 Listen, we were having a great conversation and I just want to keep going. It's so fascinating to talk about these different views of the origin of life and how you can reconcile the Bible with what we know from science these days. You were saying that Adam and Eve have to be, in other words, there are certain people who say like, in order to believe what the Bible says, in order to be a Christian, you have to believe this, this, this, and this. One of those things you say is Adam and Eve really existed. These were actual people. This is not a metaphor. What happened in the Garden is not just a cute story. It's history. It's history, and we're not evolved from some common ancestor with Neanderthals and the apes. We're especially created by God, and that we got our sin from Adam's fall in the Garden of Eden. I think the doctrine of original sin is a crucial point of the Christian faith. What's also interesting is this, not just as four views that came out, two other books came out addressing the same subject. All three kind of got released within a six month span, and so you've got another book by two theologians, Ted Cable and Peter Razar, where they analyzed answers in Genesis, reasons to believe, and biologos, but they analyzed it from the perspective of biblical inerrancy. And what is their book title? Their book title is Controversy of the Ages. Oh, that's a great title. And they basically say, hey, a core doctrine of the Christian faith is biblical inerrancy. Like us, they believe that the International Council of Biblical inerrancy did an outstanding job defining what biblical inerrancy is and what it is not and how it should be applied in various disciplines of philosophy, history, and the science. And they make the point that of the three organizations, only reasons to believe hold such a biblical inerrancy and explains why the other two organizations do not. What other what other what other two organizations? Forgive me for interrupting. Yeah, answers in Genesis and biologos. OK. OK. So basically, that book is called Controversy of the Ages. And your or the book in which you participate is called Four Views of Creation, Evolution. And an intelligent design and a third book is called Old Earth or Evolutionary Creationism. And it's, you know, reasons to believe in biologos. So it's just the two organizations. And we are engaged by Southern Baptist theologians. They basically pose questions to us. But what's interesting about that book, it's really focusing on how you can have two different Christian organizations with very sharp disagreements on both the Bible and science, if they treat one another with Christian charity, which is really rare when it comes to science-based issues. Usually there's a lot of animosity. This book is basically saying, hey, we can disagree, but we can treat one another's Christian brothers with charity. And this is an example of how we should behave on all controversial issues, not just science-based issues. After all, non-Christians watch us and, you know, they know we're Christians because of our love for one another. But so often what non-Christians see is our hate for one another. And so that can be a barrier to evangelism. Well, but yes, at the same time, if somebody goes beyond what we perceive of as the theological pale, then we're obliged to say that we don't merely differ on this issue. We believe that they have walked outside the camp, so to speak. They're no longer Christians. If somebody says that, hey, I believe that I could have sex with children and that's consistent with my view of the Bible. We'd be obliged to say to that person, I'm sorry, I can't agree to disagree. This is, you know, so that to me is always the challenge, because it's important for us to talk about, to speak with civility and to talk about charity toward each other. But there are times when somebody goes outside what we perceive of as the theological pale, and then we're forced to say, that's a deal-breaker. In other words, if I disagree with Ken Ham's view, I don't believe that the earth is less than 10,000 years old. I don't say he's no longer a Christian. I just say we differ on that issue. But if somebody says, I think that people of the same sex can get married and the Bible says that's OK, I would have to say, unfortunately, I can't. That to me becomes a deal-breaker. It doesn't mean that I hate the person, but it means that I can't view them as being a part of the church. Well, don't get me wrong. In this book, Old Earth or Evolutionary Creation, we at reasons to believe do point out where we think our biologos has made a mistake, where they're aberrant in their theology. However, we do it in a charitable way. And, you know, we have these Southern Baptist theologians also engaging both organizations in a charitable way. So I guess, yeah, that's that's the trick. In other words, I would argue that we should engage everyone charitably. In other words, it's even if I disagree with somebody on the view of same sex marriage, that I still would hope that we could treat each other charitably. So that is an important point. I want to get back, though, to the specifics of what you believe happened with regard to our origins. In other words, you say that you believe that Adam and Eve were a special creation of God. They did not descend or evolve from apes. So what does somebody, for example, at Biologos say, who believe in theistic evolution, they say, we believe evolution happened just as science says it happened. We believe that God was not involved. That he set things in motion and that there was no special creation where God steps in and creates Adam and Eve. How do they reconcile that? In other words, how do they say that is theologically biblically possible? Yeah, they appeal to genetics models. After all, Biologos was launched by the famous geneticist, Francis Collins. And they would point out that if you