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Dubious Design
What is called "creationism" is the belief that in six days the Judeo-Christian god created the universe and all the earthly species including humans in finished form much as they exist today. For centuries this view prevailed throughout the western world. Even after evolutionary science had emerged in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the scenario sketched in Genesis remained the only one acceptable for most of Christendom. Not until the early twentieth century did Darwinian science enjoy a fully receptive hearing in the scientific and academic communities of the United States.
But today, rather than riding triumphant, evolutionary science seems to be barely hanging on in the arena of public opinion. A 2007 Gallup poll reported that only 49 percent of the US public accepted evolution and 48 percent did not. Another survey found 42 percent of Americans held strict creationist views. And various school districts throughout the country have experienced furious dust-ups over the teaching of evolution.
Of late there has emerged a more refined offshoot of creationism called intelligent design (ID). It argues that living organisms are so irreducibly complex they could not have evolved haphazardly over the eons from more primitive forms but were precisely created in one fell swoop by a higher intelligence.
In their assault on evolution the creationists and ID protagonists summon an urgent refrain. To quote from a statement by an anti-Darwinian school board in Dover, Pennsylvania: "Darwin's Theory is [just] a theory. . . . The Theory is not a fact. Gaps exist in the Theory for which there is no evidence. . . . Intelligent Design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view. . . . Students are encouraged to keep an open mind."
Critics of evolution almost have a point. There certainly are "gaps" in an evolutionary theory that is neither fixed nor final. But the same holds true of all scientific theories, be it nutritional science, meteorology, astronomy, biology, geology, or physics. Science frequently produces theories that contain unanswered questions and invite varying interpretations.
Truth be told, there are no fixed and final scientific laws. Many scientists do not even like the term scientific laws, preferring to speak of "scientific theories." For it is in the nature of science--when practiced at its best--to keep everything accessible to further investigation and conceptualization. Seemingly triumphant scientific breakthroughs can open up additional areas of inquiry that lead to still more unanswered questions.
Be this as it may, an established body of science is not something to be dismissed out of hand just because it harbors unanswered questions. That a scientific theory is incomplete does not give us license to ignore all the evidence it has accumulated. The data provided by paleontology, geology, zoology, entomology, molecular biology, and other fields make a strong case for evolution and have yet to be explained away by the intelligent designers.
Scientists have been devising new ways of charting how life develops from simple to more complex forms, which is the essence of evolutionary theory. By reconstructing ancient genetic materials from long-extinct animals, they have been able to show how evolution created a new and more complicated component of molecular structure from existing parts.
By its very nature, life depends on adaptability. This means that change, complexity, and development are inevitable components of the natural world. Not all organisms reproduce with uniform success. Reproductive capacity arises directly from how well creatures (including human ones) are able to compete for resources, both against other species and against other members of the same species---and against problems presented by the natural elements themselves.
Not only competition but a highly evolved cooperation may advantage various species. Given this infinitude of interactive forces, it would seem improbable for evolution not to be happening.
Indeed evolution continues before our very eyes as demonstrated by the recently discovered ways that viruses and other microbes acquire new traits, adapt to new habitats, and move toward becoming new species in a matter of days. New pathogens such as SARS, HIV, and more virulent tuberculosis bacilli continue to evolve. Unfortunately it is their evolutionary capacity that is likely to make these microbes resistant to antibiotic drugs. Evolutionary theory explains their dramatic adaptability; the Bible does not, nor do the intelligent designers.
There is something else to be said about scientific theory. When intelligent designers insist that evolution is a theory and not a fact, they are juxtaposing theory and fact as two mutually exclusive and competitive concepts. This is a view commonly held by laypersons who know nothing about science, who assume that there are "hard facts" on the one hand, and airy theories facilely spun out of one's head on the other.
So we are admonished to stop "theorizing," stop devising abstract speculations that by definition are more fanciful than factual. Sometimes "theory" is even made to stand for something that is presumed by many to be ipso facto false, as in "conspiracy theory."
In both the natural and social sciences, however, theory is something more than mere speculation. Theory is the generalizable distillation of empirical investigation, the payoff that comes from gathering and connecting a heap of pertinent facts. It takes facts to build a scientific theory but it takes a theory to organize and make sense of the facts.
Theories are valued for their explanatory power. A developed and confirmed theory is what science aims for. It is the gold standard of scientific inquiry. The theory of gravity and the theory of relativity are not lacking in facts just because they are theories. To dismiss something as just a theory and not a factual science does not make sense from a scientific point of view. Theory is not all that "soft" and, for that matter, facts are sometimes not all that "hard" or firmly fixed.
