Fred Harding and his views on Evolution

[Ramblinman]

Have any of you read the writings of British author, Fred Harding?
He runs Tekline Publishing and publishes some of his private speculations on evolution, creation and human history.

He is a naturist and to the best of my knowledge also a Christian.

To be frank, I disagree with his assertion that Cro Magnon was an extinct species of human.
I have read that some of the indigenous people of the Canary Islands and some of the natives of Dalarna, Sweden are anatomically identical to Cro Magnon and many Europeans have some of those features as well.

New research shows that Neanderthal DNA remains in the modern human genome as well.
This does not disprove Harding's theory about the Neanderthal also being extinct, but does require one to back off from the theory of total extinction.

Harding makes the more remarkable claim that Neanderthal are the Nephillim mentioned in the book of Genesis and Harding also claims that that the Cro Magnon were descended from fallen angels.
Rather hard to prove either assertion, but I have not seen Harding's evidence.

Anyway, interesting to consider his speculations, no matter how flawed, there may be some measure of truth in what he says.

Your thoughts?

[prairieboy]

I just finished listening to a series of teaching of which the first three are about creation at http://www.awmi.net/extra/audio/1083. As part of the teaching Andrew has extended interviews with several scientists who were evolutionists, but whose studies eventually convinced them that the Biblical creation account is true. It would be more interesting to me to hear them have a discussion with Mr. Harding about his viewpoints. I just don't have the faith required to believe in evolution.

[jasenj1]

These folks seem like very sincere Christians who believe God used evolution over millions of years as His creative process.

These folks seem like very sincere Christians who believe God created the universe in a literal six days about 6,000 years ago.

I like 1 Tim 1:5-7 and 2 Tim 2:21-26 for subjects such as this.

Both sides assert that God is sovereign and has the power and authority to do what He wanted to do the way He wanted to do it. Great. Let's move on to harder things like loving our enemies, sharing the Gospel, caring for widows, orphans, and those in prison. We have plenty of good things we're supposed to be DOING as Christians without fighting each other over the details of Creation.

- Jasen.

[Ramblinman]

These folks seem like very sincere Christians who believe God used evolution over millions of years as His creative process.

These folks seem like very sincere Christians who believe God created the universe in a literal six days about 6,000 years ago.

I like 1 Tim 1:5-7 and 2 Tim 2:21-26 for subjects such as this.

Both sides assert that God is sovereign and has the power and authority to do what He wanted to do the way He wanted to do it. Great. Let's move on to harder things like loving our enemies, sharing the Gospel, caring for widows, orphans, and those in prison. We have plenty of good things we're supposed to be DOING as Christians without fighting each other over the details of Creation.

- Jasen.

Jasen,

Sharing the gospel may require that some of us do have an understanding of natural history as a testimony to the mysteries of creation.
The same way that some of us are given a heart for reaching nudist souls and we go where the rest of Christendom refuses to go.

My criticism of some of Harding's points is not something to "move on" from. We need to learn from one another and accept critiques for the common good.
Taking time to be grounded in scripture and science is not taking away time for service for our Lord, but rightly understood, preparing to defend the faith.

[Petros]

A. the presence or absence of Neanderthal DNA does not give evidence that H neanderthalensis is / is not extinct. Apart from the fact that H sapiens and neanderthalensis will have MORE shared DNA that whatever the Homo / Pan percentage is, if we find a husky that has elements of dire wolf DNA from some long back cross species mating, the dire wolf is still extinct unless we do a Jurassic Park - which I THINK has been attempted trying to reconstruct the aurochs.

B. Last I heard [confirmed by a far too quick reality check tonight] most in the business see Cro-Magnon as straight H sapiens allee same like me Obama Kim, just another variety.

Which says, guys, by this hypothesis if THEY = fallen angels so are we all.

Operating in this area one needs a strong nose for evidence and a big bump of discernment. Playing around with the nephilim [though I prefer not to] is one thing and making some link to neanderthalensis is by no means unreasonable, but taking Cro-Magnon out of sapiens is a stretch even before the fallen angels.

----

Okay - read further - so, he is THAT guy:


Okay. Stretch it is,and I fear he is National Enquirer material.

