Comments on: Zimmer: The Sixty-Million-Year Virus

By: Henry Neufeld

Henry Neufeld — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 12:12:13 +0000

It’s interesting that these comments got into the thread on endogenous retroviruses. Just to make sure everybody is aware, Pianka’s comments have nothing to do with ERV’s, and I didn’t intend either virus thread to have anything to do with atheism.

My problem with what many Christian bloggers, especially in the ID community, are saying about Pianka is not that I support his view–I don’t. The problem is that these bloggers are not opposing Pianka’s actual suggestions, but rather things that are made up. It is one thing to say we need to vigorously control population and quite a different thing to suggest releasing a form of the Ebola virus. Pianka is proposing population control as part of a strategy to defend against the possibility of 90% of the population being wiped out by a virus.

I think that there is plenty to argue with in his comments, though I’m going to leave that to experts in the appropriate fields. I don’t think it is appropriate for Christians to not just exaggerate, but twist his words. It is defamation, and it’s a sin.

By: perpetualstudent

perpetualstudent — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 03:38:38 +0000

Because Pianka didn’t say what Mims says he said. This has been well covered on scienceblogs.com as well as this site.

By: Mark Olson

Mark Olson — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 02:37:26 +0000

On viruses and atheists? Honestly I can't see a Christian proposing his idea. From the 1st century (Didache) through to today (with the exception of some modern "liberal" demoniations) abortion and euthenasia has been opposed strongly by the church. Question though, why aren't the rest of the biology bloggers declaiming this nutball?

By: Henry Neufeld

Henry Neufeld — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 12:07:51 +0000

I can see how that could be confusing, though the terms have become common in the creation-evolution debate. To summarize, young earth creationists hold that the earth was created 6-10,000 years ago in a literal week. Old earth creationists contend that the days of Genesis 1 represent long periods of time, and there’s a sort of progressive creation, but that God created new body forms and so forth through special creation. OEC is a spectrum from almost identical to young earth except for the time involved all the way to nearly identical to theistic evolution.

OEC would have a problem with the common descent aspect, especially as it relates to human beings.

Mark Olson says:

Is that someone who believes that �In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. �, i.e., in a Creator?

The term is generally more technical than that, as I noted. I’m a creationist according to your definition. I would only add that I regard God as a continuing creator, i.e. not only the first cause chronologically, but the continuous logical first cause.

For a summary, see my post Creation, Evolution, and Genesis 1-11.

By: Mark Olson

Mark Olson — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 02:55:48 +0000

Ok. Now you’ve confused me. What is an Old Earth Creationist? Is that someone who believes that “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. “, i.e., in a Creator? If so, I”m unclear how belief in a Creator and belief in evolution (or even ID (on which you can look at past posts on this as I’m not exactly a cannonical IDer)) are in opposition or must be disjoint.