I've always contended that if religious folks insist creationism be taught in public schools, it would only be fair to also teach modern cosmology and biology in churches. So 'Darwin Day' and 'Evolution Sunday' are a start. Survival of the fittest idea...

why waste so much precious time disputing trivial and short term theories, when eternity awaits you. If evolutionists want to know if there is a life after death let them find the answer by swimming in shark infested waters.

I get it. We have a day to celebrate Christ's birthday. And we have a mythological jolly old fella with a white beard to help us celebrate that day. So why not celebrate Darwin's birthday too. And, I know... lets have an image of a jolly old man with a white beard help us celebrate that day too. What day did Darwin die? Maybe we could have a giant monkey go around and deliver chocolate monkey eggs to all the little children of the world. This is all just another scheme from the greeting card companies.

The tenet that God created "man" in His image is kind of senseless. Think of it: God came up with a universe and life..Man only creates from what he learns from nature. We mimic nature to suit our needs. We are not sole creators. Hence, we aren't an image of God. It is not possible to be sole creators.

I think the focus is definitely misdirected toward "us" humans. This thinking is usually as a result of religious thinking. Instead of answering: What is the meaning of life? Surely its equally perplexing NOT to ask: What is the meaning of non-sentience?

There is simply no "why". But here is a familiar question: "Why are we here?" Why not an equally relevant question: "Why arent they here?" Why arent unicorns here? Why arent fairies, ogres, cylcops, or Zeus here? Maybe they do exist. Maybe a "God" or "Gods" do exist. But not the JudeoChristian Islamic God. A God has plenty of time on "his/her hands" to meddle with us "playthings". As an atheist, however, believing in a God is totally irrelevant to how one behaves morally. A Hindu is just as moral as an Agnostic, or a Christian, or a Buddhist. "Love thy neigbor" is not specific to any religion. Its a universal trait.

Animals display altruistic behavior. Its an economic concept. You have what I want, and I have what you want, so lets share. Altruism is often reciprocal.  

The Bible is simply inconsistent. If God was omnipotent, God simply has no free will, if you believe in miracles and divine intervention. The very act of a miracle, or divine intervention, suggests Her design is perhaps flawed, that it needs fixing, or that Her "act" of intervention was written in the stars, which suggests the lack of free will on God's part.

Why do we need to a "meaning" in our lives? This behaviour is quite arrogant. Your very existence is meaningful enough. Yet a rock who has yet to think, does not know the difference between life and death; and here we are thinking about what happens to us after death.

Science might never understand the meaning of life. But supposing that you do know the meaning of life. Does that not take away "faith"? There is logical faith, and illogical faith. Illogical faith is religion. Logical faith is reason. Oh, and spiritual needs not be religious.

We should celebrate Darwin's day. Darwin himself was an Agnostic. By the way, evolution is happening right now. Reports on lizards suggests adaptation is happening as close to as a decade.

The belief in a JudeoChristian Islamic God is delusional.

Kokomo Indiana's first Darwin Day celebration (as far as I know) was held last Friday at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Kokomo. There were people from different faith traditions there, and they didn't seem to have a problem with evolution. Even special guest Clarence Darrow was enjoyed by all present.

Those that insist an Anglo holy text holds all wisdom fail to see the political machinations that have been made through the centuries that have made such a text significant. Consider that the council of Niceum was organized specifically to enforce the adoption of Christianity in the new empire of Rome established by Constantine. Consider that the King James version was written to give divine right to Anglo kings after the schism with the Church of Rome. The Spanish Inquisition was a convenient witch hunt to purge Jews and other undesirables from Spanish culture. Religion is politics. Belief is hope, but organized religion is designed so that one consign rights and individuality to an man ruler not a god. The history is indisputable. Jesus was a great philosopher, but man has perverted his works for man's benefit as Jesus' teachings are far to idealistic for all men to accept especially for those in power.

No fundamentalist church would be able to hold a "pi day" as they must believe that the value of pi is 3. It says so in the bible which is the literal and perfect word of god.

1 Kings 7:23 And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about. (KJV)

I wonder if there are any fundamentalist christian builders, carpenters, masons, draftsmen, mathematicians, salesmen, etc. who believe that the actual value of pi is 3 because the bible clearly says so and god's word cannot be in error.

fred said: "For anything to be science it must be observable, repeatable and testable."

Are hydrogen atoms observable?  Are electrons?

If the evolution-deniers would just do a modicum of honest homework, there wouldn't be any public "debate."

"Religion and evolution IS NOT science!"
GIGO.

Jeff wrote: "I have arrived at my conclusion based on the scientific facts and my underlying assumptions."

