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Transcript
Science, religion and the origins of life Philip Allan Publishers © 2016 How old is the Earth? (1) Most of us assume the answer is millions of years — in part we have come to know that through documentaries on dinosaurs and seeing their skeletons and fossils in museums. Common scientific estimates using radioactive dating techniques put the answer at about 4.5 billion years. In contrast to this modern belief are claims made by James Ussher, Bishop of Armagh (in Ireland) in 1650. Ussher looked to use the Bible to determine the age of creation. By counting the genealogies in the Bible along with the ages of the various prophets in the Old Testament, he arrived at the date of 23 October 4004 BCE. That such a precise date is given says something about the way knowledge was viewed. It has to be precise and certain for it is these qualities that allow us to know we are dealing with a fact. Such a view of the Bible is often described as biblical literalism. Philip Allan Publishers © 2016 How old is the Earth? (2) Natural history The biblical fact of a young Earth stood in stark contrast to the discoveries of Charles Lyell, described in his book Principles of Geology (1830). Lyell argued that the forces of nature created the wonders of rock formations over millions of years. The typography of the Earth with its hills and valleys was formed over eons by processes in the natural world. Alongside such developments in geology Robert Chambers argued in Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1843) that the fossil record could only make sense if animal life had developed and changed over an immense period of time. Philip Allan Publishers © 2016 Natural selection In 1838 Charles Darwin read a book by Thomas Malthus called An Essay on the Principles of Population which allowed his mind to settle on the idea of natural selection as an explanation for the development of life on Earth. This was finally published in 1859 in his book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Once he had published the book he discovered 34 other people who had been thinking along similar lines, as he acknowledges in the third edition of the book. Patrick Matthew had even used the term ‘the natural law of selection’ in 1831 in published but not well-known writings, and William Wells had been reflecting on comparable thoughts as early as 1818. In short, natural selection was an idea that had come of age. Darwin’s book gave detailed systematic and academic expression to the idea. Philip Allan Publishers © 2016 The best fit Darwin summed up his theory in On the Origin of Species with the words ‘Multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.’ While we may substitute the word ‘fit’ for ‘strongest’, as the English philosopher Herbert Spencer did in 1864, the intended meaning is the same. Animals struggle for survival in their environment and those less suited to it die earlier and have fewer offspring than those who live longer. The hereditary traits of the survivors are passed on to following generations at a higher frequency and thus become widespread within the population. Species therefore change gradually over time to make a better ‘fit’ with the environment they exist within. This is their environmental niche. Philip Allan Publishers © 2016 Religious response to evolution T. H. Huxley, who doubted the existence of God, engaged in a famous public discussion with the bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce, in 1860. In evolution Wilberforce saw a threat to the dignity of man, the authority of the Bible and the credibility of the Church. That evolution struggles to explain human free will and therefore cannot be correct was, in part, the line of response Wilberforce took. Huxley, by all accounts, focused on the evidence of evolution and that if this meant humanity descended from an ape then this should be accepted against religious sophistry. If that was bad news for the Bible then so be it. Evolution challenged the claim in Genesis 1 that creation ‘was good’. Life as ‘red in tooth and claw’ seems more the order of the day in a natural evolutionary process that is a constant struggle for survival. Philip Allan Publishers © 2016 The fundamentalists While debates about evolution and how the Church might respond to it rumbled on, a group of American scholars connected with the Protestant Presbyterian Church developed a new approach to cope with its challenges. This was published in 1910 through a series of essays, each supporting the importance and basis of what was seen as an essential Christian belief. This collection of essays were called The Doctrinal Deliverance of 1910 (a.k.a. ‘The Five Fundamentals’) and proponents became known as fundamentalists. The term ‘fundamentalist’ today has a connected but wider meaning. The major focus of debate was, however, the Bible and its truthfulness, as without that as a trustworthy source of revelation of God the basis upon which to believe in Jesus as God, life after death, and the day of