[ToryHeartland]

I've been lurking long enough on FR to have seen a number of threads on this topic (often generating far more heat than light), but remain puzzled about the problems this topic seems to generate. Like other British Conservatives, I look to the United States as our one great ally and the world's greatest defender of liberty, but I do not understand why such an enlightened nation is embroiled in a senseless science vs. religion turmoil--and even more puzzled that some whom on other issues I recognise as fellow conservatives are, on this topic, so vehement in their assault on science. I, and many, many others here are staunch defenders and admirers of America, but when it comes to this controversy over Darwin, we just don't get it. Intelligent explanations of the real issue here would be appreciated!

[GiovannaNicoletta]

BOOKMARK

[DoNotDivide]

Because "Evolution" is junk from start to finish?

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

First of all, welcome to FR. The Brits and Yanks are best of allies and we appreciate being side-by-side with you as we fight for Western civilization and culture.

To answer your question, this issue is not at all a new one. In the 19th century, Edgar Allen Poe and William Wordsworth both wrote sonnets regarding the tension between science a non-scientific view of looking at the world.

The debate goes back even further to the pre-Socratic philosophers (termed "physios" that would be the phonetic spelling, sorry, can't type the actual Greek term). Essentially, the early Greek philosophers were termed what we'd call physics-thinkers because of their attempt to understand the origin and construct of all things that exist. This led them into some trouble as it brought up the question of whether things existed for all times (and thus perhaps there were no gods) or if they had their origin in somethings. Heraclitus is said by some to have been the first to elicit the theory of evolution with his "all things are in constant flux."

Much of the hostility in these arguments arises from a misunderstanding of the terms. The term "evolution" is thrown about recklessly as well as "creationism." When these debates start, I believe that those who support ID and believe that a god began life and the universe read the term "evolution" and think "Darwinian origin." Evolution is one thing, the origin of species quite another. Even those who support the most fundamentally Biblical view of creation can not deny such a seemingly minor change as the average height of mankind over the last two millennia. Is this not a form of evolution within mankind? Yet their hostilities arise because when they hear the term "evolution" they are mistaking this for the argument that all life started accidentally in a form of primordial soup. Thus it becomes not so much an argument of ID vs. evolution, but a worldview of whether or not God exists.

The debate has been a heated one for two reasons: 1. both sides believe they are 99% correct, and 2. both sides feel threatened by their 1% of uncertainty.

Regardless of what both the most devoutly religious and the most strictly scientific claim, neither side knows for certain how everything around us began. If the religious could know this 100%, there would be no need of faith, which is essential to the religious view that God wants us to make a free-will decision to believe in him. If the scientific claimed to know with 100% certainty on any topic, it would be undermining the objective and investigative perspective and the view of potentiality that is supposed to under gird their studies.

In America, the debate is hotly contested for manifold reasons. The religious feel that faith per se has been under harsh attack for a long time as part of a European export of cynicism and nihilism (their sentiment is illustrated in Blake's "Mock on, Mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau"). The religious in America, especially since 9/11 have begun to find not only their voice, but the platform from which to shout it to prevent the type of European hyper-tolerance of a bloodthirsty enemy from reaching our shores. The evolution/ID debate is one such platform.

The teacher's unions in this country combined with the Left have a death grip on public education (what you'd call state education). Their agenda is extremely hostile toward American tradition and especially the Judeo-Christian principles that most believe serve as the foundation to this great structure that is our country and culture. The argument that there is no religious underpinnings to our origin and growth is just a flat-out absurdity. Those who support ID not for religious reasons believe that the purpose of education is to open minds through exposure to competing ideas. Many evolutionists ridicule ID as not being scientific. The IDers similarly point out the weak scientific aspects of Darwin's theory of origin as rendering the two ideas of equal scientific validity. The religious and those who support ID want both to be taught in public schools in order to break the singularity of the public-school curriculum.

The religious in this sense are defending the forced funding of what they view as an education system pushing a secular worldview on each generation. They don't want religion taught in school, but they do figure that if some schools in California can force their students to wear head scarves, adopt temporary Muslim names, and 'live as Muslims would' as part of a class project, then there's little contradiction in teaching the possibility that all life may not be an accident, that there may be some'thing' out there that set everything in motion and designed it to perpetuate.

