April 30, 2021 - 7:00am
Edwin Poots is the bookies’ favourite to be next leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, after Arlene Foster stepped down. Intriguingly, Poots is a young-Earth creationist: he is on record telling the BBC that the world is 6,000 years old. It makes me think of a man named Philip Henry Gosse.
In 1857, two years before the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, Gosse published a book of his own. Gosse was a science writer of some renown, and a naturalist in his own right; a critic of slavery; and, marvellously, the inventor of the fish tank. He was also a lay preacher, and a deeply committed Christian, a member of the Plymouth Brethren.
The mid-19th century was a difficult time to be a Biblical literalist. Charles Lyell had published his Principles of Geology a quarter-century before, showing evidence from the Earth’s rocks that the world was many millions of years old, and shaped by the still ongoing processes of weathering, glaciation, volcanism and so on. Cuvier had argued that fossils demonstrated that species of animals had arisen and gone extinct, and Buffon and Lamarck showed that species changed and evolved; that the world was not now as it was, that God’s creation was not unchanging and eternal.
Gosse could not accept this. He wrote a book of his own, Omphalos, which – again marvellously – means “bellybutton”. It argued that, if God created Adam and Eve as fully real humans, they would have bellybuttons – scars from their mothers’ umbilical cords, even though they had no mothers.
And, by analogy, when God created the world, he would have had to create a world which was rich and complete: so a tree at the dawn of creation “would display the marks of sloughed bark and fallen leaves, though it had never borne those leaves or that bark”, as his son Edmund précised it later. Similarly, it would have geological strata millions of years old, and fossils buried in those strata. God created the universe recently, but made it look as though it was hundreds of millions of years old.
Omphalos was not a success. Christians were appalled at the idea of God as a deceiver: the Reverend Charles Kingsley described the book as “the first that ever made me doubt”. Scientists just thought it was silly. Most of the copies were pulped.
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SubscribeThere are many propositions in the theory of evolution which are unfalsifiable of course.
But sticking with the politics, why do journalists and opponents immediately emphasise an odd belief which politicians have especially when it will not impinge on their work. This is redolent of the hounding of Tim Farron over his Christian views on sexuality when his voting record made it clear that his views in no way influenced his politics. Also NI is still highly influenced by Christian belief and politicians should represent that as shown by Stormont’s rejection of the extremely liberal abortion law foisted on the Province by Westminster.
But this is surely relevant to his judgement if he is able to believe such things despite the overwhelming evidence.
I don’t think anyone rejects microevolution, but the contention is over macroevolution.
One is observable and so can fall under the remit of the scientific method. The other is non-observable and so any theories surrounding it (Neo-Darwinianism or Intelligent Design) must make unproveable assumptions. It basically depends upon where one starts with their premises (i.e. do they have the correct premises).
But I might add, the MRI machine was invented by a man who thinks the earth is 6000 years old. It didn’t interfere his with his judgement in his life-saving work.
That’s a poor analogy though I didn’t say anybody who believes in a young Earth must be an idiot. Politicians often have to make judgement calls in areas they have no expertise my concern would be that such a person would be give more weight to their prior held views than the evidence.
That is true and something all politicians end up doing, interpreting evidence through their mental framework (woke, anti-woke, brexiteer, remainer).
I suppose it’s just up to constituents to choose the person who lines up their own prior held views!
Hi Jim, I don’t think it has to affect his judgment in matters political. Don’t forget there are many ‘unscientific’ beliefs held by religious people: resurrection of the dead by Christians, reincarnation by Hindus, Mohammed carried to heaven on a winged horse (something that narks Richard Dawkins) and creationism for Muslims, etc. Mockery extends chiefly to Christians as they qualify for abuse by liberal parameters whereas other faiths have the protection of ‘phobia’ labels.
Indeed, some propositions (and often these are things we take for granted) are outside the purview of the scientific method. Doesn’t mean that science isn’t a powerful investigative method, though…
That ludicrous nonsense ‘narks’ me too.
Public criticism of Islam can be extremely dangerous. You might, literally, lose your head.
Are we supposed to vote for someone when ‘his views in no way influence his politics’.
Well it’s an option. I don’t mind what anyone believes. I resist attempts by them to force the rest of us to believe what they believe via politics. But I can’t see the question of the age of the earth being relevant to quotidian political matters, in any way.
