The Genesis order- day and night (sun and moon- explained in v. 16) sky/space earth and vegetation constellations- arrangement of stars/ v. 16 is the explanation of v.5 on day 1 (sun and moon) creatures man-woman I don't know if I have it correct either. And I said I do believe in the literal account of creation in Genesis, but I said I based it upon what Jesus said about it not what I understand of the first 20 verses. I can list many verses I don't understand they don't bother me. It is the verses I do understand that cause me the most concern. The words of Jesus Christ in the Gospels convinced me of Genesis not my own interpretation of the account. And I don't want it to turn into a 'Christianity is true' either. You should believe what you want. We are both comfortable in our positions and you may be alot happier than me now anyway.
so for you, Faith > Reason thats cool with me - just I dont think that viewpoint should be the basis for what is taught in public school science class
Evangelical Scientist Refute Gravity with New "Intelligent Falling" Theory KANSAS CITY, KS—As the debate over the teaching of evolution in public schools continues, a new controversy over the science curriculum arose Monday in this embattled Midwestern state. Scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning are now asserting that the long-held "theory of gravity" is flawed, and they have responded to it with a new theory of Intelligent Falling. "Things fall not because they are acted upon by some gravitational force, but because a higher intelligence, 'God' if you will, is pushing them down," said Gabriel Burdett, who holds degrees in education, applied Scripture, and physics from Oral Roberts University. Burdett added: "Gravity—which is taught to our children as a law—is founded on great gaps in understanding. The laws predict the mutual force between all bodies of mass, but they cannot explain that force. Isaac Newton himself said, 'I suspect that my theories may all depend upon a force for which philosophers have searched all of nature in vain.' Of course, he is alluding to a higher power." Founded in 1987, the ECFR is the world's leading institution of evangelical physics, a branch of physics based on literal interpretation of the Bible. According to the ECFR paper published simultaneously this week in the International Journal Of Science and the adolescent magazine God's Word For Teens!, there are many phenomena that cannot be explained by secular gravity alone, including such mysteries as how angels fly, how Jesus ascended into Heaven, and how Satan fell when cast out of Paradise. The ECFR, in conjunction with the Christian Coalition and other Christian conservative action groups, is calling for public-school curriculums to give equal time to the Intelligent Falling theory. They insist they are not asking that the theory of gravity be banned from schools, but only that students be offered both sides of the issue "so they can make an informed decision." "We just want the best possible education for Kansas' kids," Burdett said. Proponents of Intelligent Falling assert that the different theories used by secular physicists to explain gravity are not internally consistent. Even critics of Intelligent Falling admit that Einstein's ideas about gravity are mathematically irreconcilable with quantum mechanics. This fact, Intelligent Falling proponents say, proves that gravity is a theory in crisis. "Let's take a look at the evidence," said ECFR senior fellow Gregory Lunsden."In Matthew 15:14, Jesus says, 'And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.' He says nothing about some gravity making them fall—just that they will fall. Then, in Job 5:7, we read, 'But mankind is born to trouble, as surely as sparks fly upwards.' If gravity is pulling everything down, why do the sparks fly upwards with great surety? This clearly indicates that a conscious intelligence governs all falling." Critics of Intelligent Falling point out that gravity is a provable law based on empirical observations of natural phenomena. Evangelical physicists, however, insist that there is no conflict between Newton's mathematics and Holy Scripture. "Closed-minded gravitists cannot find a way to make Einstein's general relativity match up with the subatomic quantum world," said Dr. Ellen Carson, a leading Intelligent Falling expert known for her work with the Kansan Youth Ministry. "They've been trying to do it for the better part of a century now, and despite all their empirical observation and carefully compiled data, they still don't know how." "Traditional scientists admit that they cannot explain how gravitation is supposed to work," Carson said. "What the gravity-agenda scientists need to realize is that 'gravity waves' and 'gravitons' are just secular words for 'God can do whatever He wants.'" Some evangelical physicists propose that Intelligent Falling provides an elegant solution to the central problem of modern physics. "Anti-falling physicists have been theorizing for decades about the 'electromagnetic force,' the 'weak nuclear force,' the 'strong nuclear force,' and so-called 'force of gravity,'" Burdett said. "And they tilt their findings toward trying to unite them into one force. But readers of the Bible have already known for millennia what this one, unified force is: His name is Jesus." http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4133&n=2
Busted flat in baton rouge, waiting for a train And i’s feeling nearly as faded as my jeans. Jesus thumbed a diesel down just before it rained, It rode us all the way to new orleans. I pulled my harpoon out of my dirty red bandanna, I was playing soft while Jesus sang the blues. Windshield wipers slapping time, I was holding Jesus’s hand in mine, We sang every song that driver knew. Gravity is just another word for God can do whatever He wants, Nothing don’t mean nothing honey if it ain’t gravity, now now. And feeling good was easy, lord, when he sang the blues, You know feeling good was good enough for me, Good enough for me and my Jesus mcgee.
