sudo life

Hulu recently made Carl Sagan‘s famous PBS documentary series Cosmos available for free viewing online.  If you’ve never seen it, I highly recommend watching it.  It is the best documentary series I’ve ever seen, and for me, it was a complete life changer.  There is a moment in the last episode of the series that completely shattered some cognitive dissonance that had been building up for months: the amount of evidence for evolution, versus my dogmatic rejection of it.  The moment is just a simple statement:  “[we] accepted the products of science, but not it’s methods.”  The intensity I felt in that moment has been rarely replicated.  It perfectly described my actions in a way that was undeniable, but also provided the solution: drop my dogmatic beliefs in favor of evidence based knowledge.

Since that time, I sometimes forget what it’s like for people who reject evolution.  Sometimes, as hard as it is to believe, I forget that anyone actually rejects evolution.  It’s so obvious to me now, that I forge that there are other perspectives out there.  There are probably many causes for this, but there is one that I want to focus on for this post:  Nearly everyone benefitting from modern technology has implicitly accepted evolution.

The theory of evolution was a breakthrough of truly monumental proportions, and today, it’s applications have extended well beyond just academic biology.  For example, it’s used in forensic science to help solve crimes.  How many people accept DNA evidence, but don’t realize that without the theory of evolution, we wouldn’t be able to analyze DNA?  How many people use materials everyday that were designed using principals derived from the theory of evolution?

How many people wouldn’t be alive today if it wasn’t for the theory of evolution?  Modern medicine depends on an understanding of evolution.  If the theory of evolution didn’t accurately reflect reality, modern medicine would not be successful at all.  Instead, we see life expectancy growing at an exponential rate.

Shouldn’t someone who truly believes evolution wrong and even evil, reject all these things? If they’re truly dedicated to their beliefs, they should.  Instead, we see their rational side appear when they need it.  If they’re sick, they ignore the man behind the curtain, and implicitly accept the benefits of evidence-based knowledge.  Next time I’m pulled back down to earth by someone who doesn’t believe in evolution, I just want to ask them this:  then why do you accept it’s products?

Science biology, christianity, evolution, medicine, Philosophy

The H.M.S. Beagle Blog has published an e-mail they sent to a local science teacher:

Your students are reporting to us that you are offering a non-scientific alternative to how plant and animal species evolved on earth. Many of them are quite disconcerted with what seems to be a blatant attempt to subvert scientific fact and theory with unfounded speculation, mythology and beliefs. Since we have not personally heard your presentations we cannot accurately judge what you are, in fact, presenting or what your approach to teaching science is. If there is even a whiff of creationism or intelligent design being offered as a legitimate alternative to science in your classes then that would go against the basis of the recent Dover decision in Pennsylvania (Kitzmiller v. Dover, 2005, Judge John E. Jones presiding).

You can read the rest over at their blog.  I realize this is an issue that goes under-reported so I feel it’s important to bring as much attention to it as possible.

The word delusion is defined as “an erroneous belief that is held in the face of evidence to the contrary.”  Given the mountains of evidence that exist in support of the theory of evolution, is it a stretch of language to call rejection of the theory a delusion?

Science biology, education, evolution

Someone once argued with me, concerning evolution, “science has been wrong before.”

True enough. I didn’t reply at the time, for a variety of reasons. Today, I would challenge them to name something that science has been wrong about. There are several possible choices. One common answer is thinking the earth was flat (most people don’t know about Eratosthenes calculating the diameter of the earth around 200 B.C). Never-the-less, the fact remains that the argument is right. We have been wrong about things in the past. We’re still wrong about some things. We know that many of our theories are incomplete.

Given all of that, though, there is a better point to be made. Science is unique in the way that it is the only self-correcting field out there. All of those times science has been wrong about something, I can guarantee you, it was not the priest that fixed it, but another scientist.

Theology christianity, debate, evolution, Philosophy, Science

Even as a Christian, I struggled with this issue:  Teach Evolution or Intelligent Design in the classroom?  As a younger christian, I believe creationism to be absolutely true, to the point that I made a big deal about it not being mentioned at all in my 5th grade classroom.

Then I sort of forgot about it.  I didn’t need to take any more biology classes that really studied evolution for quite some time, until two years ago in college, as a matter of fact.  Evolution was still a bad word to me at that point.

Then this last spring, the debate arose in the Kansas State Board of Education on whether or not ID should be taught in the classroom.  That is when everything started to change.

All my life I’ve been in love with Science.  I truly believed that God and Science were completely compatable.

But I was wrong.  They are completely seperate things.  Science cannot prove God’s existance.  It cannot disprove God’s existance.  Anything relating to God is not science.

Intelligent Design does not belong in any classroom, ever.  It is not a scientific theory, it is not supported by any scientific evidence.  It does not explain anything evolution cannot explain.

I think Christians especially should understand this.  They should be fighting to not have things like ID taught as science.  To do otherwise is show ignorance, not only of science, but of the world we live in!  It is to show ignorance of religious freedom, of history, and of facts.

It goes back to the basic principal that has been taught for centuries.  For a modern example see the movie, ‘the Time Changer.’  The principal is this: if science contradicts the bible or any of god’s revelations, science is wrong.

Over time, I’ve realized that this is really what faith is about: in the face of hard facts, ignoring them for some sort of divine explanation.

That is just not something I cannot accept.

Philosophy biology, education, evolution, Science