This isnt an odd belief, it affects everything from gay rights fo abortion to what days of the week shops can open, we had been making some progress , surely it’s the job of journalists to enlighten others as to what’s happening. If Edwin Poots is elected we’ll all go back 6000 years
“gay rights, abortion, what days of the week shops can open”
Gosh what progress we might be putting in jeopardy….
How will we cope without being able to go shop on a Sunday? (or being expected to work on a Sunday)
Well spotted. Business regards religion as an obstacle in its drive for profit. Hence working Sundays, presented as ‘opportunities’, or ‘freedom to work whenever one wants’.
Oh, thanks. I always used to long to do more work, rather than have two clear days off at the same time, especially since knowing one had to go to work the next day regularly cast a shadow over Sunday evenings. They just wanted us to feel the same deflating gloom on Saturday nights as well. Saturday had the peculiar air of freedom and unconcern that it did because of no work next day, which was not available on single days off during the week as compensation. A small point, but actually quite important, ‘psychologically’.
Francis Collins who led the Human Genome Project is an evangelical Christian. He believes in evolution, believing it took place before the seven-day creation, that is during the time span covered in the first two verses of the book of Genesis.
Other Christians believe in evolution on the basis that the seven days of creation were not 24-hour days until the creation of the sun and moon on the fourth day and the time before that could have been milions of years.
Care is needed when talking about people taking all of the Bible literally. There are many genres. While Christians believe the historical narratives in the gospels, New Testament letters and those in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) I am sure that few, including Poots, believe that ‘the trees of the fields will clap their hands’ as the psalmist wrote in poetry.
Couldn’t agree more, Judy. And I direct people to Francis Collins’ book, The Language of God, to help them understand that theistic evolution perfectly explains what we observe in the natural world without sacrificing the veracity of Scripture. I think the problem for most Christians for so long has been the athiestic slant of evolutionary debate, which is wholly unnecessary.
‘Atheistic slant’. Come on! ‘god’ is not required and isn’t there.
That sounds like an atheistic slant
But, God IS required. Nothing in evolutionary theory explains how it all began. Only how it got from Point A to Point B.
Why should christians ‘believe this time span when it is not actually written down in Genesis. There could be a million other interpretations, or even an infinite number of interpretations. Why believe any of it.
Augustine was a ‘day-ager’ i.e. he believed that the ‘days’ of creation actually represent longer spans of time. This appears to have been the position of most Christians throughout history.
Or that that we do not know the genre of Genesis 1. For example, it reads like a song
Creationism is quite marvellously bizarre.
When even those in the middle ages and before knew that the earth was not flat and that it was older than 6000 years you have to start to worry about the intellectual direction of some humans.
You should be careful to be more specific/accurate. There are different forms of creationism – many of which do not insist on the earth being only thousands of years old. I presume what you actually mean to say is “young-earth creationism is quite marvellously bizarre.” You may enjoy listening to or reading the work of Hugh Ross, an astrophysicist who became a Christian because he felt that the Bible’s creation narrative fits the scientific data. (Check YouTube or “Reasons to Believe”).
Very interesting. So only christianity fits with the scientific data.
At least we can know one thing by this – the man holds Christian Values, and those are able to be looked up, and are ones we would wish political people held – wile most politicos are greedy, selfish, secular kinds.
Perhaps we should believe the Atheist when they said could build the New Soviet Man through a combination of “ education” and the Gulag.
Climate science is unfalsifiable too. Its priesthood used to predict things within a lifetime, such as Hansen’s New-York-underwater-by-2020 prediction of 1988, the UN’s 50 million climate change refugees by 2010 prediction, and the IPCC’s glaciers gone by 2035 prediction. Because these are checkable and, when false, the seer is challengeable within his or her own working life, they now take great care not to predict things within their own lifetimes. Things they did predict they later deny, and much of the effort is now focused on making the past colder and on arguing that sceptics are insane or should be killed. Any set of data falsifying climate change would be heretical and admissible.
It’s a millenarian cult, really.
There cannot possibly be anything to say on this, except a quote or two from Miles Monroe (Woody Allen) and Luna Schlosser (Diane Keaton) in Sleeper (1973) – yeah, I know, no one is supposed to like Woody Allen anymore, but still.