look at the genetic diversity of human beings, that genetic diversity, according to their evolutionary model, would point to a significant ancestral population of human beings. And so based on their genetics model, they would conclude it can't be two individuals. It's got to be 10,000. OK, and what do you say to that? Well, we respond and say, number one, their genetics model is a model. It assumes an evolutionary paradigm to begin with. So you're basically introducing circular reasoning. We would also say that genetic diversity is not a reliable indicator of an ancestral population. And we pointed out field experiments with sheep and with orangutans and with horses that indicates that the genetic diversity indeed does not reliably tell you what the ancestral population is. For example, they did an experiment on an island where they put two sheep. They knew the genetics to start with. Came back 12 generations later, measured the genetic diversity, and was far greater than what the models predicted. In other words, if you had measured the genetic diversity of those sheep later, you would have concluded that they were descended from a large population, not just two sheep. And we cite a paper written by a non-feast geneticist who basically says that genetic diversity is of no value for determining an ancestral population. Therefore, we think the biblical too is scientifically credible. In fact, I've been looking at the literature long enough to remember when they were saying the ancestral population was a million, and they dropped it down to 100,000. I know when Francis Collins came up with the book, he said 10,000. I remember one of my colleagues, Fuzz Rana, debated Dennis Venema. He was saying 1,200. And I've seen numbers as low as 132. And I say, hey, if we plot that on a graph, it looks like it's heading towards the biblical too. Let's not abandon the book of Romans. And what does the book of Romans say briefly? Well, it's Romans that tells us that we all get our sin from the one man Adam, that there's actually a dissent that we get from this one man to God, especially created. And my friends of Biologos are basically saying based on the genetics evidence, we need to reinterpret the book of Romans. From my perspective, I think the book of Romans should be just as interpreted as has been for centuries. We're talking about Adam and Eve. I wanna ask you also about, what is your view on Neanderthal? It's very confusing to those of us who say, I believe what the Bible says, but I don't really understand, what am I to make of all of this fossil record of all of these creatures who seem to have existed before Adam and Eve? Yeah, we do believe they existed before Adam and Eve. We're talking about a dozen different species of bipedal primates. It appears that each success of one's a little bit better at hunting large-bodied bird and mammal species, which leads us to believe that God specially created them as well. In fact, there are field studies that tell us when you've got a mammal whose adult body size is bigger than seven pounds, it goes extinct before it can evolve. So God not only specially created Adam and Eve, He specially created these different species of bipedal primates, and we think we know why. What, wait a minute, it sounds like you're saying that God specially created every mammal that's larger than seven pounds. Yes. Okay. That's supported by a conservation biology field study. Okay, help me understand, before we go on to the more exciting thing about Neanderthals and such, it helped me understand what is it, because I've never heard, I'm sure most of my audience has never heard this, this idea that mammals that are larger than seven pounds could not evolve very far. What is the thinking behind that? Well, mammals that are bigger than adult body sizes seven pounds are much more susceptible to extinction. And what these conservation biology studies tell us is that the extinction risk is high enough that even from an evolutionary perspective, it will go extinct before they can evolve into a different species. It's a sufficiently different species. Now, do we believe, do you believe that animals can evolve into different species? It depends on how you define the word species. There are 16 different definitions of a species in a biological literature. Okay, so there's not a clear settled upon objective definition of what is a species. That's correct. And so they will, you'll see papers where they say, hey, we see a new species that came into existence naturalistically, but really we're talking a different breed of a similar species. Okay, so are all dogs, are all dogs, for example, considered to be part of the same species? They are, but by some definitions of a species, it would be distinct species. That's where it gets challenging. Okay. But when we're talking mammals, they do not have the same capability for adapting to changes in the environment that bacteria would have or that insects would have. And you actually see that in the Bible when it talks about different kinds, it mentions six different kinds of owls. So it's basically telling us that God specially created those different owl types. And therefore for the more advanced species, there's much more limited ability to evolve into something that's distinctly different. Okay, so you do believe that most of the species in the world were specially created? Well, certainly the phyla and the orders, our families were created. I mean, I could see certain species coming into existence naturalistically depending on your definition of species, but that's microevolution. Give me an example. Microevolution doesn't happen. Give me as dramatic an example of how far could microevolution take us? Well, for example, plants are much more capable of this than animals. And that they have seen new plant species come into existence. So for example, a new species of daisies where the