Posted on 12/18/2004 5:56:30 PM PST by 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.
Science is not really about first year logic. The logic employed by science is speculative, and produces levels of confidence, not proof. The science employed by biologists studying evolution is identical to forensic science. It is forensic science.
So I am asking you for a simple answer to a simple question: which is more reliable, forensic evidence or human witnesses? I understand that it depends on the specifics, but which is generally more reliable, solid forensic evidence, or the testimony of someone you love?
And that is utterly absurd and without foundation. Evolution is not science. It has been related as science in a guilt by association method; but, it is not science. And you can't offer a best case of "cumulative proof" when you don't have anything to point to as a proof to begin with. The only thing you have is opinion attached to evidences which cannot confirm evolution. What is observeable is as useful as what is not observeable in proving evolution a lie, and that is it's core reliance on what you call speciation - speciation isn't happening in the manner you describe it nor is there evolution being witnessed today. In at least the last 3000 years, no one has ever witnessed a chimp giving birth to a human being or anything similar. Argument sunk.. period. That sort of change has to be falsifiable. You can't do that with dead bones and no witness to the event. Not possible.
Go back and read.
Here I stand. I can do no other.
I have been reading your posts.
Your science seems to be a wee bit lacking. You may want to go read that link I provided for you.
Am I to understand that you do not believe it is wrong? If so, I should warn you that you would be a pariah among many political conservatives and most libertarians.
Or is it the case that your doctrine and your examination of the evidence leads you to reject that authority? In which case, where is your examination of the scientific evidence required to reject the authority of scientists in this case?
You are incorrect when you presume that I have not examined the evidence of mainstream scientists.
I do not read minds - if you make no reference to such evidence, cite no such evidence, why should I believe you are aware of the evidence? Nevertheless, this would be a wonderful jumping-off point for you to undertake a thorough examination of the evidence supporting evolution, and explaining why the current interpretation is insufficient. That way, your analogy might stand up to a passing glance.
I don't know effdot, but what I am saying ain't new.
That is the problem with most of the good thoughts...., they were already thunk long before you and I arrived on the scene.
"Dignity" is a subset of "axiology" .... which is a dead science with no reference point for values.
Do we really need to beat this horse some more, or will yuou accept that it is dead?
Ahem. Science is about first year logic. Confidence in a conclusion is built through the type of evidence you use as support. The more shaky the evidence the less confidence in the conclusion. The more assumptions you have to make, the less confidence in the conclusion. Science is logic. You can't do proper science without first year logic and I'm both amazed and disgusted at your attempt to divorce the two and further attempt to differentiate them as though that were at all possible. Yes, you are seeking proof. That is the point of the method. Forensic science is still bound to the rules of logic. The more leaps of faith you make, the more questionable your conclusions. You can't charge a guy with murder and walk them into a courtroom and convict them on a hunch or maybe I should say "inference". Don't know how many ways one needs to say it before it sinks in. You seem to be of the misunderstanding that because you can reason that something is possible, that possibility is factual. I'm attempting to disabuse you of that notion - which seems a losing game as ya'll for all your intellectual superiority, don't seem to have the brains to get it.
So I am asking you for a simple answer to a simple question: which is more reliable, forensic evidence or human witnesses? I understand that it depends on the specifics, but which is generally more reliable, solid forensic evidence, or the testimony of someone you love?
Again, your example was wanting and overstated in comparison to the example of what vade did earlier which I took immediate issue with. He didn't witness an exploded planet, further, he has no evidence of a missing planet. He also has no evidence that a planet ever exploded. The only thing he has evidence of is that there are rings on some of the planets and there are asteroids. Bully for him. Theory is not fact just because you state the theory. If you can't authoritatively back up your postulations with proper premises and proofs, your conclusion is worth zip, zilch, nichts, nada. That is why you want to divorce science and logic. Logic flatly betrays the leaps you make as untrustworthy and vacant. How utterly disingenuous. I really feel for you guys. But I'm also finished with this. As I noted before, people wouldn't buy laundry soap on the kind of evidence you offer, yet you expect them to buy an origins of the universe explanation on that crap. Again, stop and think, who are you kidding. Seriously. Nobody. That's why evolution is in as much trouble right now as abortion and higher taxes. People have had enough of being sold a bill of goods. Might want to work up an epitaph for all that governmental grant money propping you dipsticks up.
The preponderance, though not all, of the scientific evidence points to an old universe and to the existence of macroevolution. However, both the creation science and intelligent science camps have pointed out deficiencies in evolutionary theory that the evolutionist camp has not successfully refuted. However, the conservative Christian position is not necessarily based on what camp has better evidence. Conservative Christianity works from the presupposition that the statements in the Bible are true, when understood in their historical and grammatical context and authorial intent. Based on that assumption, evangelicals and fundamentalists must reject the presumption that mainstream science adheres to: that the physical universe is all that was, is, and ever will be.
The ultimate issue is not what the fossil record, astronomy, DNA, half-lives of elements, etc., may or may not indicate. The issue is which worldview is correct: the conservative Christian one, the naturalistic one, a position that synthesizes the two positions, or another one entirely.
So what? That's not relevant to the scientific process, which is based on what camp has better evidence. You're trying to take tools from one arena and use them in an entirely different arena - what you're essentially doing is trying to bake a cake with a belt sander, and wondering why the results are such a mess.
I retire from the debate and never post on this topic again if you can show me a professional, juried publication in which a respected scientist has predicted such an event or suggested such and event has happened in the history of the earth. This may sound unfair, but I have to limit this offer to publications from the past hundred years. I rather doubt that you could find such a statement in the writings of Darwin. Only a complete idiot would suggest that such a thing was part of evolutionary theory.
Evolution is not unguided. It is guided by selection, whether the changes are random, part of the Designer's computer program, or the result of direct divine intervention. Selection is the shaping cause. Selection is what Darwin discovered. Darwin had no clue as to how modification occurred or whether it was random.
Who'd have guessed that the existence of screws with left-handed threads would be invoked as the culminating refutation of BB Cosmology?
Wrong direction. No cigar.
I prefer a drill press.
They must think a Hilbert Space is an abomination....
:-)
Mainstream science also works from naturalistic presuppositions that may cloud their objectivity, as I discussed in previous posts.
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