While the debate from the anti-religious liberal vs. the religious conservative perspective is no surprise, what is surprising is to see so many conservatives engaged in vicious arguments. From my experience reading these threads (I've stopped posting because of the vitriol) is that the contention among conservatives breaks down to two types: 1. the same type as listed above, the science vs. non-science view of the world and the 99-1% factor, and 2. libertarian vs. conservative ideologies.

Of the first, there are those who are conservative who either do not believe in God or, if they claim to, claim that he either did not start the world or, if he did, somehow started something that has grown beyond his control (a view I find contradictory). Personally, I believe in God, believe he created the universe and that he did design life with the ability to evolve, but to evolve each within its specified genetic code (to evolve within its species, not from one species to another). I believe my view is not only not incompatible but fits in with both my scientific and religious understanding of what Aristotle termed potentiality and actuality. Those who do not believe in any God, are simply at odds with any view of religious origin and perpetuation.

Of the second, there is a critical difference between libertarians and conservatives. While we are generally aligned on most current socio-political issues, there is an ideological difference that I believe will prove to be an eventual divide between the two ideologies. The difference is this: conservatives believe that a people should be free but that their freedom is not license, that if they do not voluntary check their actions and behavior, their freedom will be forcefully checked by the iron fist of government or by outright anarchy. In other words, we believe that we must voluntarily restrain ourselves so as not to encroach upon not only the rights of others but upon their peaceful existence. There's a reason why the police are known as officers of the peace. Their objective is to keep society peaceful, not only by enforcing the laws our representatives have allegedly enacted for that cause, but also by settling disputes and preventing encroachments. Libertarians on the other hand tend to believe in unrestricted behavior, regardless what it may cost society. A good example of this is the war on drugs. Many Libertarians believe there should be little or no constraints on recreational drug usage. Conservatives believe if that were allowed, the resultant spike in drug addiction and the potentially devastating effect that would have on individuals and society-at-large render it a behavior that should not be legal.

This critical difference is intensified when religious conservatives find their source of guidance, the prohibition of their actions rooted in Biblical principles. They become defensive not only because their view of a safe and peaceful America is threatened to wander like a ship with a broken rudder, but because they believe it is another assault on the religious element of American culture. Libertarians tend to see the religious influence -- God -- as another source of authority that ought not be restricting their freedoms.

So what we have, as far as I have been able to tell, is one of those rare arguments that become bitterly contested because each side sees in the argument elements of many other debates that have been coming to a head for decades. The issue is either the canary in the mine shaft or the tip of the iceberg, if you will. Folks, please do not reply to this post contesting points of the evo/ID debate. This post is about the debate itself, not either side. And in that regard, it is a generalization of many aspects of the argument and therefore it is not comprehensive.

[Greg o the Navy]

The hand-wringing over this matter puzzles me considering how clear-minded most FR posters are on other issues.

"Higher" education and science have spent the better part of the last half-century dedicating themselves to, if you will, a Secular Jihad.

Underlying that agenda is a no holds barred effort to undermine the precepts of Christianity and its teachings -- the very fundaments that led to the ascendency of the United States of America.

One can ask for no clearer evidence of this campaign than the war on Creationism. It absolutely befuddles me that people who call themselves conservatives sleep with the sworn enemies of Christianity.

[shuckmaster]

In spite of all the fuss, there's really only a few radical fundamentalists naive enough to be duped by the handful of evangelicals who pretend to have religious motivations for attacking science education in America. Not to worry, once the creeps started lying in court to push their little "intelligent design" hoax, they got slapped hard and what little bit of momentum they perceived themselves having came to a grinding halt. They are now in full denial. Trust me, average religious Americans aren't the science fearing anti-evo Luddites the several trolls who infest this forum would like you to believe they are!

[Boiler Plate]

The basic underlying issue is why do you so readily and easily accept the notion of evolution as a scientific fact? Are scientist unbiased and infallible? Certainly they are not they are after all, simply human.

So where are the battle lines drawn. Darwin rejected the idea of creation because of his own personal beliefs and sought an explanation that did not include a supernatural being. Those on the other side recognize that chaos simply doesn't organize itself in to every higher forms of sophistication and complexity ipso facto there must be a creator.