Since scientific theories in all fields contain some unanswered questions, why is evolution singled out by the intelligent designers as the one gap-ridden speculative theory? The answer is glaringly evident: evolution is in direct collision with Genesis. If evolution is true, then the Bible's description of how God fashioned the world in six days and created humans in their present form seems much the fairy tale. And if Genesis is a fairy tale, then of what validity is the remainder of the divinely dictated tome that serves as the unerring fundament of Judaic-Christian belief?
The response offered by the scientific defenders of evolution is predictable and somewhat incomplete: "We have no way of testing and demonstrating the truth or falsity of non-natural spirit forces that are presumed to be acting in nature." It would be nice if someday someone would add, "and neither do the intelligent designers." That is the real problem. Of course, scientists cannot move outside their fundamental paradigm and demonstrate divine causation, but neither can the designing creationists.
This is a crucial point because the burden of proof for intelligent design is on the designers. Where is their field work, their laboratory experiments, their observational reports and accumulated evidence measuring the effects of ID vectors on various natural forces and entities, all the things we would expect from a scientific inquiry interested in "hard facts"?
This is the problem with teaching ID: what would you actually teach? How could you judge the reliability of what you teach? How do we determine what is or isn't evidentiary if one can postulate a priori an unseen supreme designer lurking behind everything? In the two decades since ID has emerged, it has generated no important experiments or insights into biology, and looks less and less like a science and increasingly like a theological polemic.
Advocates of ID seem untroubled by their own scientific illiteracy. One of them asserts that there is no evidence of a protracted evolution because "all the vertebrate groups, from fish to mammals appear [in the fossil record] at one time." Not true, George Monbiot responds; the first fish fossils and the first mammal fossils are separated from each other by some 300 million years.
ID proponents make much of the human eye. Given the intricacy and delicate precision that enables it to perform its marvelous function, and "the purposeful arrangement of parts," the eye could never have developed from hit-and-miss mutation and natural selection, the argument goes. If evolution were true, there would be fossils of particular animals without vision and others with varying degrees of eye development strung out across the ages, but "such fossils do not exist," the intelligent designers maintain. But such fossils do exist, Monbiot reminds us; the fossil record does indeed stretch across the ages with countless eyes "in all stages of development."
As for the creationists, it is not that they have questions about particular aspects of evolution, as might we all. Rather they deny that it ever happened. They believe the book of Genesis is literally true. Possessed of the absolute truth as they see it, they are not prone to tolerate alternative perspectives. They are not interested in a pluralism of views. They do not want to supplement evolutionary theory but to replace it. , even as they call for more tolerance in secular schools and increasingly greater exposure for their own "explanation."
Its proponents insist that ID is not religiously anchored; it requires neither miracles nor a creator. They avoid mention of the six-day jiffy creation and other biblical narratives. But if ID is not supernatural, then how does it act as a first and perfect universalistic template for all this imperfect unfinished world? How can it create the natural world in all its wondrous and presumably irreducible complexity if it is itself merely a component of that complexity? Here is a designer that is the source of all creation's form and content but which itself cannot be subjected to any kind of scientific study, a designer that supposedly is fixed in nature yet transcends ordinary materiality.
The designers centered at the Discovery Institute, a conservative think tank in Seattle, revealed their religiously motivated hand in their now infamous and strikingly candid, in-house document, "The Wedge Strategy," written in 1999 and leaked to the public some time later. According to "The Wedge Strategy," the ultimate goal of intelligent design is "nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies" replacing scientific materialism "with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God."
The authors of this document blame evolutionary theory and materialistic science for most of the world's evils. They write, "Thinking they could engineer the perfect society through the application of scientific knowledge, materialist reformers advocated coercive government programs that falsely promised to create heaven on earth." In sum, ID is not a field of study; it is a refined fundamentalist preachment in service to a reactionary political agenda.
The creationists and ID designers appear to be championing free speech and diversity of ideas when they urge that students be taught more than just Darwinism. In fact they themselves are not interested in a pluralism of views. They do not favor the teaching of every theory of creation.
There are as many stories of how the world began and how it is held together as there are tribal mythologies and tales. The fundamentalist Jesus worshippers are concerned only about the Genesis narrative, the one they want accorded exclusive standing in the schools.
Thus in 1999, creationists on the Kansas state board of education removed nearly all references to evolution from the curriculum. Such references were restored only after Kansas voters ousted the creationist bloc in 2001. In short, the creationists do not want to supplement evolutionary theory but to replace it, which---as demonstrated in Kansas---is exactly what they do when afforded the opportunity.