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
Je suis Woody Allen!
Edwin Poots sounds like the creation of George and Weedon Grossmith.
I’ve often wondered whether Adam had a belly button, but didn’t realise someone had written a book resolving the issue. Did he also address the vexed question of his nipples?
Having visited the Globe Theatre I can fully believe that new things can be fairly successfully disguised as old ones – if Sam Wanamaker can do it, why can’t God?
Some Christians that I once knew believed that the devil planted fossils in order to confuse the faithful. But I don’t know what they believed about rock strata.
The real problem I have with Darwinism in its most modern form (neo-Darwinism) is abiogenesis, the idea that inanimate matter can give rise to life and consciousness. A piece of primitive protoplasm in the primal swamp will simply disintegrate, it won’t (and can’t) evolve into anything.
I also recommend Thomas Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos for its debunking of materialist philosophy and scientism.
That is the real problem and presumably why Dawkins states that the first cell must have arrived from Space.
He goes on to state with all seriousness that that hypothetical cell would have “evolved” on a hypothetical world. He states that it could not have been created.
And they accuse the Christians in believing in sky fairies….. …
See Stuart Kauffman. Non living things naturally self-organise. If its is anything, evolution is a cosmic principle.
I have always found it curious that people seem happy to believe that humans and all we see around us came from a big bang and some amoeba type of arrangement but dismiss the idea of a god as rediculous.
In human terms you could say they are as unlikely as each other. Also the book of Genesis does more than describe a creation… It explains how and why the world comes to be in its current state but this generally gets missed.
Most would not dismiss the possibility of a creator as ridiculous. It’s more the religious ideas that we were created by a God who cares about us that is somewhat irrational.
And believing all life happened by chance isn’t irrational at all. And if God created us he probably would care about us the same as anyone who creates something. I see nature around me every day on our farm things born, things decaying….. That stuff didn’t happen without some design. In my humble opinion which is all that any of us can say.
Well, you learn something new every day. I always thought Omphalos was the abode of the Omphalompas. There’s your proof that everyone believes false things.
Never mind all that; a modern political party cannot be led by anybody called Poots!
Sounds like a Dutch Protestant name in which case it would be pronounced “Poats”.
The late Sir Terry Pratchett wrote a nice story in which teams of terraformers created new worlds for colonists.
But newly-seeded colonies usually reverted to primitivism, before clawing their way back up to civilisation.
So Pratchett’s terraform crews always included plenty of prehistory so colonists would ‘have a past.’
Crews sometimes included the odd joke, such as a plastic item mixed in with some dinosaur remains!
A morning when unorthodox views meet Orthodox Jews. We’re going backwards, aren’t we?
Why would we trust the judgment of a politician who thinks the Earth is created by a god and is 6,000 years old? Both claims have no evidence – just assertions and, depending on the religion, an old book. These claims contradict the science, rational thinking and sound epistemology.
If “a wise man proportions his belief to the evidence”, where is the evidence of a god (or gods), or a creation, or a young Earth?
{insert logical fallacies and circular arguments here}.
So my problem is this… if a politician believes in an invisible, unfalsifiable creator, and denies all of the findings of the many scientific disciplines that confirm the age of the Earth (as billions of years, not thousands), and ignores the evidence embedded in our DNA that confirms our common ancestry with the other hominidae (great apes)… what does that say about their judgement and reason?
My favourite variation of this is to imagine a creator equipped with a type of computer called a physics automator. First of all he creates the world just as he wants it to be – the Garden of Eden – and then he turns on the computer and tells it to work out how a world like that could have come into being based on the smallest number of rules possible. Then he plugs the results into his world building machine and, after a few iterations, ends up with what looks pretty much exactly like what he had in mind.
Obviously it ends up with a few unlikely results. For instance, the idea that the moon is exactly forty times smaller than the sun and also forty times nearer would be absurd in a naive physical model, but it does honour a pretty reasonable aesthetic choice while still technically making sense.
The only question remains is whether the things that the automator calculated actually happened, or perhaps happened backwards. But that’s one for the philosophers.
Darwin’s Theory, is just that a Theory. It has not been found to be repeatable. No new complex animals have spontaneously created themselves in the lab to changes in environments.
