Evolution or Revolution

Evolution or Revolution Introduction

None of us can be certain that our values are right for other people. From an education textbook

Richard RortyEvolutionist Philosopher “Truth is made, not found.” We accept ideas when they “pay off” – when we find them “profitable” Language evolved because it is “a useful tactic in predicting and controlling [people’s] future behavior”

Evolutionary Thought Language is merely one beast using words as tools to get power over another beast.

What about Language? • All human societies have language • They always have • Language was not invented and did not spread • Contemporary grammars are no more complex than those of hunters-gatherers • People are proficient language users regardless of intelligence, social status, or level of education

And Children … • Children are fluent speakers of complex grammatical sentences by the age of three, without benefit of formal instruction • Children are capable of inventing languages that are more systematic than those they hear, showing resemblances to languages they have never heard and obeying grammatical principles for which there is no evidence in their environments We think in a language !!!

And Children … • Psammeticus • King James V • Akbar We take language for granted.

A Language Big Bang ????Suggested by Johnson and Potter • No evidence for the development of language • No evidence for the value of intermediate stages of a universal grammar (irreducible complexity) • Language (in its present form) is more than we would need for just survival. Evolutionary just-so stories.

The Language Hot Potato Human language is an embarrassment for evolutionary theory. --- D. Premack

Darwin predicted “an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races.” (The Descent of Man)

Richard Dawkins exemplifies the mindset. Why should an individual have to be damaged, he wonders, before we “prosecute a book which wantonly publishes lies about the universe”? Just what might constitute “lies about the universe?” Dawkins makes no secret of his “contempt for the dangerous collective delusion of religion.”

It comes, I’m sorry to say, from religion. And from bad religion. You won’t find any opposition to the idea of evolution among sophisticated, educated theologians. It comes from an exceedingly retarded, primitive version of religion, which unfortunately is at present undergoing an epidemic in the United States. Not in Europe, not in Britain, but in the United States.

The Simple MousetrapIrreducible Complexity

The Bacterial Flagellum 100,000 RPM

Evolution vs. Revolution

Evolution or Revolution

Scientific American Ask anybody what the physical world is made of and you are likely to be told matter and energy. Yet if we have learned anything from engineering, biology, and physics, information is just as crucial an ingredient. [Indeed, some scientists now] regard the physical world as made of information, with energy and matter as incidentals. Language is how we communicate information.

Richard Dawkins and DNA What has happened is that genetics has become a branch of information technology. The genetic code is truly digital, in exactly the same sense as computer codes. This is not some vague analogy, it is the literal truth. Richard Dawkins is the most well-known evolutionary philosopher alive.

The Cell We now know that the cell bristles with high-tech molecular machinery far more complex than anything devised by mere humans. Each cell is akin to a miniature factory town, humming with power plants, automated factories, and recycling centers. In the nucleus is a cellular library , housing blueprints and plans that are copied and transported to factories …

The Crisis for Darwinism Every cell in your body contains more information than the thirty volumes in the Encyclopedia Brittanica.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. (John 1:1-4 ESV) λόγος – word, thought, mental faculty, reasoning, language.

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. (Revelation 19:11-16 ESV)

The Bible Today A Series of Revolutions and Evolutions

Where did Language Come From? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. (Genesis 1:1-4 ESV)

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so. (Genesis 1:26-30 ESV)

Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly." And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth." And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. And the LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech." So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth. (Genesis 11:1-9 ESV)

The word Bible comes from the Greek, Ta Biblia, meaning the scrolls because the Bible began as a number of different scrolls later combined into a single volume. Biblos – The inner bark of the papyrus

The Problem with Scrolls Model of a synagogue in Nazareth When Jesus entered the synagogue in Nazareth and read from the prophet Isaiah (Luke 4:16-20), he did not read from a Bible like those in current use. Jesus probably read from a scroll nearly 3 foot tall and over 25 foot long that contained just the individual book of Isaiah. In fact, Jesus had to unroll the scroll some 23 feet in order to read from Isaiah 61:1-2.

Invention of the Book Under persecution, early Christians invented the codex, or bound book, used today. Christian writing became illegal in the Roman Empire, and bound books were more easily concealed than scrolls. Yet 1000 years passed before the Bible appeared as a single bound book containing both the Old and New Testament writing. Codex Vaticanus

Single Volume Bibles In the late 12th Century, the first hand-held, single volume Bibles emerged from bookmakers just west of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. These Parisian Bibles were revolutionary in that they were a single volume with smaller pages and script, and contained a fixed order of books with standardized chapter divisions. Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris

Costly Books Parisian Bibles were the first Bibles to resemble modern versions, and the first to be produced in large number. Yet they were expensive. They were handcopied requiring up to 10 months to duplicate. In addition, these Bibles were on parchment made from animal skins. There was no paper. The hides of more than 50 sheep or goats were required to produce enough parchment for just one Bible. Parisian Bibles

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Evolution or Revolution