No, you haven't.  You have arrived at your conclusion based on a comic book understanding of what science is and how it works.  Science addresses nature.  Period.  If there is a supernatural, science can't deal with it.

Rob wrote: "Darwinism teaches that survival of the fittest is our lot in life and that our most primitive urges are to dominate so that we won't be dominated."

No.  It doesn't. That's the comic book version of evolution you learned in sunday school.

Do not despair, my friends. The United States is no different from any other country. Fifty percent of the population is at or below average in intelligence.

The other half understands and accepts evolution as the only rational explanation for our biological history. The best we can do is try to keep the dummies' hands off the controls. In the United States there is, at least, a legal basis in your constitution for doing so: the seperation of church and state. Many nations are not so fortunate. Witness the tragi-comedy unfolding in Kenya.

Regarding Jaycubed and PI: Please read

http://www.apocalipsis.org/difficulties/pi.htm:

...the wisdom of God is greater than the wisdom of man:

In this case the word for circumference="line", But in this verse "line" is written with an extra letter.

Since Hebrew has no digits, all letters are also numbers, we can take the ratio of (the gematriacal value of) the unusual word form to the regular word form. Given that the gematrial letter values are =100, =6, and =5 we find that:

5 + 6 + 100=111 6 + 100=106 111/106=1.0471698

False number for PI  Ratio  TOTAL  
3 multiplied by  1.0471698  =3.14150943...

The real value: PI=3.1415926...

The difference between 3 x 111/106 and PI is 0.0000832 which is only an error of 0.00026%!

Hooray! We have finally evolved to the point of celebrating the evolution of humanity.

I preface this by saying that I am a scientist, an evolutionist and an atheist.  Having said all that, I don't necessarily support the idea of gathering to celebrate the birth of a scientist any more than I celebrate the birth of a religious figure.  I feel that Darwin's great legacy is in the tremendous steps we've made in discovering the mysteries of life's development, and in the work of thousands who have followed his research.

We err when we elevate any man to godhood, however minor; this is how religions start.  Be rational, and celebrate by doing your part to advance science and push back the boundaries of ignorance and superstition.

How creationists can think the universe is only 6,000 years old is incredibly uneducated.  

Yes, evolution is a theory, but to believe the universe is 6,000 years old you also have to believe the speed of light is millions of times faster than it really is.  The speed of light is a measurable fact, not a theory!

I don't believe in God for one simple reason.  I find it a lot easier to believe all life evolved from chemicals than I do to believe that an all powerful God has always existed.  

Who or what created God?  It may be difficult to create life from chemicals, but that's a lot easier to believe than creating an all powerful God.

No, I will not celebrate Darwin's Day. I don't believe in the theory of evolution.

I rest my case.

In every debate on Creation VS Evolution the evolution side invariably starts name calling. They call us stupid and unintelligent and so forth. You prove our point when you do that.

Just so it's clear.

Everyone has the same evidence and the same observational science. We interpret it from our presuppositions and Evolutionist interpret it from theirs. The science is neutral. The interpretation is a matter of faith.

Evolutionists have no special claim to science. Evolution is an interpretation of the facts. It is a faith, because no human was there to observe the beginning. My faith includes God and Evolutionist faith excludes God. Plain and simple.

Only one interpretation can be true.

I choose God's testimony, God was there, no one else was. I think God is trustworthy. Yes, that is my faith.

Joe McVoy

Actually the existence of God is very logical. Read Norman Geislers Systematic Theology: Volume 2 on God and Creation. There has to be an Uncaused Cause of all there is we see the principle in Nature all around us, cause and effect. It has to originate somewhere. Everything originates with the Eternal One the Uncaused cause of everything.

It's really not that difficult. But it is still a matter of faith. What are you going to believe? It's your choice. Just ask God. Really, ask God. I'm serious. He is there.

Wow, I'm like totally amazed at just how much the "educated" community hate people of faith. I knew these times would have to come, but I had no idea that the days were so quickly approaching. I'm sure my life will soon be snuffed out for the "good of humanity." Even so come quickly LORD Jesus!

About 20 years ago, creationists were preaching to you and I that the universe was around 4000 years old. Then about 10 years ago I was hearing from them that it was around 5000 years old. And now it's 6000 years old? Wow, according to the preaching from these creationists, the universe becomes 1000 years older about every 10 years! God must have some really fancy tricks up his sleeves to pull that one off! I suppose that is why all those dinosaur bones seem so old when they're actually not. But wait... Wouldn't this also mean that the universe was actually created only 60 years ago at the rate of 1000 years per each 10 years of change? I think God created Darwin to save us from ourselves, but being that Darwin was one of us, we were saved only to be doomed by our own ways in nature!

