Look what we found in the Dallas Morning News. It’s a “Letter to the Editor” titled Plausible and logical, and the newspaper doesn’t seem to have a comments feature.
Unless the writer is a politician, preacher, or other public figure, we won’t embarrass or promote him by using his full name. We’re not sure who today’s writer is, because we can’t find him by searching on his name, and the newspaper doesn’t identify him. We’ll only use his first name, which is Bill. Excerpts from his letter will be enhanced with our Curmudgeonly commentary, some bold font for emphasis, and occasional Curmudgeonly interjections that look [like this]. Here we go!
Evolution and science don’t fully explain the origin of life and matter. [They don’t?] They don’t provide an answer to the obvious question that should be asked in a discussion about evolution: What was the original cause that brought into existence the pre-evolution matter that started evolving, and what caused that matter to start evolving?
Ooooooooooooh! Brilliant question! Then Bill says:
Creationism provides a plausible, logical explanation for the origin of life and matter. An eternal, self-existent, supernatural being (God) is the creator. God’s attributes of eternality and self-existence make it unnecessary to ask “Who or what caused God to come into existence?”
Yes, that’s very plausible and logical. After that Bill tells us:
The notion of the existence of God is not simply a religious belief; it’s a logical necessity to explain the original cause of life and matter.
God is a logical necessity — only a fool would deny it! Hey — Bill’s letter is very brief. Here’s the end of it:
Creationism and evolution are not mutually exclusive. [They’re not?] Evolution may have occurred after creation.
Wow! That was a brilliant letter! Don’t you agree, dear reader?
Copyright © 2023. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
Has a creationist ever described the mechanism that these unnatural beings use to create matter? I haven’t seen that. All I have ever read is something like these entities simply speak in the same language as those who make that claim….like…”let there be light”….who or what is hearing those words since no material existed per the creationists before that unnatural entity spoke. I think the creationists have the same problem they claim science has.
Charley Horse X
This is a very standard creationist claim. It essentially consists of “science doesn’t know everything”, as if anyone in their senses ever claimed that it did, followed by “God did it, because He’s God”, as if that were all the explanation needed.
Nonsense, of course.
“God’s attributes of eternality and self-existence make it unnecessary to ask ‘Who or what caused God to come into existence?'”
Hey I was just going to ask that. In Western genre films there is the concept off “cutting them off at the pass.”
https://grammarist.com/idiom/head-someone-off-at-the-pass-and-cut-someone-off-at-the-pass/
“To head someone off at the pass or to cut someone off at the pass means to prevent someone from accomplishing something, to forestall an event, to intercept and redirect someone.”
Why is it that the only things that are eternal and self-existent are beings. Why can’t they be non-beings.
@Charley Horse X
You may be interested to know that your point has an ancient history. In Cicero’s dialogue “On the Nature of the Gods” one of the speakers says:
“For with what eyes of the mind was your Plato able to see that workhouse of such stupendous toil, in which he makes the world to be modelled and built by God? What materials, what bars, what machines, what servants, were employed in so vast a work? How could the air, fire, water, and earth, pay obedience and submit to the will of the architect? From whence arose those five forms, of which the rest were composed, so aptly contributing to frame the mind and produce the senses? It is tedious to go through all, as they are of such a sort that they look more like things to be desired than to be discovered.”
Book I, section 19
TomS
I can’t access the letter, but quoting the curmudgeon’s extracts: “Creationism and evolution are not mutually exclusive. Evolution may have occurred after creation.”
I completely agree. It is perfectly possible for someone to believe in a supernatural origin of the universe, or even in supernatural intervention in the origins of life, and still accept the whole of evolution science. As I’ve said before, many of my staunchest allies in arguing against creationism hold that position, and I’m not going to pick a quarrel with them over anything so inconsequential as the existence of a deity
@Paul Braterman
Well put.