It seems to me to be a Theory which Atheists desperately need to be true.
What is true is like all things Woke, you have no future in our University unless you completely put aside any doubts and are an enthusiastic proponent.
What is also true is that in 300 years we will laugh at the scientific certainties of today, just as we laugh at the certainties of 300 years ago.
BTW. I have not got the time to do 100 or more what about this posts with anyone. There are well documented problems with Evolution, particularly in the extrapolation of observable data to suggest concrete “evidence”. However, I don’t think that the earth is 6000 years old and I don’t think that the Bible says that it is.
However, I do think that Evolution will be one of many things that we regard as absolutely true today, but future generations will laugh ( or be aghast) at
As someone who lives in Northern Ireland (& who definitely won’t be voting for Edwin Poots or his party) I find the response to his religious views puzzling. Lots of people think he’s not fit to hold public office because of his views on creation/abortion etc. These same people describe themselves as liberal. They fail to see that trying to de-platform someone because their views on any subject are a bit weird is deeply illiberal. The truth is that evidence for either creation of evolution is a series of calculated guesses. It’s more logical to say that both positions are actually faith positions. The question is what position you believe in. I normally get shouted at for saying this though.
I AM NOT SURPRISED!!!!!
I feel you protest too much and wish that statement to be true to stick one to the atheists.
Evolution itself is a fact – has been demonstrated time and again, with ample ample evidence stretching back millennia. I am sorry that if you think it is not proven – you are wrong.
What you might be referring to is what Darwin proposed – not evolution itself (that was already known) but his mechanism for how it worked; Natural Selection.
There is no other theory here which comes close to explaining as to why evolution happens. All evidence that we currently know from geology, paleontology, through to biology and the underlying chemistry support Natural Selection as a valid theory. For it not to be true would fly in the face of other, well proven basic facts.
Edit: also, by your own admission you seem sceptical of evolution because it raises uncomfortable questions surrounding the nature (if not the existence) of god (at least certainly the Christian one). Darwin’s own beliefs on the matter were fascinating and saddening as he struggled to cope with the death of his daughter.
“Evolution itself is a fact – has been demonstrated time and again, with ample ample evidence stretching back millennia”. LOL. OK. Show us a new species that you have developed in the lab. The only fact is that Evolution is not a hypothesis, that can be shown to be true.
What evolution do you mean is a fact? Macroevolution or microevolution (speciation)? The diversity of life, and the arrival of life forms at different stages of the fossil record would also fit an “old earth creationism” model. For evolution to be a fact (and I’m presuming that you actually meant macroevolution – all life forms developing from one simple life form) wouldn’t you actually have to observe changes from one body plan to another (not just speciation). Doesn’t the Cambrian explosion pose a problem to the idea of different phyla gradually developing over time?
We observe, but can we replicate? Fruit flies have a very short lifespan and in the 1950s a great number of experiments were conducted with billions of fruit flies over many generations. Change the food or temperature… dead fruit flies, expose fruit flies to different doses of radiation (desperation no doubt to find results) result, dead and mutant flies, all sterile. In short, Evolution has not been replicated and this is a serious problem for the Theory
I think that you confuse the words theory and hypothesis
It is the theory of evolution, not the hypothesis,
Gravity, It’s Only a Theory.
‘No new complex animals have spontaneously created themselves in the lab’. So where did complex animals come from? There’s only 2 answers: from over 1 Billion years of evolution, or by magic.
Believe in your Gods btw, heaven knows I’d take religious people over post-modernists, CRT, woke morons any day of the week. I was shocked yesterday to find out that the French fathers of post modernism were proponents of pedophilia.
I think I understand old religion, strong morality and hope. The wokish post modernists are sick beyond belief, they offer no morality and no hope. Don’t forget these same wokish people deny logic, maths, truth, morality as evil white, cis gendered blah, blah ideas.
If A is not true the answer may be B but it could also be C, D or E etc. If Evolution is not true, God is not the only other option.
The number 1 thing to remember about evolution is that it’s blind with no aim or deep purpose. There could be a C, but it’s hard to believe.
See the current virus for evolution, different ‘letters’ mutations alter amino acids and the protein spikes. Its evolution in action. Adaptations to the virus that allow it to spread faster become dominant.
