Florida’s State Board of Education has voted to use the term “scientific theory of evolution” in new science standards, the first time the word “evolution” has been included.
Florida’s current standards require the teaching of evolution using code words like “change over time.”
Adding the term “scientific theory” before the term “evolution” was a modified proposal at least one board member called a compromise, not standards proposed originally to the committee. The option to include “scientific theory” was made late last week.
The real problem in this entire discussion remains the persistence of the literal six-24-hour day crowd, even though theirs is an untenable position both scientifically and biblically. I suppose that when Jesus says “I am the door,” they also expect hinges and a knob. Irrelevant mental midgets.
That said, the entire ‘from goo to you via the zoo’ position also has real problems, though not particularly since the Cambrian Explosion [of life] some 560 million years ago. Darwin himself stated that his theories applies only to the adaptation and development of life since that time. He highlighted it as a problem.
More to the point, most people don’t look far enough back, to the first half billion years or so of Earth’s existence. We geologists (and my first two degrees are in geology) call it the the Hadean Period. As in Hades. It was remarkably hot, dark –because the atmosphere was so full of dust– and nasty. Probably unsuited to life by anyone’s definition.
Quite suddenly, about 4,000 million years ago (ie 4 billion in the US), there appeared membrane-bound, self-replicating, colonial organisms –stromatolites– that persist, un-altered (dare I say un-evolved?) to this day in places like Australia. [i]THAT[/i] is problematic in Darwinian evolution.
Things generally persisted more or less unchanged for the next 3,400 million years or so, during which life consisted mainly of one-celled thingies and (in the late pre-Cambrian) of rather better organised blobs of this and that.
Suddenly (there’s that word again) there appeared a fully functioning ecosystem, containing every single major biological grouping alive today. Things like 3-foot shrimp — I want to get one of those on the grill! — and many of the little thingies we used to study as fossils.
God is nothing if not efficient. Our haemoglobin differs from a plant’s chlorophyll only in the nature of four atoms of metal, iron or magnesium, depending on whether we’re pink to brown, or green. Throw cobalt in the same spot and it’s vitamin B-12. We share nearly two-thirds of our DNA with … fruit flies. God is efficient.
What we call “evolution” may well be an example of that efficiency, but when it’s extrapolated far beyond Darwin’s own work it begins to run into significant scientific challenges.
In the end, what the fight is about is that you’ve got one group of people wishing to impose the rest of the Bible, while another group rejects that imposition (and too often, God’s innate authority as well) and therefore seeks to discredit the entire Bible.
Any thoughtful discussion of the origins and development of life gets caught in the crossfire.
I agree with Bart. From time to time, I have to sit down with our feloows and review some basic human physiology. Every time I do so, I am reminded that we truly are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” The big issue with Darwin is not necessarily that species developed in the order that he described (I have my doubts about that but will never know in my lifetime…) but his explanation of natural selection. As Christians, we testify that God is in control, and that if things did occur as Darwin described, it was by the hand of God. By definition, we all hold to Intelligent Design.
#2: There’s no doubt being an “old earth creationist” is tricky these days, [url=http://www.vulcanhammer.org/piblog//fullnews.php?id=2]as I documented three years ago.[/url]
#2: you know, as I think about it there’s probably also a “natural selection” on the non-corporeal, eternal plane. I’m not sure exactly where the selective pressure might lie, but I expect it has to do with things like mutual submission, recognition of the spiritual, rebellion, self-reference, and intransigence.
Worth contemplating, anyway.
I think it is very good that they label evolution as a “scientific theory” because that is what it is. However, I also wonder that labeling it as such is considered a “compromise”. How exactly is it a compromise to label a theory as a theory?
With respect, I differ from 1. Bart Hall in two particulars [although I greatly admire his post in all other respects].