123 Comments so far
Show AllThe problem, so far, with evolution as a theory is that it has been extrapolated to cover over and fill in "gaps" for which no evidence has yet been found for the missing links. It's wrong to do that. Curriculum should include what is known, and more specifically what is NOT KNOWN.
There is nothing wrong, also, with advancing the argument from facts about the complexities of DNA, for instance, that mere evolution by chance is mathematically unlikely--if that mathematical argument is sound on the mathematics alone.
The problem with "Intelligent Design" as a name for a movement is that this poor word choice immediately begs for a definition of that prior "intelligence"---something that is most certainly not known---except from religious writings (which are not science.)
Tell kids what we know. Be honest enough to tell 'em what we don't know. Evolution was over-bragged all along and this is the reason that Religionists have reacted so wildly against it. Didn't have to be that way, but too many adults, parents, teachers, and textbook writers could not be satisfied saying to children about many things: "No one knows yet."
As to creationism and other favorite issues the holy warriors of the Christian right lie without shame. They distort the evidence and the position of their opponents. A friend of mine sometimes forwards the e-mails they write, and it's astonishing how much they get wrong...deliberately.
However, Parenti is unintentionally feeding their propaganda. There is not one Genesis creation story but two. The first extends from Chapter 1, Verse 1 to Chapter 2, Verse 4 and the second from Chapter 2, Verse 5 to Chapter 2, Verse 25. In the first version God creates the world in 6 days--the creation of light and dark, the sky, dry land with vegetation, the sun and moon, creatures of water and sky, creatures of land, and mankind. In the second version God creates Adam and plants the Garden of Eden for him with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then God creates the animals and birds, which Adam names, then God creates Eve--and there our troubles started. As you can see, the order of creation differs from story to story. Fundamentalists who want us to take the Bible literally should read it more carefully. Secrets like this are why I wish everyone would read the Bible, and carefully.
Genesis is a fairy tale, but a damn good one. The moral of the story is that mankind was separated from God by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Well who was the serpent that sold us that bill of goods? The church, right? They told us we didn't need to go deep inside and ask guidance from God, now that we had the church with it's ready made answers.
I have yet to meet the fundamentalist that "gets" that story. It essentially cautions us about them.
The Wedge Strategy is a plan to create 2 groups of oppositionists to the Theory of Evolution being taught in schools from one. As such, it is living proof that The Right Wing does evolve just like the rest of God's creatures.
And the world is flat.
There is another large flaw in the ID line:
Did they mean to say that God is at best an incompetent engineer?
Biology is full of odd juryrigs that any intelligent designer could improve on. Our own bodies have several: appendix, wisdom teeth, knees that give out at about 50 - you can probably think of a few yourself.
In fact, Steven Jay Gould wrote an entire book, "The Flamingo's Smile," full of such examples, because they demonstrate an important feature of evolution itself: it makes do with the material at hand. The results are often very odd.
Would God do that? Not an intelligent one.
The problem with Parenti's article is it creates a dichotomy between ID and Creationists vs. Evolutionists. There are many who like myself believe in a divine spirit in creation who do not subscribe to the Genesis stories (right, there are two, not one creation story in Genesis) as literally true. It is easy to dismiss fundamentalist Creationists as crackpots. But how often does Darwinism get seriously questioned? It is full of problems. As the first poster said, parents and teachers should admit what we don't know--which is a LOT. But Darwinism is presented as it were the Truth (it's "scientific" after all!), when it is far from proven.
Militantliberal wrote: "Fundamentalists who want us to take the Bible literally should read it more carefully."
I'm afraid it doesn't work like that. Not long ago, I heard on BBC radio, one of the UK's leading geneticists, Prof. Steve Jones, put the two creation stories problem to a creationist. His answer? The two accounts are not contradictory.
Parenti writes:
"There are as many stories of how the world began and how it is held together as there are tribal mythologies and tales. The fundamentalist Jesus worshippers are concerned only about the Genesis narrative, the one they want accorded exclusive standing in the schools."
This seems to be the fatal flaw in the argument of the religionists, especially when one acknowledges that one could arbitrarily create a list of unbounded length, i.e. infinite, of narratives of how the world began. So, out of the many, or infinite, stories, how is a narrative chosen to be taught?
The scientific method, which has contributed immensely to human civilization, has given us the theory of evolution, and so a strong argument exists to teach that theory. However, no serious argument exists for teaching any of the other infinite possible narratives other than arguments based on faith, and if the separation clause of the First Amendment means anything, it means that faith-based arguments should not be used in the public schools.
Moreover, faith-based disagreements can never be resolved, except through ancient primitive methods, such as enslavement of others and total control over their children, or the other old method favored in the Middle Ages and kept alive in certain geographic areas today, which is extermination of heretics. Neither method is a particularly attractive alternative, particularly in a world full of nuclear weapons.