It's not about being smart. All it takes is reading the past 600 replies (this thread + other thread) to see what usually happens .
sorry if it came across as a jackass. i should have deleted it a while ago. it was an off the cuff reaction.
I followed the link and found an unsupported article with no references. Is the article referring to Pakicetus inachus,Gandakasia, and Ichthyolestes? (P.D. Gingerich, N.A. Wells, D.E. Russell, and S.M.]. Shah, Science, Vol. 220, 1983, pp. 403-406. A.S. Romer, Vertebrate Paleontology, 3rd Ed., U. of Chicago Press, 1966, p. 244. R.M. West, Journal of Paleontology, Vol. 54, 1980, pp. 508-533. ) If so, a counter article was written here that tempers the findings. In the absence of a record or observation, whether two separate entities are ancestor/descendant or non-related/non-related depends on what you want to believe.
Then you don't believe in intelligent design. You are a young earth creationist. You should at least understand that intelligent design doesn't accept that the universe is 6000 years old, or that eve actually came from adam's rib. Or any other literal acceptance of Genesis. You believe in Young Earth Creationism which is the literal acceptance of Genesis. This position is at least as far away from true intelligent design as intelligent design is from Darwin, and probably much further.
correct (and if you will check my posts never said any different) ID science is separate from a literal view of Genesis, I understood this. ID science doesn't deal with Genesis as far as I know. However I think you should be fair in your assessment, I do believe in intelligent design specifically that God is intelligent. God created the universe and He did it with intelligence, design and moral reason. I do not consider myself necessarily a Young earth creationist that would imply a scientific belief in the creation. I have tried to always make clear that my belief was a religious belief and based upon the Bible. Simple as that. The fact that there is scientific observations that may line up with that belief is not in itself significant. My opinions primarily in this loooooooong thread have been to defend ID as an alternative view to evolution and to express creation as my view. I have not intended to persuade anyone to change their own mind. But I have intended to point out that evolution is not the only answer to the question of origins and I don't think it should be treated that way. I still personally believe also that there are many credible scientists whether they are religious or not who also have legitimate and significant scientific concerns with the theory of evolution. I can stand on the side of ID because I can observe the evidence of it throughout biology, physics and chemistry. If organic life and our ecosystem is so delicate, complex and specific in design by accident it is the mother of all accidents. If you were to take the scope of origins and what man knows about it- I think it would fit in a thimble.
[American Physical Society] is "...happy that the President's recent comments on the theory of intelligent design have been clarified. As Presidential Science Advisor John Marburger has explained, President Bush does not regard intelligent design as science. If such things are to be taught in the public schools, they belong in a course on comparative religion, which is a particularly appropriate subject for our children given the present state of the world." _______________ Intelligent Design and Evolution at the White House Original interview transcript ... Dr. John Marburger III, Presidential Science Advisor, tried to dispel the impact of the President's comments. On Aug. 2, The New York Times quoted a telephone interview with Marburger in which he said, "evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology" and "intelligent design is not a scientific concept." Certainly, no one doubts where Marburger stands. One might question whether the President takes Marbuger's scientific advice seriously, or is simply more concerned about pleasing a portion of the electorate. Marburger also spoke with Dr. Marvin Cohen, President of the American Physical Society, and recipient of the National Medal of Science from President Bush in 2002. In an Aug. 4 release, Cohen explains that the APS is "...happy that the President's recent comments on the theory of intelligent design have been clarified. As Presidential Science Advisor John Marburger has explained, President Bush does not regard intelligent design as science. If such things are to be taught in the public schools, they belong in a course on comparative religion, which is a particularly appropriate subject for our children given the present state of the world." It would be better to hear this directly from the President. Likely, the intelligent design advocates will ignore Marburger's explanation. Like the fabled little Dutch boy, Marburger, stuck his finger in the dike in hopes of saving the day. Unlike the brave boy, Marburger did not prevent the flood of print and electronic coverage that ensued. From August 2 to the present, Google-News tracked more than 1,800 articles, commentaries, and letters to the editor on intelligent design. That's about 120 per day since the President's remarks. In the days following the interview, major educational and scientific organizations issued statements that criticized the President for considering intelligent design as a viable alternative to evolution, for confusing religion with science, and for advocating that intelligent design be taught in schools. "President Bush, in advocating that the concept of 'intelligent design' be taught alongside the theory of evolution, puts America's schoolchildren at risk," says Fred Spilhaus, Executive Director of the American Geophysical Union. "Americans will need basic understanding of science in order to participate effectively in the 21st century world. It is essential that students on every level learn what science is and how scientific knowledge progresses." (AGU, Aug. 2, 2005) AGU is a