I know people who use that word too. It puts you in some fine company.
Posted on 12/18/2004 5:56:30 PM PST by PatrickHenry
Professional danger comes in many flavors, and while Richard Colling doesn't jump into forest fires or test experimental jets for a living, he does do the academic's equivalent: He teaches biology and evolution at a fundamentalist Christian college.
At Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Ill., he says, "as soon as you mention evolution in anything louder than a whisper, you have people who aren't very happy." And within the larger conservative-Christian community, he adds, "I've been called some interesting names."
But those experiences haven't stopped Prof. Colling -- who received a Ph.D. in microbiology, chairs the biology department at Olivet Nazarene and is himself a devout conservative Christian -- from coming out swinging. In his new book, "Random Designer," he writes: "It pains me to suggest that my religious brothers are telling falsehoods" when they say evolutionary theory is "in crisis" and claim that there is widespread skepticism about it among scientists. "Such statements are blatantly untrue," he argues; "evolution has stood the test of time and considerable scrutiny."
His is hardly the standard scientific defense of Darwin, however. His central claim is that both the origin of life from a primordial goo of nonliving chemicals, and the evolution of species according to the processes of random mutation and natural selection, are "fully compatible with the available scientific evidence and also contemporary religious beliefs." In addition, as he bluntly told me, "denying science makes us [Conservative Christians] look stupid."
Prof. Colling is one of a small number of conservative Christian scholars who are trying to convince biblical literalists that Darwin's theory of evolution is no more the work of the devil than is Newton's theory of gravity. They haven't picked an easy time to enter the fray. Evolution is under assault from Georgia to Pennsylvania and from Kansas to Wisconsin, with schools ordering science teachers to raise questions about its validity and, in some cases, teach "intelligent design," which asserts that only a supernatural tinkerer could have produced such coups as the human eye. According to a Gallup poll released last month, only one-third of Americans regard Darwin's theory of evolution as well supported by empirical evidence; 45% believe God created humans in their present form 10,000 years ago.
Usually, the defense of evolution comes from scientists and those trying to maintain the separation of church and state. But Prof. Colling has another motivation. "People should not feel they have to deny reality in order to experience their faith," he says. He therefore offers a rendering of evolution fully compatible with faith, including his own. The Church of the Nazarene, which runs his university, "believes in the biblical account of creation," explains its manual. "We oppose a godless interpretation of the evolutionary hypothesis."
It's a small opening, but Prof. Colling took it. He finds a place for God in evolution by positing a "random designer" who harnesses the laws of nature he created. "What the designer designed is the random-design process," or Darwinian evolution, Prof. Colling says. "God devised these natural laws, and uses evolution to accomplish his goals." God is not in there with a divine screwdriver and spare parts every time a new species or a wondrous biological structure appears.
Unlike those who see evolution as an assault on faith, Prof. Colling finds it strengthens his own. "A God who can harness the laws of randomness and chaos, and create beauty and wonder and all of these marvelous structures, is a lot more creative than fundamentalists give him credit for," he told me. Creating the laws of physics and chemistry that, over the eons, coaxed life from nonliving molecules is something he finds just as awe inspiring as the idea that God instantly and supernaturally created life from nonlife.
Prof. Colling reserves some of his sharpest barbs for intelligent design, the idea that the intricate structures and processes in the living world -- from exquisitely engineered flagella that propel bacteria to the marvels of the human immune system -- can't be the work of random chance and natural selection. Intelligent-design advocates look at these sophisticated components of living things, can't imagine how evolution could have produced them, and conclude that only God could have.
That makes Prof. Colling see red. "When Christians insert God into the gaps that science cannot explain -- in this case how wondrous structures and forms of life came to be -- they set themselves up for failure and even ridicule," he told me. "Soon -- and it's already happening with the flagellum -- science is going to come along and explain" how a seemingly miraculous bit of biological engineering in fact could have evolved by Darwinian mechanisms. And that will leave intelligent design backed into an ever-shrinking corner.
It won't be easy to persuade conservative Christians of this; at least half of them believe that the six-day creation story of Genesis is the literal truth. But Prof. Colling intends to try.
1000
Damn you
Hee hee.
So I wander out for a bit and come back to find the Salem Bewitched Choir is witnessing me sitting on Satan's lap. Oh, well, back to the Dunking Pond for me I guess!
It was you who suggested this article to me. So now that the thread has passed 1,000 posts, I thought it was time I gave you the credit.
Keep reading. You've made a good start.
Still waiting for a response to post 989.
It's not an ad hominem attack to challenge your implication that you guys are all sweetness and light over there. You must be terribly disappointed that you can't bring that crap over here and not have someone call you on it. Sorry, but you'll get over it, I'm sure, probably just as soon as some poor new guy with the wrong doctrine checks in on that forum, and you guys find fresh meat to strip down to the bone.
Nice sidestep. It makes it look like you know whereof you speak without actually having to come up with something. 'Course, anyone with two brain cells can see through this.
We are all searching for the 'truth'. I don't understand why you are so overly critical of these men and women and the work they are doing? For someone so intelligent, you sure are quick to judge them and quick to toss-out a whole branch of research that many people are interested in.
Killjoy.
Still waiting for a response to post 989.
Is there a way to truth through dishonesty?
I don't understand why you are so overly critical of these men and women and the work they are doing?
Did you read the post to which you respond? If one respects science, one cannot help but criticize ID.
For someone so intelligent, you sure are quick to judge them and quick to toss-out a whole branch of research that many people are interested in.
"Research" by corrupt methods to a foreordained conclusion does not deserve to be called research. The ID movement isn't trying to get answers, it's trying to lose the answers. This does not figure to bring us too many advances in our knowledge. It also isn't research. It's just an assault on science by Witch Doctors in suits and ties.
So whats new with "Burning Man"?
I never made it to "Burning Man". One of my colleagues goes every year.
Good Lord. Go back to your Science Fiction novel and release some of that mental tension. You're getting spooked too easily.
I know people who use that word too. It puts you in some fine company.
But 1001 = 7*11*13 (and is thus useful in divisibility tricks).
Your already beat me to it. And it was not cross-burners I was making reference to. Substitute a Star of David for the cross that I referenced and you will get the connection I was making. And there is nothing to back down from. You think this country is immune to these types of movements?
When it happens, it happens quickly. In China as the cultural revolution was closing in, women boarding trains were first forced to cut their hair and fore-go their fancy hair doos. Later, material possessions were taken from people's homes. Not to be taken and used but burned in the street.
Go back and read the thread and see where the trend started. My posts that you find objectionable are a warning in response, not a first proposition. Their thinking is scary, and so have been their direct affronts.
They have a mentality that they are superior and at the same time they have a stated intolerance they seem quite proud of. Those are the ingredients for the start of dangerous movements, those are the words of the people that start them.
Maniac. Nope. Just enough experience with the real thing to issue proper - not over the top - words of caution. And interesting that you should write, stand revealed as a delusional maniac. Would that be analogous to standing in the hot sun in a warm coat with water being dumped on me once an hour, bent over with a sign hanging from neck proclaiming to every passerby that I was delusional.
You are far too Innocent in your thinking. They are far too dogmatic, condescending, intolerant and, thus, potentially dangerous.
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