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Tough Assignment: Teaching Evolution To Fundamentalists
Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette ^ | 03 December 2004 | SHARON BEGLEY

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.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: christianschools; christianstudents; colling; crevolist; darwin; evolution; heresy; intelligentdesign; nazarene; religionofevolution; richardcolling; scienceeducation
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To: Havoc
I'm talking about the authority of the evidence. It's like chain of custody. Heresay and inference aren't valid evidentiary methods. Theory is not truth. You may call it fact; but, truth and fact are not identical in nature. That is perhaps why you might prefer to use the word fact. If you have nothing but modern evidences and infinite possibilities for causality, an inference isn't true, nor is it necessarily fact. It is a working hypothesis. In absence of capacity to falsify and exclude all other possibilities, you are left with a hypothesis at best - not a fact.

This seems like a reasonable statement, but I think you have closed your eyes to 200 years of accumulated evidence in physics, chemistry, biology and geology. We send people to the gas chamber on far less evidence. Using your standard, no criminal would ever be convicted.

501 posted on 12/20/2004 12:52:42 PM PST by js1138 (D*mn, I Missed!)
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To: PatrickHenry
Stop trying to confuse the issue with facts!

That's just mean!

502 posted on 12/20/2004 12:53:45 PM PST by wireman
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To: Wallace T.
The best that can be done by scientists is to come to a working hypothesis.

No, the best that can be done are laws and theories -- much stronger statements.

503 posted on 12/20/2004 12:54:04 PM PST by js1138 (D*mn, I Missed!)
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To: js1138

My favored tools for baking are a socket wrench, volume 21 of the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica ("PAYN-POLK"), a graphing calculator, a half-gallon of gasoline, and a leaf-blower.


504 posted on 12/20/2004 12:57:01 PM PST by general_re ("What's plausible to you is unimportant." - D'man)
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To: PatrickHenry
APE GIVES BIRTH TO HUMAN BABY

Oooook! Oooook!

505 posted on 12/20/2004 12:57:08 PM PST by longshadow
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To: Wallace T.
Mainstream science also works from naturalistic presuppositions that may cloud their objectivity ...

It's a common error to assume that all scientists are philosophical naturalists. Or materialists, I've seen both terms. By that I mean the philosophical position that only the material world exists. The techniques of science are necessarily limited to the material world, so the practice of science requires procedural naturalism. If there were a way to objectively observe, measure, and test spiritual phenomena, science would leap at the chance.

506 posted on 12/20/2004 12:57:21 PM PST by PatrickHenry (The List-O-Links for evolution threads is at my freeper homepage.)
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To: chronic_loser

Very interesting, I am always open to learning more, I will have to read Kline in the very near future. I'm always troubled by why God would use night/day references if He didn't mean a literal "day". I hope to one day be able to study the text in the language it was written in. Thank you for the info.


507 posted on 12/20/2004 1:05:10 PM PST by ThisLittleLightofMine
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To: longshadow
They may be square, but not integrable.
508 posted on 12/20/2004 1:07:19 PM PST by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch is der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
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To: js1138

Working hypotheses, theories, and laws are only as strong as the underlying assumptions and the supportive evidence. Much evidence exists to support an old universe and macroevolution. There is some evidence that contradicts these positions, more so macroevolution than the age of the universe. However, the underlying assumption of mainstream science, that of non-intervention by an intelligent designer, is incorrect.


509 posted on 12/20/2004 1:07:36 PM PST by Wallace T.
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To: PatrickHenry
If there were a way to objectively observe, measure, and test spiritual phenomena...

Then they would, by definition, be reclassified as natural phenomena.

510 posted on 12/20/2004 1:08:31 PM PST by js1138 (D*mn, I Missed!)
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To: Wallace T.
It is difficult for scientific observation to come to an irrefutable conclusion.

It's damn near impossible for any sort of inductive process to come to an irrefutable conclusion, but I'd bet good money that you don't let that stop you from employing the process in other parts of your life. You can put your hand on a hot stove and get burned 10,000 times in a row, and it's still not irrefutable proof that you'll get burned on the 10,001'st try - you never know for sure, really. But I bet you only had to do it once to take a single experience as proof enough and modify your behavior appropriately.

Forget science - you don't get certitude anywhere in real life, and yet you surely believe in all sorts of things that are fundamentally uncertain. You can certainly object to the nature or the amount of evidence, but if you object to it on grounds of a lack of certitude, then you also have no legitimate right to believe almost anything you currently believe to be true. You don't know for an irrefutable fact that your house is still going to be there when you leave work tomorrow, but I suspect you believe it will be there anyway, based on the evidence available to you.

511 posted on 12/20/2004 1:10:26 PM PST by general_re ("What's plausible to you is unimportant." - D'man)
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To: js1138
Then they would, by definition, be reclassified as natural phenomena.

I suppose. Either way, until such matters can be objectively studied, we can't fault science for not dealing with them. Even if a scientist had no bias against the existence of such phenomena, there would be nothing he could do about them, so his scientific work would be indistinguishable from that of a scientist who literally believed that no such phenomena existed.

512 posted on 12/20/2004 1:12:07 PM PST by PatrickHenry (The List-O-Links for evolution threads is at my freeper homepage.)
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To: Wallace T.
However, the underlying assumption of mainstream science, that of non-intervention by an intelligent designer, is incorrect.

Science cannot be done without the assumption of non-intervention. Science is looking for regularity.

513 posted on 12/20/2004 1:13:10 PM PST by js1138 (D*mn, I Missed!)
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To: JFK_Lib
"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." - Professor Collins

Professor Collins accepts the miracle of the creation of physical laws. Creation of time and light are not much different. The miraculous nature of it all wears off when one is born into it.

514 posted on 12/20/2004 1:14:17 PM PST by Fester Chugabrew
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To: PatrickHenry

Eeew.


515 posted on 12/20/2004 1:15:25 PM PST by Junior (FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC)
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To: PatrickHenry
...so his scientific work would be indistinguishable from that of a scientist who literally believed that no such phenomena existed.

Science is pretty much the business of demonstrating how things can happen through regular and repeatable causes. Granted there are unique events like asteroid strikes, but the physics of asteroids is comprised of regular, lawful phenomena.

516 posted on 12/20/2004 1:17:06 PM PST by js1138 (D*mn, I Missed!)
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To: general_re

I understand the reasons for most of it, by why the leaf blower?


517 posted on 12/20/2004 1:18:31 PM PST by Junior (FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC)
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To: Havoc

"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."

What does this have to do with the theory of evolution?


518 posted on 12/20/2004 1:18:49 PM PST by atlaw
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To: Junior

That's to apply the icing. I still prefer the old fashioned method, using the drill press.


519 posted on 12/20/2004 1:20:37 PM PST by js1138 (D*mn, I Missed!)
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To: Wallace T.

Creationism is spookism. The founder of Kwanza says so, and the evolutionists here agree. So the fact is, you can't associate some theory of some people with some other something or other (qh)


520 posted on 12/20/2004 1:27:28 PM PST by D Edmund Joaquin (Karenga says Kwanzaa is an "oppositional alternative" to Christianity - which he calls "spookism")
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