Sure, some points of TOE/natural selection are quite obvious. For example, a child born with a heart irregularity due to genetic mutation that dies at age two will certainly not pass this trait on to offspring.  But there are several scientific facts that have already disproven the bulk of TOE.  One example is 'irreducible complexity'. The primordial bird feather would have actually been a hindrance to an animals survival for hundreds of thousands if not millions of years.  

I don't understand why Darwin's TOE is still  recognized as standing theory since the scientific community has already disproven it themselves.

A better theory needs to be established.  Maybe an organism's "need" to change may begin a chain of subtle mutations in the direction of the needed change.

This subject isn't about science vs. religion. It's about theory vs. theory.

too bad...

Christian, the argument you present seems extremely contrived.  Why add the extra digit?  Why not use it as a positional reference.  I'm not asserting it's wrong, only that it seems contrived.

When one doesn't set up the rules to be used before-hand it's easy to come up with post-facto ones that will conform to new situations.  We used to play a game called 4 4's.  You try to make as many numbers as you can using exactly 4 fours.

Example:
0 = 44 - 44
1 = 44 / 44
2 = 4/4 + 4/4
3 = 4 - 4/4
4 = (4 + 4 + 4) / 4
5 = (4*4 + 4) / 4
and so on.

Either way this isn't evidence that God is wiser than man.

Joe from Boulder, CO said "I find it a lot easier to believe all life evolved from chemicals than I do to believe that an all powerful God has always existed."    My friend, you have much more faith than I could ever muster.

Has anybody here ever heard of the scientific theory?  I seem to recall that the steps were something like postulate, develop a theory, (based on present evidence) test the theory, and revise or discard the theory.  How much scientific investigation has the evolutionary theory ever stood?  Has anybody ever, ONCE, generated life from non-living matter, even in the perfect conditions of a laboratory?  Yet Darwinists continue to "find it a lot easier to believe all life evolved from chemicals?!?!?!?!"

I present 4 things for your consideration.  Darwinism, science, logic, and creationism,  Where are the similarities and contradictions?  

I like the idea of Science Days.  I think we need more days off from work.  Maybe we can celebrate them all on Mondays because I hate Mondays.

To the people who stated Evolution is FACT and that people who don't believe it are ignorant, perhaps they should understand what the word "THEORY" means, 'Abstract thought, hypothesis, guess' just to name a few accepted definitions of the word.  Using those definitions, both creationism and evolution are theories.  If you believe in creationism, then you also have to believe in scientific fundamentals which are basically just our current understanding of how we relate to our physical surroundings.  If you believe in evolution, then you have to base your hypothesis (guess) not on fact but the assumption that billions, if not trillions, of sequential events had to happen.  Plus those events had to happen in a synergetic sequence.  Science has shown that nothing in our known environment works that way.  Everything around us is slowing down or decaying.  It takes much more faith to believe in evolution than to believe in creationism.  My hat is off to anyone who has that kind of faith.

It makes sense... Evolution should be taught in churches because evolution is a belief system too. None of us were there in the beginning to observe evolution, as pure science requires, so it must be taken by faith. Churches can teach what they want, though believing in evolution does contradict Genesis 1. Bible based Christianity does not conflict with observable facts (i.e. science), but it does conflict with the theory of evolution. Neither theories of Creation or Evolution should be passed off as science... both should have their roots in churches.

1) any good Christian will admit that God can do anything He chooses with his creation.  If His chosen tool is "evolution", I'm not qualified to argue with Him.

2) Anything that can be demonstrated in a high school biology classroom can't really be called a "theory".  Therefore, the Darwin Hypothesis (as Darwin's writings really ought to be called) is a demonstrable fact in limited circumstances; the only thing theoretical about it is whether or not it completely applies to humans and upper-class mammals.

Language is the element of our demise.

C.W.:

You need to learn the scientific definition of the word “theory”.  It is not a synonym for “hypothesis” or “guess”.  A scientific theory is an hypothesis that has been repeatedly tested and verified by experimentation, such as the theory of gravity.  Evolution or natural selection has been shown to be true in the work of thousands of scientists doing work in completely different fields.  The overwhelming evidence for natural selection removes all need for faith.  You simply have to open your eyes and be willing to accept facts.

A theory is not a guess, it is a whole process based on a hypothesis, experimentation and evidence. There is no evidence for creationism whatsoever. It is not a theory. It is completely arbitrary. I could just as well believe in the creation of the world from Lord of the Rings.

When it comes time, when we discover a way to live forever, what would be the purpose of religion? Or of science? Give a baby a ball and he'll play with it. Teach the baby how to play with the ball and he'll never know the difference.