parachute for the daisy seed is much bigger than it is for other daisies. And typically- But it's still a daisy. It's still a daisy, correct? But it's defined as a distinct species. Or like where you see a bird species where one flock of birds flies over a mountain and once they get to the other side of the mountain, they are eating different foods and they refuse to mate with birds on the other side. And so biologists call that a speciation event. But it's still very, very small. I mean, we're not talking about a kitten evolving into a hippopotamus. Exactly. Well, all right, so it's such a joy wandering down these rabbit trails, but then I have to try to remember where we've come from. We were talking about the bipedal primates and why we think God would have created them. Okay, okay, that's that. I did want to get back to that specifically. You said that you do allow that in fact, there were bipedal primates like Neanderthal man, like Chromagnan man that these creatures existed. But you say that they were special creations and that they were not human beings. We are not evolved from them. That's correct. And we think that there's a very good reason why God would have created them because what we notice is the fossils wholly are on Asia, Europe, and Africa. There are none in North and South America and none in Australia. And when humans came into Australia, they quickly wiped out a large body, bird and mammal species, 94% extinction rate. Dr. Ross, we're talking about many things here. We're talking about the various hominids. We were just talking a moment ago about how far can a species evolve? Where have you written any books that deal with that specific subject? You talked about animals, mammals rather that grow to be larger than seven pounds, not being able to evolve very far before they become extinct. Is that in any of your books that you can reference? Yes, it's in the book more than a theory. That's kind of where I deal with different evolutionary models and why creation is the explanation for the history of life. More than a theory. Okay, because I don't know that we've talked about that book in the past. So we're talking a bit now about hominids. You do believe that there were, that Chromagnan man, that Neanderthals existed, Zingianthropus, tell us what are your thoughts there? Because this is where I think a lot of people who take the Bible seriously get a little confused. Yeah, they're specially created. None of them have symbolic capability. That's where we human beings are unique. Okay, by symbolic capability, you mean capability of speaking languages. Speaking languages, being able to do mathematics, knowing what a stop sign means, being able to come up with letters and numbers. So they weren't that bright. In other words, they were basically like apes. They were like apes. They used tools, but their tool technology did not advance over their history. You know, we humans are inventive. Our technology advances from generation to generation. You don't see that with any of the bipedal primates. And of course they weren't involved in philosophy or religion. Why would God create these creatures who seem to be very much like what we think of as a missing link? Why would God in your estimation create such creatures? He knew that we human beings would sin. In our sin, we would be in danger of wiping out the very animals that were critical for launching civilization. We didn't launch civilization by ourselves. It took God creating cows and horses and donkeys and goats and sheep to enable us to launch civilization and grow enough food that we could set a large fraction of our population free to do science and philosophy and art. And these bipedal primates were effective at killing large-bodied bird and mammal species. And basically what that did is it trained these animals when you see large creatures on two legs with weapons in their hands run. And so they would run away. But the problem that you see in the book of Joe and not a problem, but God designed these bird and mammal species to relate to us and to want to have a bonded relationship with us. So their natural tendency is to come to us rather than run away from us. But thanks to these bipedal primates, these creatures were trained. Hey, run away when you see tall creatures with weapons in their hands on two legs. Have you, first of all, what book, did you write about this in a book? Yes, it's in a couple of my books. I've got it in Hidden Treasures in the Book of Joe. I also have it in A Matter of Days. It's in our book, Who is Adam? That I co-wrote with Fuzz Rana. And we actually have that information given to us by an atheist anthropologist, Ian Tattersal. He was the one that first noted, hey, when humans went into North America, South America, and Australia, they wiped out the animals they needed for civilization launch. Okay, now you're saying that others, besides you, have come up with these theories. This is not just something that you have come up with. That's correct. It's in the secular scientific literature. Interestingly, it was first noted by people who are not even fias that there's this big difference between North and South America and Australia and Africa, Asia, and Europe. For example, the extinction rate when humans went into Africa, have these large-bodied bird and mammal species, is only 4.5%. Now, when you say large-bodied bird and mammal species, what kind of animals are we talking about? We're talking mammals and birds where the adult body size is bigger than seven pounds. They're the ones that are easiest to kill to give food. And so, rather than planting crops, you might go out and kill a deer, or kill a horse, or a cow. Okay, so you're saying in North America, South America, and Australia, these animals were wiped out? They were wiped out. We had horses here in North America. But when humans came in, they wiped them out. There were mastodons