It is an excellent debate and the fact that one side or the other wants to ban the discussion is the obvious result of the inability of either side being able to win the battle. So sit back and enjoy, this is the kind of stuff that makes the USA a fun place to live.

[moatilliatta]

As a fellow countrymen who has a strange fascination with these crevo threads I find a lot of these arguments are really just a kind of proxy battlefield for deeper cultural and political issues. Whereas to you and I and (I would think) most people in this UK evolution is just a technical, scientific issue to be debated the same as we would debate relativity or quantum mechanics, it seems that on here it is bound up with a whole seres of other areas of concern/grievance such as the role of secularism (for many, read atheism) in public life, political impartiality and partisanship in public schools, the influence of perceived elites in education and academia, and the status and interpretation of the Bible.

Much of it seems to boil down to these so-called 'Culture Wars'. Sometimes you see debates about detail of Darwinian theory and the evidence for and against, but often you get the impression that those kind of technical details barely come into consideration and that people have seen that the people on one side of the argument are predominantly conservative and religious and the other side are largely liberal and secular and picked their side accordingly.

I guess what I conclude from it all is that the US political landscape is quite polarised (as opposed to our side of the Atlantic where everyone is chasing after the middle ground) and that much of American conservatism is heavily ideological and values driven (in contrast to UK conservatism which is much more based on pragmatism).

[My2Cents]

but I do not understand why such an enlightened nation is embroiled in a senseless science vs. religion turmoil

Because many in the scientific community are afraid of thinking outside the box; and many are deathly afraid that there is, indeed, an *Intelligent Designer.*

[Dead Dog]

That is an excellent question. It really shouldn't be science vs. religeion, although there are those on both sides that see the two as mutually exclusive. In my mind it is the battle of philosophies, materialism vs. spirituralism. For better or worse, science is the battleground.

http://www.atheists.org/Atheism/atheism.html

The indestructible foundation of the whole edifice of Atheism is its philosophy, materialism, or naturalism, as it is also known. That philosophy regards the world as it actually is, views it in the light of the data provided by progressive science and social experience. Atheistic materialism is the logical outcome of scientific knowledge gained over the centuries.

Where we hit a snag is the assumption that the seperation of Church and State means non-religeous/materialist. IMO, governemnt and science should treat Athiesm/Materialsm the same as religion (all)/Spirituralism. That would solve the problem.

[jwalsh07]

Here, I'll give it a shot. The root of the cultural divide in America, from the conservative perspective, is our federal court system. It began quite a while ago but hit a local max when it pulled the holding in Roe v Wade out of the penumbral emanations.

In effect, federal courts repealed the Tenth Amendment in the latter part of the 20th Century. The federal courts, by removing "the people" from the decision making process, fanned the flames of the culture wars and they've been flaming ever since.

Every time a federal court or the SCOTUS makes another extra constitutional decision it fans those flames.

Evolution/ID/Religion is just another battle in those wars. There is no assault on science in America but there is an assault on America's Constitution and that assault comes from secularists who can not win in the court of public opinion so they take their case to the courts. Witness the Dover, Pa. case.

Prior to any holding in Dover the citizens of Dover, Pa. decided that they didn't want ID even mentioned in their school. They demonstrated that at the ballot box by electing new school board members reflecting that view. And yet Judge Jones wrote a "steroid laced opinion" (credit to Torie) that went well beyond what he needed to do. The result? More fuel on the culture war fire because in this constitutional republic of ours the federal court should have no say in any local school matter where the rights of the individual are not being violated. When ostensibly conservative scientists favor such federal intervention in state matters, conservatives like me naturally look askance at that and tension builds.

In closing I'll leave you with this thought. No academies have been burned down in the past 5 years in America but 100's of churches have been burned to the ground. Who did the burning is irrelevant, be they anti religionists, racists or whackjobs, the fact is that the academy is not be assaulted but the Constitution and religion are.

[Vicomte13]

I will explain it to you, if you wish, but why don't we focus first on your particular religion, and mine.

You are British, which means you are probably Church of England even if you don't really believe it or really practice it. The Anglican Church accepts evolution as "the way we probably got here", and so whether you are a religious Anglican or a "baptisms and funerals" Anglican, either way, you don't have a religious dog in the evolution fight.

