Seminar on Origins
Valley Church hosted a seminar on origins,
Saturday January 19, 2008, 8am-noon, in
the Campus Center.
It traced the creation-evolution debate
back in history,
explored Biblical and scientific viewpoints,
and highlighted recent developments in Intelligent Design.
The goal of the seminar was to provide new appreciation
for the wonders of God's creation
and provide apologetic resources for further study.
This web page:
http://www.valleychurch.org/info/origins/ will
provide some reference material from that seminar
and the followup activities.
It will be maintained through March.
If you have feedback or questions,
please email me, Frank Nemec, at
Fellowship@valleychurch.org,
or participate in the Origins email list (see below).
Note: upcoming event
Dr. Francis Collins will be speaking on faith and science at
Berkeley February 4, and at
Stanford February 5.
Outline and Schedule (Draft): 19 January 2008
- 0800 Introduction: Creation and Evolution (50)
- History of the debate (Galileo) (DC) (10)
- Nicene Creed, focus of seminar (DW 10)
- Definitions (Science / Faith)
- Different views of Origins
- Genesis 1
- Young Earth, Old Earth, Theistic Evolution, Intelligent Design
- Problems with evolution, unanswered questions (10 DC, 10 DW)
- Origin of universe, origin of earth, biological life, species, man
- 0850 Break (10)
- 0900 Advances in Scientific Evidence for Creation I
- Arguments from Astrophysics (25) (DW)
- Arguments from Information Theory 125) (DW)
- Arguments from Neuroscience (30) (JD)
- 1055 Break (5)
- 1100 Consequences of Evolution (20) (DC)
- Ethics, cloning, social Darwinism, selfish gene
- Conclusion/Resources (10)
- Reading list, web sites, ASA definitions, notes
- 1130 Close (Questions and Answers)
There will be opportunity for questions at end of each major section, moderated to watch time.
Origins email list
The
Origins email list provides a way for people
interested in preparation for this seminar,
as well as related discussions.
You may subscribe or unsubscribe at any time.
Once you have subscribed, you can post to the list
by sending an email to
Origins@lists.valleychurch.org.
Followup
Want to discuss these subjects after the seminar?
Meet in the Campus Center the next two Monday mornings,
January 21 and 28, at 6:30am.
After that, we'll see where interest leads.
The first meeting was attended by 8 people.
Discussion was lively and varied, and was clearly
limited by time rather than things to discuss.
Resources
The visual materials used during the seminar
are available from Frank Nemec on a CD
containing the PowerPoint presentation and
some other visual materials.
The flagellar assembly animation can be viewed
with QuickTime or other movie viewers.
The directory of Flash files includes an
open source viewer suitable for those files.
The PowerPoint file can be viewed with PowerPoint,
a free PowerPoint viewer available from Microsoft,
and some other tools like Open Office.
Resource Handout: Resources in the Origins Debate
Young Earth Creationists
- Gish, Duane, "Evolution? the Fossils Still Say No!" (1996) Institute for Creation Research
- Ham, Ken, "The Lie: Evolution" (1987) Master Books
- Morris, Henry & John Whitcomb, "The Genesis Flood" (2003) P & R Publishing
- Morris, Henry "Biblical Creationism" (2000) Master Books
- Sanford, Dr. John, "Genetic Entropy & the Mystery of the Genome" (2005) Elim Publishing
- Answers in Genesis. http://www.answersingenesis.org/
- Institute for Creation Research. http://www.icr.org/
- Creation Safaris. http://www.creationsafaris.com
- Creation Science Evangelism. http://www.drdino.com/index.php
Old Earth Creationists
Intelligent Design
- Behe, Dr. Michael, "Darwin's Black Box" (1998) Simon & Schuster
- Behe, Dr. Michael, "The Edge of Evolution" (2007) Free Press
- Dembski, William A.(ed), "Mere Creation" (1998) InterVarsity Press
- Dembski, William A. & Wells, Jonathan, "The Design of Life" (2007) Foundation for Thought and Ethics
- Denton, Dr. Michael, "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis" (1996) Adler & Adler
- Gonzalez, Guillermo & Jay Richards, "The Privileged Planet" (2004) Regnery
- Johnson, Philip, "Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds" (1997) InterVarsity Press
- Wells, Jonathan, "the Icons of Evolution" (2000) Regnery
- Center for Science & Culture. http://www.crsc.org/
- Research Intelligent Design. http://www.researchintelligentdesign.org/wiki/Main_Page
- Dembski blog. http://www.uncommondescent.com/
- Mere Creation. http://www.origins.org/mc/
Theistic Evolution
- Collins, Francis S., "The Language of God" (2006) Simon and Schuster
- Miller, Kenneth, "Finding Darwin's God" (1999) HarperCollins
- Ken Miller's Evolution Page http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/
Darwinian Evolution
Christian Professional Societies with perspective statements on origins and ethics
Other General Links
Other references
Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator.
"A journalist investigates scientific evidence that points toward God."
See leestrobel.com.
Francis S. Collins, The Language of God.
A superb presentation of various issues of apparent conflict between
science and religion,
from the head of the Human Genome Project.
Michael J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box.
"The biochemical challenge to evolution" from
a founder of Intelligent Design.
Richard Cowen, History of Life.
A well reasoned, well presented overview of origin issues
from a secular perspective.
It does a reasonable job of expressing views commonly
held among scientists.
Richard F. Carlson, ed, Science and Christianity Four Views.
Articles by five scientists who are Christians,
but who have four widely differing views.
John Gribbin, Schroedinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality.
A secular scientist's attempt to explain some of the mysteries
of quantum physics.
The American Scientific Affiliation,
asa3.org.