here. There were camels here. We wiped out the animals we needed for civilization. It explains why people living in North and South America and Australia weren't able to get out of the Stone Age. They lacked the animals they needed to do that. So you're talking about, my eyes are crossed. This is so fascinating. You're talking about, during the Ice Age, mastodons and animals of that nature, the giant sloth. No? Right, right, yeah. You are talking about them and you're saying that humans wiped them out? Yeah, humans came over the Bering Land Bridge and settled North and South America from the process wiped out the very species of mammals they needed. Does science generally accept that human beings wiped these creatures out? Well, some of them think it was climate change because after all, during the last Ice Age, there was significant climate change. But what I find interesting, that didn't happen in Africa, Asia, and Europe. I mean, if it was climate change, then it should have been worldwide, but we only see it in North and South America and Australia had the biggest impact, 94% extinction rate when humans went into Australia. It's a smaller continent so I can see why the extinction rate would be higher. And so I think the bottom line is God created a dozen different species of bipedal primates in a particular sequential fashion to ensure that we human beings wouldn't wipe out the animals we needed to launch civilization, establish technology, and be able to take the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ to all the people groups of the world in a short period of time, rather than in millions of years. Dr. Ross, I believe your great learning has made you mad. Actually, I don't believe that. I'm fascinated. We're gonna be right back, folks. I get to talk to Dr. Hugh Ross. You get to listen. What could be more fun? It's the Eric Metaxa show, stick around. In my life once more, love's gonna... Listen, we were having a great conversation and I just wanna keep going. It's so fascinating to talk about these different views of the origin of life and how you can reconcile the Bible with what we know from science these days. You were saying that Adam and Eve have to be, in other words, there's certain people who say, like, in order to believe what the Bible says, in order to be a Christian, you have to believe this, this, this, and this. One of those things you say is Adam and Eve really existed. These were actual people. This is not a metaphor. What happened in the garden is not just a cute story. It's history. It's history and we're not evolved from some common ancestor with Neanderthals in the eights or especially created by God and that we got our sin from Adam's fall in the Garden of Eden. But I think the doctrine of original sin is a crucial point of the Christian faith. It's also interesting, is this not just as four views that came out, two other books came out addressing the same subject. All three kind of got released within a six month span. And so you got another book by two theologians, Ted Cable and Peter Razar, where they analyze answers in Genesis, reasons to believe and biologos, but they analyze it from the perspective of biblical inerrancy. And what is their book title? Their book title is Controversy of the Ages. Oh, that's a great title. And they basically say, hey, a core doctrine of the Christian faith is biblical inerrancy. Like us, they believe that the International Council of Biblical Inerrancy did an outstanding job defining what biblical inerrancy is and what it is not and how it should be applied in various disciplines of philosophy, history, and the science. And they make the point that of the three organizations, only reasons to believe hold such a biblical inerrancy and explains why the other two organizations do not. But it's something very- What are the two organizations? Forgive me for interrupting. Yeah, answers in Genesis and biologos. Okay, so basically that book is called Controversy of the Ages and you're, or the book in which you participate is called Four Views of Creation, Evolution, and... And Intelligent Design. And Intelligent Design. And a third book is called Old Earth or Evolutionary Creationism. And it's reasons to believe and biologos. It's just the two organizations. And we are engaged by Southern Baptist theologians. They basically pose questions to us. But what's interesting about that book, it's really focusing on how you can have two different Christian organizations with very sharp disagreements on both the Bible and science, if they treat one another with Christian charity, which is really rare when it comes to science-based issues. Usually there's a lot of animosity. This book is basically saying, hey, we can disagree, but we can treat one another as Christian brothers with charity. And this is an example of how we should behave on all controversial issues, not just science-faith issues. After all, non-Christians watch us and they know we're Christians because of our love for one another, but so often what non-Christians see is our hate for one another. And so that can be a barrier to evangelism. Well, but yes, at the same time, if somebody goes beyond what we perceive of as the theological pale, then we're obliged to say that we don't merely differ on this issue. We believe that they have walked outside the camp, so to speak. They're no longer Christians. If somebody says that, hey, I believe that I could have sex with children and that's consistent with my view of the Bible, we'd be obliged to say to that person, I'm sorry, I can't agree to disagree. This is, you know, so that to me is always the challenge because it's important for us to talk about, to speak with civility and to talk about charity toward each other, but there are times when somebody goes outside what we perceive of as the theological pale and then we're forced to say, that's a deal. Thank you.