Darwin's Tempest

Good morning, Vietnam – er, USA, and the bigger, realer world! Spartacus weighs in this morning with a keenly penned – well, keyed – email originally written to a friend of his who subscribes to the "Intelligent Design" half of the ongoing pseudo-dichotomy; I'll chime in later this evening. For now, sir Spartacus steps onto the soapbox:

Acceptance of either evolution or God need not be a mutually exclusive dichotomy.

My college chemistry prof (actually, he was more than just that, he was a family friend and a bit of a mentor to me), was an old time southern Baptist. He was also perhaps the most caring, compassionate and enthusiastic man I have ever known. He saw no incompatibility with his faith and science. To him, science revealed the beauty, wonder and mystery of God–he did not see science as challenging God's existence in the least.

I share somewhat of the same mindset with him. I've never for a moment questioned the existence of God–to me it is self-evident, just look at the world around us. Science is a way of helping us understand certain aspects of the nature of God. I can't imagine science will ever explain everything, but it is the best tool we have for getting some good, hard answers.

Controversy develops when we confuse science and faith as each being capable of providing ALL the answers. Evolution is based on scientific observation and experimentation, and is a useful theory for explaining how life has developed over time–it can not and does not explain everything, and I don't think you will ever hear a responsible scientist say it does. The difference between evolution and God is the difference between the provable and the unprovable. That is why God has no place in the science classroom–God is not subject to the scientific method.

Perhaps you remember the headlines of around a year or so ago, about the discovery of preserved soft tissue in (if I recall correctly) a T. Rex fossil. The paleontologist who made the discovery is a born again evangelical Christian. Her view is that evolution and other scientific disciplines do not diminish, but rather glorify God (I really wish I had saved the article or at least taken notes, because, once again, her eloquence far outshines my feeble attempts at recreating it).

I really believe that so much of the so-called "controversy" between evolution and faith is a tempest in a teapot, a false dichotomy created by small minded individuals either out of ignorance or in service of an agenda to create, preserve and wield power.

Spartacus–

Our lives improve only when we take chances - and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves. –Walter Anderson

Hear, hear, Spartacus!

Much later: Fresh from a late Ash Wednesday Mass, and having meditated both on Lent/penitence, and Spartacus' email, let me add a little bit.

I'm mildly surprised to see him singing from the same page as me. Essentially, between science and faith, there is no dichotomy. Science describes the universe, and is external; faith is internal, and gives us more of the "why" about the universe. For me, they go hand-in-hand… and in public, too, Mrs. Grundy.

I don't have the time this evening to show where it is I feel the seven-day creationists fell off the sense-train; essentially the error I see lies in the too-literalism of their reading the Bible (or Koran, or whatever their writ is; but let me stay within the fold of Christianity here), which obtained when the Protestants broke off from the Catholic Church… and then quickly fragmented into faction after faction. Thanks, Martin.

Science is beauty laid out in front of us: from the aerodynamics of a soaring gull, or the intriguing Cessna 337; to the sinuousness of a slithering snake, or swimming fish; to ringed planets and whirling electrons and colliding galaxies; to right angles, pyramids, toroids, tesseracts, Mandelbrot sets, the Golden Mean… all these validate for me, too, a knowing, creative hand behind it all.

"Intelligent Design" is what science both adduces and deduces: structure, order, rules, laws, theorems (and fun stuff like the square root of negative 1, etc.)… and we know now, indeed, that even in chaos there is beauty and a kind of wild structural pattern. The universe was designed intelligently, period. And if you turn it over to read the label, you'll see that it doesn't say anywhere there that the bloody thing was assembled in six Earth-days.

Faith gives me the appreciation to delight all the more deeply in the universe, from micro- to macrocosmic: bubble-chamber to galactic clusters. It tells me why every sunset and sunrise is beautiful, and opens me to a humility to say "Thank you!" at the sight, these past few nights, of the waxing crescent Moon. Cool!

Psalm 19:2 says, "The heavens proclaim the glory of God"… and I look at yet another photo from Hubble, and grin back at King David the psalmist. Aussie Dr. Garfinkel the astrophysicist has the coolest job in the world… and last time I checked, he's an agnostic.

O, my ducats! In sum: there is no dichotomy; science/faith aren't two faces of one coin… they are actually both on the same side; and the coin is "designed intelligently", even if it is a penny from heaven.

However — koff, koff — if I might play Devil's advocate here a second, and toss out a monkey wrench I'll have to address some other time: there is one dichotomy I see: the gap between science, reason, and intellect showing a sentience behind the creation and structure and sustenance of this, our universe… and the world of Doctrine. Nowhere are the Ten Commandments built into the table of elements; nowhere in calculus or hypersonics do you find "Turn your other cheek".

This gap, I think, is one Spartacus and I stand on different sides of. I've leapt across (picture, say, Indiana Jones in "The Last Crusade") and found firm footing; most folks back over there across the gulf see a big hole. Some that recognize us over here wonder how we got here (others suspect lobotomy), others are jeering, hoping some of us fall over the edge and into the chasm, still others look our way longingly.

And just a few have discovered they already have wings, and a few others are walking on air — some nervously, others doing somersaults — crossing over with ease. Some freshly arrived here, or standing on this side near me their entire lives, shake their heads and insist, "There is no gap!" And a few more — on both sides — are tossing ropes across.

That should keep some people awake tonight.