I am a French Catholic, which means that I belong to a Church that accepts evolution as "the way we probably got here", and so I don't have a particular dog in the evolution fight either.

The reason evolution is not an issue in England or France is that both are Catholic countries (of either the Roman or Anglican form), and traditionalist Catholic faith, either Anglican or Roman, does not have any particular reason to oppose evolution.

America is not a Catholic country, but a Protestant country. (Yes, yes, I know, Anglicanism calls itself "Protestant", but it isn't. It's English Catholic. And the difference is that Anglicanism reposes on tradition, and has an ordained priesthood and bishops to interpret theology. This is Catholicism with an English head. Protestantism, especially American-style Protestantism, is not Catholic, in the sense that it's not hierarchical and doesn't have an autoritative (and authoritarian) clergy with the final decision-taking power. No, most Americans are Protestant, and more are Baptist than anything else. After the Baptists come other evangelical groups. What they all have in common is that they are not Catholic and don't have an authoritative clergy to interpret tradition. Rather, they individually read the Bible, straight, and apply it, straight. There is a tremendous devotion among American Protestants to the Bible as the literal, word-for-word, Word of God. Thus, AMERICAN Protestant religion, which is extremely healthy and extremely vibrant, has a dramatic issue with Darwin and evolution because of the first two books of the Book of Genesis. Genesis opens with the Jewish Creation myth. Now your Anglican "Protestant" Catholicism and my Roman Catholicism both teaches that this is not an anthropology lesson but a sacred poem on creation, teaching that God made the world and that man is prone to sin; the flood is lot a literal world-covering event but an allegory. If you're not a practicing Anglican, you believe that, and if you ARE a practicing Anglican, you believe the same thing. Ditto for Catholics. So, when Catholics or Anglican Catholics say "There is no conflict between science and religion", they really mean it. There isn't any particular TENSION within Catholicism or Anglicanism about evolution - nobody thinks that Genesis is to be taken word-for-word literally in your Church centered at Canterbury, or mine centered at Rome. It doesn't come up. All the way back in the 400's AD St. Augustine himself wrote that Genesis was obviously not to be taken LITERALLY, and since the scientific age, Catholicism on both sides of the Channel doesn't have a problem with Darwinian biology. It's really NOT a religious issue in England, or France, or Italy, or even Ireland. God made the world, and evolution is how he did it. This is what you and I believe, and what the English and French and Irish believe. So, there is no TENSION in the religion of your country and science.

What about the real Protestant countries in Europe? Anglicanism is Catholicism in everything but name, but the Lutherans aren't Catholic, and the Dutch Calvinists aren't either. So, why isn't there a terrible stress and strain over evolution in Protestant Europe?

You know the reason for that too: Protestant Europe doesn't really believe in the old religion anymore. It's really secular Europe, with some churchy Protestant traditions, mostly tied up with the local monarchy. Thus, Sweden and Holland, Denmark and Norway are all "Protestant" countries, with good Protestant Queens and Kings, but there is about as much real faith in those countries as there was real belief in the old Roman gods among the Romans in the 300s AD. Catholic Europe is in general more devout than Protestant Europe (think Ireland, Poland, Italy, rural Spain and Portugal) and you will acknowledge that there really are countries in Europe where religion is still taken very, very seriously and believed. But the snag is that these are all Catholic countries, and Catholicism accepts Darwin, so there's no religious struggle over evolution coming from any established quarter. The non-catholic Protestant quarter of Europe is the least Christian part of the Continent.

So, the issue just does not come up anywhere. Catholic Europe and Anglican Catholicism accept Darwin. And Northern, Protestant Europe...think Sweden and Amsterdam...doesn't take Christianity a bit seriously anymore.

So, what does that leave Europe?
It leaves Europe with nobody who is reading the Bible LITERALLY and taking it LITERALLY.
But MOST Americans are religious, and MOST of THEM are hard-core Bible Protestants. Which means that their religion IS in conflict with Darwin.