I understand that some people are not curious about the variety of life, or are satisfied with non-explanations like “the supernatural”..Others find it compatible to accept scientific investigations along with an ultimate responsibility resting in the supernatural. As long as they give me the same tolerance …
TomS
He calls it “Creationism” so you can bet he’s only pretending to be “mister reasonable creationist guy”. By “evolution” he means only the “micro” kind.
My guess would be typical bottom-feeder creationist who fed on some Intelligent Design while he was down there on the bottom feeding.
@richard
If you will excuse me for bringing up nastiness, but for those who blame evolution for “Social Darwinism” and other such things … And say that micro evolution applies within “man kind” … how do they distace themselves from those early 20th century movements?
TomS
@TomS
I dunno but Klinghoffer and Behe deny microevolution happens to humans and call it “devolution” instead. Apparently denial denial denial is the name of the game as per usual but I don’t see how “devolution” isn’t a form of evolution. Change is change.
https://evolutionnews.org/2022/07/fact-check-humans-arent-evolving-a-new-artery/
@Richard, the point is that they admit that the information in DNA can spontaneously degrade, which is what they call devolution, but they deny that new information can be generated by natural processes
@Paul Braterman
So it was “old” information? Is that what they are up to? The whole universe is the same ol’ information, therefore there isn’t any new information anywhere? Please tell me they are better than that.
Behe is so incoherent that it is difficult to say what he actually believes. The mainstream creationists believe that each “kind” was preloaded with all the information necessary for all of its descendants, so that no additional information was ever necessary. But I have now looked at your Evolution News link, and it is much less sophisticated than any of that. All Klinghofer;s done is to object to the use of the term “evolution”, for reasons that are not entirely clear, as well as invoking Behe because one possible cause of the phenomenon is the turning off of a regulatory system, which they classify as devolution, which is okay
@Paul Braterman
Okay thanks. I guess they’re off the hook this time. Gotta keep on the lookout with those guys because they are always up to shenanigans.
I am uncomfortable with this. So let me make it clear that I am NOT suggesting any culpability on the part of the evolution deniers. I am only suggesting that the ties of evoutionsry biology to those social-political movements, albeit that they are mistaken, would apply to many of the forms that deny evolutionary biology.
If one claims that there is a kind of change by degradation within mankind when there is no purposeful intelligent intervention – wouldn’t that make some people think that we should be careful to intervene – to prevent degradation of the genetic heritage in mankind?
TomS
@TomS, I think you have precisely described how late 19th century fears of degeneracy, and particularly concern about the poor having more children than the rich at the time, related to the eugenics movement.
@Paul Braterman
And, as a matter of fact, there was another development in 19th century biology: the germ theory of disease. The poor were often the carriers of disease. And other classes of people, for example, immigrants, those huddled masses, especially from different parts of the world. And some classes of people were identified as being diseases, not just carriers. I don’t know how much medical education and practice in the USA was influenced by such xenophobia.
I realize the danger of bringing up the possible evil consequences of the germ theory of disease. No matter how much I insist that such consequences are not warranted by the science.
TomS
@Paul Braterman
In this video Behe is quoted explicitly denying evolution by calling it devolution, which may explain Klinghofer’s objection to the use of the term “evolution” and his citing of Behe. I knew they were up to some shady shenanigans.
“We are told that random mutation is the main driver for evolutionary change, and that evolution is responsible for lower forms being upgraded to higher ones. Yet the latest scientific results show new species are made by breaking genes. By devolution, not evolution.”
@Richard, that’s what he’s been saying for as long as I can remember. his last publication in a scientific journal, in 2010, was about that. I reviewed it here: https://pandasthumb.org/archives/2010/12/behes-review-in.html
The ordinary antonym for “evolution” (as in mathematics) is “involution”. I suppose that biological involution would be something like “reverse change of ratios of inheritable traits in a population” and maybe there is “macroinvolution”, which would involve extinction of species and reappearance of their ancestral
species?
TomS