Terrapin Tables

I am making a leap into the world of posting on this site because I am intrigued by the whole concept of evolution. I never gave it much thought until I lived in Micronesia for a year. I swear that I saw evolution before my own eyes on those tiny islands in the Pacific. Here's my theory: Micronesians still have MUCH wider feet than, say, Americans do because they haven't been forced to evolve like other people's feet. The reasons make perfect sense: 1) for the most part, they dont wear shoes and, if they do, they are flip-flops and 2), what I see as more important, in general, micronesians use their feet to do a hell of a lot more climbing than we do. When thirsty, especially in the outer islands, they simply climb a tree for some coconuts. Their feet look like hands the way they use them to maneuver up trees. (oh wow, I can only imagine the comments that will be made after this post!) I can further attest to this theory by the fact that Elizabeth (my daughter, whose father is Micronesian), definately has wider feet than your average American kid! So, yes, I guess I do beleive in evolution. As far as it contradicting some religions... well that is a bigger question than I can handle right now!!

OK...so I go back and forth on this issue, but I have no clue, and will never know. On a somewhat related subject, this is George's rant about those fish on the back of cars. It is pretty funny. I like this line:

"Evololution, Bah!" it mocks, "perhaps you're not familiar with my friend Jesus."

Funny...

I made my mind up on this a while back and spent a long time trying to reconcile it with my religious beliefs. I wholeheartedly support evolution and have finally given up trying to reconcile it with what's in the Bible; science is right, the Bible is wrong. I actually went to a seminar once (not at my own choosing) where a man who looked very much like Abe Lincoln spoke for three hours on this very topic. He convinced, it seemed, and entire audience (short me) that the neat layers of fossils of dinosaurs were the result of the Great Flood and that carbon dating was wrong. Instead of those fossils being millions of years old, they were only a few thousand years old. If I hadn't been so afraid of being lynched by a mob of angry Christian fundamentalists I would have laughed out loud.

I know I've spoken to Fatboy about this already several times, but I'm definitely a supporter of evolution regardless of what the Bible says (although it is hard for me to conceptualize the tiemframes involved). When I started to seriously question the Bible, it was sometimes difficult to stop accepting it, but now I just look at it like this: the Bible can still serve as a great moral guide. It can also serve as a historical resource. But I just don't take certain parts of it literally.

Well, I definitely believe in evolution. I'm about as sure as you can be that we're a type of ape, closely related to chimpanzees, and descended from the same common ancestor. I don't believe this contradicts my religion, as long as you don't take everything in the bible to be literal. Take a look at this article to see an interpretation of a statment the Pope made in '96, not endorsing evolution, but stating that it doesn't contradict Catholic religion. Actually, take a look at this article, too. It's got a kind of amusing line at the end, warning people not to try and be more Catholic than the pope.

What strikes me, though, is how many people don't believe in evolution, in a supposedly scientific society, especially when their decision is not influenced by religion. Granted, people are all entitled to their own opionions, and we shouldn't blindly accept any theory- scientific or otherwise. But when there's so much evidence supporting a theory, how can you not accept it? I mean, most people accept that the earth revolves around the sun, without ever having gone out in to space to observe it directly. So with all the fossil & genetic evidence (genes themselves being a good indication- why else would every life form use DNA/RNA), why do people have a hard time accepting evolution?

I agree with you Fatboy, but I guess it is hard for some people to give up something they have believed in. What they should do is to just assume that it was God's idea to start this evolution thing, and that the people who wrote the bible just thought it was a weak story, so they made up some shit. Everybody wins!

Yeah, I guess people have a really hard time changing long held beliefs. Especially under the influence of people like Mike described- who lecture or write articles, that sound plausible to the uneducated, but fall apart under scientific scrutiny- since it gives them something to hold onto.

