What is it that is so upsetting about evolution to many of faith? The faithful are given much leeway in measuring the 6,000 year old universe or earth in terms of eons as after all simply a poetic expression to account for geological time. Surely, if the papists can accept the poetry, why not the Christian fundamentalists? Though there is archeological evidence that homo-sapiens existed some 100, 000 years ago and more primitive forms even longer, one is free to posit Adam and Eve came later in a more perfect form in order to launch an advanced civilization beyond the prehistoric.
It is even conceivable that the great meteor that wiped out prehistoric creatures was a form of “divine intervention” — bringing with it a new chain of DNA of humankind from outer space to remake the world more closely to what we perceive today. There is no rule that requires one to take the Bible literally anymore than we are required to interpret literally mythology or the Constitution. The word of God is but an epistemological venture into making sense out of the world: a firm, or if you will, a devout belief that human experience has meaning, a purpose, just as a scientist perceives the effectiveness of order in “natural selection.”
To have any scientific validity, the matrix of evolution is a systemic selection of set backs and progression —allowing room for chaos and accident, which can be perceived as trial and error — from which discrete identities shape a larger panorama of order. One of faith can readily believe this to be the will of God. Of course, the scientist does not have the luxury to declare absolute truth, though some do, but can tentatively postulate an underlying “intelligence” or mathematics that holds together, much like ineluctable gravity, an apparent purpose, however volatile in face of existential threats of a universe consisting of calamitous events.
In this sense, scientists are no more pessimistic, nor no less optimistic than the prophets of doom or promise. However reassuring faith may be, there is always the message: be wary of unintended consequence.
Copyright © 2005 Richard R. Kennedy All rights reserved. Revised: November 25, 2005.
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