Mr Hall asserts: [blockquote]In the end, what the fight is about is that you’ve got one group of people wishing to impose the rest of the Bible, while another group rejects that imposition (and too often, God’s innate authority as well) and therefore seeks to discredit the entire Bible.[/blockquote]
However, I don’t think this is the underlying problem, though it really is one of the serious problems that fuel the conflict. No, I think that [i]the[/i] first underlying problem is Post Modernism and it’s irrational ability to hold mutually exclusive truth claims simultaneously. This illogical belief that A is actually non-A, that truth is relative, is the bedrock problem. It leaves one with no meaningful way to convince another with factual arguments. Everything is left to subjective impression. Under Post Modernist thinking, you may have your truth while I shall have mine, and though they are contrary to one another, both are equally valid. Efforts to persuade are usually fruitless because the parties in dispute are using the same words to convey contrary thoughts and they end up speaking past one another and getting more and more frustrated. Yes, I believe that the fundamental problem is that one group contends that Truth is foundational while the other group contends that Truth is relative.
The second major difficulty lies in two conflicting Faiths. One Faith, Materialism [Francis Schaeffer called this Humanism], claims that the tangible universe is all that there is. Schaeffer defined it as the belief that final reality is â€material or energy shaped by pure chanceâ€. I believe the theory of Materialism to be self-defeating because the facts demonstrate that the universe is a Singularity and because of entropy.
If Materialism is correct, then the Universe, which had no cause, purpose, or meaning, will eventually devolve and approach nothingness. The Universe will have had no purpose and will disperse [so much so that matter itself will transition to heat] eternally into the cosmos, thwarting any “meaning†or “purpose†that may have developed by eventuating into the total dissolution of all things. Therefore, since all things are the result of pure chance, and all things eventually become as nothing, everything is meaningless. Acting as if anything has meaning is completely irrational, since nothing has any ultimate meaning. Only those Materialists who embrace nihilism [with no exceptions] are living consistently with their beliefs. Anything but nihilism betrays an irrational Faith that there is some meaning available. I see none that consistently live so.
The other Faith is Creationism. Now, one may argue the merits of the various theories about the mechanism(s) of creation, but whatever the method(s), the Universe started with a purpose and had meaning endowed by its Creator.
On reflection, I think I have my two points backwards. The second point, Theists vs. Atheists precedes the first point on the nature of Truth. Anyhow, the a priori views about Theism and Truth set the stage for discussions about the mechanisms of life.
#3, thank you for the link to your website comment. I commend it to all. #4, I would explain this “natural selection” as God’s election. #5, I think that you are correct, but I would not use creation/evolution as the point of engagement toward nonbelievers.
#1. Bart, Yes! Yes! What a beautifully compact and efficient presentation of God’s thought and economy in getting His creation task done. He apparently started the universe from a singularity smaller than the period at the end of this sentance. Starting with equal or near equal amounts of energy and anti-energy, He made equal or near equal amounts of matter and anti-matter (in a continuing process). I.E. from nothing, He made the universe!
What beauty and balance, as he spun out a thousand billion galaxies each with a thousand billion stars. And what is man that He should deal with him? Yet He does, for man is His own special creation — each cell wonderfully made with systems of stabilization and replication that could never have happened on a spontaneous basis.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that species evolve. But, just as you ask, from where did the first self-replicating cell come? How did the necessary multi-million unit DNA helix fall into place randomly and in exactly the right nutrients? Skillful bioreaserchers can clone, alter, and even “create” lifeforms as long as they have the DNA to work with. I am still waiting for them to show an experiment where conditions can be adjusted to produce DNA spontaneously.
To me “science fact” is something that can be replicated in laboratory experiments. Always a cause-and-effect link. “Science theory” is the application of assumptions to observations of causes and effects made over short periods of time, applying them to longer periods. Science theory always involves assumptions (such as radiocarbon dating being accurate over millions of years…no one really knows if constants are constant so long).
To me, the problem with science today is that we don’t label science theory as such, because often such science in many respects is actually scientifically informed philosophy and unprovable.
Looking at it another way, evolution has to be just the bare outline of how life came to be. As with geology, we can only see the influences of major castastrophies, not the little day to day things that may have caused this species or that to thrive. As with history, speculation on a historical event is always something of a gloss when the real documents are released and the actual goings on come to light.
Science is also properly concerned with cause and effect and cannot prove or disprove the supernatural, such as God, miracles, prayer efficacy, etc. Yet it is used as a club to attack religion and exclude God, and on this point I think Christians have much to say.
Also, if everything is laboratory-repeatable cause and effect we have no free will and are automatons. I think the legislature is wise in using the word theory.
“O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane [and] vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith.”