Evolution or Creation? It's one of my favorite study topics dating back almost 30 years to my high school and college days. At different periods of my adult life I've dived back into the topic. Reading books. Attending lectures. Surfing the internet. When I'm in a study phase (or fad?) I digest as much as I can and then move on.
And this week it's back on again.
You might have seen the news stories that set it off. President Bush answered a simple question from a reporter and it blew up. Someone asked him to comment on a recent controversy over whether or not "Intelligent Design" theory should be taught in high school science classes alongside evolution. Bush made a generic, nondescript statements, which immediately got distorted by everyone with an agenda.
"I think part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought."
Nothing radical. Nothing earthshaking. He did not propose that evolution be banned from school. He didn't propose equal weight in science classes. He only opined that kids should know what the debate on evolution is all about.
Of course, secularists in academia and in the press immediately became unhinged. The Darwinist community started accusing the President of everything from imposing ignorant fundamentalism on our nation's schools to bringing back the dark ages. I was particularly impressed with the visiousness of the cartoonist who drew the familiar evolutionary progression of apes with George W. in the last position looking particularly chimpy in Texas boots. Very civil.
It didn't suprise me, of course. The most dogmatic fundamentalists I've ever encountered are Darwinian evolution apologists. No one is to challenge the othordoxy while they are around, scientific method nothwithstanding. To do so invites scorn and ridicule from the keepers of the faith.
Okay, back to my own little struggle with the issue.
Back in my college days, at a major Big Ten University, I spent a lot of time thinking about this issue, but not from the position you would expect. At the time I was an agnostic and an engineering student. In addition to my required coursework of chemistry, physics, calculus, etc. I took electives like Anthropology (2 semesters), Astronomy (2 semesters), and Evolutionary Biology. We also had a regular circuit of guest lecturers on the topic in those days and I attended them all.
I specifically remember my course in Evolution. The course material of course. But the professor as well. I remember going up to the podium after class one day and listening as he held court for the undergrads off the record. He was telling us all how depressed he was by life and that he already had his suicide planned out to the degree that he had pills stored up. You may not see a link between his hoplessness with life and the topic he was teaching, but I did that day and I still do.
Frankly, in those days as an undergrad - even coming from a technical and agnostic background - I had questions about natural selection. I was taught all of the standard "evidences", like the moths changing color ratios in industrial England and the like. I just didn't see how all of that added up to creation of new species ended up in humanity. I would eventually, through future study, understand that differences in microevolution (mutations leading to changes within a species) and macroevolution (creation of new species) frames the essential debate. I have no doubt that natural selection accounts for the variety of life within species. I have a lot of doubt that it accounts for the introduction of new species.
I also question the original spark of life. Scientists like to gloss over this question with vague references to chemistry experiments long ago that were able to produce an amino acid or two in a bottle from some chemicals and electricity. It's a point that is core to the debate and can't be glossed over. Can life come from non-life without a creator?
I've read a lot over 30 years on the topic. I approach it from both a scientific mind and a Christian heart. Criticize that if you will. I think it's a valid approach for a being that is three in nature: body, soul, and spirit. I think it's the only valid approach.
So now it's back in the news, prompted by a simple comment by the President. I expected the Darwin dogmatists to dig in and entrench. However, I'm always irritated by the politically correct "moderate" public officials who show up on TV to debate this and who want to have it both ways. They speak the standard party line of the elite, which is: I may believe that God created us, but I don't want that taught in a science class. It should properly be taught in a philosophy or religion class.
Well, that's hooey. The topic is the origin of life. There are arguments that support Darwinism. There are arguments critical of it. And there are arguments for Design. They all properly belong in a science class.
For example, I'm particularly struck by the microbiologist argument for Intelligent Design based on the priciple of irreducible complexity. It argues that there are some components of cells, having several components, that cannot be reduced to simpler operation. Therefore, they couldn't have come about through a mutational process of natural selection because without all of the components present it would fail. The understandable analogy is a mousetrap. It is a functional design with 4 pieces: a board, a spring, a clip, and a hook. It has to have all 4 pieces to function. If it "evolved" without a hook for example, then it's a failed mousetrap. The existence of all 4 pieces working perfectly together is evidence of design, not evolution. It's the same with the cellular structure. It has to have all pieces present to function, and that's evidence of design - not millions of years and millions of mutation. (The same holds true of a wing evolving from a leg. Long before it became a functional wing it would just be a bad leg.) Design. Engineering. That argument can be made in a science classroom.
Bottom line: my interest in the topic is rekindled and that means a trip to the bookstore to catch up on the current literature. And therein lies my surprise of the day.
I wanted to buy one book each to start again with a study on the origin of life. A representative book on Intelligent Design. And a best case defense of Darwin and natural selection. Both sides.
It was easy to find the Darwin book ("The Blind Watchmaker"), shoulder to shoulder among several choices on the "Science" shelves of my local Barnes and Noble.
But alas, as hard as I looked I could not find a book on Intelligent Design. A quick trip to the information counter and we located it. In the "Religion" section. Give me a break.
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