I think it’s logically obvious that a virus mutation that lowers transmission is veey unlikely to gain traction. 99.999+% of mutations are neutral or negative.
The problem for evolution theory is that it is a variation of the same species. This is still a virus. What Evolutionists are asking is that this virus could eventually become a horse or whatever.
What the scientists were confident of achieving at the start of the fruit fly experiments I mentioned here is the “evolution” of a new species.
In fact they failed to even failed to create in the lab, a new fruit fly with different characteristics, simply by changing environmental factors.
There have been numerous experiments trying to replicate a “first cell” from the basic ingredients in the primordial soup.
The origins of the first cell should be fairly easy to replicate if life Evolution is a viable Theory.
If you deny God, it is not long as we have seen that people declare themselves God. When they do, they can decree anything is good. After all the only thing that checks their behaviour is themselves. They are their own authority
I honestly worry that this may be the case. That some people may need cast iron beliefs whether Christianity or Wokism.
Personally I know lots of other non believers who are good moral people.
A counter point to my 1st view is that the woke zealots and bigots would if traditionally religious begin killing people in the name of their God. Religion may offer great succour to a good person, but to a bully it just offers another excuse.
As does politics.
The test is to live in a country where the laws are made without reference to God and compare them with a Christian country. The USSR, China and Cambodia provide lots of evidence to see what happens in an atheist environment, where as much of post colonial Africa gave us an idea of what it might be like to live in a Pagan society, such as Amin’s Uganda.
Before dismissing Darwin’s work as a “theory” you should look the word up in the dictionary and find out what it means.
Theory: “a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained”
a body of theorems presenting a concise systematic view of a subject
which is how it is used in the theory of gravity. It does not mean a hypothesis. It means a fully-worked-out explanation.
“Scientific theories are hypotheses which have stood up to repeated attempts at falsification and are thus supported by much data and evidence.”
Make sure you use the right sense of theory. Then you won’t get any more confused.
The whole point is to establish a fact you need to make a prediction that can be tested. Evolution fails that test, despite numerous predictions of what should happen to species when environmental conditions are changed
The Theory of Evolution predicts that the Earth must be billions of years old in order for there have been time enough for evolution to occur. This testable prediction has been found to be accurate.
Jon that supposition is a basis for faith not science
You clearly do not understand Natural Selection or how evolution works – so by your own incorrect metric you see no evidence.
The environment does not force change upon the genetics of a species. That is wholly incorrect.
Two things take place (in simple terms):
1) Genetic mutations within a species. These happen all the time and are observable, verifiable truths.
2) Environmental changes. As above, goes without saying.
To take an example, a species that at random has a sub-species that has developed to be better at coping with less water will flourish should rainfall reduce in its habitat over time. Those less capable will not thrive as much. Over time these changes create evolution.
Nice theory..Shame it does not seem to work in practice (see above)
If you’re interested in reading the “Young Earth Creationists in 2021” they have a fairly extensive website.
As do many flat-earthers in 2021.
For the rest of us interested in reality, potholer54’s Our Origins Made Easy offers a good overview “of where we came from — from the Big Bang to the human migration out of Africa”.
Those juggling Christian belief with evolution could consider reading Evolving out of Eden by Robert M Price and Edwin A. Suominen.
Thank you for the cheap jibe.
This is UnHerd though, not Reddit.
Which part did you consider a jibe? The part about flat-earthers? YEC and flat-earth ought to be concomitant beliefs. The ancient Israelites were flat-earthers. As recently as the NT, Matthew 4:8 seems to presuppose a flat earth. There are serious Christians today who are flat-earthers, e.g. “Kingdom in Context”. These believers are – I think – at least consistent, rather than believing the one and dismissing the other (even though both are observably false).
A very famous (and almost unmentionable) philosopher equated religion to socialism.
Religion teaches you that you should focus on the poor and weak and see the rich and strong as ‘evil’.
So, religion = woke.
You say ‘religion’ but which one? I don’t think that applies to the religions of the Maya, Aztec, Inca etc.
The Aztecs practised human sacrifice. On one occasion, over 40,000 people are thought to have been slaughtered in a single day.
That doesn’t mean what you think it does in your mind.