Ah,,lets see. There was an "Adam" and "Eve" in a "garden" and it was all so perfect and beautiful. We find animal fossils, and cave-man type remains, that have shown a progression to todays humans and animals. Took a long time. Cant make that stuff up in a week.

Alan,

You are mostly correct here.  God could have used macro-evolution if He wanted to do so, but Genesis 1 (as well as other passages of the Bible) says that He created the world, and everything in it, out of nothing. He did not use evolution unless He is a liar.

As I understand it, micro-evolution is observable today but that is a far cry from one species evolving into another (the macro-evolution that most people think of).  There are many different breeds of dogs, and God probably only created one breed, but they are all still dogs and you can't observing any spouting wings, etc.  Therefore, my point still stands - both Creation and Evolution require faith.

It amazes me how the Evolution vs. Creation argument is still raging.  No wonder so much of the developed world sees us as idiots.  Yes I said developed world because these are the countries that have moved past the days of agrarianism and mythology to tap the well of science.

Look around.  Gravity, supernovas, the vaporization point of water, and the extent of time and space.  What we know of these things has allowed us to move beyond feudalism and into a world that we can significantly alter in a matter of years (building a skyscraper) or a matter of seconds (an atomic blast).  

Science is based on observable and repeatable measurements.  Religious texts have been told as verbal stories then transcribed, translated, revised and edited by man over thousands of years.  How can you say that they are still “the word of God” when man has rewritten these texts so many times?  Yes they are wonderful guides to life and they can be a place for inspiration, but this is all.  They should not be taken as literal fact.  Just play “Telephone” and you’ll see what I mean.    

For all of the people out there who don’t understand what scientists mean when they say the word “Theory” – It all begins with observable and repeatable measurements, or Facts.  These facts merge into a Hypothesis, an idea.  As more and more facts and ideas merge they become a Law (Newtonian physics is built around laws).  Laws allow us to predict things like the amount of force transmitted through a baseball traveling at 30 miles an hour and caught in a catcher’s mitt.  But Theories allow us to explain why things happen in the natural world the way they do.  And yes, scientists get things wrong, we’re human.  But as time goes by, new evidence allows us to modify our hypotheses, laws, and theories to better explain the universe we live in.      

What most of the religious right fails to see is that science is not something to believe or disbelieve in (that’s what religion is for), but science is based on observable and repeatable measurements = facts.  

My take home message is that if you don’t “believe” that evolution is real, then you can’t “believe” anything in the world around you, from skyscrapers, to bumblebees, to supermarket scanners, to mountains and atomic bombs.  The rules of the natural world make all of these possible and science studies these rules.  Get over yourselves and your book!    

Oh, and global warming is real too! [...]

Folks, I'm starting to see a few messages where people are trying to take apart other people's messages line by line. In this case, I'm not sure that's going to be helpful. I think most people who are posting here are probably aware that a "theory" - as in Darwin's theory of evolution, Newton's theory of gravitation or Einstein's theories of relativity (special and general) - connotes more than just a guess about how something might work.

Also, the idea that evolution says "one species changes into another" really isn't correct. Rather, the view is that one species can give rise to multiple species over time. Of course, one of the problems is that we're trying to categorize "species" as particular types of pigeonholes. I suppose a better way of saying it would be that populations of organisms, over many generations, can give rise (under the right conditions) to separate populations of organisms that can no longer interbreed.

The way I see it, the power of a scientific claim lies in its ability to explain a variety of phenomena and help us anticipate new ones. For example, claims about evolutionary development are strengthened by evidence from mitochondrial DNA ... as well as fossil findings as fresh as today's study about the tool-using ancestors of modern-day chimps. (We're still working up that story and it should be available via http://science.msnbc.com in just a bit).

Anyway ... what I meant to say before I got off on a tangent is that some messages that go into a detailed critique of other messages may not be approved (see the "Please Read" section).

"In this case the word for circumference="line", But in this verse "line" is written with an extra letter.

Since Hebrew has no digits, all letters are also numbers, we can take the ratio of (the gematriacal value of) the unusual word form to the regular word form. "
"christian"

Had to look in the OED for "gematriacal" as it doesn't appear in Webster's, M-W or Cambridge dictionaries. There it is listed as "gematria", "a cabalistic method of interpreting Hebrew Scriptures by interchanging words whose letters have the same numerical value when added." As Hebrew has no written vowels, a person can change the spelling of the word to create their own "hidden meaning" for the word. Apparently Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman, an 18th century Lithuanian Rabbi, came up with this tortured interpretation. As cabbalistic interpretations are flexible rather than certain, other interpretations of the meaning of this passage are equally possible.

