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Can’t sleep? Watch the Meyer-Giberson debate!

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Remember “Pop liberal theologian Karl Giberson on debate with Steve Meyer”?

It sounds as though Giberson didn’t want to debate Meyer’s actual argument in the debate titled “Should Christians embrace Darwin?” (the Cambrian period argues against the Darwinian theory of evolution).

Pictures of babies with tails and webbed feet, yeah, that’ll get attention, but…

See for yourself here:

Commentary here.

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Comments
I watched as much of the Giberson-Meyer debate as I could stand. When it came to be time for Giberson's 10-minute rebuttal of Meyer's points, Giberson didn't rebut Meyer's argument at all. In fact, Giberson (1) attacked ID; (2) gave a long sermon on how scientists should always seek natural causes. But neither of these responses was relevant to the debate, which was about the reliability of Darwinian explanation. Giberson obviously came eager to display his standard talking points, the same tired old arguments he uses in all his blogs and columns, whether on BioLogos or at the Huffington Post. He wasn't going to be derailed by silly little requirements such as staying on the topic of the debate. It was evident, from the way Giberson kept making big general points about the nature of science, as opposed to Meyer, who kept hammering away at biological details concerning evolutionary theory, that Giberson simply doesn't know the biological material very well. Why then, is he running around the country, writing books and giving talks about Darwin and evolution? He doesn't know the first thing about the subject. At least Ken Miller, though he is not an evolutionary biologist and his knowledge of evolutionary theory is shallow, outdated, and primitive, knows basic biology, because he is a trained and published cell biologist. Giberson can't even handle a discussion at the biology 101 level. It was a joke that he was up on the stage with Meyer. Giberson, like Darrel Falk, Kathryn Applegate, and some others associated with BioLogos, is a third-string scientist with an amateur's knowledge of theology. He is not an important thinker on religion/science questions in America today. *Prominent* to a degree, maybe. *Important*, not at all. And he demonstrated just why he is unimportant, during this debate.Timaeus
May 21, 2014
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Thanks, tjguy. Good points. Like others, I cannot fathom why a self-proclaimed Christian wants to make such arguments, nor how he can possibly not admit to himself that he's denying and affirming God simultaneously. One of my favourite points of argument is that:
"when you're contradicting yourself, you have to be at least half wrong"
As above, my view is that the entire notion of theistic evolution is wrong on both counts, but that's a point that is not necessary to make or to prove. As soon as one contradicts one's self, one becomes visibly unreliable in that at least half the argument is wrong by one's own testimony. And parenthetically, there's no point in trying to prove to such a person that their view of God is unsupportable, because as Giberson did, they've already disavowed any common source of revelation, and are typically appealing to a highly personal intuition. Which leaves them in fundamentally the same category as a materialist; they have to be confronted with the failure of their preferred theory, instead. We all of us owe a debt of gratitude to those who are doing such a diligent job of this, and those who did it in the past.ScuzzaMan
April 27, 2014
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Jesus Makes Headlines: Was Jesus Intolerant? with Dr. Frank Turek - Saddleback Church - video - April 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kESK1KSMPgQbornagain77
April 27, 2014
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Paul @4
I noticed that the argument was supposed to be about the scientific evidence, and yet Giberson led with a theological argument (God wouldn’t have done it that way), and finished with the exact same argument. IMHO Meyer should have called him on it the first time, and asked him to confess that it was a theological argument.
I agree entirely. I guess Giberson can be forgiven (at least in some measure) for utilizing theological objections to design in an explicitly theological context, but it's a shame to see him make such subjective, aesthetic criticisms of design and feel as if they somehow overrule the strong, positive case for design. His prime shortcoming, in my view, was punting on the last question - he didn't even attempt to answer how God guides an unguided process.Optimus
April 26, 2014
