okieinexile
Well-Known Member
The Divide
By Bobby Neal Winters
I believe God created the heavens and the earth and, at the same time, I believe in evolution. In the eyes of many, holding these two positions makes me appear as if I am trying to have it both ways, but this is only because the bulk of the debate on this issue is centered around what I believe to be a false dichotomy between creation and evolution.
The situation reminds me of being at a football game. There are two teams and each of the teams has part of the crowd rooting for it. Someone has painted the 50-yard line on the playing field and has put the creationists on one side and the evolutionists on the other. It is my contention that the line has been painted crooked and needs to be straightened and the sides need to be relabeled.
Before I get on to the relabeling, let me say the football analogy is an apt one. At a football game, there are a lot of people in the crowd who are very emotional each time the ball is snapped, but who themselves couldn’t throw a pass or make a tackle. At some point in the past, they’ve picked a side and now they root for it.
There are creationist who know very little of the Bible; there are evolutionists who don’t understand science. They’ve picked their sides in the debate. They repeat phrases they’ve heard other fans for their side say, and they laugh at the jokes made at the other side’s expense, but their loyalty is based on group identification as opposed to actually having followed and agreed with a particular argument.
It seems to me that it is probably the case for most people on most technical subjects. Very few among us have the leisure time, the energy, the access to information, the expertise, or the inclination needed to study every subject for which we are expected to have an opinion. This is true whether the people involved custodians or college professors, and whether the subject is insurance or the Immaculate Conception. A few people work the details out and the rest of us seek out people whom we respect and adopt their opinions in certain areas.
I believe this has been the case for the bulk of the population in the creation versus evolution debate.
In other words, it’s much about perception. It’s public relations; it’s marketing.
It’s politics.
It is politics and it is important because it involves the way we deal with science in public policy.
Georges Clemenceau, the French statesmen, famously said that war is too important to be left to the generals. We hear this and it makes us laugh because, on one hand, it sounds paradoxical, but on the other we immediately recognize the truth of it. War is the business of soldiers. They know how to carry it out and they know its true cost, so it would seem that they should be the very ones who should be in charge of it. On the other hand, the consequences of going to war (or not going to war) go far beyond the battlefield and far beyond the particular age.
We’ve recently been told science should be put in the hands of scientists. As rhetoric, this works extremely well. It is short, truthy, and as it is being applied to scientists in spotless, white lab coats who are seeking the cure to everything from Alzheimer’s to Zenker's diverticulum through research on embryonic stem cells.
However, pause a moment and move the statement to a different context. How about in Nazi Germany where scientists put humans—Jewish ones—in cold water and measured the length of time it took them to die? That’s not fair. It was in another country. Then, how about the Tuskegee Syphilis study where scientists left to be scientists studied what the natural course of syphilis would be if it were left untreated at a time when it could have been treated.
Maybe science is too important to be left entirely in the hands of scientists. Maybe this is where the real battle lines should be drawn.
The creation versus evolution debate has history in this area because of attempts to have so-called Creation Science taught in school. I will state now and hope to state clearly that I have a lot of problems with Creation Science. It is not science and I do not agree with its particular interpretation of scripture. There are also living, breathing, walking, talking charlatans involved on the Creation Science side. But there is a “but” a-coming.
They do have a germ of something. Those who teach science, who teach anything, must be accountable. They cannot expect to teach our children as they please and not be questioned. They must be answerable to someone. I say this, of course, as someone who would make a whip of cords to kick out the school board if Creation Science were ever imposed as part of the local curriculum.
I do believe in evolution, in different species arising from a single species having become differentiated over time. Horses are like donkeys are like zebras. Humans are like chimpanzees are like gorillas. It makes sense to me that there is a common ancestor for each of these groups and that the modern species have evolved from ancient species.
But I also believe out of all of the species in the world there is something more different about man than can be accounted for by just being another species of animal. The religious language I use to describe this is to say Man was created in the image of God.
The gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson once referred to a hotel room as looking as the outcome of an experiment involving apes and alcohol. This is a great bit of writing. It makes me see the scene in my mind. But, if you have a certain point of view, the hotel room was indeed the scene of an experiment involving apes and alcohol, the apes involved being man.
Thompson’s description works because we do expect more from man than we do apes. Man’s behaving in such a way is so much more a waste that a chimp’s or a gorilla’s would be. This is because regardless of genetic similarity, Man is made in the image of God and chimpanzees and gorillas are not.
I’ve often noted to my friends at the university that it doesn’t take much imagination to walk across the quad and imagine the groups of students are just chimps with slightly less hair and a few more clothes. They even ape the grooming behaviors of chimps in certain instances.
But in spite of all this, they are creatures which are made in the image of God, and that is how our expectations for them should be set. For them to act like chimps with less hair and a few more cloths, as they too often do, is a disgrace.
