Scott Allan’s World

Article: LiveScience.com - Surprise: Chickens Can Grow Teeth

An interesting article that shows some more evidence supporting evolution. This article has gotten me started on my evolution rant. Thankfully we live in a country that allows differences of opinions and my fellow southerners won’t riot and execute me for disagreeing with them.

I know it pains some devout Christians to acknowledge the science of evolution. They probably feel they are betraying God and the Bible which states God specifically put Adam and Eve in Eden as the first people. Despite the fact that the Bible is more of an instruction manual for how to live a moral, decent, and noble life, some still read it as a history book. If it says it happened exactly that way, then it must have happened exactly that way.

Better call off the search for Noah’s Ark. It is much better to learn what lessons The Book is trying to teach than to get consumed in a literal interpretation and miss the point altogether.

If people want to argue Intelligent Design, I have no quarrel with the idea that a higher power set the plan for evolution and started the wheels in motion. No one knows how the universe was created and ultimately there is no way to ever know even through science so go with whatever theory is the easiest to accept. Big Bang, Intelligent Design, etc. One can always argue that Intelligent Design is the precursor to all the other theories such as the Big Bang. Not sure why they have to be mutually exclusive. Even Albert Einstein believed science and faith can coexist.

However, do not summarily discount valid scientific studies and evidence which have held true since before Darwin and have never been proven false just because the Bible doesn’t mention it and there are a few undiscovered missing links. Modern day science did not exist when the Bible was first penned. To diminish the Theory of Evolution by stating that it is “just a theory” is absurd. Scientific theories are not merely ideas, suggestions or even hypotheses. They are based on indisputable facts and evidence, and scientific theories are able to be re-tested time after time without fail.

The arguments for Intelligent Design and a supernatural being are all based on a book, philosophy, faith, and feelings. The evidence that is presented is always an argument against the validity of the science and not a demonstration of its own merit. Somehow if we can discount the scientific theory through dubious arguments, our theological theory must be true. This does not stand up to any sort of standard of proof.

I don’t buy the fact that if we don’t understand something very complex, then automatically there must be a supernatural explanation. Thousands of years ago, the Greeks didn’t understand why the sun moved across the sky, therefore the Apollo must have dragged it across in his chariot. There was a god created to explain everything that was not understood. As science evolved and explanations were discovered, the gods disappeared one by one. As it stands today, there are only two unanswered questions, how did everything start? and what happens after we die? At least one of these will never be answered which leaves a supernatural option as the default explanation for now.

I believe the problem lies with the common overuse of the word “theory” in our vernacular. Gravity is a scientific theory and not “just a theory”. I suppose if one said that gravity has never been proven because we rely on evidence such as falling apples to deduce that it exists, then the non-believers would be expected to float around aimlessly. I can’t see or touch gravity and Sir Isaac Newton didn’t create the Theory of Gravity until after the Bible was written so therefore gravity does not exist.

There is always a place where common sense, logic, science, and faith can all meet. There is no need to draw a line in the sand and say, “This is what I believe. I refuse to find common ground based on loyalty and principle”. Just remember it took a long time to convince everyone that they wouldn’t fall off the edge of the Earth. As my father used to say to me, “Do you always believe everything you read?”