The Houston Chronicle ran one of those editorial pages today in which you have two contrary viewpoints side-by-side. Today there was a pro-evolution editorial next to an anti-evolution one. The pro-evolution essay was written by William Brinkley, the dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. With the headline "Dismal science education explains dispute over Darwin" it is a reasonable look at the current debate about teaching evolution in school and says nothing particularly controversial. He ends it with "For the most part, I generally agree with the late Stephen Jay Gould, science and religion are two non-overlapping magisteria that do not dance well together but can remain best of friends."
The anti-evolution piece however, is just way over the top. It is written by Kelly Coghlan, a lawyer. Not just any lawyer however, his website is www.christianattorney.com and is scary to say the least. His article is entitled "Teach weaknesses that Darwin saw in [his] own theory." It is so poor one really doesn't know where to start. What do weaknesses that Darwin saw in his theory have to do with anything? He has been dead a long time and the field has moved on a lot. Probably the biggest weakness Darwin saw in his own theory was that he had to hypothesize a method of passing on traits that could randomly mutate from generation to generation and in his day there was no such thing known about. Perhaps we could teach children about that and how he anticipated the discovery of DNA. Somehow I doubt that is what Coghlan is talking about. But what is he talking about? I have no idea. He manages to imply that folks who accept the evidence that evolution happens through natural selection are more likely to be serial murderers. And no, I am not kidding. How did the Chronicle decide this merited publication?
The thing Coghlan shows most clearly is how this is not about science at all, but about religion. He implies that evolution is an atheistic theory and that teaching about the theory's alleged "weaknesses" would make it less likely for students to become serial killing atheists. If this were all about science, then if they did teach students about these "weaknesses" surely the lesson taught would be about how science is working its way through the "weakness" to find an alternate explanation rather then invoking God to replace the science with mythology.
Almost a Literalist
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I think this is one of the best cartoons on so-called Biblical literalism I
have ever seen (HT Experimental Theology). You may need to click through to
get...
9 hours ago
3 comments:
You know, if I wanted this kind of debate to have any real credibility, I would have invited a theologian, preferably one with biological science training, to write the anti-evolution case, not a lawyer. It's not as though there aren't plenty of them around. But maybe they wanted the anti-evolution case to look ridiculous? :-)
There was a much better debate/discussion about evolution on the Unbelievable? podcast this last weekend. April mentioned this show on her blog a while back and I've been listening for a few weeks. Every week they feature a "debate" between a "mainstream" Christian and a non-Christian about a subject and this week it was about whether believing in evolution leads to atheism. So there was a theistic evolution fellow on and a atheist evolution guy. It is a British show from a Christian radio network and the debates are sometimes interesting and always very polite and respectful of the opposing opinions. Not one mention of serial killers in the discussion of evolution there!
Hello. I found your blog while looking for a seminar that would explore the weaknesses of evolution theory. It seems to me that evolution has major problems from what I read, but whenever these are raised the response is to shout down the objector instead of presenting facts that show why the objections are wrong. Worst of all are the "debates" such as that one mentioned in your post with both persons talking past each other.
Now, I'm 57, reasonably well-educated and, I like to think, intelligent; I'm a Christian who was brought up being taught that evolution is true (I was also taught in 10th grade biology that life begins at conception, but that is another matter), the point is that I believe that a person can be a Christian and believe in evolution. I know longer think that evolution is true (an aside is necessary here. I do make a distinction between what is commonly referred to as "macro-evolution" and "micro-evolution", accepting the latter while having severe doubts about the former. I realize that such a distinction is anathema to some evolutionists but then that is part of what I wish to learn. No one that I know disputes micro-evolution). I also am a lawyer (not Mr. Coghlan, however). I think that I am capable of "handling the truth", and would like to find a class that explored the weaknesses of evolution in a dispassionate, objective manner. Do you know of such a course?
Another thing that interests me that you mentioned in your post is the "serial killer" issue. From what I have read and understand, the problem of providing a basis for moral or ethical beliefs in the absence of God (however you define him or her) has not been satisfactorily solved. In essence, it doesn't make a damn one way or another what one does, does it? How do you solve this? If you have answered this elsewhere, I apologize for being too lazy to have looked (and perhaps in thinking myself a trifle too illiterate in the use of the computer to have found it).
Because I am not a frequenter of blogs, permit me to apologize if I have committed some sin of blogging manners in this post. I am truly interested in these issues and do not have a particular ax to grind. Thanks for the oppotunity to post and to interject this note into your blog.
Mark D. Wilson
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