[ezduzit]

Me personally , it takes more faith to believe in evolution than creation. As Christians do we believe the Word of God or the words of men?
Ez

[jochanaan]

Me personally , it takes more faith to believe in evolution than creation. As Christians do we believe the Word of God or the words of men?
Ez

Hmmm...Sounds like a false either/or statement to me. It's entirely possible to believe that God created the world and also life's potential to change over time...

[ezduzit]

Me personally , it takes more faith to believe in evolution than creation. As Christians do we believe the Word of God or the words of men?
Ez

Hmmm...Sounds like a false either/or statement to me. It's entirely possible to believe that God created the world and also life's potential to change over time...

"life's potential to change over time" ? what do you mean by this statement ? that man is or can evolve?
Ez

[Ramblinman]

A. the presence or absence of Neanderthal DNA does not give evidence that H neanderthalensis is / is not extinct. Apart from the fact that H sapiens and neanderthalensis will have MORE shared DNA that whatever the Homo / Pan percentage is, if we find a husky that has elements of dire wolf DNA from some long back cross species mating, the dire wolf is still extinct unless we do a Jurassic Park - which I THINK has been attempted trying to reconstruct the aurochs.

The evidence is that most of the Neanderthal genome no longer exists within the current modern genome, but some of these genes persist...interesting that it is the genes that boost the immune system of those who possess these genes.
This does not prove evolution, merely that a race of humans is extinct, but has left a trace.
Neanderthal is the same species we are, but about as divergent as can be.
Same for Denisovan race, very different yet still our species.
Creationists would argue that the gene pool is diminished by the extinction of these races.

B. Last I heard [confirmed by a far too quick reality check tonight] most in the business see Cro-Magnon as straight H sapiens allee same like me Obama Kim, just another variety.

Sure, Cro-Magnon is not even a separate "race", arguably a strain of northern European, nothing more.

Which says, guys, by this hypothesis if THEY = fallen angels so are we all.

As far as I know, the giant offspring of fallen angels who took human form were all wiped out in the Great Deluge of Noah's day.

Although, the Anakim, the people of Gath had some odd genes. Gigantism, multiple digits on fingers and toes.
And this was AFTER the Great Deluge! Were they descended from Noah and sons or from survivors of the flood from the Nephilim lineage? Or did angels come to Earth a second time in human form to mate with our women?

Operating in this area one needs a strong nose for evidence and a big bump of discernment. Playing around with the nephilim [though I prefer not to] is one thing and making some link to neanderthalensis is by no means unreasonable, but taking Cro-Magnon out of sapiens is a stretch even before the fallen angels.

I am fine with thinking outside the box, but I am afraid that Harding is taking wild leaps of speculation outside the box. Yes, National Enquirer material.

----

[jochanaan]

Me personally , it takes more faith to believe in evolution than creation. As Christians do we believe the Word of God or the words of men?
Ez

Hmmm...Sounds like a false either/or statement to me. It's entirely possible to believe that God created the world and also life's potential to change over time...

"life's potential to change over time" ? what do you mean by this statement ? that man is or can evolve?
Ez

I was thinking of the kind of changes that have happened to, for instance, dogs, horses and other animals we have bred for certain traits; also of the kind of human changes we have seen even in recorded history. It is undeniable that here in the US, the average human is taller and larger and lives longer on average than his great-grandparents. And dogs have changed so completely as to be almost a different species. So while it's a stretch to imagine one species becoming another, it's not a large stretch at all...

[Ramblinman]

I was thinking of the kind of changes that have happened to, for instance, dogs, horses and other animals we have bred for certain traits; also of the kind of human changes we have seen even in recorded history. It is undeniable that here in the US, the average human is taller and larger and lives longer on average than his great-grandparents. And dogs have changed so completely as to be almost a different species. So while it's a stretch to imagine one species becoming another, it's not a large stretch at all...

"we have bred" It isn't evolution if someone is shaping the changes, guiding it down through the ages.
Evolution as I understand it is natural selection combined with favorable mutations (and the unfavorable mutations are more common) and combined with isolation, genetic drift and sometimes reunification of separated sub-species.
This of course is micro evolution.