Interesting topic. I “believe” in evolution to the extent that I believe many other theories. If fact, I probably believe evolution is true more than most other theories. The reason for the quotation marks is to impart that it is not the case that I know it is true and perhaps will someday believe it isn’t true. Knowledge typically progresses in one of two ways. Existing theories are replaced by those that either (1) cover a broader scope of phenomena, which often means the existing theory is a special case of the new theory, or (2) solve problems that existing theories either cannot solve or create. I like to think one ought to believe in theories that both cover broad scopes of phenomena and avoid problems. Perhaps evolution will later be discovered to be just a piece of a larger theory, or perhaps the problems evolution can’t solve (are there many of these? Certainly none as problematic as older astronomical/physical theories and retrograde motion, right?) will be solved by another theory. Either way, I’m willing to hear the arguments for other theories. As for how evolution jives with religion, I think theism, generally speaking, is perfectly compatible with evolution. However, most forms of theism (that I’ve encountered, anyway) tend to stand at odds with evolution. Can one be a Christian and still believe in evolution? I don’t know, but my guess is that it depends on what makes one a Christian? Is it strict adherence to taking the bible literally (as some Christians would suggest), or is it strict adherence to taking other parts of the bible literally (as other Christians would suggest), or is it someone who tries to take lessons from the bible and apply them to their lives (as still other Christians would suggest)? Depending on who “counts” as a Christian, belief in evolution may be more or less compatible.

It’s pretty clear that Mike has stuggled with this issue to an extent larger than I have (and based on the responses, my guess is that he’s struggled to an extent larger than Rick has too). I don’t envy that struggle, in fact, mine was pretty quick (it wasn’t Christianity in particular, but rather Judaism at first and then religion in general). Ah the lengths one will go to save their theory.

Fatboy writes: “I don't believe this contradicts my religion, as long as you don't take everything in the bible to be literal” I find this to be an odd statement from Fatboy, considering that he seems to base other justifications of his beliefs on the bible. A while ago he and I had an exchange regarding our differences in beliefs on another issue (I believe you still owe me an answer, by the way) and his ultimate justification for that belief was the bible. Now it seems that he wants to pick and choose when he should believe the bible as literal word and when he should show some discretion in agreeing with it. This speaks to a larger issue on whether one should take the bible literally? It seems to me that by not taking all of the bible literally, one implicitly is conceding that not all of it is (literally) true and that what is to be considered as true (or even believed, for that matter) is a matter of judgment on someone’s part (you, your parents, some established individual, etc). Such subjectivity renders it impossible to use the bible for one’s ultimate justification for anything. In other words, admitting the bible isn’t right about everything is a slippery slope to not being able to use it to as the final justification for anything at all.

Overall, I don’t think evolution needs to oppose theism in general, or Christianity in general, but I do think we all need to reevalutate on what grounds we use as our justification for belief. On a related note, I don’t think that things like evolution (or any other “scientific” theory) pose the biggest problems for believing in the bible. Rather, I think the more significant problems are internal to the bible. Ironically enough, the first link Fatboy provides in his reply about translating languages and the pope’s comments justifies what I think to be one of the more powerful criticisms in believing in the literal truth to the bible.

Personally, I try not to "pick and choose" which parts of the bible I believe based on convenience. Rather, I try to interpret each section that I read, and through prayer come to grips with whether it's literal, poetic, or possibly even not the inspired word of God. Many christians will disagree with me, especially citing 2 Timothy 3:15-17 (please excuse that this is King James, and not a modern translation), but the problem with that verse is that it was written by a man, and is not a quote of Jesus or the Father, so it doesn't have anything to back it up. And yes, it is hard to interpret the bible. That is not to say that you shouldn't try, or that you can't use it as justification- you just have to be careful how you do it, and be ready to accept the fact that your interpretation may be wrong, and be ready to change your interpretation. And definitely don't expect others to necessarily have the same interpretation as you.

But to get back to evolution, I see there being enough evidence that the question is not whether evolution occurs, but rather what the mechanisms of evolution are. As an example, if you find a dead man in a room with a bullet wound, you can be reasonably sure that the man was shot. There may be questions as to who shot him, why, and what not, but you can pretty certain about that one fact. Just like in evolution. By looking at the fossil & genetic evidence, not to mention documented cases of speciation & short term evolution, we can be pretty sure that evolution occurs. Did all animals evolved from a single common ancestor? What exactly do the family trees look like? What exactly are the mechanisms of evolution (punctuated equilibrium vs. gradual change)? These are all up for debate. But the evidence strongly indicates that evolution has occured and is occuring on this planet.