Now, America is a democracy. Public policy in everything reflects the democratic will. The public schools are not autonomous organs of state: school boards are composed mostly of parents and are elected. Mayors and legislators who set schooling law are elected. Bible-Protestants take their Bible seriously, very, very seriously, and they believe it very, very literally. So, to them, Darwinism with its randomness is a direct assault on God and God's word. That is so radically alien to your culture in England, or to any Christian culture in Europe, that you're just at a loss in the face of it.

But that's what's happening. This is a conflict as profoundly theological and based on different world views as the struggle between Anglicans and Puritans in the English Civil War and Cromwellian Dictatorship. In England, the Puritans won for a time, but the Anglican Catholics reasserted themselves and tradition, and Biblical purism was defeated. In America, Puritan Biblical purism is the DOMINANT religious strain. Catholics are in the severe minority. And, democratic as America is, the pressure to teach what parents believe is the TRUTH about the origins of the universe is very much a political issue.

You don't have this in England, because England is a Catholic "Protestant" country at best, and an agnostic country in the main. You don't have it in Ireland, which is indisputably still devoutly Christian, because Ireland is Catholic, and Rome theologically accepts evolution. You DO have it in America, because Americans are Puritan Roundheads and Biblical literalists, in the main - and that strain disappeared from English society a couple hundred years ago, through emigration to America.

This gulf in comprehension you stare across is really the IDENTICAL gulf in comprehension that the Anglican bishops stared across at the Cromwellian Roundheads back in your Civil War. It's the same idea and the same tension of authority, for the same reasons. Evolution is merely the latest topic on which the fundamentally different ways of looking at the universe clash.

I hope that helps.

[Jo Nuvark]

What churches are they asking to back Evolution?

Christians, Jews and Muslims will have none of this.

Perhaps the church of the white witches, wicka, druids... get the point. This is not a threat.

The threat is that Christian churches are Biblically illiterate and do not know how to defend Creation.

But then, God can defend Himself. Having to explain God is like having to point out the sun.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

A summary: Athiests are waging a war on Christianity here.

[Señor Zorro]

so vehement in their assault on science

The first thing to understand is that those who "assault" Darwinism are not assaulting science, despite the fact that many scientists have embraced Darwinism. Both Creation and Darwinism are, fundamentally, religions. Christian Creation cannot be proven, though an excellent case can be made that it takes less faith to accept Creationism than it does to accept Darwinism.

Darwinism cannot and has not been proven. The fossil record does not support a slow morphing of species into each other and the timelines that scientists parrot at every opportunity are sheer speculation. The process of carbon dating relies on assumptions that are unscientific and unproveable, besides unlikely like: the rate of carbon depletion is constant, the rate of carbon depletion is unaffected by external conditions, there are no traces of the daughter element to be found in the original specimen. These are all unproveable and highly improbably, generally speaking. To sum up: Darwinism is unscientific, ergo attacking Darwinism is not attacking science.

It should seem rather self-evident why this is such a heated topic. It is heated because there is infinitely more at stake here than mere origins. It is a fundamental clash of creeds. Whether we are humans created in the image of a merciful, fearful, loving, merciful, just, all-powerful God granted human equality with others of our race and endowed with the dignity due a being made in God's image or a chance smattering of atoms, whose very existence under the cosmology of the average Darwinist is a more bizarre mystery than the Trinity, a developed ape and the universe's joke is a broader issue than simply "where did I come from?". It is the root of philosophy. If you were created in God's image (and I would assert that you were), then equity, justice, honor, duty, and sacrifice have logical origins. If not, then none of these can be justified in the worldview that Darwinism must logically imply. Rather, the only just government is an anarchy where only the fittest may survive. Justice is an illusion and honor is a dream. Self-sacrifice is for fools and duty is for the naive. Yet none of this is relevant if it is true (it would be a fallacy to assert otherwise)--but the implications of that truth are far reaching.

This is not intended to give you an impulsive emotional response to Darwinism, but to explain what is really at stake in the debate.

I admit that my position is based on faith which, in and of itself, is far more intellectually honest than the Darwinist who cannot accept that he does not know that of which he is absolutely sure. I freely admit that I cannot prove my position--but he (the Darwinist) cannot prove his either. Furthermore, I would argue that we can never definitively, imperically prove how the world began as none of us were there and the experience is not reproducible. Even if, tomorrow, you were to go ahead and show in a labratory that everything the Evolutionist believes is possible, you cannot show that it actually occurred in pre-history.