scientific society comprising 43,000 Earth and space scientists. Likewise, the American Institute of Biological Sciences criticized the President: "Intelligent design is not a scientific theory and must not be taught in science classes," said AIBS president Dr. Marvalee Wake. "If we want our students to be able to compete in the global economy, if we want to attract the next generation into the sciences, we must make sure that we are teaching them science. We simply cannot begin to introduce non-scientific concepts into the science curriculum." (AIBS, Aug. 5, 2005) The American Institute of Biological Sciences was established as a national umbrella organization for the biological sciences in 1947 by 11 scientific societies as part of the National Academy of Sciences. An independent non-profit organization since 1954, it has grown to represent more than 80 professional societies and organizations with a combined membership exceeding 240,000 scientists and educators. (AIBS website) Science educators are equally dismayed. "The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), the world's largest organization of science educators, is stunned and disappointed that President Bush is endorsing the teaching of intelligent design - effectively opening the door for nonscientific ideas to be taught in the nation's K-12 science classrooms. We stand with the nation's leading scientific organizations and scientists, including Dr. John Marburger, the president's top science advisor, in stating that intelligent design is not science. Intelligent design has no place in the science classroom, said Gerry Wheeler, NSTA Executive Director." (NSTA, Aug. 3, 2005) NSTA has 55,000 members who teach science in elementary, middle and high schools as well as college and universities. The American Federation of Teachers, which represents 1.3 million pre-K through 12th grade teachers, was even harsher. "President Bush's misinformed comments on 'intelligent design' signal a huge step backward for science education in the United States. The president's endorsement of such a discredited, nonscientific view is akin to suggesting that students be taught the 'alternative theory' that the earth is flat or that the sun revolves around the earth. Intelligent design does not belong in the science classroom because it is not science." (AFT, Aug. 4, 2005) There is a problem here. Obviously, scientists and educators understand that intelligent design has no place in the classroom. Intelligent design is, simply, one of several varieties of creationism that offer religious explanations for the origin and current condition of the natural world. As such, it does not merit being taught alongside evolution as a "school of thought." There's significant legal precedent from US Supreme Court that creationism - in any clothing - does not belong in the American classrooms. Teaching creationism is in violation of the separation of church and state, and has been ruled illegal by the US Supreme Court in several cases. It's unfortunate that the President apparently does not understand that science is not equivalent to a belief system but is description of how the natural world works. Creationism, including intelligent design, is a religious point of view, not science. At a time when industrial, academic, and business leaders are calling for more American students to train in engineering, mathematics, science and technology, we need to teach science in science classrooms. Let's teach the scientific ideas that are supported by overwhelming evidence such as gravitation, relativity, quantum mechanics, and evolution. Creationist ideas/beliefs, such as intelligent design, don't belong in science classrooms. In our haste to leave no child behind, let's not leave science behind either. link
As you can tell this subject is pretty engrossing to me so I try to limit my time here so I can get things like work and sleep done so I apologize for not back to you sooner. I also wanted to add that I appreciate you and Mad Max's responses and respect their sincerity even if I don't agree with them. That said I've already explained why I find the reasoning behind ID troubling form a scientific standpoint but I find this post very troubling from a spiritual standpoint. As you know I'm not a Christian and won't pretend to know much about Christianity but from a spiritual standpoint I don't see why you or anyone else should take offense or be really troubled regarding the secular nature of science and the Theory of Evolution. I've said this before and will very likely say it again but I believe that science and faith deal with inherently different issues and answer different questions. To me it strikes me as a fairly shallow belief system that becomes threatened when scientific evidence doesn't completely agree with the literal interpretations of ones holy scriptures or for that matter when science doesn't address a divine power. Science has nothing to do with divinity or the supernatural because by their very definitions those are beyond empiracal phenomena which is what science is about. Science isn't going to tell you what happens when you die other than what can be empiracally perceived. Science isn't going to tell you if you have a soul. Science isn't going to tell you if you are here for a purpose or if there even is a purpose to existence. Those aren't scientific questions because they're beyond empiracal knowledge. They're not physic they're meta-physics. At the sametime I'm not going to rely on faith or prayer to tell me the structure of an atom or how a protein folds or how a bumblebee flies. Those are questions that are dependent upon empiracal observation and physical experimentation. I fully believe that as rational humans that both science and faith are necessary but its a mistake to confuse the methods and goals of one with the other. I don't see why a person of deep religious conviction can't both accept that the methodology of science shows Evolution to be the most plausible method of speciation and at the same time believe