Tough Assignment: Teaching Evolution To Fundamentalists

Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette ^ | 03 December 2004 | SHARON BEGLEY

[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.

[Junior]

Evolution is being rejected because of what people know about it, not because of what we don't know.

It ain't what you don't know, it's what you know what ain't true.

[Just mythoughts]

"False dichotomy. Most of the "Es" on this forum are God-fearing types. We simply don't subscribe to a literal interpretation of Genesis as it flies in the face of the physical evidence."


That is the most curious statement, "GOD-fearing types".

Which "GOD", you know we are told there are two, and we are even told that one rebelled before 'man' was ever created in the flesh.

Peter plainly tells us that there are THREE heaven and earth AGES. The Bible is the story of the ADAM his children and those with whom they came in contact with and yet we are told that these things happened as an ensample (example) for our admonition (warning) upon whom the ends of the world (AGE) are come.

We are told that our remembrance of OLD TIME is removed from us, there is nothing new under the sun.

[LadyDoc]

Catholics have been "allowed" to believe in "intelligent design" since the days of Augustine.

When I was in college, our professor told us that Darwinian evoluation was a theory, and that although we had to understand and know about it, we didn't have to believe it.

In the Philosophy of science, theories are the way we desribe what we find in experimentation. These theories use the philosophy of the one making the theory. So Darwin, who was seeking a way to explain God didn't exist, found blind evolution, while Pasteur, a Christian, did experiments to explain why "spontaneous evolution" of life didn't exist, and Mendel, who was also a Christian, did experiments to explain why all life inherited all traits from parents via genes, which went against an early "evolutionary theory" that acquired traits were inherited (i.e. if your parents go t sunburned, you would be born with the genetic trait to be dark skinned)...

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

and the evident age of many species make that idea hard to support.

God created Adam and Eve fully matured, older, right? Why could He not have made the other things that way.

I have problems with getting to pick and choose what in the bible is literal, and what isn't. If it's not all literal, unless clearly stated as with parables, then there is no way to trust any of it as true.

The bible says God created the universe in 6 days, so it has to be in 6 days.

Becky

[Right Wing Professor]

General evolution right up the chain of being from primordial soup to man, no. It just doesn't make sense.

Then you need an alternative explanation for the strong similarities between genomes of all living organisms. I agree that at the superficial level the differences between the physical forms of living organisms make evolution of humans, say, from a single-celled eukaryote seem implausible. But the biochemical similarities are far more pronounced than the physical similarities.

[carlr]

I think it fair to say that neither of us will convince the other to change our beliefs.
I do find it somewhat amusing that many here probably have decried how liberals immediately call conservaitves stupid and ignorant because we don`t share their social or political views and yet given the chance do the same.
Now I am a big boy and you can call me names all day long,it really does`nt matter to me and I don`t intend to reciprocate.This is unfortunate because I suspect we probably agree on more things than we disagree on.

It is also obvious that I have offended you and for that I apologize.I do feel that the apparent need to lash out at me personally and attempt vilify me validates my point that there is a religious aspect to evolution.

I won`t pretend to know all details of PE but in general it theorizes that at certain times for unknown reasons evolution essentially ran amok.This results in a rapid evolutionary jump in species.This is to explain the lack of transitional species and why fossils of species suddenly appear in the rock strata.It is not an implausible theory but is still a theory.

One final word.When I was in school dinosaurs were taught to be slow moving cold blooded reptiles.I suppose this was by comparing bone structure,tooth shape,etc and they compared to what we could observe in modern life.
Now because of other similarities it is believed that birds evolved from dinosaurs.One problem was that birds are warm blooded so at least in part for this, dinosaurs are now believed to be perhaps warm blooded faster moving animals.I have no idea which is correct but my point is 30 years ago disagreement on the established scientific position was rejected as stupid or uneducated.
Now that scientific opinion has or is shifting from the earlier position any one disagreeing is once again declared stupid or uneducated.I again won`t pretend to know all the evidence for the newer hypothesis but to some extent it seems to be to meld evolutionary theory.I simply don`t understand why on this issue any challenge to whatever the current thinking may be is rejected out of hand if it does not come from the position that evolution is an established fact beyond any question.
I don`t know that this is a appropriate definition of science.

I don`t begrudge you or any others their opinions.I don`t care what you think of me personally.I do think we all deserve to be courteous to each other.

[DoctorMichael]

rec·on·cile    ( P )  Pronunciation Key  (rkn-sl)
v. rec·on·ciled, rec·on·cil·ing, rec·on·ciles
v. tr.

1. To reestablish a close relationship between.
2. To settle or resolve.
3. To bring (oneself) to accept: He finally reconciled himself to the change in management.
4. To make compatible or consistent: reconcile my way of thinking with yours. See Synonyms at adapt.
5. Something Creationists are incapable of doing with respect to Evolution.
   

v. intr.

