Progressive Creationism vs Darwinian Evolution

Creation Model Since the designer represents a Judeo-Christian God or at least one among the Abrahamic religions, we can use the creation model within the bible to maybe describe the diversity of life more accurately: Genesis 1:26-27 states, "Let us make (asah) man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created (bara) man in his own image, in the image of God, he created (bara) him; male and female he created (bara) them."The two creation verbs are in Hebrew. One verb (asah) means to fashion using a substance already in existence. The other verb (bara) means to bring something into existence that never existed before. [16] This creation model suggest that the map of life would look more like multiple trees of life where there are separate origins of life events having multiple primeval soups for each major species including humans of which they emerged from. Based on the previously discussed design inferences, scientist should view the evolutionary process as how the designer intervened periodically over the course of 6 consecutive days, with each day representing a thousand year period, to cause “systemic macro mutations”, which produced a rapid rate of solitary new information within each creation event. Then, assume God continuously acts upon these“meaningful” mutations to help each species adapt in response to changing conditions or environments. When species go extinct, he replaces them with new species within each of the 5 major animal species (fish, birds, rodents, carnivores, herbivores) [17]. Common Design This creation model of the diversity of life would explain the results of the long term study done on isolated groups of prairie chickens showing how they do not go on and evolve into new species. Only after human intervention was enacted did these animals end up recovering as a species [17]. The startling results of this study shows that divine intervention for the maintenance of all animal species is required until they evolve into new species before they become extinct. By limiting the ability for change, it limits the expression of mutated genes that would have harmful effects on the organism that possesses the gene. The study reflects what we see in the fossil record where species remain unchanged until their extinct.Moreover, the creation model would explain why humans share a common ancestry, which I refer to as “common design”, between the animal kingdom with biochemical and morphological similarities with other primates. Conversely, at the same time, the model considers the uniqueness of human beings’ capabilities compared to primates and the rest of the animal kingdom (free-will, self-awareness, intention states, spiritual connection to God etc.). The difference between “common design” and “common ancestry” is the way in which each species evolved. In other words, Common design requires an ID/creationist framework while common ancestry does not. Thus, speciation (or macroevolution) can potentially still occur as long as it’s within each of the five major species where speciation would not overlap between them, which also reflects the current makeup of the fossil record quite nicely. Nevertheless, the creation model also suggests that all men are descended from one man Noah, while women come from up to 4 different blood lines. Since this is not established within the scientific community yet, further investigation is required to confirm this. Predictions Tested: If the “from Noah to man” descent hypothesis is true, then “males would have a lower genetic variability on their y-chromosomes, compared to the mitochondrial DNA which is passed on exclusively through women”.The null hypothesis is that all life including humans evolved from a universal ancestor. Read the results here: http://www.godandscience.org... Working hypothesis: If the Common Design hypothesis is true, then there should be more examples of hidden functions fromthe rest of the non-coding regions of the DNA and “alleged” bad morphological designs or just more examples of decay from originally good designs. Falsification My hypothesis, as a whole, is based on an assumption that substance-dualism is valid and true. This means if someone were able to explain the mind on the basis of brain-action "alone" by finding a region in the brain that causes mental events of intentionality, will, emotions and so on, there is no question this would falsify my theory completely. A famous scientist named Wilder Penfield conducted studies that attempted to demonstrate this but was unable to find through electrical stimulation a place in the cerebral cortex responsible for these mental properties. He concluded that substance dualism was most likely true as a result [18]. Now, these studies are outdated and neuroscience is relatively new, so scientists may be able to falsify dualism through these experiments in the future. Who or what designed the designer? Since my theory indicates that this cause is an eternal life force that created and sustains the universe along with life, this particular designer must exist necessarily of its own existence while every other being is contingent upon this necessary being to exist. God would be the independent necessary being and the universe, along with everything in it, would depend on this being for its existence. Therefore, the question at this point is meaningless and obtuse. It would be impossible for God not to exist if reality were to exist, so we can simply say that God had no beginning and depends upon nothing just like scientists once believed so of the universe. In addition, the Law of Cause and Effect does not require that every "cause" must have an explanation for it. Instead, it states that for every "effect" there must be a cause for it and even if the scientific law did require this, the law of cause and effect does not apply outside the Universe. Thus, since there is no scientific reason that would require us to answer the question what designedthe designer, we can apply Occam's razor in this situation. Analysis From comparing the predictions of the alternative hypothesis to those of the null hypothesis [19], the experiment results show more evidence supporting the common design view that all man descended from Noah and, thus, we can reject the null hypothesis. Thus, all of reality and human beings were specially created, in a certain way, by an absolute mind or first cause to either form and sustain a personal relationship with him or freely reject this offer. The results also show that we possess an additional sixth sense,amongst the other five senses, that was instilled within us by this being in order to reveal certain truths about his character and his purpose for humanity. They call this “Special revelation”, this is why the genesis account matches 99% to potentially 100% of the scientific data, and why we were able to provide some confirmation of a story in the bible that no one else could have known about but the creator himself.In the next round, I will respond to CON's objections and show how the Progressive creation model has more explanatory and predictive power compared to the Darwinian evolutionary model. [16] Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible (New International Version) (Chattanooga, TH: AMGPublishers, 1996). [17] http://www.sciencemag.org...; [18] http://www.custance.org... [19] http://www.godandscience.org...