The Unknown Genesis

The focus of this blog is always Genesis 1 & 2 and my translation and how it affects, or is affected by, science. I read a lot of science journals and blogs and ezines and I’m always looking to see where science is going and whether it continues to confirm – as it most usually does, or (very rarely) contradicts the translation I have proffered here and in the book “Hey Mom, What About Dinosaurs?”. When I find contradictions, I go back both to the Hebrew sources and the Scriptural translation I’ve made of them and see if I should rethink my work, or if Genesis should be a basis to judge the science. Usually it doesn’t matter, though I’ve a couple of examples I wish scientists could handle, and let Genesis clue them into a possibility or probability. But, of course, most of the time there is no contradiction, just more confirmation of the Genesis record.

Let me give you an example of each. The first is about mosses. In ScienceDaily, an easily accessible ezine, out of England, that collects and reports on the latest of nearly every kind of science. In “Moss Helps Chart the Conquest of Land by Plants”, they tell us about a project reported in Science (a not-so-accessible peer-reviewed weekly put out by the AAAS).

Mosses appear in Genesis 1:11. I make quite a bit of it because no one quite recognized this until I brought it out. Until my work, everyone accepted something like the NKJ version, “Let the earth bring forth grass”, or the NAS, “Let the earth sprout vegetation” – which is better but still misses the idea that it was a category (the first) in a sequence of 3: (a) simple plants such as algae and mosses, etc, (b) grasses and other seed-bearing plants, and (c) fruit-bearing woody plants, rather than just “plants”, and then parenthetically mentioning seed-bearing and fruit-bearing sorts. Critics, like scientists and scoffers of the Bible prefer the KJV/NKY version, of course, because it actually lists “grass” as first, thus showing just how off the Bible is, because science has shown grass is a sophisticated/advanced plant type that appeared much later, after major historical and/or evolutionary progress amongst plants. You can read all that, and my refutation of it, in Chapter Three of “Hey Mom, What About Dinosaurs?”

If you read the ScienceDaily article, you’ll learn a few things. First, of course, confirmation that mosses are most likely the pioneers of land life. The scientists, here, are interested in identifying and understanding the genetics and biology that allow mosses to survive both very wet and very dry. They say its a pretty complex genetic system, in both DNA and RNA design/functions. It looks like, to them, that the mosses pioneered an ability to survive dessication and passed it on to flowering plants, but only their seeds. Fascinating. But as for me, I’m especially impressed to see that mosses, “simple plants”, came with such complexity and well-developed genetic software as early as 480 million years ago, and get this – in the order Genesis said. So, this is a “Science backs up Genesis”!

The next example comes from another ScienceDaily article, “Bird-from-Dinosaur Theory of Evolution Challenged: Was It the Other Way Around?” (Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences) Anything to do with dinosaurs is huge. Everyone, young and old, every ethnic group, is fascinated by dinosaurs – and critics have long had a field day scornfully pointing out the Bible seems oblivious of them. Of course, I blew that out of the water – I just wish more people would read my book and blogs so they would know it!

Almost as big a deal, for anyone knowledgeable of such things, is the fact scientists have long believed, and adduced a lot of paleontological evidence, that birds came after – perhaps even evolved from – dinosaurs. So its no small matter that I show in my work that Genesis talks about birds just after it does about dinosaurs. (See Chapter Four of “Hey Mom, What About Dinosaurs?”) The Bible doesn’t say birds “evolved from”, of course. It doesn’t say anything about the way in which life and its myriad of forms came to be, of how God created. It simply says He was the Author of life, and supplies a historical outline – without timescales or and dates – of the most significant forms (as far as we, mankind, are concerned) of life.

As you can tell from the title of the article, some are now hypothesizing that dinosaurs came (evolved) from birds. They have some interesting evidences. And who can tell, from fossils at least 60 to 70 million years old? Who knows, if (as they say) “Small animals such as velociraptor that generally have been thought to be dinosaurs are more likely flightless birds”. Remember Jurassic Park? Wouldn’t that contradict the movie! Whatever, they really have nothing conclusive. The best I can offer is to agree with them that “We’re finally breaking out of the conventional wisdom of the last 20 years, which insisted that birds evolved from dinosaurs and that the debate is all over and done with.” (Does that sound familiar?)

But what about Genesis? I would say Genesis tends to support the traditional “first dinos, then birds” but should scientists decide this reverse evolutionary history is right, there’s still no real conflict with Genesis. First, Genesis actually speaks about birds that have feathers and fly, not flightless “birds”. And the fact that only after the dinos are gone do birds (and mammals, for that matter) become well established or preeminent still leaves Genesis’ history in fine shape. Other scientists suggest that dinos and birds have a common ancestor rather than a more linear connection. Again, that too is fine with the Genesis account. So, in this case, there’s nothing here that requires any new work on my translation of Genesis 1 and 2. Its a tie (or bye?).