But none of this matters to those who claim that the bible, particularly the King James Version, is the direct, infallable & inerrant word of god. This includes most of those who call themselves "Evangelical Christians" in the U.S. and other English speaking countries. For them, the simple & clear meaning of the bible is that pi must be 3. Attempts have been made to legislate that the value of pi is 3 by State legislatures in the U.S. due to the inerrant message of the bible.

I believe this is par for the course, since evolution is nothing more than another religion, and Charles Darwin is their god!

Why is God a He? Why could it not be a She? Anthropomorpism is the key idea here.

Here are my reasons for asking this question.

1) Human embryos are defaulty FEMALE. It starts of neutral, but the X chromosome is to play here. Both human sexes have the X chromosome in common. Females: XX and males: XY. Males have something of the females, NOT the other way round.

2) The X chromosome is larger than the Y. It has far more genetic material also.

3) Females give birth. Females can conceive WITHOUT a male, but this results in asexual conception: the more primitive form of conception - it is quicker, and this takes less energy. Logic suggests that females came first, since males do not have the ability to conceive with each other.

4) Males tend to be far more violent and agressive.

5) If God could create Adam in less than a nano-second, why does God "choose" to create Eve by using Adam's rib? The fact that God is all-knowing and all-powerful is only suggestive that God had no choice BUT to create Adam and Eve. God has no free will. Remember, at the point of creation (Adam and Eve), God knew about Jesus, who was sent from God to save everyone from Sin. Why bother creating Adam and Eve (who sinned), when Jesus was planned already?

Is it possible that God did not see this coming? This whole JudeoChristian Islamic doctrine is simply illogical and full of holes and inconsistencies.

Intelligent Design for example is ridiculous! The whole idea that everything is so complicated that it could only imply a creator is nonsense! The designer is not only UNINTELLIGENT, but inefficient. Of course things would be "perfect" or complicated. A structure that does not hold will be discarded. Our human bodies are inefficient. We suffer from many crippling illnesses, diseases and so forth. Why bother creating the other planets? Why bother creating wasps? Surely, wasps have no "function". Perhaps we attribute these "evils" to Satan.

Then God is simply out of his depth. Was it not God who created light, darkness, good and evil?

Evolution may not explain everything, but it is based on reason and logic. The evidence is there. Faith/religion is dangerous. Being God must be boring and fun, if God can do what he likes.

After all, God is the Father, NOT the mother.

Evolution does explain a LOT of different phenomena.

The evolution deniers are not aware of the diversity of the evidence for evolution - either the scope, nor the depth of it.

Problem:
People who know almost nothing of consequence about either science or evolution make assertions about its impossibility.  They are not generally ignorant people.  In fact, they are often intelligent about many things. But nearly every sentence they produce demonstrates a profound and utter lack of understanding on the subject of evolution.

These people are guided by their comic-book understanding of science and evolution to conclusions that are laughably nonsensical.  This is not name-calling.  It's not name-calling to state a fact.

Evolution doesn't just "explain the fossil record."  It explains the distribution of the fossil record - why fossil animals found in Australia, for example, are closer to the living animals found in the same place than they are to the living animals found elsewhere.  It explains the distribution of living animals we find today.  Read chapter 11 of the Origin of Species - carefully, and not like a 10 year old reads his history assignment so he can get on to playing video games.

Evolution deniers - despite all their claims to the contrary - don't know what they're talking about.  That fact is abundantly obvious to anyone who has done an honest day's research on the subject.

What I want to see is:
Charles Robert Darwin High School
or
Alfred Russel Wallace Elementary.

We shouldn't worship Charles Darwin, but we should reverence him and his Great Accomplishment.  The vast majority of actual scientists agree that Natural Selection is on a solid scientific footing.  It is brilliant science and it is supported by the vast preponderance of evidence.

Evolution deniers bleat about the lack of evidence for evolution because they can't find any in the pamphlets their preachers gave them or the websites their preachers directed them to and so they erroneously conclude there is no evidence for evolution.

The Theory of Evolution is among the greatest accomplishments of the human intellect.  We should reverence the actual accomplishments of actual people in proportion to their contribution to our collective understanding.

Darwin based his findings on accurate and tangible informations, Creationism is as religion in itself ( a great story based on nothing but hearsay and a whole lot of non event ? funny how religion need no proof to exist, but in turn demand irrefutable arguments from Darwin supporters !!!!!!!! .

Ask yourself one thing in this debate, what is the level of education of people on each side. End of debate

all of this discussion is really interesting....lots to think about, to try and digest - once you think you have a personal philosophy, someone else brings something up that makes you go "hmmm"....but did anyone else catch the mistake posted by TheFallibleFiend in Lorton, VA about the 4 4s game???? (4 + 4 + 4) / 4 doesn't equal 4......the point i'm trying to make is everyone can make mistakes or errors but only you can decide what you personally believe........i believe in God, always have - but i also believe in evolution because without it, life is static and unchanging....peace....

