http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6173399/Charles-Darwin-film-too-controversial-for-religious-America.html

The article does make some very good points. In America, religion rules. This can be seen especially today with the massive political upheaval of the recent elections, where we’ve got the “religious right” (mainly Christian, which I’m most familiar with) against the “secular left” fighting it out to the bitter end. What I have been trying to understand is why do less than half of all Americans believe in Evolution and how can we solve this? Is there a glaring and unrecoverable conflict between Evolution and Christianity? Is there any scientific evidence supporting either side? Is this an irrational, fearful reaction in the face of the unexpected and the new? And more importantly, why is it most Americans are so against Evolution while almost everyone else in the world has happily accepted the theory?

What is Evolution?

To make sure we’re on the same page, I want to specify the definition of ‘believe’ here. I’m going with Webster’s second definition:

b : to accept as true, genuine, or real .”¹,

When I talk about belief in Evolution, I’m simply talking about the acceptance of the scientific evidence in favor of Evolution, nothing religious.

Also, this post will be mostly on Biological Evolution, but will touch on the general idea of Young Earth and the Big Bang Theory.

Lets start with a quick primer on what Evolution actually is. First laid out in Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859, it’s the theory that states (paraphrased):

Biological evolution … is change in the properties of populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a single individual. The ontogeny of an individual is not considered evolution; individual organisms do not evolve. The changes in populations that are considered evolutionary are those that are inheritable via the genetic material from one generation to the next.²

The Theory of Evolution is the theory that species change over time. This change manifests itself in random mutations of the DNA defining an organism, which is passed down to offspring. If these mutations are harmful, the offspring don’t survive. If these mutations are neutral, or even beneficial to the organism, it survives to pass down these changes to it’s offspring, a process known as Survival of the Fittest. Following this process over thousands and even millions of years results in the diversity of life we see today.

Evolution today is used to explain a myriad of observations we’ve made in the biological world, from why there are hundreds of different species of pigeons, some slightly different, others completely different, yet definitely all pigeon, to why virii are impossible to vaccinate against and why cancer is such a brutal and difficult disease to fight.

So if Evolution is so successful in describing the biological we live in, why isn’t it more accepted here in the States, and in some cases attacked as a tool of Evil? Lets look at the Christian counter-argument known as Creationism.

Creationism

I used to be a Creationist. I was brought up in a rather conservative Christian home, and as the prevailing view of the Beginning of the Universe was Creationism, I naturally accepted and followed these beliefs. What follows is what I used to believe, and what I know about the movement.

Creationism has very simple roots: Genesis 1:1 (NIV).

In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth.

What follows in verses two to the end of the chapter is a day-by-day account of what God created on each day, creating the entire Earth and everything on it, in six days. Creationists take this account literally, in that it took six days, as we define “day,” for God to create the Earth and all living things. They also believe that, as each day starts with “and God said…,” we all appeared here one day by the whim and will of God. Picture it as a blank sheet of paper, and start drawing animals, plants, and people. There was nothing, then there was everything.

Creationism’s biggest beef with Evolution is that Evolution seems to take God completely out of the picture. They commonly argue that Evolution says we’re “all here by accident” or “we’re a product of random chance.” They claim that because of this, Evolution goes directly against the Bible and thus (in the most extreme of cases) claim that Satan introduced Evolution into the scientists’ minds to drive people away from Christ. Past this, the next most popular argument Creationists have against Evolution is the idea of a biological part being unevolvable, such as the eyeball, saying Evolution cannot be true because the eyeball is so complex that it has to either exist, or not exist, there is no half-way-point because, according to Evolution, the part would have been deemed bad and been phased out many generations ago.

Where do I stand in this?

I’m still a Christian, but I can no longer accept the Creationist claims. I owe this change-of-mind to two books: Language of God by Francis S. Collins and Only a Theory by Kenneth R. Miller. These books showed me that one can believe in Evolution, and still be a Christian. For anyone on the fence, these are great books to start with, and what follows is a quick run down of the major arguments for Evolution, and how they fit into the Christian world-view.

Problems with Literal Bible Interpretations

Christianity has a very poor track record when it comes to literal translations of the Bible. The most poignant, and relevant, example would be the stories of Copernicus and Galileo. They had the audacity to suggest that the Earth actually revolves around the Sun, contradicting a long standing teaching of the Church that the Earth is obviously the center of the Universe, because the Bible says so. We all know how that one turned out.

So following this, are Creationists making another mistake in taking the Bible literally? It would appear so, as the first two chapters of Genesis give two (arguably three) different creation accounts.

Genesis 1:1 –

In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth.

Gensis 1:2-31 –

• Day 1 – Light and Dark
• Day 2 – Land and Air
• Day 3 – Sea and Land, Vegitation
• Day 4 – Sun Moon and Stars
• Day 5 – Water Animals and Birds
• Day 6 – Land Animals and Man
• Day 7 – Rest

Genesis 2 –

• Earth and Water
• Man
• Vegitation
• Animals
• Woman

While the comparison isn’t one-to-one, it’s easy to see that the order of events do not match up. If one is to attempt to take the Bible completely literally, this is a difficult contradiction to overcome.

