Posted on 01/25/2005 6:15:41 PM PST by gobucks
Ken Miller is an interesting guy. He is co-author of the nation's best-selling biology textbook. It was on his book, "Biology," that schools in Cobb County, Ga., slapped a sticker casting doubt on its discussion of evolution theory. And it was this sticker that a federal judge recently ordered removed because it endorsed religion. Miller, who testified against the label, gets a lot of hate mail these days.
But Miller is also a practicing Roman Catholic. "I attend Mass every Sunday morning," he said, "and I'm tired of being called an atheist."
A professor of biology at Brown University, Miller does not believe that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution contradicts the creation passages in the Bible. And he will argue the point till dawn.
"None of the six creative verses (in Genesis) describe an out-of-nothing, puff-of-smoke creation," he says. "All of them amount to a command by the creator for the earth, the soil and the water of this planet to bring forth life. And that's exactly what natural history tells us happened." (Miller has written a book on the subject: "Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution.")
Still, today's emotional conflicts over teaching this science in public schools leave the impression that Christianity and evolution cannot be reconciled. This is not so.
In 1996, Pope John II wrote a strong letter to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences supporting the scientific understanding of evolution. That's one reason why students in Catholic parochial schools get a more clearheaded education in evolution science than do children at many public schools racked by the evolution debate.
American parents who want Darwin's name erased from the textbooks might be surprised at the father of evolution's burial spot. Darwin was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey, an Anglican church and England's national shrine.
Not every illustrious Englishman gains admission to an abbey burial site. Darwin died in 1882. Two years before, friends of George Eliot wanted the famous (female) writer laid to rest at the abbey. Eliot had lived immorally, according to the church fathers, and was denied a place. (She is buried at London's Highgate Cemetery, not far from Karl Marx.)
But Darwin had been an upright man. The clergy were proud both of Darwin's accomplishments and of their own comfort with modern science.
In 1882, during the memorial service for the great evolutionist, one church leader after the other rose to praise Charles Darwin. Canon Alfred Barry, for one, had recently delivered a sermon declaring that Darwin's theory was "by no means alien to the Christian religion."
Nowadays, Catholics and old-line Protestants have largely made peace with evolution theory. Most objections come from evangelicals — and not all of them.
Francis S. Collins is head of the National Genome Project and a born-again Christian. He belongs to the American Scientific Affiliation — a self-described fellowship of scientists "who share a common fidelity to the word of God and a commitment to integrity in the practice of science." Its Web address is www.asa3.org.
But back in Cobb County, the debate rages. The sticker taken off Miller's textbook read: "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered."
Why should Miller care that the Cobb County School Board — having bought his book in great quantity — pastes those words on the cover?
First off, he says, "It implies that facts are things we are certain of and theories are things that are shaky." In science, theory is a higher level of understanding than facts, he notes. "Theories don't grow up to become facts. Rather, theories explain facts."
Then, he questions why, of all the material in his book, only evolution is singled out for special consideration. Miller says that if he could write the sticker, it would say, "Everything in this book should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered."
Clearly, many religious people regard evolution theory with sincere and heartfelt concern. But theirs is not a mainstream view — even among practicing Christians. Most theologians these days will argue that the biology book and the Good Book are reading from the same page.
Providence Journal columnist Froma Harrop's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. Her e-mail address is fharrop@projo.com
Heh... I guess you mean whoever gets the most of nine votes will win. We can't seem to keep these issues in the hands of the legislature and beyond the reach of the courts.
I agree. They belong in the legislature.
BTW, IMO we've gotten no where near the gutter in this debate. I'd call it spirited. The religion vs. science debate is an old one that will not go away anytime soon, if ever.
No different than what I learned in Catholic school in 1956. It even predates Darwin by several centuries with the "Master Clockmaker" understandings of Thomas Aquinas.
Unless one takes the Scriptures literally word-for-word, (which the Catholic religion does not) evolution theory does not discount Creation. In fact, it says absolutely nothing about Creation. It only attempts to describe the process that God designed and set in motion.
Today, many call that Intelligent Design. For me, it is exactly the same thing I learned five decades ago.
By the same token, rejecting a Creator based on Evolutionary theory, has absolutely no scientific basis and can not be supported in scientific terms. Those who claim there is no Creator are simply stating their belief just as those who invoke the literal six days of Creation are stating their beliefs.
I think you have also have a problem with theistic scientists also, right? Do you have a problem with agostic scientists?
Congratulations.. ( no sarcasm intended..)
Agnosticism (and this is important to the definition) does not exclude belief in God as per your definition..
It only states that God's existance cannot be "proven nor disproved"..
As a professed Agnostic, I believe in God through faith alone..
I just wanted to make sure you understood the difference between that and Atheism.. which denies God's existance altogether..
(Just a "pet peeve" of mine, having been equated with Atheism innumerable times..)
In the THOUSANDS of posts in the last few weeks, I have NEVER seen anyone reject the Creator based on evolutionary theory.
I guess you mean whoever gets the most of nine votes will win. We can't seem to keep these issues in the hands of the legislature and beyond the reach of the courts.
Which is the major reason I'm trying to stop this creationism thing here and now. So that it doesn't go as far as any court.
This could be a potent and emotional argument, as tempers around here can verify. But it doesn't accomplish the goals that we need to accomplish.
After the election, there are perhaps two or three major initiatives that conservatives can pull off. If we tried to force ID into schools, I think the effort would fail. And even if it succeded, what stragegic goal would we have attained, and what would we have failed to accomplish because we had spent our time on this?
We should concentrate on Surpreme Court confirmations (Roe v. Wade). On restructuring SS. On winning the Terror War. And perhaps more tax reform.