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I noticed that the argument was supposed to be about the scientific evidence, and yet Giberson led with a theological argument (God wouldn't have done it that way), and finished with the exact same argument. IMHO Meyer should have called him on it the first time, and asked him to confess that it was a theological argument. Meyer may not have been comfortable in this, but if I had been him (having perhaps a little more theological training), I would have pointed out that bad design is still design, and the only thing that bad design disproves is the naive view that "God's in Heaven; All's right with the world." God may be in His heaven (personally I think so), but all is definitely not right with the world. Jesus' answer is that "An enemy hath done this." If we find a napalm thrower or a pressure cooker full of ball bearings and an explosive device inside, they are most assuredly designed regardless of the motives of the designer. Just so, the fangs of a snake or a tiger may be designed even though they may be capable of great cruelty to humans. This is the place to throw back in their faces the fact that the detection of design has nothing to do a priori with it being divine design. Giberson doesn't have a good answer for how a mechanistic process can explain the transition from one life form to another. He admitted as much. He simply cannot allow intelligence as an answer, because in his opinion (1) God has failed as an explanation too often in the past, and (2) attributing design to God would attribute evil design to God as well. Those are both theological objections, and should either be out of court, or at least theological answers should be allowed. My answer to part 2 is above. My answer to part 1 can be found here.Paul Giem
April 25, 2014
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Scuzza, ditto on that! I thought it was an excellent presentation by Meyer. Giberson's god is totally unnecessary. He didn't even allow a role for God in the origin of life! His problems with bad design is a bit subjective to me. I thought his strongest point was that of cruelty in nature or cruel things that look designed, but he admitted the problems that exist on his side too. He gave a good summary of the typical evolutionist view, except for the absence of ridicule. It was interesting, and believable, if you only hear one side of the story. His biggest weaknesses were that he hardly had any answers for Meyer's challenges. He is defending neo Darwinism which seems a bit old fashioned these days. He had absolutely no answer to the argument about the origin of information. He had no answer for the origin of life and rejects his god as being involved. He totally rejects the Bible in his interpretation of the evidence. I thought he made a good point in saying that a fossil for instance, is not evidence for anything until it is attached to somee kind of theory or framework. That is true, but there may be various theories that a particular fossil might be seen to support, including creationism. Meyer quoted lots of experts and seemed to have some very damaging information to counter Giberson's claims. In the end, Giberson had to admit that although he believed in molecules to man evolution, he has no idea how it happened. So for whatever reason, he rejects Scripture and the role of God and simply repeats his belief that some day we'll figure it out with good scientific research. Although this has proven true in the natural world where we can verify things with our own eyes, the level of difficulty presented by the problems facing evolutionary biologists and OoL researchers is incomparable! Plus the evidence that points clearly to design is undeniable. I was really disappointed to see a Christian preaching such an anti-biblical stance! I'm sure he thinks he is doing the church a favor, but he is preaching Deism. He rejects miracles and the clear teaching of Jesus and other biblical authors. What's the point of believing in any of it? How convincing will his argument be to unbelievers? He's got nothing to offer them. He presented absolutely NO evidence for a Creator and denied what god says does exist. So He must take his belief in his god by blind faith. But this is unbiblical. All through the Bible, creation is presented as evidence for a Creator. It is given as a reason for praising God, but how can you praise Giberson's god if he didn't even do anything? And even if he is right about whip God is, how could you ever know it?! Giberson's god seems to want to remain incognito, but God is said to reveal Himself to us clearly through creation! He has to reject so much of the Word of God in order to hold his 21st century brand of faith that you wonder why he would ever even believe in such a God to begin with. In the end, I guess he simply remade God in his own image. What are the chances that Giberson's god actually exists? I'm not willing to be a guinea pig to find out. I get it that he doesn't want to bring God into science, but practically speaking, he is no different than the atheists who arbitrarily from the start, allow no room for a Creator. Strange and very worrisome. If we adopt such a view, the Church will cease to exist in a few generations. Young people will never believe in his god, or if they do, they are likely to move further down the slippery slope of unbelief. Blind faith apples to no one! I don't reject his beliefs simply to "protect the Church", but rather because they seem questionable scientifically at best, and even more importantly, they fail the test of truth when compared to the standard of truth, God's Word.tjguy
April 25, 2014
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Cant believe this Giberson guy started out by turning Popper upside down. Then it got worse; references to presumed "oldest" fossils as examples of true predictions. Meh. Ironically, he conforms perfectly to my own prediction, which is that anyone who thinks that Christianity and evolution can be in any way reconciled, only demonstrates that he does not understand either of them.ScuzzaMan
April 25, 2014
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That Meyer guy put me to sleep. Thanks!Mung
April 24, 2014
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