By Bobby Neal Winters
I believe God created the heavens and the earth and, at the same time, I believe in evolution. In the eyes of many, holding these two positions makes me appear as if I am trying to have it both ways, but this is only because the bulk of the debate on this issue is centered around what I believe to be a false dichotomy between creation and evolution.
The situation reminds me of being at a football game. There are two teams and each of the teams has part of the crowd rooting for it. Someone has painted the 50-yard line on the playing field and has put the creationists on one side and the evolutionists on the other. It is my contention that the line has been painted crooked and needs to be straightened and the sides need to be relabeled.
Before I get on to the relabeling, let me say the football analogy is an apt one. At a football game, there are a lot of people in the crowd who are very emotional each time the ball is snapped, but who themselves couldn’t throw a pass or make a tackle. At some point in the past, they’ve picked a side and now they root for it.
There are creationist who know very little of the Bible; there are evolutionists who don’t understand science. They’ve picked their sides in the debate. They repeat phrases they’ve heard other fans for their side say, and they laugh at the jokes made at the other side’s expense, but their loyalty is based on group identification as opposed to actually having followed and agreed with a particular argument.
It seems to me that it is probably the case for most people on most technical subjects. Very few among us have the leisure time, the energy, the access to information, the expertise, or the inclination needed to study every subject for which we are expected to have an opinion. This is true whether the people involved custodians or college professors, and whether the subject is insurance or the Immaculate Conception. A few people work the details out and the rest of us seek out people whom we respect and adopt their opinions in certain areas.
I believe this has been the case for the bulk of the population in the creation versus evolution debate.
In other words, it’s much about perception. It’s public relations; it’s marketing.
It’s politics.
It is politics and it is important because it involves the way we deal with science in public policy.
Georges Clemenceau, the French statesmen, famously said that war is too important to be left to the generals. We hear this and it makes us laugh because, on one hand, it sounds paradoxical, but on the other we immediately recognize the truth of it. War is the business of soldiers. They know how to carry it out and they know its true cost, so it would seem that they should be the very ones who should be in charge of it. On the other hand, the consequences of going to war (or not going to war) go far beyond the battlefield and far beyond the particular age.
We’ve recently been told science should be put in the hands of scientists. As rhetoric, this works extremely well. It is short, truthy, and as it is being applied to scientists in spotless, white lab coats who are seeking the cure to everything from Alzheimer’s to Zenker's diverticulum through research on embryonic stem cells.
However, pause a moment and move the statement to a different context. How about in Nazi Germany where scientists put humans—Jewish ones—in cold water and measured the length of time it took them to die? That’s not fair. It was in another country. Then, how about the Tuskegee Syphilis study where scientists left to be scientists studied what the natural course of syphilis would be if it were left untreated at a time when it could have been treated.
Maybe science is too important to be left entirely in the hands of scientists. Maybe this is where the real battle lines should be drawn.
The creation versus evolution debate has history in this area because of attempts to have so-called Creation Science taught in school. I will state now and hope to state clearly that I have a lot of problems with Creation Science. It is not science and I do not agree with its particular interpretation of scripture. There are also living, breathing, walking, talking charlatans involved on the Creation Science side. But there is a “but” a-coming.
They do have a germ of something. Those who teach science, who teach anything, must be accountable. They cannot expect to teach our children as they please and not be questioned. They must be answerable to someone. I say this, of course, as someone who would make a whip of cords to kick out the school board if Creation Science were ever imposed as part of the local curriculum.
I do believe in evolution, in different species arising from a single species having become differentiated over time. Horses are like donkeys are like zebras. Humans are like chimpanzees are like gorillas. It makes sense to me that there is a common ancestor for each of these groups and that the modern species have evolved from ancient species.
But I also believe out of all of the species in the world there is something more different about man than can be accounted for by just being another species of animal. The religious language I use to describe this is to say Man was created in the image of God.
The gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson once referred to a hotel room as looking as the outcome of an experiment involving apes and alcohol. This is a great bit of writing. It makes me see the scene in my mind. But, if you have a certain point of view, the hotel room was indeed the scene of an experiment involving apes and alcohol, the apes involved being man.
Thompson’s description works because we do expect more from man than we do apes. Man’s behaving in such a way is so much more a waste that a chimp’s or a gorilla’s would be. This is because regardless of genetic similarity, Man is made in the image of God and chimpanzees and gorillas are not.
I’ve often noted to my friends at the university that it doesn’t take much imagination to walk across the quad and imagine the groups of students are just chimps with slightly less hair and a few more clothes. They even ape the grooming behaviors of chimps in certain instances.
But in spite of all this, they are creatures which are made in the image of God, and that is how our expectations for them should be set. For them to act like chimps with less hair and a few more cloths, as they too often do, is a disgrace.