OH MY GOD Well I am a creationist but I have thought a lot about this subject over time. In the classroom I think both view points should be taught. I attended christian and public school while growing up. The thought is how can anyone compare and come to a conclusion for themselves without unbiased teaching of the facts for both. The task is simple but the bend from both sides makes the goal unobtainable. I am not the most educated person in the world but I have always had a huge interest in the sciences. After my education and life experiences have transpired I have made MY conclusion that there is only intelligent design. I have that right and so do the people on the other side of the fence. I believe Darwin conducted his study and theory based on what he believed. The Bible was written and passed on based on what the authors of the Bible believed. We should teach both. This country was founded by people of faith and based everything on Biblical priciples. Over time Darwin came along and presented his view of evolution which a large portion of this country embraced. Teach science in the science classroom and add a religion class to let the individual decide. On this thought, I think it would only be fair for the student to have a religion class that taught all forms of rligious beliefs over the last two years of high school when thier minds are at a developmental stage to look objectivly at all. Wow what a pipe dream that is. Could you imagine public schools giving the student an unbiased view on anything???? Well we can all dream too.

Hello Jeff Bromley:

You are a human being, and therefore entitled to your opinion about the world.  However, you are not entitled to make simultaneous statements like "I have found no reason to reject science" AND "I am a creationist".  This is a logical contradiction.  Science (which, God help us, could turn out to be a pack of lies) requires building larger concepts out of smaller ones, which are supported by objective evidence (your opinion or belief, or mine, are not evidence).  Scientific investigation has produced overwhelmingly strong support for evolutionary theory (in general -- there are still lots of arguments about the details) as well as for the notion that the world is a couple of billion years old, and the universe is in the range of 15 billion.  These conclusions are based on a wide range of phenomena that we can actually observe.

You can, of course, remain a creationist.  You can believe the world was formed from Silly Putty if you want.  But you cannot believe such things and also say you do not reject science.  By believing them, you are rejecting science.

Eventually, as many of your co-believers never tire of pointing out, we will die and find out who was right.  Or, if science was right, we may not find out anything.  If God created us, he created us with intelligence and a desire to understand how things work.   Interpreting the clues He may have left leads to the conclusion that He doesn't exist, or at most has a very tenuous contact with his creation.  If the clues were left to suck unusually intelligent and diligent humans into fatal error, then God does not seem to be a very nice guy.

In any event, if you are a creationist, stop saying you have no problem with science.  If you really mean that, it just means you have no concept of what science is.

At the Razor’s Edge

By Patricia Lee

I’ve always been fascinated with the nexus between the intuitive and the rational aspects of the human mind.  When it comes to great breakthroughs and when reading biographies of great people and their breakthroughs, it seems to me that very often there is a serendipity working between the two hemispheres of the brain that flows into each other.

There was in Medieval times a Franciscan friar by the name of William of Ockam.  He was born in a village in the English countryside of Surrey and the principle he promulgated was known as “Ockam’s Razor.”  A razor is used to cut or shave away excess; thus, Ockam’s succinct statement of a scientific principle states that when you have two competing theories, which make exactly the same predictions, the one that is simpler, is the better.

Intuitive insight, or, in theological terms what is known as an “epiphany” or an “Aha!” comes in the simpler form, whereas, the rational goes through a deductive series of experimental data.  

In “A Brief History of Time,” Stephen Hawking wrote:  “We could still imagine there is a set of laws that determines events completely from some supernatural being, who could observe the present state of the universe without disturbing it.  However, such models of the universe are not of much interest to us mortals.  It seems better to employ the principle known as “Ockam’s Razor” and cut out all the features of the theory that cannot be observed.”  

Then, one asks, from whence does the “intuitive” come?  What is this “simple flash” that occurs in what can be called a moment of insight?

Several things have brought me to think this wintry day about “Ockam’s Razor.”  One, watching Spencer Tracy playing the part of Clarence Darrow in the Scope’s Monkey Trial titled “Inherit the Wind.”  Tracy is cross-examining Frederic March, who plays the part of the fundamentalist bible-thumping politician William Jennings Bryant.  

“Well, now," asks Tracy, “ in all of these begats in Genesis, does the Good Book tell us where Mrs. Cain came from?”  The question remains relevant to this very day, as my morning paper will attest.  The battle goes on between the creationists and the evolutionists.

Also, this winter I’ve been reading the “essential Darwin” and I am very surprised with his prolific journal writing.  While there was no “eureka” aboard The Beagle or on the plains of South America, and only after constant observing and reading did Darwin deeply reflect more seriously on the “origin”, yet, he had, himself, that serendipitous moment along with Einstein and so many others who had seminal breakthroughs.