And, no, science is not faith-based, unless one counts faith in reason as faith, but even the most dense religionist would have to admit that is a stretch as it removes the distinction between faith and reason that is at the heart of so many arguments.
First off I am not being nasty here, but for me it comes down to this. Simple explanations for simple folk and more complex explanations for those who have evolved enought to understand or or at least look at things in a more complex way.
It is kind of like country music, simple music for simple folk.
If we don't destroy the earth first I believe that within the next hundred years we will be able to construct DNA from raw chemicals. We will be able to duplicate DNA of any animal from scratch chemicals and create life from inert materials. At this point in time its little more than a complex engineering challenge. From there we will begin to experiment with designing completely new species of animals. Will that make us "intelligent designers"? Will that make us "gods"? And if we create human DNA from raw materials will humans born with this synthetic DNA have a "soul"?
To Daniel David: Excellent post. You've articulated a subtlety of this issue that most lay people and even some scientists, are not aware of.
Jim McCarthy
Here's the proof that said "designer" wasn't all that intelligent:
Humans do not have wings.
And since when are "designers" intelligent? A "designer" basically is the concept guy - you know, the one who draws the pretty pictures of what could be.
If anything, the stupid theory should be labeled "Intelligently Engineered," even though the lack of wings, the short lifespan, and the ease of which our minds can be warped suggests said IEs showed up to work stoned most of the time.
For some real ID, Ft. Detrick MD.,
"engineering tomorrow's virus's today"
Creationism.
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis I:1) Let's suppose this is true. How did he pull it off? I'll let them teach ID in every school in the country if they can just explain HOW God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis I:3 "And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light." Sorry but I find this an entirely unsatisfactory explanation. I want ID supporters to explain to me exactly how their Intelligent Designer did it. And they need to provide a little evidence.
When they are forced to answer these questions, they can't. That rather proves the scientific approach's intellectual rigor.
Interesting article. Makes me think about some things. And, thank you Daniel David for a helpul addition.
I am an ID guy... which is a very broad category. Be careful not to confuse ID with "Creation Science," which I see as a bit of a misnomer.
I think one can be (though I am not) an ID guy and an evolutionist. In brief, God fills the gaps. I think that such people would differentiate between a theistic macro-evolution and Darwinism (or atheistic evolution).
The real issue has nothing to do with evolutionary theory, the Bible, or the belief in a higher being. I wish Parenti would have spent more time on it, but he finally gets to it here:
"In sum, ID is not a field of study; it is a refined fundamentalist preachment in service to a reactionary political agenda."
The Right wing agenda is always about the concentration of power, whether it is economic, political or religious. If you think about it, the Creationist's goal part of a larger agenda, it is a feudalism for the 21st century where an economic aristocracy unites with a new Church (one Church, one truth) for absolute authority - fascism ordained by God.
Kent
"Will that make us "intelligent designers"? Will that make us "gods"? And if we create human DNA from raw materials will humans born with this synthetic DNA have a "soul"?"
I think putting a active conscience would be the most critical thing in creating humans...seems that is slipping on the current human race.
I refuse to debate evolution with anyone...no one knows for sure...be it theory or religion...
I quote Jane Goodall, the champanzee lady...
"I was brought up to understand Darwin's theory of evolution. I spent hours and hours in the Natural History Museum in London looking at the descriptions of how different kinds of animals had evolved, looking at the sequence of fossil bones looking gradually more and more and more and more like the modern fossil. And the same applies to the remains of humans. And I think one of the big questions is, people say to me, "But surely, if you believe in evolution, there's no place for God." I absolutely don't agree with that. The more I learn about this absolutely awesome and fantastic and wonderful planet and the universe, the incredible nature of the human mind, the more I feel convinced that there is some kind of great spiritual power. I feel there's a meaning to our life on earth. And that does not at all conflict with the idea of gradual evolution."
I think time spent arguing about where we came from, how we came to be here, is wasted time...
We better be worried about where are going and how to solve the problems we have created....
I don't care if the "Big Bang", Darwin, or the Bible is correct....I care about the messes we have gotten ourselves into and how we will survive today and tomorrw.
Most of the 'Intelligent Design' and Creationists also like to trot out the story of the man and his three slaves to whom he each gives five gold coins to make the slave owner even more money, saying it is 'proof' that the Buy-bull approves of rampant capitalism and that the Christian God WANTS people to become excessively wealthy, even if it means owning slaves, or hurting or demeaning others. The 'ends justify the excessive means' argument.