in God. Evolution doesn't prove or disprove God except through clinging to the most narrow and literalist interpretation of God. Again you are misunderstanding the scientific method. Actually the scientific method never absoletely proves anything but instead shows plausibilities. I for one will never state that Evolution is absolutely proven and believe that any scientists who does isn't worthy of that title. Yet the nature of science is all about a methodology of plausibilities. The key thing is to keep testing them. For instance noone as ever seen an electron and according to the Heisenberg principle it is impossible to directly observe one. ID proponents often bring up that no-one has witnessed "Macro-Evolution" so that means that it is fatally flawed as a theory. Under that reasoning then we should also reject the theory of electricity since we've never been able to witness the transfer of electrons among atoms in a copper cable when a charge is run through it. Obviously the problem with that is that atomic theory and electricity seems to work so therefore is plausible even though no direct observation is possible. Its this same methodology that supports Evolution as being the most plausible theory of speciation even if it has problems. The problem with ID proponents is that they keep on arguing problems with Evolution but have yet to provide empiracal evidence that would support ID. As I said earlier its not enough to just argue that just because one theory is flawed that another is true without being to independently support that theory. I would even go so far as saying that it would be very bad for science if scientific ideas were accepted without supporting proof. For instance I might say that there are a lot of problems with atomic theory such as no one ever directly observing an electron so my theory is that atoms are actually solid and that electricity is just the transfer of vibrations but I don't need to show independent evidence of that because atomic theory and electricity is flawed so my theory must be true.
Actually there are many transitional fossils found for dolphins and other cetaceans showing the transistions you describe. There was a National Geographic article about it not too long ago. In cetacean hips there vestigial structures that look awfully lot like legs along with pelvic structure that seem suited to land animals. There are other precedents of land going creatures including mammals who've developed the ability to drink salt water and excrete salt. Here's an article that explains about Cetacean evolution. http://www1.pacific.edu/~e-buhals/cetacean.htm Genetics and fossil records very much support Evolution and as I cited are one of the key independent supports. I would say its a lack of knowledge to say that they don't. I will put these questions to you as an ID proponent. Given that a Dolphin inspite of many marvelous adaptions still has two critical flaws for an ocean dwelling creature, must breath air and gives live birth underwater even though its young must breathe immediately or die, why would an intelligent designer design it that way? Are you saying that the designer is a bad designer. That God is flawed because he designed a creature that isn't perfectly suited to its environment?
I'm not sure what you're getting at here but I presume you mean an assumption that there isn't a creator. I will agree that yes that is an assumption, a negative assumption, but that again is the nature of science. Science is driven by empiracism and Occam's razor that would dictate that if something cannot be detected then it likely doesn't exists. For instance I can't presume that any particular bamboo grove I walk into has a Panda living in it because Pandas live in bamboo groves. Its possible there could be a Panda living there but without any other evidence its not plausible that just because its a bamboo grove there is a Panda there. See my earlier posts of why I am troubled from a spiritual point too. Why can't God use Evolution? As I replied to Mr. Gootan ID is problematic too even if we accept that there is an intelligent designer since that would mean that the designer / God is flawed since they've created species that have very obvious problems or have been sloppy since they left things like appendixes and vestigial tail bones in us. That too me would be a far greater threat to religious belief. For that matter if you consider scripture to be a factor scripture doesn't agree with many things in science. Scripture says nothing about electro-magnetism, accept that Michael used it to strike down Lucifer, yet here we are communicating over the Internet. Is it your proposition that as long as scripture doesn't mention it its OK but if it does and science contradicts it the science is wrong? That would be very problematic since the same methodology used to develop the Internet, cars and airplanes is the same methodology used to develop the Theory of Evolution and to prove that the Earth is more than 15,000 years old. Why should it be of any importance to one's faith? I see no contradiction in believing that God revealed the Ten Commandments to Moses or that Jesus died for our sins and accepting Evolution as being scientifically plausible. There is truth that more intelligent and accredited scientists guesses get more taken more seriously but as far as not believing in God that's not a factor. Darwin himself never stopped believing in God. I again aplaud you on your humility but I cannot help but assume that you support of ID has something to do with your religion. Just on this thread the most ardent proponents of ID seem to be the most ardent Christians. Very true. We see that here since some Evolution supporters on this thread have stated they are Christians. On this we agree. I will add that again I'm not rejecting ID or thinking of keeping ID out of schools because I want to keep Christianity or religion out but because I don't believe it is scientifically proven to be plausible. If it were then I would say it should be taught in schools.