William James described it as “The process of discovery in a series of random flashes visiting the investigator’s mind; all the flashes being on an exact equality in respect of their origin.”

There were two both exhilarating and disturbing articles in today’s Boston Globe.  One was reading about the opening in February at the Boston Science Museum of an exhibit on Darwin’s life and works.  And, an I-Max documentary on the Galapagos Archipelagos.  The second is a story out of Washington State in which a local school board has succumbed to the creationists’ mentalities.  The juxtaposition of these two articles left me thinking and writing today.

Having just completed a geology class at Salem State College, my fiancé and I are very excited about rocks.  We’ve even bought the hammer and tools to go rock combing when we travel.  It is a very interesting new hobby.  So I was most curious when reading about Darwin’s discovery of geology.  Before his voyage aboard The Beagle, he had no knowledge or interest in geology.  But on the voyage in 1836 he plunged into the work of Sir Charles Lyell.   Darwin wrote in his journal:

“On first examining a new “district” (as he called it) nothing can appear more hopeless than the chore of rocks; but, by recording the stratification and nature of rocks and fossils at many points, light soon began to dawn, and the structure of the whole “district” becomes more or less intelligible.”

While at Cambridge University, Darwin majored in Theology with the goal of becoming a clergyman.  Interesting to contemplate this because the revolution he unleashed with his evolution of the species theories has, over and over again, pitted scientific and religious thoughts and beliefs.  Darwin was comfortable as a lifelong agnostic even though his family were Anglicans and Unitarians.  As a  journal-writer he found that over time it saved him time to scribble “in a vile hand,” whole pages “as quickly as I possibly can, contracting half the words, and then correct deliberately sentences thus scribbled down are often better ones than I could have written deliberately.”

This I can relate to, as well, because I write pages and pages in my daily journal until something begins to form into another essay.  It is said that Ernest Hemingway would doodle on a fresh paper until the muse came to him.  Einstein played the violin.  This is where I think the “joining” of mind and spirit work together serendipitously.  It is after this “scribbling” that the “cutting” and “pasting” comes.  So it is that this “razor’s edge” often is the writer’s tool in “cutting away” and often with an intuitive flash comes into a “simpler form.”

Charles Darwin was a model Victorian man and grew into becoming a naturalist.  It was a fortuitous invitation he received when asked to join Captain Fitz Roy’s expedition to South America.  Darwin said, “It turned out to be the most important event in my life.”

It is also true; it seems to me, that the artists then come along to make sense out of breakthroughs.  In Darwin’s time it was Alfred Lord Tennyson.

In Memoriam, Tennyson interpreted the polarities of faith and doubt.  

“There lives more faith in honest doubt 
 Believe me, than in half the creeds.”

Aldous Huxley said that Tennyson was the “first poet since Lucretria who has understood the drift of science.  He seemed to write out of that evolutionary process itself, part of the development by which man arose out of the seeming-random forms, the seeming prey of cyclic storms.”

But when I picked up this morning’s paper and read that a middle-school teacher in Washington State had introduced Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” (about the real issues of global warming) and was denied showing the film because one parent agreed that while the planet is warming, it is being caused by God, not man, and it is a sign that Judgment Day is approaching, I was non-plussed.  Not at the man’s belief, but at the school board succumbing to such nonsense. They knuckled under and the teacher was told she must get permission before presenting “controversial material” to her class.  It is said that they need something to counter-balance these findings.  What, I wonder?  Teach the children about Noah’s Flood?  It is preposterous in this day and age, and yet the whole debate continues between faith and doubt – science and religion.

There is no telling where my few scribbled words will lead me early every morning.  But as I sit by my window and look at the cairn on my windowsill – made of natural stones stacked one on top of another (from the tradition of the ancient Scots of the highlands, amongst others), the echoes of these simple groupings of rocks teach me once again about “spirit” working with “mind” and in this quietness of the day I see in the directional markers a way of telling this story and the insight that hopefully comes to each of us as we continue to “explore” and bring our intuitive creativity into a framework of  joining with our “knowing.”  The echoes of history and of new breakthroughs are always present if we but choose to “listen” and “discern” what is awaiting us at “the razor’s edge.”

+++++++++

Patricia Lee is an essayist
who lives in the seaport town
built of granite on Marblehead rocks
in Massachusetts.

January 30, 2007

FallibleFiend is right, there's too much misunderstanding of biology.  X-Men is not a good model for understanding evolution, I cringed alot during the scientific explanations in that movie.  

But, here goes...

There exists genetic variation in every population.