And they also trot out the line from the Bible that man is to 'go forth and multiply, and subdue the earth'.
Yeah.
We see evidence all around us every single day of how well that has worked out. Creationists are among the loudest and most strident Climate Change deniers. If 'Intelligent Design' was so intelligent, if I was the designer, I would be looking for a way to wipe out my errant, bio-sphere destroying creation before the truly beautiful things were erased from the planet... maybe a nice drug resistant, 100% fatal to humans disease or such like.
I think it is a mistake to think of ID as some outgrowth of Christian fundamentalism (which it contradicts) or "Right wing agenda" (which it does not support).
>> vinlander: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis I:1) Let's suppose this is true. How did he pull it off?
Um... could be evolution.
>> oregoncharles: Did they mean to say that God is at best an incompetent engineer? Biology is full of odd juryrigs that any intelligent designer could improve on. Our own bodies have several: appendix, wisdom teeth, knees that give out at about 50 - you can probably think of a few yourself. Would God do that?
Why not? What logical basis would one have for drawing conclusions on how God might create? And, if when we create things we often use "odd juryrigs," could not God do the same? In fact, I think that these odd juryrigs amount to stunning evidence for an intellegent creator. Could YOU do better?
Now, ID might not legitimately be included in the realm of "science." But, then evolutionary theory probably isn't either... more like natural history that informs scientific exploration. ID exists more in the realm of philosophy informing scientific exploration. But, ought not all be taught?
I think all this is so interesting.
I wish discussions of evolution vs. creationism, and even intelligent design, would acknowledge that we're really talking about different ways of knowing here -- knowledge based on empirical observation vs. knowledge based on religious instruction or spiritual intuition.
Scientific knowledge is built on empirical observation, which indeed takes as its ground the assumption that the experience, through humans' five "material" senses, forms the basis for what we can know. In my opinion, this does not invalidate knowledge gained through non-material senses -- but knowledge gained through non-material senses should be treated as a different kind of knowledge, with its own conventions and standards for authority.
The scientific method brings a systematic approach to demonstrating the shared nature of empirical observation -- if a hypothesis can be demonstrated to be accurate through repeated experiments, it can be considered a reflection of shared reality -- a scientific theory.
Intuitive, non-material knowledge can also be shared -- but we cannot scientifically verify the correlation of intuitive knowledge to empirical knowledge. Intuitive knowledge is therefore much more subjective, and should be treated as such.
I think we can form an argument for studying creation stories in public school, as long as we study them as the kind of knowledge they are -- narratives that describe reality poetically, or intuitively, or according to the spiritual experiences of some human beings. It is when we treat one story as primary and exclusive that we stifle learning and the continual search for knowledge.
I don't think that humans have reached a consensus that spiritual realities or experiences do not exist and have no meaning -- and it is appropriate to teach our children that fact, too. Opinions differ, we can tell them. The scientific method was never intended to demonstrate the existence of non-material things, and so therefore our approach to them should reflect that difference.
After all, we don't refuse to teach poetry or fiction because the worlds created by authors don't really exist, and cannot be scientifically demonstrated to reflect empirical reality. There is more to human beings, and to human education, than empirical reality.
"The problem, so far, with evolution as a theory is that it has been extrapolated to cover over and fill in "gaps" for which no evidence has yet been found for the missing links. It's wrong to do that. Curriculum should include what is known, and more specifically what is NOT KNOWN."
The problem, so far, with the standard theory of the elementary particles of matter is that it has been extrapolated to cover over and fill in the gaps by hypothesizing the Higgs bosun for which no evidence has yet been found. It's wrong to do that. Curriculum should include what is known, and more specifically what is NOT KNOWN.
"If we don't destroy the earth first I believe that within the next hundred years we will be able to construct DNA from raw chemicals."
This is now routine, while DNA duplexes containing a few thousand bases can be easily constructed using commercial suppliers. Its easy enough to do in your own basement and fairly cheap.
As someone who follows science and long ago rejected sky fairies and magic men, I love ID. Seriously. I love it. Why?
It's hard to get ahead in this world. It's hard to find a good job, and harder still to keep it, with cutbacks and downsizing. ID guarantees that we'll have an uneducated working class to do all the dangerous and mindless jobs out there. That gives me, someone who uses their brain, a distinct advantage.
Sounds like...
>>mcthfg: That gives me, someone who uses their brain, a distinct advantage.
Hm. Who's brains are you using? And for what?
I don't believe in erosion!
I believe in theistic erosion.
TheProf- I have yet to see ANY DNA lab, ANYWHERE say they have created a new lifeform, PLANT OR ANIMAL, from raw elemental material. No new plants or animals that have not previously been found or cataloged. Not even single celled ones.