Macro evolution requires even more unlikely multiple mutations.
In the fossil record, we see amphibian-like fishes, bird-like reptiles, mammal-like reptiles and extinct apes with human-like bones and teeth.
So what happened?
We could make a religion out of random factors: Evolutionism, believing that it all happened without a God.
We could assume that God set no natural forces in motion, every event of creation was supernatural.
We could believe the Bible as God's word, but allow for some combination of direct creation and "setting the ball rolling".
Does the Bible tell us everything that transpired in ages past?
I don't think so.
God's word does say that not all the words of Jesus were recorded, only enough that we might be empowered to believe in him.

[Petros]

"Neanderthal is the same species we are, but about as divergent as can be."

So ... bear in mind I dare not ask this of my paleontologist brother who has given up on me, though I not quite on him ... What are your standards on speciation - given we do not really have data on sapiens / neanderthalensis cross breeding potential? In taxonomy generally I count myself a moderate splitter, very near the border; I know that biologists go back and forth, so current thinking lumps some species we distinguished when I started out, divides others that were clearly units then. I see the wikipediotes want dogs included in Canis lupus, but are willing to consider granting Bos taurus speces status, while letting Felis catus be its own thing.

Neanderthalensis it seems is physically distinct enough from sapiens that at least one study [though I think perversely] has made the claim they were "incapable of human language" - by which they simplistically meant the vocal tract was shaped to produce different sounds!

For us,of course, there are two important questions, neither really answerable at this remove, I should think:

1. Is neandethalensis the flesh machine biologically a variety of Homo sapiens or a separate species [by whatever consistent criteria we choose]?

2. Is neanderthalensis spiritually human?

[Petros]

ramblinman:

Let me at the outset endorse most of what is in your post, but I have to do this:

""we have bred" It isn't evolution if someone is shaping the changes, guiding it down through the ages.
Evolution as I understand it is natural selection combined with favorable mutations "

1. I address this to both staunch evolutionists and fire-hardened creationists: Am I not a card-carrying member of the ecosystem, even though in my arrogance I claim intelligence? I do not see that there is - IN PRINCIPLE - a difference between lifeforms crossing a landbridge that for a time joins two continents, or life forms carried on floating vegetation driven by wind and ocean currents, and lifeforms with long ears transported on shipboard to Australia. I do not see that there is - IN PRINCIPLE - a difference between a bird species preferring the taste of this bug to that bug, and a primate species preferring this configuration of dog to that.

2. My brother and his ilk vastly prefer - for personal and unscientific reasons - RANDOM change as the discriminator for evolution. But if you do not HAVE to make it random, or if you doubt randomicity, I do not see there is a difference between human and other intelligences guiding the changes. Consider the existence of [how many?] species of insect each exclusively paired with corresponding Ficus species as inhabitant and sole pollinator. How random is that situation?

[bn2bnude]

Me personally , it takes more faith to believe in evolution than creation. As Christians do we believe the Word of God or the words of men?
Ez

Hmmm...Sounds like a false either/or statement to me. It's entirely possible to believe that God created the world and also life's potential to change over time...

I go back to this...

The Bible says God created:
Heavens & Earth (Likely meaning the earth and what is above the earth)
Light and Darkness
Atmosphere & Oceans (Water above/below)
Vegetation
Sun and Moon (don't know how this differs from above but...)
Animals
Man (male, later female)

Everything I see here is what... We really don't see a "how long" -- the Hebrew isn't specific enough... I never see a how... We can speculate the how all we want but it doesn't get us any closer to an answer.

Could this have been done in 6-24 hour days? Sure, it doesn't say.
Could this have been done in thousands or millions of years? Absolutely, it doesn't say.

Could God have just "spoken' creation into existence? Sure.
Could God have used an evolutionary process? Some (if not many) will say yes.

I don't see believing that evolution occurs precludes anyone from believing that God controlled the process. I also don't see how you can say that believing in a literal 6 day creation would preclude evolution on a micro scale from happening.

As mentioned, dogs "evolve" quite quickly because of what one documentary I saw called a "sliding gene". I don't remember the breed but one breed that weighs in the under 10lbs. range used to be 30+lbs. 100 years ago.

[Petros]

Quite. If we avoid absolutist preconceptions that belong neither in the science of Biology nor in the science of Theology, we have a big pile of data that so far support few and puny conclusions.