Other arguments against literal interpretations of the Bible include discussions of the Hebrew writing style, mainly that they wrote more in poems and stories, and that the writers were less concerned about factual accounts, but as I am not knowledgeable in this I’ll leave it at that.

Evolution’s “Random Chance”

A major misconception that is proving very difficult to dispel is this idea that Evolution is a completely random process. This idea couldn’t be farther from the truth. Most Evolution nay-sayers completely forget about, or do not completely understand, the concept of Survival of the Fittest. All mutations are put through the most strenuous of tests: surviving and reproducing. When mutations pass this test, they get fully integrated into that gene pool and thrive. When the mutations fail the test, the organism(s) die off and the mutation is lost. The key point here is that most mutations fail the test due to the random nature of the process mixed with the very complex nature of DNA.

Due to this, were our evolutionary process to be done over, we most assuredly wouldn’t be exactly the same, but fish would still be shaped like they are (for efficient movement through water) and birds would have wings and probably hollow bones (for light-weight and moving through the air). The limits imposed on organisms by the world they live in are what drive evolution failures and successes, we are not the direct result of a few thousand random mutations, we are the result of a select subset of mutations that survived among the millions that allowed us to survive and thrive in our environment.

Unevolvability

Another common argument against Evolution is this idea of “unevolvability.” Creationists say that there are biological components (the eye and bacteria flagellum, to name two) that simply cannot have evolved because if a single part is missing, the component is useless. Useless parts, of course, are not favored in Evolution and thus, these parts should not exist.

This is actually a very true statement, which lends towards it’s strength in the Creationism world. However, there is a very pivotal assumption being made in this argument that Evolutionists have found to be a false one. This is the assumption that the parts of these components are only useful in the component they’re found in today. I’ll paraphrase the argument made in Language of God on how a bacteria’s flagellum actually did evolve to show this point.

Flagellum³ is a collection of proteins used to propel bacteria through it’s environment in a rotating and/or whip-like manner. This is obviously a very complicated system, and if any of the many parts were to be missing, this locomotion would not be possible. This does not disprove Evolution though, because scientists have actually found parts of the flagellum being put to completely different uses⁴. For example, scientists have found a similar sub-construct being used as a secretion system.

I’ll admit this can be hard to understand for those of us who aren’t medically versed, but the point is this: the process of Evolution periodically takes a working and capable part, and mutates it to be something completely different. There is a lot we do not know about this process, but there is very strong evidence that biological constructs previously thought to be unevolvable are in fact a direct product of the evolution of various other constructs. For further information, here’s Wikipedia’s page on the evolution of the eye.

What Evolution Does Not Cover

Given all this, there are still a few points that Evolution and Science in general does not yet have answers for. Among these are:

1. How did life itself get started from a lifeless ball of rock orbiting a burning ball of gas?
2. The Big Bang. Something exploded, but where did that something come from?

If we can figure out how to answer question #1, that would be the biggest breakthrough in all of Science: the ability to create life. This of course has some very far reaching moral, religions, and philosophical issues to work through, for if Man can create life from lifelessness, does that new life have rights like the rest of us? And what does that mean for Man itself, the ownership of a life form, etc?

As for question #2, I’m not sure if that question can be answered scientifically. As our viewing technology gets more sophisticated, we can see closer and closer to Time Zero, but how do you see anything before the Big Bang and is there anything to really see?

What I Believe

So given all this, how exactly does my Christianity work with current scientific knowledge? I believe that God used and continues to use Evolution in our Universe (even outside of the Earth? we may never know, but there’s nothing stopping God from such a thing). I believe that there had to be something that God created out of the nothing that was the Void, and that this thing eventually exploded in the Big Bang.

I believe that at a certain point in our Evolutionary history, God had on his hands beings that were advanced enough intellectually to understand Him and to worship Him. He embodied these beings with souls and named them Adam and Eve, starting what we know call the Human Race.

I believe that God gave us Science and infinitely inquisitive minds and as such it’s impossible for Science to in any way disprove the existence of God. We are simply learning about the world that He put us in. Any scientific finding that seems to go against my personal beliefs should be a cause of reflection on the discovery and on the beliefs I hold, not of immediate rejection of the science in question.

Going Forward

So what can I do to help fix the state of affairs in this country? I can educate people. Talk with friends, discuss with family, and encourage people to branch out. I’ve found that the best way for me to strengthen my faith is to doubt what I believe. With doubt comes uncertainty, and the mind hates uncertainty, and will crave resolution, which requires more information. When I can take this one further and can get other people to doubt their fundamental ideals, the discussions and debates that follow can only help to strengthen my beliefs. If I can get a few people to change their thinking, they’ll do the same with others.

I realize that fanatics and extremist will always exist, but the key to defeating them is to ignore them, to defuse their movements. If they’re yelling at people, and no-ones listening, they’ll eventually go away. This won’t be easy, but it’s necessary if this country is going to stay the leader in scientific advancements.

Evolution is the process God put in place to bring about life on this Earth.

1. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/believe
2. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-definition.html
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellum
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_flagella