Individuals with variations that confer a reproductive advantage will have more babies.  Over time, if selective conditions remain constant, the population will have more of those variations in it.

This occurs on the level of the genes.  Thus, it is not always a horrible "war," as one person posted.  Individuals don't have to die for the population to change over time (although that can happen in some cases).  

Example- excuse my weird analogy- Let's say that there's a "hockey gene."  You don't have it, so you're not very good at hockey.  In your town, hockey players have alot of babies.  You are good at math, so you still have some babies because people who have the "math gene" still have medium sized families.  Your great-grandson might marry a woman who is really good at hockey and their kid will be pretty good too.  But that kid might also have some great genes that came directly from you, including the math gene, making him good at hockey and math.  So evolution isn't all that painful.

In response to another claim that bacteria "adapt" to treatments, but are "still the same old bacteria..."

In this case, during treatment, all bacteria are killed except those few that are drug-resistant, a state which was acquired by random mutations in the genes.  These resistant bacteria multiply, so whatever comes back after drug-treatment is a genetically different (you've heard of strains, they refer to genetic differences).  It is not the "same old bacteria." You can see this when you try to use the same drugs on it.  They don't work!  You have to use different ones.  So don't stop taking antibiotics midway through treatment.

Evolution is not like getting used to hot water in a hot tub or something.  "Getting used" to something in biology is called something else.  

Understanding evolution isn't that bad.  To the religious folk out there- atheists are pretty arrogant, don't let em get you down.  None of us really know all that much, I think that's pretty important to keep in mind.

When the terms science and evolution are constantly used in such a way that they are viewed as one and the same thing, a monumental disservice is done. Science and evolution are not synonymous. Science is essentially a rational method by which the sense-perceived natural world is observed and analyzed, enabling us to come to conclusions that make sense and are verifiable through repetition.

Can the same  be said of the Darwinian postulate about the origin of species? The most that could ever be said of it is that it may be true. No one was there when it all started and it does not appear that the process is repeatable. To make that view of origins absolute, as many finite persons seem bent on foicing upon rational minds, and to put it on the same level as scientific discoveries processes that make verifiable and repeatable discoveries through observations and experimentations (producing the same tangible results) is really to confuse the unsuspecting as to what authentic science is and what it is not.

It is ok to espouse evolution, even to advocate it with gusto, if one happens to believe in its absolute claims; but it is not ok to demand that all of us must swallow its claim to absoluteness - lock, stock, and barrel - and now to even merge it with religion in order to be authentic scientist. I can only reject that kind of irrational narcissism as a distortion of the scientific enterprise.  

I am amazed to see how many people who are biased on this subject and use the term 'science method' as a crutch to claim that they are not.  In recent years it is becoming evident that our scientific discoveries point towards an irreducible complexity of life. Just because one is not claiming that God is our creator does not mean that they are not promoting their own 'WORLD VIEW'...NOT SCIENCE.  The fact that irreducible complexity points towards a creator is why many have held Darwinism so near and dear to their heart despite the mounting scientific evidence that does not support evolution.

Science should be about the pursuit of "truth"...period.  When Francis Crick (the codiscoverer of DNA) came to the realization that there is an irreducible complexity of life he came to the conclusion that the information contained in our DNA must have came her from another planet because it could not have came about by gradual evolution.  Now that's an amazing amount of faith.  However, the question still remains of where did that alien information come from?  There has to be a beginning.  To believe that something came out of nothing requires a great amount of faith.  My hat goes off anyone who can still hold onto this belief despite the mounting scientific evidence to the contrary.

I do not support Evolution Sunday becuase there is a WORLD VIEW that is being promoted by its founders.  It is somewhat hidden and it is subtle...but there is an agenda.  However, I do believe that science will ultimately affirm the truth that God has written on every man's heart.  

Once again.  We don't have to SEE something in science to be very sure that it exists.  Not one person has EVER seen an electron, but nowhere are students taught that scientists are in the least skeptical of their existence.

What we have here is a bunch of people who actually understand science who are saying, "Evolution is good and important science."  And we have a bunch of people who maybe got A's in 7th grade life science, but have no higher understanding than that who are making assertions about science and the unlikelihood of evolution, BELIEVING that they are right on track, but in fact just being silly.

I don't get it.  Why is it so hard for people to understand that you have to understand something before you can cogently criticize it?  The problem is that the creationist and ID literature has presented a comic book version of science that has deluded people into believing a subject of which they are almost entirely ignorant.

Irreducible Complexity may be talked about a lot among IDers and other creationists, but actual scientists don't think much of these ideas. There's a very good reason for this, but in order to find that out one would have to read what actual scientists are writing, and not just get it filtered through political and religious blogs masquerading as science.

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