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.
Perhaps one of the most ignorant (or intentionally, fallicious) argument ever posted. Excluding the one about the human baby coming out of a monkey.
it's taboo to ask questions that they can't or don't want to deal with
How giant redwoods hoist water up 30 stories
Q: How is a giant redwood able to hoist water all the way from the roots to the top of the tree?
A: It's certainly a long way up--as much as 100 meters, as tall as a 30-story building. A tree releases as much as 160 gallons of water in a day through its leaves and, by necessity, moves that water up from its roots. How does the redwood manage?
Redwoods have a system of interconnected wood cells for carrying water. The hollow, short, thin cells are stacked intricately to form an incredibly tall column, extending from the roots through the branches and stems to the leaves.
The cells are dead wood that function as pipes with pitted openings along the sides of the pipe for water to pass between adjacent cells. The small cells rarely exceed a quarter of an inch in length (5 millimeters) and are only about 30 microns in diameter (about three times the diameter of a red blood cell).
Redwoods must form a continuous column of water within this pipe in order to move water through the pipe. We believe redwoods form the column when the tree is a newly germinated seedling. The tree maintains the water column intact throughout its life time. Consider the wind and how it tosses trees around. Only the millions of small compartments that enclose the water keep the water column whole. A single pipe would not work.
Two forces move the water: a push and a pull. Roots do most of the pushing but capillary action (the tendency of water to rise in a thin tube by flowing up the walls of the tube) kicks in a small pressure. The push can support a column of water about three yards high (two to three meters). The pull takes over from there.
The driving engine behind the pull is the evaporation of water and the attraction between water molecules. The molecules have both a positive and a negatively charged part and, therefore, stick together with a strong force--experimentally determined to be25 to 30 atmospheres. That's enough to crush a World War II submarine at 1000 feet below the surface. A redwood tree routinely maintains a negative pressure of 14 atmospheres at the top of the water column (with one atmosphere at the base) and the column withstands this pressure without breaking. This is how it happens:
Water evaporating from the leaves starts the suction pull. A water molecule evaporates from a leaf and pulls on the molecules around it as it departs. This creates a small suction in the water column and pulls water from adjacent water-conducting leaf cells. These molecules, in turn, attract those around them. The chain continues to the ground and moves water from the roots to the tree top just as a pump brings water to the surface from a well.
The Sun's energy, which evaporates the water from the leaf surface in the first place, is the pump engine.
(Answered by April Holladay, science correspondent, April 18, 2001)
http://www.wonderquest.com/Redwood.htm
which one is it, I wonder
I like my answer better.
now they'll call you stupid and some big word you can't understand
Kwazy Kwanza to you!
Thanke! Merry Spookiness!
No, but it's silly to ask questions that have no point. There is nothing about evolution that suggests extinction should not occur.
Like what about millions of Christians who don't believe in germs type of questions? when they aren't Christians in the first place
Tell me, is a Christian a Christian because you say so, or some council or authority says so, or because he says he believes in Christ?
Just asking.
Are dumb-ass questions the proofs of "the real science?" Does someone need to let you into the classroom to show the kids how the universe really works? Before or after you take your meds?
Oddly it seems to be evolution that has sat itself up for failure and ridicule. Kind of like Democrats warning Republicans that their win is not to be taken as a mandate.
Didn't evolutionists just admit to several spontaneous eruptions of different species of life over a graduated period of time? Or did they not?
Well now that is a good question. Are you really interested in an answer?
Creationism is bludgeoning with ignorance--the ignorance of the creationist. That's the point of this thread, when you come right down to it.
You can't make a creationist understand. Thus, my tagline.
By the way, you got the magic-numbered post this thread.
ad hominem attacks are but the response of a shallow and/or inadequate mind, but I did like your kwanza greetings
I don't care what you believe, only what you can establish through evidence and rational thought.
It's a science class, not comparative religion.
Reminds me of Effdot without the e.e. cummings poetic flourish.
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