1. To reestablish a close relationship, as in marriage: The estranged couple reconciled after a year.
2. To become compatible or consistent: The figures would not reconcile.

---

[Middle English reconcilen, from Old French reconcilier, from Latin reconcilire : re-, re- + concilire, to conciliate; see conciliate.]

---

recon·cilement n.
recon·ciler n.
recon·cili·a·tory (-sl--tôr, -tr) adj.

[Just mythoughts]

"The bible says God created the universe in 6 days, so it has to be in 6 days."

Read it again. In the beginning God created the heavens and earth.

No where here does it say when the beginning is or was. What follows is an event described. AND the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. This word 'was' should be became cause there was a rebellion, note that word 'darkness' we are told who is darkness.

Then comes a description of cleaning up a MESS, because it does not say again the heavens and earth were created.

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

The first verse in full context would be down thru verse 5, which ends with "the evening and the morning were the first day."

Becky

[Iowegian]

These threads are pointless. You aren't going to win anyone over to your side with the constant rhetoric of "believing in creationism makes conservatives look stupid".

I think you just like to bash those who believe differently that you do. Grow up.

[jwalsh07]

"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.

Interesting, according to the Prof, ID is falsifiable. Now I wonder, is RD be falsifiable?

[Junior]

It's just like a creationist fanatic to latch onto part of a quote and run with it. What part of the not taking Genesis literally did you not understand?

[Junior]

I suppose this was by comparing bone structure,tooth shape,etc and they compared to what we could observe in modern life.

Dinosaurs were obviously related to reptiles, and the early reconstructions reflected this. Reptiles are cold blooded, therefore dinosaurs must have been cold blooded. Reptiles walk with splayed legs, therefore dinosaurs must have walked with splayed legs. Reptiles drag their tails so therefore dinosaurs must have dragged their tails.

Not all early paleontologists accepted that dinosaurs were slow-moving, cold-blooded critters (more creationist misinformation). Some reconstructions from the 1920s and 30s show very active dinosaurs. These paleontologists noted that extent dinosaur tracks showed the animals with legs under their bodies and lacked any tail marks. Recent analysis of dinosaur bones show that most were at least semi-warm blooded (bones of warm-blooded animals are very vascular; dinosaur bones fall between the ranges of warm-blooded and cold-blooded animals).

Creationists are always mired in their personal pasts. "Thirty years ago, such-and-such was taught, and now we're told something different, therfore it's all wrong and no one knows what he or she's talking about." Creationists never make allowances for advances in science (except when it reinforces a personal position, such as global warming). Of course, science marches on despite the braying nay-sayers.

[Junior]

These threads are pointless. You aren't going to win anyone over to your side with the constant rhetoric of "believing in creationism makes conservatives look stupid".

The threads aren't here to convince die-hard creationists; these threads serve other functions. First off, there is the definite possibility that the literally hundreds of lurkers on these threads might come away convinced that science really does know whereof it speaks. Secondly, these threads also show that not all Conservatives are scientifically-illiterate bohunks mired in the dark ages.

[js1138]

He would have an easier time force feeding pork to a well armed muslim then selling me on this theory.

And for the same reason.

[js1138]

But it doesn't say anything about where version 1.0 came from.

I've been involved in a number of version 1.0 software projects. It come from paper and pencil methods. Or from a competing product.

[general_re]

First off, there is the definite possibility that the literally hundreds of lurkers on these threads might come away convinced that science really does know whereof it speaks.

One of the nice things about JimRob's recent updates is that it gives some evidence for the existence of those lurkers. As I write this, this thread has 75 posts, but 756 page views. 750+ times someone has loaded this thread up to read, but only 10% of the time does that viewing result in a post. 90% of the time, someone's reading but not posting.

[BenLurkin]

{sigh}

My confidence in you guys just dropped another three notches.

[ml1954]

If random has a designer, then what is observed as random is actually "apparently random."

My math is rusty but isn't the result of each roll of two dice considered random? And isn't it random within a limited number of possibilities with some possibilities more likely than others? A truly random number generator that must produce a result between zero and one is random but limited by a rule. Don't the physical laws of the universe limit what "apparently random" processes operating within it produce?

[VadeRetro]

This article makes the assumption that creationists are just ignorant of the THEORY of evolution.

The creationists prove every day on these threads that they are profoundly, abysmally ignorant of the theory of evolution. OK, maybe they aren't "just" ignorant of it. Maybe they are in religious horror of it. Maybe they think they will go to Hell for letting any real information get into their heads. There is something wrong with everything they say, and that's quite an achievement. That's Clintonian. ("Every word out of his mouth is a lie including 'and' and 'the.'")