NO NEW DNA STRANDS HAVE BEEN 'CREATED'!!
Manipulated? Yes.
Higher animals cloned? Yes. And usually die within a few years of organ failure and rampant cancers.
Dr. David Suzuki, a TRAINED GENETICIST, has called DNA research dangerous. He has firsthand knowledge of the ways DNA can be used, misused and abused. He asserted WITH DOCUMENTATION that Israel was searching for a genetic plague to solve the 'Palestinian problem' during the 80's and early 90's, but abandoned the research when it showed that that THERE WAS NO GENETIC DIFFERENCE between Israelis and Arabs.
Complexity is antithetical to intelligence, not evidence of it. An intelligent designer simplifies. Evolution can add complexity more easily than it can eliminate things, so we have vestigial organs, like the hip and leg bones of a snake and the human veriform appendix and tail. The ID people have it exactly backwards.
>> Gorsegrower: Complexity is antithetical to intelligence, not evidence of it. An intelligent designer simplifies.
Sorry. That is ridiculous. Would you like to provide an argument for this. Any argument?
How about your computer... is it less complex for all the intellegence poured into it over the past 20 years?
What a load of crap Daniel David. The problem with ID is not the name they chose so you wouldn't have to be so embrarassed to identify yourself with it, the problem is they/you keep picking fights you can't win.
"The problem, so far, with evolution as a theory is that it has been extrapolated to cover over and fill in "gaps" for which no evidence has yet been found for the missing links."
But those damned humans just keep asking questions and poking around and how long to do you hope to protect and shield those "gaps" you talk about?
According to some of you here a future book on evolution will go along scientifically well and then you'll read: "And this is where God intervened, because it is soooo complex." That'd be OK as long as the text explained HOW God intervened.
It is true that most sane Christians don't take their Genesis literally, and I believe that the fundamentalist house of cards fear that Parenti pointed out truly has decimated the ranks of the faithful, beginning from the enlightenment onward. It is a shame that the revolutionary Jesus got co-opted by the skygod worshipers.
"Tell kids what we know. Be honest enough to tell 'em what we don't know."
I have never had a serious science class that did not emphasize most emphatically what we don't know. Matter of fact, that was usually the point.
The store of Genesis is a store of the past. It is about describing what happened before humans started telling each other stories, it is about looking back. And when you look back, just like when you look into the distance, you see what is close by much larger than what is far away. Your eyes give you a linear concept of what in fact is a logarithmic reality. For instance, what is one kilometre away looks twice as far as what is one hundred meter away, though in reality it is ten times farther off. The same applies for the six days of creation. If you put them on a logarithmic scale and you begin with accepting that the one day in which man was created more probably was something of ten thousand years, then you end up with a pretty realistic history of how the once barren earth came into being. Whether it was God's doing or divine accident is really of less importance.
Evolution may be "just a theory", but nowhere does it comment on God, affirmative or negative.
The problem with creationism and its stealth cousin, intelligent design, is
that they both say, "God had to have done things in ways WE would prefer",
ie. arbitrarily. This is anthropomorphic arrogance.
Let's, for the sake of argument, assume there is a God(I actually do, though
I would be foolish to try to prove it). Let's assume that this God is "omnipotent". In this case, if God decrees, "Let there be light", or "Let
matter evolve to become life", I would be wildly arrogant to tell God, "no,
this could not have happened as somebody wrote a book saying it happened another way, and the book will take precedence." This is bibliolatry.
Humans are here to figure out what is going on, and to make what is going on
as good as possible for as many as possible, not to dispute about how a myth
contradicts reality. There is a habit westerners have: valuing only what is
verifiable. Myths are factually untrue, and this is verifiable, but they are meant to point one at what is ultimately true. This stands in stark opposition to a lie, which is verifiably untrue, but is meant to mislead.
A Gallilean Chassid urged us to be good to one another, not to create Inquisitions in order to discover who takes the wrong attitudes toward this or that book.
The problem:
Both evolutionists and creationists believe what they do as a matter of faith because neither can scientifically prove their suppositions.
The irony:
Science is suppossed to concern itself with verifiable fact and not faith of any sort.
The solution:
Teach science in science class.
Teach evolution is philosophy class.
Teach creationism in comparitive religion class.
Just perhaps there is a Supernatural Being, All- knowing with unlimited intelligence who lives outside the realm of time where thousands of years is as a day and is thus unaffected by time's constraints as we are. Perhaps this Great Entity has in fact created all matter and life in the universe through an evolutionary manner. Unfortunately due to humanity's finite existence we have a propensity towards tunnel vision concerning almost everything under the sun where there are unknowns, after all our views are important aren't they? Moreover by nature we all tend to adhere to polemic views due to our inherently disagreeable natures, we in our finite wisdom would rather argue and bicker over it endlessly because it is in our nature to do that rather than think outside of the box.
