Posted on 04/21/2006 6:20:20 AM PDT by aculeus
Two weeks ago, a team of paleontologists announced the discovery of an extinct animal on an island in arctic Canada. The island is now a frozen waste, but in the Paleozoic Era it was literally crawling with life. The fossil find, dubbed Tiktaalik roseae, has been hailed as the evolutionary missing link between bony fish and land-dwelling vertebrates.
Culture-war observers might note that Tiktaalik bears a weird resemblance to the Darwin fish--the pictogram of a two-legged creature that parodies the ichthus symbol used by devout Christians. The coincidence is particularly poignant, given that Tiktaalik has re-emerged at a dismal moment for Christian fundamentalists and other opponents of evolutionary biology.
After years of unsuccessful attempts to have creationism recognized in public schools as a "scientific" alternative to the theory of evolution by natural selection, anti-Darwinists pinned their hopes on intelligent-design theory (ID), which tries to argue that living things are too complex to be products of random mutations. But this movement lost much steam in December, after a judge in Pennsylvania ruled that, contrary to the Dover, Pa., school board, ID was not science.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Hey, it's no threat, but I'm so smart and arrogant that I'm going to rub your nose in it the second paragraph.
Ping
But Christians should.
I often wonder why evolution is treated so poorly around here. There is no reason why evolution cannot be the process by which god works. Those who believe the earth is 6000 years old and leave no possibilities are driven so mad by evolution, I think it clouds their judgement.
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(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
I have no problem with that thought! In fact that is exactly what I think.
ping
I guess I should have pinged you and then read the article. Sorry for the duplicate ping.
A thoughtful and worthwhile article, in the view of this 'conservative and mainline Christian.' Thanks.
"Darwin isn't the enemy."
I have to agree with that basic conclusion. However, I point out that we've gotten to this point in part because Darwin's own supporters have waged a battle against religion, and have used the power of government to do so. They can't expect that religious conservatives are not going to fight back, if they beat them up. There is an inherent conflict between the two, but neither side ought to have the mantle of government to push its views on the other. So long as one side claims that right, this battle will continue, and it will spill over into the public arena.
Agreed. No one has ever been able to explain to me how there can be any ethical consequences of rejecting Biblical literalism. I don't recall that the Commandments are worded along the lines of, "Thou shalt not commit adultery, because God made the world in 6 days," or "Thou shalt not kill, even though many were killed in global deluge."
But hey, maybe that's just me...
My Dear Wife is a 7 day Creationist...I figure God did it, but took a lot longer, compatable with the geologic record. The problem becomes that arrogant Scientists have an Evolution (big E) that won't allow for God; nowhere else in science does Order come OUT of Chaos. And hand in hand with that are Christians who demand that if it says it was Seven Days, it had to be. (Christ said "I am the door." Did He have hinges?)
One of my more vocal Christian sisters will argue for hours about this dilemma, and I have to tell her that there are going to be people who think themselves very scientific that you will drive away from Christ if this is the only arrow in your quiver. If my main presentation of the Good News demands that my friends abandon all they think they know of science, they are going to walk away from me shaking their heads thinking that Christians deny geology and must be crazy about everything else.
How much more important to these scientific Lost Ones to present Christ as the answer to the the longing of their hearts and the hunger of their souls, rather than insist that Genesis must overwrite their brains. If you wanted people to try your breakfast cereal, would you mix in ground glass and demand they like it?
God knows how He did it. Five minutes after I die, I will too, although probably then I won't care and it won't matter. If I am wrong, and He really did it in six days, He'll straighten me out in the afterlife. But I imagine He will be more concerned with how many people I saved from "Death By Sin" through His Son's sacrifice than how many people I beat up with Genesis.
Still, with reference to this article, the second paragraph is an arrogant cheap shot.
Thank God!!!!!!!!!!!
If the collapse of ID represents a defeat for the Religious Right, it has been something of a relief for many nonreligious conservatives, who have wanted nothing more than for the issue to go away. Charles Krauthammer, for instance, complained that the Dover episode was "anachronistic," "retrograde" and "a national embarrassment."
Another indication that the air is out of the PR balloon which was ID.
That was in fact the originating precept for ID, at least up until the creationists glommed on to the buzz phrase and redefined it.
Some of Darwin's supporters seek to entrench a demi-god named "Natural Selection" in the public schools. Obviously this over-reach by religious fanatics ought to be resisted on its own merits.
Great article. Thanks for the ping!
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