Elliott C. Back: Technology FTW!

Evolution: Americans still don’t get it

Posted in Canada, Science by Elliott Back on November 23rd, 2004.

When I moved from Canada, I had the preconception that Americans, were, in general, complete idiots. And it seems that they go well out of their way to reinforce the stereotyping I’ve tried so hard to forget.

Let’s look at this week’s Creationism scandal, eh? There are three great stories. First, a Gallup poll shows that only 1/3 of Americans “believe” in the theory of evolution. Second, the actual data from the poll, from U. BC. Third, a brilliant critique from Swarthmore.

The answer to “Why don’t American’s get evolution?” is the same as the answer to “Why did they elect a Great Ape?”

Most Americans are conservative Christians, who let the religious right do their thinking for them. A good example is this apologia, which tries to refute the literary-historical foundation for a scholarly interpretation of the book of Genesis, the so-called cornerstone of the Christian faith.

An acute reader will point out that the Christian faith doesn’t depend on Genesis. What actually does, however, is their theory of creation. A literalist interpretation of the book of Genesis allows a Christian to believe that the world was molded directly from the hands of YHWH, and that all biological life was created in the span of 7 days. If that sounds like too much to take, Christians temper their argument with an interpretation of “Heavenly days” whereby those 7 days could span some more reasonable finite interval. Of course, that just begs the question “How long did creation take?” again. And, no matter how hard you look, you’ll never get a straight answer.

By placing a focus on Genesis (rather than, say, the book of Psalms) as the “foundation” of Christianity, leading conservatives instill a crusading defensive fervor in their constituents. Christians begin to believe that Genesis is the core of their faith, and defend it literally without proper consideration.

All you other Christians, I challenge to find a verse in Genesis necessary to the fundament of your religion.

Viewing 7 Comments

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    How about the entire 17th Chapter--the Abrahamic covenant? Fundamental to my religion, as we believe it has been renewed and stands as an important covenant between God and His people today.

    I know that isn't quite what you meant, but I resent the implication that I'm a moron just because I believe human beings are in the literal image of God, originally created by His hand. I don't dispute the theoretical validity of evolution or natural selection, and I approve the teaching of these concepts in science classes whenever it's appropriate, I simply don't think that human beings came into existence by those means. This doesn't mean that I'm letting the religious right "do my thinking for me." You don't seem to be allowing that people can still believe in Creation literally even with "proper consideration."

    Personally, I don't care how long the Creation took. A great deal of language in the Bible is figurative and poetic, and we have no way of knowing how long a "heavenly day" is, or how that time is measured. Why should this disrupt my faith that the Creation literally occurred?

    I agree that Genesis is not the foundation of Christianity. Such a concept is laughable to me. Wouldn't the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John that detail Christ's life and ministry, His atonement and resurrection, be the scriptural "foundation" of Christianity? However, there is no book of scripture that can simply be disregarded, as they all provide insight into the attributes, characteristics and perfections of God, and how we can live our lives better.
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    I am pretty sure that God is a scientist, since he had so much fun creating so many different things. And I am also pretty sure he is a cynical old fart who loves to laugh at all the rubbish people 'believe' ... ;-)
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    In addition to the poetic nature of a lot of the Bible, it was written by men who lived in times when certain concepts were beyond their grasp. Given this, it is hard to interpret what the books in the Bible truly mean. However, it would seem presumptuous to pretend that you "know" that evolution occured without outside aid considering that the events in debate occured millions of years ago. Consider how much has changed in interpretation of human history, which has happened recently and has been incredibly well documented. If you claim to "know" what happened in this time period then you perhaps are implying that you are God himself. This has been an increasingly common theme in the scientific community, and really is quite amusing. The biggest problem with science is that despite its central doctrine of understanding everything, there are some things it will never understand (chaos theory, etc.). I am not disputing that evolution occurs every day in nature (this has been proven like gravity and heliocentrism), however I do not see any clear evidence proving it alone brought us to where we are today.

    PS. While it is a clever debating tactic to lump evolution together with heliocentrism and gravity (as one of the links did), both of the said theories have been proven. Evolution has not (see above).

    PPS orangeguru: you're probably right
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    Ah, but Scientists don't know that evolution was the process by which all life developed on earth. They merely theorize that it was, and accept that it is the most likely theory. In contrast, conservative Christians do not accept this possibility, based on literal interpretation of the Bible. I'm afraid that you're overstating the scientific opinion, and understating the misunderstanding between scientists and Christians.
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    While I certainly don't speak for all conservative Christians--or probably even most--I do not accept the possibility that evolution is the most likely theory, but it isn't for lack of consideration. It's because I have faith. It's not scientific, but I am sure.

    I'm able to respect the fact that the scientific community and I arrived at different opinions because we used very different processes to form them. And that's what I'd like to see more of in the debates about this issue--respect. (Not here or anything, just in general.) Even if we can't agree, I'd love to see scientists show more respect to people who make decisions based on faith, and more understanding from the religious about the scientific process.
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    iS IT ME ARE IT JUST THE SAME THAT HEAR WHEN I WAS GROWING UP WELL IT TIME TO CHANGE YOUR MIND ABOUT A LOT OF THING ALL THAT THAT BRIAN GOD GIVE YOU AND YOU THINKTHAT YOU CAME FROM APE, PLEASE YOU NOT THAT BRAIN DEAD, gOD WILL ALL WAY BE THE ONE.
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    All of history ends about 6,000 yrs ago. No history, legend, or lore exists past Adam & Eve. All of real science PROVES an Earth & Universe far too young to have given evolution its long ages needed to produce man from Molecules. Science CONFIRMS the Bibles time scale but isn't necessary as Young Earth Science has PROVEN the earth young when the evolutionist ADMIT never proving even 1 million yrs.
 

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