When I taught various applications of the evolution paradigm at a couple of universities, I would teach the danger of assuming evolution. The danger was ad hoc and post hoc interpretation and explanation of a biological history or current biological form/design. The danger was rationalization instead of science, of teleology: that the end explains the beginning and process, that the theory explains and confirms the hypothesis. That’s how evolution came to be “a fact” instead of a theory, and scientific research became little more than fleshing out the story of Creation and extolling the beauty of evolution as Creator. All this is exactly what critics say about Intelligent Design. And they were pretty much on much of the time. But what is good for the goose must surely be good for the gander.

When I critiqued evolution articles and books, and research and authors, for that sort of language and reasoning I was keeping biology and anthropology honest, and most people in the field agreed. And truthfully, error of that sort remained rare in evolutionary science but not so much in Intelligent Design. I think that sort of error contributed much to the decline in standing which Intelligent Design has suffered in the past couple of years, and why the “Evolutionists” have won essentially every major contest in courts and school boards and politics in general. It might be hard for the proponents of Intelligent Design to admit they’ve lost enough battles that many on both sides think the war is over, I think most of the science and anti-ID community are confident they’ve won. Certainly their hackles and anxieties are way down today compared to, say, the time of the Dover trial.

Along with their hackles, however, I fear they’ve also dropped their guard against sloppy language and thinking, and a lot of that ad hoc and post hoc and teleological garbage is sneaking back into the picture. And in so doing, the science of evolution is beginning to sound like many researchers are not so anti Intelligent Design. Like those studying evolutionary biological topics, at least, are open to, or leaning towards accepting the idea that evolution of life has had some hand of a higher intelligence guiding or directing or influencing the flow of creation!

I’ve always seen some of this and figured it was, as I’ve said, sloppy thinking or speaking. But in recent times its gotten to be more than just a rare thing, and not just error by junior or less – say, bright? – scientists. To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, here are three examples I came across in one brief session reading online reports.<.h3>

The first:

“Smoke plays an intriguing role in promoting the germination of seeds of many species following a fire,” Johannes Van Staden and colleagues point out in the report (in ACS’s Journal of Natural Products) They previously discovered a chemical compound in smoke from burning plants that promotes seed germination….
In their new research, the scientists report discovery of an inhibitor compound that may block the action of the stimulator, preventing germination of seeds. They suspect that the compounds may be part of a carefully crafted regulatory system for repopulating fire-ravaged landscapes…. The inhibitor thus may delay germination of seeds until moisture and temperature are right, and then take a back seat to the germination promoter in smoke.

Comment: “They suspect that the compounds may be part of a carefully crafted regulatory system…”. “Crafted” by an overseeing Intelligent Designer of the ecological system?

The Second:

Has the almond tree developed a unique way of drawing potential pollinators? A group of researchers at the Department of Environmental and Evolutionary Biology and the Department of Science Education at the University of Haifa-Oranim speculate that the toxin called amygdalin that is found in almond tree nectar is in fact an evolutionary development intended to give that tree an advantage over others…. it is likely that amygdalin is produced in the almond nectar so as to give the almond tree an advantage in reproduction…. it is possible that the plant produces it so as to attract potential pollinators.
Another possibility is that the almond tree has developed this substance in its nectar as a form of filter: it repulses “non-expert” pollinatrors, but gives access to the “experts”… providing efficient pollination services….

Comment: “[A] possibility is that the almond tree has developed this substance in its nectar as a form of filter: it repulses ‘non-expert’ pollinatrors, but gives access to the ‘experts’”. Is the intelligence and discernment of which pollinators are “expert” in the tree, or an outside Intelligent Designer of the system?

The Third:

A team of University of Toronto chemists have made a major contribution to the emerging field of quantum biology, observing quantum mechanics at work in photosynthesis in marine algae….
“Our latest experiments show that normally functioning biological systems have the capacity to use quantum mechanics in order to optimize a process as essential to their survival as photosynthesis…. We were astonished…. This and other recent discoveries …. [raise] some … potentially fascinating questions, such as, have these organisms developed quantum-mechanical strategies for light-harvesting to gain an evolutionary advantage? It suggests that algae knew about quantum mechanics nearly two billion years before humans,” says Scholes.

Comment: algae knew about quantum mechanics nearly two billion years before humans. We all doubt the ability of an algae to know about and use quantum mechanics, but does this suggest there was a much higher Intelligent Designer that did, and helped start this life form some 2 billion years ago?

Now, I have come to a fairly neutral position regarding the creation-evolution-ID debate. Each has its own strength and possibilities, and each can provide a satisfying paradigm/explanation for some people. My only conclusion is that the Bible, in Genesis 1 and 2, and elsewhere, does not tell us how creation happened. But it does tell us God was at least a witness to it all, and knew where it was going, as evidenced by (in my own translation of the Hebrew Scriptures) by the description, in some detail, of its history, so many years before anyone could have ever had even an inkling of what we have slowly discovered through science – so accurately and so long ago that it reads, as I’ve said, at least as a most remarkable prophecy! Wichever, whatever, this is enough to lend incredible confidence and believability to Genesis 1 and 2, and the Bible’s claim that God is the Intelligent Designer of life and universe, by whatever means He chose … but did not precisely tell us about.

**The three articles can be accessed at the following URLs:

The Secret Life of Smoke….

Almond Tree’s Secret Weapon

Quantum Mechanics at Work in Photosynthesis…