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.
You don't know?! LOL. Forgive me while I bow to the superior intellect.. I'm gonna fall out.
In order for you to believe that the earth is 6000 years old, you have to believe that every major educational institution is involved in a conspiracy OR you have to believe that God planted all this "evidence" that the earth is older than 6000 years.
I take it that the above means you don't know.
RadioAstronomer, you can correct me if I am wrong, but to invoke a conservation law you must know the value of the conserved quantity before and after a change takes place. What was the angular momentum of the universe before the big bang? That question makes no sense because there was no universe before the big bang. Really since the big bang is the beginning of space-time, the phrase "before the big bang" doesn't even make sense. It seems to me that conservation laws are inapplicable to big bang cosmology. Even assuming that there is such a thing as "before the big bang" and that whatever there was has measurable properties, what was the angular momentum of the "pre-big bang universe"? If it were zero, then object spinning in different directions would not only be consistent with the conservation of angular momentum, but would be required by that law. I am only a mere chemist, so please feel free to tell me I'm full of crap with any of this. I struggle with some of the more esoteric aspects of bb cosmology.
Yeah, but you're just saying that now to save face. I've already demonstrated on the thread that I know. Ok, go away, you're too funny.
It should also be noted that the post-formation solar system has had a chaotic history with planetary breakups (several, including a big one that formed the asteroid belt), near-collisions, ejections into interstellar space, and several planetary moons probably being captured into their present orbits after their formation elsewhere. The assumption that everything should have condensed into a smooth and stable configuration where every object has the same spin is unjustifiable from the evidence of the real history.
You say this, but then you don't back it up with citations.
Were you there? How would you know this. IE, you can't know this and are positing it as though it were a fact. Try again.
No. You've only stated that there was a spike in the decline of morality in the sixties. NOW give the date evolution was required in schools.
It would take a lot of faith to believe that you really know without your giving a date.
Are you capable of understanding that the argument--a precise echo of your own--would be a fallacy, would be bad reasoning, would be wrong, would be a stupid argument, even if the spikes matched perfectly?
I wish I could tell you that you're doing Creation Science wrong, but the problem I have with Creation Science is that you are doing it right.
Of course, you don't even need to go outside. I just sat in my chair here, and oddly enough, the angular momentum of the universe doesn't seem to be preventing me from spinning in both directions. I was even right there to witness it. ;)
what have you done since you've been on this thread? ROFL. Do you read anything other than retractions for your own side and the standard propaganda sheets you quote from like vade just did. 'After the universe formed there was planetary breakups that made asteroid belts' - thus sayeth Vade.. ROFL.
I make a statement on something you can darned well check on the web. Where do we go to check on the web to see proof that planets broke up and made asteroid belts after the big bang and before recorded history? Hmmm? Can we handwring some more or shall I give you something else to wring about?
In the Left Hemisphere or the Right Hemisphere?
I've sat in a non-pivoting chair and had the universe rotate in both directions; sometimes sequentially, sometimes simultaneously.
Most skulls of any size and age are found crushed by sediment pressure and are jig-saw puzzled back together. This can introduce controversy and confusion but does not constitute fraud. Fraud is a spectacular claim which a real Christian would avoid unless he had some evidence for it. Not being religious myself, I'm in no position to say for sure, but I'll guess that a militant YEC is probably not a good example of a real Christian. YECs reliably exhibit several species of bad behavior that the good citizens (Christians virtually all) of my experience abhor, the utterly reckless flinging of accusations being but one.
The existence of multiple Australopithecine species and specimens thereof found by several people in several places makes it extremely unlikely that every reconstruction is wrong in the same way. I'm aware of no evidence of fraud regarding Lucy and have already provided links dissecting the usual creationist dumb-dumbisms on the Australopithecines.
Your emphatic denial of any lines of research that contradict your preconceived views of the universe is amusing, but it is not "proof" for your position.
I've had that same experience, although I recall being face-down at the time...
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