If, then, all we have is faith then you must look around you and decide which is more plausible. I firmly believe that the Creationist account of the world requires less faith than the evolutionists'. If you are interested any further, I would recommend http://www.answersingenesis.org/ I do not agree with everything written on that site, but it is, overall, quite good.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." John 1:1-5

I have spoken my piece and, while I don't expect to convince you of anything, I hope I have shed more "light than heat."

[Tim Long]

so vehement in their assault on science

By "assault on science" I assume you mean the support of the religion of evolution. (And welcome to FR.)

[RightWinger]

You won't understand this . . . but . . . you can't understand this.

[editor-surveyor]

Evolution is simply not science.

There is not a shred of evidence that supports the queer notion of life out of nothing, and the fossil/geologic evidence clearly concurrs with the biblical description of the flood. More importantly, God's inerrant word clearly states that evolution did not happen, and the two are mutually exclusive.

[Aliska]

I read the biblical story of creation to my children when they were very small. We didn't discuss the intricacies of faith because we didn't have many. We just lived it. I did not monitor what the schools were teaching my children in science, but I did flip through one of my son's science books which had interleaved pages of anecdotal material making the catholic church look backward (was not a catholic at the time). I believe those pages every few chapters concerned the blood transfusion of a pope gone awry, also the account of Galileo and others I've forgotten.

Fast forward to when my son is about through high school, didn't go to college, does not attend any church regularly or read the bible, but he is a person of faith albeit imperfect. One day out of the blue, he said, "Mom, evolution just can't be true."; I can't remember the rest of the conversation, there wasn't much, because now and then I had kicked it around myself, but hadn't been able to reconcile my belief system with the theory of evolution. Now just because my son came to that conclusion doesn't make it so.

I know it is Neanderthal to believe in creation, but I do, the six days being epochs of what duration I don't know. I do not believe in evolution, but do believe in mutation and survival of the fittest. Mutation if continued unchecked seems to adversely affect any given species, making prone to slide into extinction. Some mutations appear to be positive and beneficial. Human mutations since we have been able to track them tend to be negative overall and cause untold numbers of undesirable genetic conditions at the point we are in history. Man's three score and ten have been extended by science in the west causing the actuarial tables to be revised and by unexplained phenomena in other small populations of the non-western world where average life span is longer.

To further muddy the waters, I believe that life was created by benevolent being(s) (the bible and credo claims Christ did it) and some evil force entered the picture and tampered with it, the fall being an allegorical explanation of a process no one can explain to this day.

In college, I took an anthropology class which focussed on Australopithecus, Homo Erectus, Neanderthal, etc., wasn't convinced by it but kept quiet so I could pass the course (I may have anyway; things were more tolerant then). It was a catholic college, and I didn't have any counter arguments anyway. As a child I was exposed to some of the new ideas, saw the reassembled dinosaur in the Chicago Museum of Natural History, my father had a mastodon tusk from Alaska, but I was never swayed by any of it. When I went to high school, I don't remember any talk about evolution; we studied other things in science class and that was left alone, probably because parents at that time would have objected strenuously. There could have been hints at it along the way.

That's it. I can understand why it cannot be taught in science class, but it should be presented as theory and not fact.

I do believe that if we are allowed to continue long enough, science, abrogating the role of creator, will eventually be able to create new speciation which will be able to mate with itself and blocked from mating with the parent species or genetic manipulation will allow for inter-breeding. It will require the intervention by man to bring it about.

If science comes up with something convincing enough, I will change my position. So far they have not. We have been conditioned to accept it as fact, and they should leave the churches alone, and I suppose the churches ought to leave the state schools alone.

[RightWhale]

I do not understand why such an enlightened nation is embroiled in a senseless science vs. religion turmoil

It's probably a simple misreading of what America is about. It's commerce, same as England. For commerce, a deep and subtle understanding of science and philosophy is not necessary, but a knowledge of finance, marketing and engineering is required. Both science and religion are peripheral interests and can be argued and confused all daylong without affecting vital issues of commerce. We don't argue much about engineering and bank loans.

[manwiththehands]

Evo's don't believe in science. Why would we want to go there?