro-evolution" For one thing, micro-evolution is being observed all the time as plants, animals, and microbes evolve resistance to herbicides, pesticides, and antibiotics. They cannot deny this basic fact.
   
   Secondly, micro-evolution must be invoked in order to accommodate all the animals in Noah's Ark, for those Creationists who think the Ark story is a historical account rather than allegory. They accept that fitting two of every single species on Earth onto a single ark would be impossible - there are 3,400 species of snake, 10,000 bird species, and almost 120,000 species of flies, to name a few examples. So the Ark-believers reduce the number of animals that had to be on the ark via the pseudoscience of Baraminology - arbitrarily grouping the millions of animal species into a more manageable number of "kinds" that could conceivably have fit onto an Ark. Once these "kinds" were back on dry land, they micro-evolved into the thousands of species we know today.
   
   They don't consider this "true" evolution because Creationists are not very intelligent.

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   ChristopherJRexposted 11 years ago

   Making a distinction between “Micro-evolution” and “Macro-evolution” is like admitting that you can have shades of color (e.g., light red, dark red), but not colors that you would consider distinct and different (e.g., pink, brown).  DNA evidence proves that every life-form on this planet is genetically related and evolved from a single, common ancestor (as stated in my hub, http://christopherjrex.hubpages.com/hub … uire-Magic ).  Such evidence is inconsistent with any special “theory” of creation (i.e., Religion).  Therefore, yes, Creation and Evolution are mutually exclusive.
   
   
   Lone77star: You say that you are a scientist, so what are you a scientist in?  From your profile, you state that you have a Bachelor’s in Information Technology and hobby in Astronomy. 
   
   You also say that you’ve experienced “some creation first-hand” (in the form of full-blown “miracles”), so in what journal are those observations/experiences published? 
   
   No form of life was “whipped up on special order,” they actually all evolved from an earlier form of life (that could have arisen by pure “accident,” as stated in my article, http://christopherjrex.hubpages.com/hub … uire-Magic ).
   
   There is no scientific evidence of a world-wide flood.  There is, however, evidence of a large asteroid impact around the time of the extinction of the dinosaurs (as evidenced by a layer of iridium in the same geologic strata all over the world). 
   
   You also appear to “forget” that multiple, different scientific disciplines (Biology, Chemistry, Geology, Meteorology, Astronomy, etc.) independently conclude the same thing (that humans originated from Africa about 2 million years ago).  Bias only seems to enter the equation with certain religious folk that refuse to see facts proved by Science.

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      scottcgruberposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Actually, quite a few forms of life have been whipped up on special order in the modern era of genetic engineering. From mint-scented E. coli to Roundup-Ready corn, we've whipped up a lot of new organisms. But that's just a nitpick...

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      jlparkposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Your statement re: distinction between micro and macro - is what I thought.  Evolution is evolution - Though, it's not up to me to make the argument that you can be both a creationist and believe in evolution. Thats up to the person who told me!

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      ChristopherJRexposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Scottcgruber: Sorry, I meant to specify, "No form of life was 'whipped up on special order' by a supernatural force."  I've created my own lines of chicken blood (6C2) cells using genetic engineering to study beta-globin epigenetic modifications.

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