TEXT GURU: Stunning wisdom! Love your post!
KENT SHAW: It's purported the Atlanteans penetrated the genetic codes and combined species never intended to be married together, the result was that the very elementals rebeled and land masses were sunk. Seems about where America is right now... breaking covenants with long-established weather systems, raping the sacred gene banks that belong to Gaia (this added to actual war and desecration of ecological HOLY sights).
JOHNNY MO: I probably see it as you do. Creation IS an ongoing process, it never stopped... that there is a Divinity that shapes our ends, I accept; it does not impose upon the genetic process already underway as LIFE (a projection of the Divine energy) finds its own infinite ways to adapt to this magnificent planet that is home to so many diverse ecosystems... a great many failing due to toxic overload, and for the west, our abject rejection of simplicity and our lack of gratitude for having enough in pursuit of the false quests to more, bigger, faster...
TOM LARSEN: Adept analysis... feudalism indeed, and when a near majority is taught to believe that what's being done by their authoritarian masters (curently: the torture litmus test, aided and abeted by TV's dubious "24 hours") is being done in God's "name," woe to the rest of us. I believe in reincarnation and can nearly smell those fires up close and personal, ONCE AGAIN... anyone who doesn't conform to these uni-forming pro-clone power hungry groups is soon castigated as heretic, dangerous outsider, evil one, danger to the group... to be done away with. Has history not traveled a great many times down this road? How many cultures have worn this torn garment? And still so many cannot see! This is why America set an example (initially) to the world in setting forth a government where church and state, as twain, would never meet. And the slobs who are pro-torture and pro-capital punishment, who stand back as the rich get richer and average decent folks struggle brutally for their daily bread (and hospital bill) PUSH this agenda. "You will know them by their fruits." Indeed... the ROT has set in deep.
Poet- Love the idea. Now how do we carry it out?
Siouxrose- Wanna join my anarcho-syndicist commune? ( I can't help it... I'm a smart ass) But seriously, I love your posts. You are a breath of fresh spiritual air in here. KEEP IT UP!
evolution theory is superfulous and good for nothing..it is spewed out only to undermine the Bible and Jesus Christ..it is pure unadulerated propaganada and nothing else and it is sad to see supposedly educated people fall for this trick of the devil..
GALEN: I am very happy to receive your compliment... as a writer, I put a lot of emphasis into names, and I think Shakespeare did, too... how about Mercutio, of "Mercury-style" wit, etc. Galen reminds me of Galahad... and in one of my tarot decks, the page/prince of cups. He's a take on one of the young, faithful knights in search of the Holy Grail. Many moons ago in Key West I met a woman who had had an affair with a popular local celeb of sorts, only to find out she'd been exposed to AIDS. Also, she was pregnant. She asked me to pull a card for her and I pulled the one I just mentioned, the page of cups. It represents FAITH in love. On a logical level I reasoned with her that AIDS sometimes took over a decade to evidence itself, and that decade would constitute the remainder of her viable child-bearing years. Thus given that and the Tarot card, I recommended she go ahead and have the baby. When HE was born, he looked just like the blond blue eyed Page of cups and to this day is a healthy child. She, too, never succumbed to the disease. Interesting, huh? I have had MANY experiences like this, which is why I stand up to those who live by logic alone and do not recognize that our universe can be best beholden through BOTH hemispheres of the brain, that is Holism... not a refutation of linear science and what it reveals, but a marriage of its revelations to that which remains ensconced in deep, profound, HOLY mystery.
Reading some of these posts, I wonder if they read the article. The point that the scientific concept of "theory" and the usual concept of the word "theory" are very different doesn't seem to have sunk in. The scientific theory of evolution is based in a very large number of indisputable facts. Among these facts are the common DNA code, the fossil record replete with intermediary forms, common embryological development, homologous body parts, common biochemical pathways among related groups, and many more. For some people to say that it isn't proven is to say that they don't want to look at the evidence. Countries have been invaded based on a lot skimpier evidence.
Why not teach the "controversy?" Because there is no controversy. So far no one has been able to come up with any evidence that contradicts evolution. The best they can do is say that they found something that remains to be looked at. Darwin's theory of how biological change has come about has stood the test of time very well, and new discoveries are constantly adding to the structure.
