A Newsweek poll found that 90 percent of Americans had a religion and 97% believed in a deity, and 80percent were Christian.
They also, for some reason, included in the poll questions about evolution, finding that ” nearly one half reject the scientific theory of evolution”.
This last fact made one blogger comment: “Gee there seems to be some confusion here”.
No, the confusion is that the press doesn’t get religion, and has even less training in philosophy or the history of ideas. One suspects that the question was asked so that pundits could bash the hoi polloi as ignorant anti scientific “christianists”.
One is reminded how Tina Brown moved to Washington and lamented that, unlike New York City, she now had to (shudder) meet Christians. But of course, Tina Brown had been surrounded by Christians in New York, she just didn’t see them. They were the “invisible man” : the waiters, the cops, the firemen, the maids, the secretaries, and others who like the waiter in the GKChesterton novel, was “invisible” to those who thought they were superior.
The first “invisible man” in the Newsweek discussion are Catholic Christians, who since the time of Augustine have been allowed to believe God used an evolutionary process to create the world.
The second “invisible man” in the discussion is that too often evolution is taught as philosophy/religion rather than science.
And the third “invisible man” is the collapse of reason itself in deconstructionism.
Science is not truth, it is a process. We think about something, devise a way to test our ideas, and experiment. With time, we get closer and closer to the truth, but essentially we use mathematics and analogies to explain this reality.
But scientism is Philosophy. It insists that only things that science can measure or explain is real. So we can reject angels or God etc because we can’t measure them.
The problem with this is that whether or not God or anything exists does not depend on someone’s ability to see or measure them: They either exist, or don’t exist, in themselves. Two hundred years ago, we couldn’t “measure” bacteria or viruses or quarks yet such things were real. Similarly, we can’t measure or explain love, or altruism.
In science, we can explain what is gravity and how it works, but we can’t explain the “why” of gravity. In the old days, angels moved the planets, and now the force of gravity does. But what is gravity? Why is gravity? And why should we be able to describe gravity logically with mathematics? Why is the universe logical? Why and what is time? What existed before the universe? Why does the universe exist? Why did an animal evolve to be able to ask the question “why”?
Scientism says: Because I said so. Religion says: Because God is the logos, he is the logic, and he made it that way, and because he loves us, he wants us to be adults and find things out using our gifts to serve others.
Darwin’s theory is often presented as the bible for scientism, since it eliminated the need for God in the equation. Yet the dirty little secret is not all those arguments about fossils or the missing link, but a little thing called entropy. Why should things become more complex? Why do things evolve in a way to fit all the niches of nature?
For those who are truly educated, there is no divide between faith and science. It is only a divide with those who seek pat answers and rigid rules, and then like to use philosophical tricks to confuse the weak minded to prove their superiority.
Just like I see no problem with seeing an electron as a wave and a particle, so also I don’t see why there should be a problem with seeing things evolve through mutations and seeing this evolution being a symphony that is directed by a loving Father.
The first explains the “how”, the second, the “Why”.
The danger for both, however, is that more modern philosophical trends that reject both religion and reason in favor of “that’s the way I feel, so it’s the truth for me”.
But that’s another essay for another day.
———————————————-Nancy Reyes is a retired physician living in the rural Philippines. Her website is Finest Kind Clinic and Fishmarket
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4 users commented in " Evolution wars: what do they teach children in school these days? "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackThe reason that electrons are regarded as both particles and waves (and, in fact, so is all of matter; it’s called a De Broglie wavelength) is that this model explains all known phenomena involving electrons (and other particles as well). In reality, an electron is neither a particle nor a wave, since a pure wave (like sound) can’t act like a particle, and a theoretical “perfect matter particle” could never act like a wave. It’s a construct based on empirical data; whether an electron acts like a wave or particle depends on the conditions of a given experiment. While the map isn’t the terrain, it does allow us to make predictions, repeat results, and take measurements.
Evolution is just the same. While evolutionary biology can’t give us every detail of what happened in the distant past, it does allow us to make predictions (about population growth rates, results of intra- and interspecific competition, antiibiotic resistance and likely changes to pathogenic organisms in the future, etc.) Like quantum theory, evolutionary theory is based on measurement and experiment. Both theories rely on objective, empirical data, and both are subject to revision as new data becomes available. That’s how science works.
To make the assertion that one need include a “loving Father” in this, then, requires that one provide the same kind of evidence for His existence. If it can affect material things, then those effects can be measured and quantified using material instruments of some kind. If something affects one kind of material object, it will affect all kinds of material objects. There are no exceptions to this.
Interestingly, to make the statement that one must include a “loving Father” in evolutionary theory is doing exactly what you say is a problem at the end of your post. Namely, to reject reason and say instead “that’s the way I feel, so it’s the truth for me”. Unless you can provide measurable and empirical evidence of it, it’s precsiely the same thing… phrased less abrasively than some, certainly, but essentially no different in substance.
Asking the question “Why?” is only valid for things designed with a purpose. It begs the question that there is a designer. For example, you could ask, why a golf club? Well, to hit a golf ball of course. But what about, why a rock? Well, that’s just an irrational question.
Science answers How while religion pretends that there is a reason to ask Why and then declares ownership of the answer.
What do you mean “we can’t explain love or altruism”?
That is ridiculous. And we can probably measure them as well. You don’t need to resort to mysticism to explain either of them. There are TONS of scientific papers on Darwinian explanations for altruism, mostly centering around indirect reciprocity (if not direct reciprocity), as well as such things as being byproducts of kin selection.
But you dismiss it with a simple sentence. Sad.
I did not understand this article to mean that there necessarily must be a “loving father” in the mix, only that evolution and the concept of creation by god(s) need not be mutually exclusive.
Those of us who like to think of ourselves as having an open mind must concede the possibility. The fact that no one has proven the existence of a supernatural being is not proof that he/she/it does not exist…we regularly discover new plant and insect species, new microbes, new heavenly bodies…does that mean they did not exist before we were able to discern their existence? That is not to say that I ascribe to the concept of the “loving father as symphony conductor” idea, only that our belief/disbelief is not the same as fact or even well-grounded theory.
To deny that the *possibility* exists is to commit the same sins of hubris and close-mindedness of which we so often accuse our Creationist brethren.
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