judgement becomes questionable. Philip Allan Publishers © 2016 Creationism and intelligent design (1) Philip E. Johnson, a law professor from Berkeley University in the USA, has been an influential thinker in the development of creation science and its intelligent design arguments. Rather than focusing on the issue of the age of the Earth, in his book Darwin on Trial (1991) he attacks the whole idea of natural selection. He accepts microevolution (development within species). Indeed, it is impossible to deny this as the so-called ‘Darwin’s finches’ example portrayed in David Lack’s 1947 book makes clear. The finches on the Galapagos Islands have developed different beaks depending on the environmental challenges of each island and the food sources available. Microevolution can also be produced under experimental conditions. Philip Allan Publishers © 2016 Creationism and intelligent design (2) However, Johnson argues that evolution’s reliance on natural selection and adaptation as providing the means for development between species of animal (macroevolution) is not proved beyond doubt. As a lawyer Johnson applies a criminal justice level of judgement, beyond reasonable doubt. He argues that atheists assume a materialistic worldview in which evolution must provide the answer to the diversity of life on Earth as there is no God to do it. But the truth of atheism is itself not beyond reasonable doubt. Within this context the creation of animals in their species by God is argued for by Johnson. It is upon this foundation that limited microevolution takes place. Philip Allan Publishers © 2016 Common ancestry The anatomical similarity between the arm and hand structure in humans and that in a wide range of species including frogs, lizards, birds, cats, bats and even whales speaks of a common ancestry. Left to a designer creating each species from scratch a bird wing could be better engineered. However, birds evolved from the forms their evolutionary ancestors already had. The larvae of grasshoppers, spiders and centipedes are also anatomically similar despite the obvious differences these species have as adults. Evolution is not a biological adaptive free for all. It has its limitations and the similarity in the form of those limitations between species gives witness to a natural process rather than acts of specially designed creation. Philip Allan Publishers © 2016 God’s failings Apart from arguments over the science of evolution and the validity of how transitional fossils are interpreted and dated, the intelligent design approach fails to do justice to belief in God as creator. The human eye is not perfect, as we have a blind spot caused by the optic nerve crossing the retina. This is an imperfection in design not present in the eyes of squids and octopuses. Either God directly created this imperfection or you have to argue the fall in some way corrupted the natural world and our very natures. To believe this about the fall brings us to a literal belief in the existence of Adam and Eve and the moral corruption and physical degradation of humanity caused by that fall. This is not just about the pain of childbirth mentioned in Genesis 3:16 — miscarriages go beyond that. The eye remains imperfect and it is not the only imperfection in human design. In short, the human body looks like the product of an evolving process rather than a manufactured ideal. Philip Allan Publishers © 2016 Creationism in science education (1) Should schools teach religious views of creation? In the USA there is a split between the private world of beliefs and the public world of education. Religion is seen as a private belief and the state education system excludes religion as a subject from its curriculum content. This has not always been the case. In the state of Tennessee in 1925 there was a famous trial, known today as the ‘Scopes Monkey Trial’. John Scopes was a teacher accused of teaching evolution when a law called the Butler Act forbid its teaching in state schools. While the immediate aftermath of the trial meant that evolution was passed over in many school textbooks in the 1920s and 1930s, this changed with the 1958 National Defense Education Act. The act secured the place of evolution within the US school science curriculum. Philip Allan Publishers © 2016 Creationism in science education (2) In 1968 creationism and references to Genesis were excluded from the school curriculum by a US Supreme Court decision. Since the 1970s there have been repeated attempts by fundamentalist Christians to portray creationism as an alternative science and get religion back into public education. In 2005 a federal court in Pennsylvania ruled against the inclusion of intelligent design alongside the teaching of evolution by the Dover Area School Board of Directors. Education continues to be a battleground between religion and science in the USA. This is despite the overwhelming majority of scientists, whether they be atheist, agnostic or theistic, seeing creationist and intelligent design arguments as pseudoscience. Philip Allan Publishers © 2016