I just thought of a better example. Consider gravity. Through observation, we're all fairly certain that it exists. Newton's laws did a good job of explaining it, but have since been found to be a specialized subset of Einstein's theories, which may later be found to be a special subset of some other theories. But all of those theories will explain gravity- an observed phenomenon.

Evolution is an observed phenomenon (most of it indirectly through fossil evidence, but then again most of our observations are indirect by taking on faith others' observations). Any theory of evolution must take into account the observed phenomenon, but the theory is meant to explain those observations.

One more thing (I now have half of the responses to my own thread):

My original intent of this thread was to get an idea of how many people believed that evolution occured, and then as an aside, how they thought it affected/was affected by religion.

So so far, the summary is as follows:

Denise: Yes, it occurs, no comment on religion.
Pat: Unsure, no mention of religion.
Mike: Yes, contradicts religion.
Rick: Yes, unsure of religion.
Fatboy: Yes, doesn't contradict religion.
Roy: Possibly, can contradict some religions, but not necessarily all.

Is there anyone else who wants to weigh in on their doubt/certainity in just the fact that evolution occurs, because that's really what I'd like to get a feel for?

Oh
My
God

I also believe that evolution occurred, and is occurring. I think Roy's point about examining our justification for belief is excellent. When science first replaced religion as the basis of belief it revolved around the physical world and explaining or supporting quantifiable, physical objects or processes. The fact that one could observe what was happening and the same result could be observed by another was reason enough to believe. Now, things are changing, we have begun to exhaust the objects and processes in the physical world that our eyes can see or our devices observe. I think science is presenting us with an interesting challenge: how do we accept what we can't yet see? I say yet because I think we are not at end end point looking back, there is more to be discovered and many things are possible. (Here is an article from 2002 on current technology in astronomy allowing scientists to test theories of cosmology.)

As several of you have noted, there are many theories, and a great number of theories are now changing due to new discoveries and information. For example, the physics world is dealing with the fact that the experimenter's own beliefs on the results of an experiment affect the outcome, and what that means for our reality. (Here is an interesting article about the universe existing if we are not looking. There is an interesting book out by a Japanese scientist that takes pictures of molecules of water after people have projected their thoughts onto them. Ones that had the label of love or peace were more symmetrical than ones that had the label of hate or chaos in which almost no pattern was distinguishable. If I can find it, I'll post it too.) But I digress...

I guess my point is that everything is interconnected. Religion is part of our evolution. As we progress in science, it has an impact on our daily lives, which necessarily relates to our beliefs. Presently, with with the globalization of information through media and the Internet, the barriers that once separated people and created a need for indiviudalized belief systems ("organized religion") are now hindering us more than helping us. As Pat said, it can be hard for people to give up something they have believed in, but I think that the fact that people are blindly following beliefs they have always believed in is causing more strife than harmony. So in terms of evolution and religion, I think we may be on the cusp of taking an evolutionary leap and reevaluating how we interact with one another. Yes, I am talking on a very large scale here guys. I don't think people will wake up next week and say "Gosh, I think I will throw out my heritage and start looking at the world in a new way," and it very well may not even happen in our lifetime, but I think if we were able to look back to now from a point in time beyond this we would see how it fits into the bigger picture and recognize that the potential is there.

As for the bible itself, I think most of it is to be taken figuratively. The teachings once had a place in societies that relied on faith being the ultimate judge, an eye for an eye, etc. and more literal interpretations of the bible were necessary. Since then, we have had the formal separation of church and state and we have evolved to societies that have complex legal and judicial systems that act as the primary means of exercising order. How individuals combine, or choose not to combine, their personal religious beliefs and the society they live in is wholly up to them – and it is that choice (free will) that may or may not bring us to collectively take the next step in our evolution: scientific, religious or otherwise.

Oops. It's too early on a Saturday to be typing. Here's that first article's link again.

For the record, I will put in my vote for evolution. If for no other reason than the fact that there seems to be physical proof to support evolution, where I'm not sure the same can be said for the whole creation notion. As for the bible, just like everything else, and just like every other religion, some people take what they construe as the word of their diety too seriously.

I don't really have the vigor for an outright diatribe today.