Every example of Behe's claim of irreducible complexity has fallen by the wayside when looked at closely. He "misstated" when he claimed that a literature search had shown no explanation for the evolution of flagella and at the next general meeting, a list of over 500 citations was given to him. The clotting cascade has been shown to have evolved from mutations in one family of enzymes. The eye has been shown time and again to have evolved and the proteins that Behe claims are examples of irreducible complexity are shown to be members of protein families that exist in every other cell.
But typical of the nonscientific mindset, he just goes on and on with different examples and as each one is shot down, says, "Oh, well. How about something else?" How many times do you have to show him and the rest of the IDers that his hypothesis is wrong before he gives it up?! Dembski is another example of the same phenomenon. He keeps getting shot down and keeps coming back with the same argument applied to another example.
GALEN: If you establish the commune (wasn't it in Baja?) I'd probably manage to make a visit. Between the stock market fluxes, global warming, the about-to-escape methane gas problem, the probable blowback from US violent karma... the very PREMISE of safety or security has been dismantled. Talk about a time to live by faith, grace, and doing good acts that one hopes will provide a certain insurance against the aforementioned. But there are always OTHER lifetimes... (she said reluctantly.)
DKM: How about the idea of "reality displacement theory." I dated a guy (a real charmer, by the way) who bragged that he had a degree in biology. When we went to dinner he waxed lyrical about born again Christian themes. I hesitantly asked him if he went along with Jerry Fallwell, when he informed me he was a graduate of Bob Jones University! He called it "right" of Fallwell. Without any hint of hiding my cynicism, I asked if he was one of those loons that didn't believe in evolution after having STUDIED biology. For him, faith was an impenetrable wall that precluded LOGIC.
Anyone who visits Grand Canyon is left with shock and awe, and part comes from seeing how animal and plant life, only a mile or so apart (separated by the centuries the Colorado River cut through the canyon, cleaving it into two different ecosystems. They differ due to rainfall sums, and wind, and other variable) so vastly diverges. Every living thing adapts to its environment. Wasn't it Lamarck whose theories were discouraged/discounted who applied a sort of intelligent design to WHY animals adapted. How was it that a certain animal realized what it might eat to ward off the loss of its prefered diet, etc. I believe ALL life is endowed with intelligence, inasmuch as that which is LIFE works to preserve itself. There's a genius to it all... a quality that permeates every living molecule. Some call it instinct, mystics call it soul memory. By any name, it is intended to WOW us for LIFE is a gift intended to be shared by diverse orchestra of players.
Siouxrose- Actually, for the commune, how does interior BC, Canada sound? People I know used to scoff at what I was saying. Now they come to me for advice. Usually I say something pithy like "Ask the Amish."
But is for my daughter, and my lady's four children that I keep up this struggle.
I guess what I am trying to say is that while I knelt at the altar of Technology and Aggression as a youth, I have since come to despise the shallow gilded promises of that temple as an adult, and now, in the dawning of my Elder years, am becoming an asset to my community. A Sage if you will.
Walk in peace.
For all you godbotherers
Have you not heard of superbugs, drug resistant bacteria and viruses like malaria and TB??? What about insect resistance to pesticides and weeds that thrive no matter how much roundup you spray????
Did god "create" or "design" these bad and harmful things???
Or did they "EVOLVE"?????
"TheProf- I have yet to see ANY DNA lab, ANYWHERE say they have created a new lifeform, PLANT OR ANIMAL, from raw elemental material. No new plants or animals that have not previously been found or cataloged. Not even single celled ones.
NO NEW DNA STRANDS HAVE BEEN 'CREATED'!!"
Galen, as you say we know of no new lifeforms that have been created. However when a DNA synthesizer is used to produce oligomers that are then assembled into DNA strands of a few thousand bases I contend that this synthetic DNA is created, whether you call it new is simply semantics. I would give a citation but I prefer not to widely distribute this information since, as I said, it is so simple that you can do it in your basement with very little knowledge or training.
POET - "Both evolutionists and creationists believe what they do as a matter of faith because neither can scientifically prove their suppositions."
You blew it. Scientific investigations have shown time and again that the evolution "supposition" fits the facts that are turned up. A scientist doesn't believe something because of faith. S/he believes it because something happened to show that it was true, that there is physical evidence for a particular statement of fact. The same cannot be said for creationists. The Discovery Institute, by the way, has had over $1,000,000 a year budgeted for doing science to show that some Designer was responsible for creation. So far they haven't published anything that comes close to doing that, even in their own journals.
And a response to someone questioning whether screwed up biological engineering reflected a designer or the accidents of evolution, no, an omnipotent designer wouldn't have made things so haphazardly. If It needed a particular structure, It would have created that structure, not have jury rigged something from an already existing structure. That is much more efficient and functional.