If this emotional Evolution argument is allowed to spill over into general conservative politics, it will be an albatross around our neck like the gay marriage issue is for the Dems.
This argument I think is also detrimental to the faith of young people caught in the middle.
There is no good that I can see from it.
This is why I do battle here. To end the conflict, before it really gets started.
From your posts I gleam exactly the same thought processes that MM attributes to you. The ability to thoroughly discount anything that disagrees with YOUR interpretation of the Bible.
You are taking YOUR interpretation of the Bible and trying to make science modify its methodologies to fit YOUR interpretation.
All we need is a few of these guys popping up on TV talking about how evolution teaches that "man" popped out of monkey ...
The question I meant to pose wasn't why do all the biggest fruit flies die before reaching reproductive age... it was why do all the biggest fruit flies reach reproductive age but can't actually reproduce?
I realized that you were answering the first, not the second question but I found it funny and decided to be a butt about it.
I apologize.
It's not really important... but to explain what seemed so funny an hour ago... (know how when you're tired the not so funny stuff seems hilarious?)
If you were answering the second question then it sounded like you were making the argument that the adult flies couldn't have baby flies because the baby flies would be too big to breathe properly. Since it's unreasonable to assume that the adult flies would know enough biology that they'd realize that their children would quickly die and so the adults chose to become sterile, it seemed to imply an equally ludicrous position... that God didn't want them to have babies that would be too big to get enough oxygen and would just die... so God made the adult flies sterile.
But point well made and point taken... You can't use selective breeding to create a species of unreasonably large fruit flies because they wouldn't survive to reproductive age. And that has nothing to do with the validity of evolution because if evolution via natural selection were to produce a foot-tall fly, the size would have changed over time and other physical changes that would have helped the larger incects survive would have occured and been passed along as well. For instance, it would have developed a different method of respiration.
But even though it's a good point, it doesn't really address the question I meant to pose.
After the election, there are perhaps two or three major initiatives that conservatives can pull off. If we tried to force ID into schools, I think the effort would fail. And even if it succeded, what stragegic goal would we have attained, and what would we have failed to accomplish because we had spent our time on this?
We should concentrate on Surpreme Court confirmations (Roe v. Wade). On restructuring SS. On winning the Terror War. And perhaps more tax reform.
Great points.
If this emotional Evolution argument is allowed to spill over into general conservative politics, it will be an albatross around our neck like the gay marriage issue is for the Dems.
However, 'this emotional Evolution argument' is already starting 'to spill out into general Conservative politics'. I've seen several pieces about it on various Fox News programs in the past week or two.
We've come pretty close to igniting this fight for real in the last few weeks.
The day after the election, the dems were running around saying they lost to "people who think the earth was created in 6 days". They were trying to insult conservatives into joining that fight.
Within a week, I saw an editorial by Ann Coulter with one sentence that seemed to promote the ID position.
And a week ago Bill O'Reilly had an entire segment on it, where he took the pro-ID side. That'd be wonderful. He tried to go against Bush by dissing the Swifees, and now he see's some ratings in getting this fight going. O'Reilly is no friend of conservatives. He just uses us. (Ok, he's entertaining, but I feel guilty when I watch)
But so far, so good. The fight has not really started in the mainstream, and I think it's burning out here on FR.
Has O'Reilly done anything more than one show? Where else have you seen it?
Sorry, I didn't address this in my previous post..
( Got all caught up in the "agnosticism" thing..)
Having read my previous post however, and now knowing my belief in God as an agnostic, does this change your mind about Darwin?
From what I have read of the man over the years, he was extremely upset over the religious controversy his theory created..
He was a religious man, and believed in God as much as most people of his time...
Is his Christian belief any the less because he belonged to the Church of England?
Would you think less of him if he were Catholic? Lutheran ? Jewish ?
Do we then exclude all scientific knowledge that is not the result of christian endeavor?
Do away with algebra? geometry? gunpowder?
Do we discount the mathematical acheivements of Hindus ?
I would just like to know where you draw the line of what knowledge is acceptable and what is not..
I remember Brit Hume making some comments on it, I don't remember the show or context.
And I remember it has come up on one of the Saturday/Sunday shows (the 11-1 CST; 12-2 EST shows). I vaguely remember Tony Snow discussing it, but I could be wrong.
I know I am burning out.
I assume you mean it would fail in the courts. The PA schools read their "ID is a scientific theory" nonsense a few weeks ago. It won't win everywhere but it won't fail everywhere either (unless you mean the courts will forbid it).
If this emotional Evolution argument is allowed to spill over into general conservative politics, it will be an albatross around our neck like the gay marriage issue is for the Dems.
This argument I think is also detrimental to the faith of young people caught in the middle.
Absolutely 100% agree. I know it hindered mine when I was young(er).
Not in 1859, but 150 years earlier, race and slavery were not tightly linked, and the idea of "equality" in terms of natural rights was in it's infancy. Only when the Enlightenment and the idea of universal human rights caused intractable intellectual conflicts with the economic institution of slavery did it become necessary to construct justifications for slavery based on racial inferiority.
Before that, slavery was pretty much an equal opportunity employer. By 1859, the racial justification for slavery was firmly embedded, based on the bastardization of Biblical sources, not the bastardization of scientific sources.
Don't kid yourself. The Bible and Evolutionary theory have both been abused to justify racial bigotry.
By the way, my position on this whole topic agrees wholeheartedly with your tagline..
In the THOUSANDS of posts in the last few weeks, I have NEVER seen anyone entertain the Creator is even slightly possible if they were already committed to random-chance-natural-selection-based evolutionary theory.
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