A few weeks ago, (in May 2006) there was some talk on the Internet about the issue of Intelligent Design and whether it should be allowed to be taught in school classrooms. Now that June is about half over, I finally got around to reading the May 2006 Discover Magazine. It also had something to say on this topic. It was no surprise to have a science magazine put down the concept of Intelligent Design and be against its presence with other scientific theories such as evolution. My big surprise was in what I ran across on the Internet, even the Pope does not endorse intelligent design or creationism as topics for schools.
The common idea is this, religion is religion, science is science and they should never mix. Religious scholars say that the creation story is just that. A story that early humans have created to try to explain how we all got here. How quaint. Hey, afterall every people group all around the world have their own accounts of the beginning of the world, and they can be pretty creative, interesting, funny, you name it, anything but scientific. Religious scholars just say to accept our world as God's gift and don't try to explain it all away. Picking away at it with scientific theory would just ruin the beauty of it. Scientists have mixed ideas, but generally feel it has no scientific support.
I say that no matter how wise people think they are, God is more so. Go ahead, pick away. The elements of the creation story not only have foundation in science, it is the framework that all science is based upon. The creation story as found in Genesis says that living things reproduce after their own kind. Plants, animals, birds, creeping things, in their own way reproduce copies of other living things that are just like them. Sure, you can mix breeds. Horses and donkeys make mules. Tigers and lions make ligers. Seriously, there is such an animal. The thing is though, the products of those animals are sterile. They can never reproduce. Therefore the idea of evolution from one species to another is a fantasy. Am I against evolution? No, but I'll have to explain later. By the end of this article my stand on evolution might be more plain.
The structure of the creation story is not intended to give the recipe of how life sprang forth from the earth, it just says that it did. It doesn't say how the earth and seas became separated, or how the planets and heavenly bodies came to gravitate together, it just says that they did. It doesn't say how any of it was done other than God spoke and his words made it happen. The order of events though should be considered the framework of the events that got us from dark and void, to operational, complex organisms.
For science to throw out intelligent design is to throw out the blueprints of everything. It is like saying that a sky scraper exists, it is made up of many elements and many molecules. Somehow its grains of sand, limestone, clay, silicone, steel wood and a host of other things just sprang from the earth as these items randomly gathered together. Maybe the sky scraper evolved from a house. It grew over time and evolved as it adapted to its environment to become a skyscraper.
The sky scraper analogy is not entirely wrong. All the elements that make up a huge, multistory building all come from the earth. They were indeed all gathered all to one place to be assembled so that it would result in a sky scraper. When science ignores intelligent design, they ignore the person, in this case people, who were involved in pulling off a task as big as building such a structure. Many people are involved. Contractors to lay bricks, hang drywall, pipe fitters, iron workers. The manufacturers who process raw materials like wood, cement brick and mortar from the earth and deliver it to the building site.
Ignoring intelligent design leaves out the one single person who really is responsible for the whole thing. The architect who began with nothing but an idea, then drew out some plans and through his words, communicated what he needed done, and made it happen.
So how did the cells of raw material evolve into a sky scraper? Wow, the processes are many and varied. Does that discount the fact that an archetect had anidea and a plan? No. Did a small tar paper hut get built, then added upon until it evolved into a house. Then added to and built upon until it became a huge sky scraper? No. In concept though, yes. First an apprentice might be given a task of building a small house. Once the project is perfected, he might face the challenge of a bigger, mpore complex structure. So new plans are called for. A fresh foundation is made. Bigger, better, stronger materials are called for and away it goes. Eventually expertise and experience leads to massive structures like a sky scraper. The idea evolved, not the physical materials.
I've heard it said that humans share 95% of our DNA with apes. Does that mean we evolved from apes? No. Not any more than a skyscraper evolved from a split level ranch house out in the suburbs. They share a lot of the very same elements in their construction. Concrete, plaster, wood, iron etc. They were designed from scratch to be two different things. We are also said to share 50% of our DNA with a banana. So now where does that take us? The only thing I can say is that we all sprang forth from the earth. I wonder what is the DNA of the earth.
Science is always looking for the missing link that connects complex life forms with single cell life forms like bacteria. The creation story says life just came forth from the earth. There is a circle of life where a seed enters the earth, is nurished, grows, reproduces, withers and dies. It's cells breakdown and the organic material becomes nutrient rich soil for yet another seed to fall into it and start the process all over again. That cycle for plants is easy to understand. The real missing link is to figure out what conditions on earth had to have existed to make a animal spring forth from the earth. Animals need a time for incubation to grow at least enough to leave the womb, or hatch from the egg. There is still a further period where protection from predators and even the environment is required until enough survival skills are learned to fend for ourselves. What kind of environment has to exist for such a thing to happen? A garden paradise flowing with milk and honey? The Garden of Eden? At least a place where even a newly born infant could find enough ready and easy to eat food. Is it possible for geological conditions to exist that would bring together all the minerals and other elements that are found in the human body, and keep it alive until it was fully incubated? Is that just too bizarre a thing to consider? Does it stretch the concept of science to think such a thing? Does it go against the creation story? It makes more sense to me to think that it could happen, more than the idea that a complex being evolved from a single cell bacteria. It even follows the creation story. If true, we were formed in the earth and sprang forth from it, just like Genesis says. Why don't we still see new kinds of critters just kind of popping out of the ground? Why haven't we found some kind of underground deposit of some half grown animal embreos? For one, today's geological conditions are not conducive to such a life cycle process. But maybe it once was, that is all I'm saying. As the creation story puts it, on the seventh day God rested from creation.
The concepts layed out in the creation story should be introduced into science classrooms as an outline. It contains the major points of progression of how the universe as we know it went from darkness, void, and utter chaos to where we are today. It never tries to spell out the mechanics of how things happened, just the order of events. If we are curious, it is up to us to figure out what happened. It is an issue that is interesting, but in the end, we live our lives in the present. An ever escaping time as we hurl forward into the future. Learning from the past is useful to help guide decisions away from past mistakes. Understanding where we came from can help us figure out where we are headed. Dwelling in the past is futile since it can not be changed. For good, bad or otherwise, the deeds that brought us to this point are done and unchangeable. Learn, live and grow in mind, spirit and body.