Christian Schools Bring Suit Against UC # Civil rights action says the system's admissions policy discriminates against students who are taught creationism and religious viewpoints. By David Rosenzweig, Times Staff Writer Amid the growing national debate over the mixing of religion and science in America's classrooms, University of California admissions officials have been accused in a federal civil rights lawsuit of discriminating against high schools that teach creationism and other conservative Christian viewpoints. The suit was filed in Los Angeles federal court Thursday by the Assn. of Christian Schools International, which represents more than 800 religious schools in the state, and by the Calvary Chapel Christian School in Murrieta, which has an enrollment of more than 1,000. Under a policy implemented with little fanfare a year ago, UC admissions authorities have refused to certify high school science courses that use textbooks challenging Darwin's theory of evolution, the suit says. Other courses rejected by UC officials include "Christianity's Influence in American History," "Christianity and Morality in American Literature" and "Special Providence: American Government." The 10-campus UC system requires applicants to complete a variety of courses, including science, mathematics, history, literature and the arts. But in letters to Calvary Chapel, university officials said some of the school's Christian-oriented courses were too narrow to be acceptable. According to the lawsuit, UC's board of admissions also advised the school that it would not approve biology and science courses that relied primarily on textbooks published by Bob Jones University Press and A Beka Books, two Christian publishers. Instead, the board instructed the schools to "submit for UC approval a secular science curriculum with a text and course outline that addresses course content/knowledge generally accepted in the scientific community." "It appears that the UC system is attempting to secularize Christian schools and prevent them from teaching from a world Christian view," said Patrick H. Tyler, a lawyer with Advocates for Faith and Freedom, which is assisting the plaintiffs. Wendell E. Bird, an Atlanta attorney who represents the Assn. of Christian Schools, said California was the only state in the nation that had taken such actions against Christian schools. Bird said the schools have no objection to teaching evolution alongside creationism but consider the UC regulations a violation of their rights. "And a threat to one religion is a threat to all," he added. UC had not yet been served with the suit, so spokeswoman Ravi Poorsina said she could not comment on its details. But she said the university had a sound legal right to set course requirements for incoming students. "What we're doing is really for the benefit of the students," she said. "These requirements were established after careful study by faculty and staff to ensure that students who come here are fully prepared with broad knowledge and the critical thinking skills necessary to succeed." Although private schools have the right to teach what they want, she said, students from those institutions can gain admittance to UC schools by completing the necessary course requirements at community colleges if they choose. Those students can also request admission solely on the basis of their SAT scores, she said. But according to the lawsuit, the odds are heavily stacked against students seeking admission through that route. The suit also accuses the university system of employing a double standard by routinely approving courses that teach the viewpoints of other religions, such as Islam, Judaism and Buddhism. The lawsuit mentions five Calvary Chapel students, identified only by their initials, all with outstanding academic and extracurricular records, who it contends will not qualify for admission because of the university's course requirements. The suit accuses the UC Board of Regents and five university officials of violating the plaintiffs' rights to freedom of speech and religion, and of displaying hostility toward Christianity. It seeks an injunction against the university system's practices.
I'll give my two cents... Intelligent Design is a genuine idea put forth by some scientists that has now been manipulated into a political weapon. If you read scientific articles and journals that discuss this topic, you'll notice that they literally just literally point out holes in evolutionary theory, but don't really take a position as to what the solution is. Some just say that our knowledge of evolutionary theory just isnt advanced enough. (i.e. Darwin's original book the origin of species has a lot of holes that today have been corrected) Some on the other hand have actually suggested intelligent design as an alternative. Now onto the ID debate... 1. Its not a scientific theory for the same reason the concept of God isn't scientific. It can't be proven or disproven. That's what differentiates science from philosophy and other branches of thought. Science involves the scientific method (which we all learned in school) and that scientific method is the litmus test to determine whether something is considered "scientific" ID does not fall under this because it can't be proven or disproven. You can't prove or disprove that God might've had an influence on the development of species. It doesnt meet the scientific litmus test, and consequently it doesn't merit full teaching in our science classes. 2. I do believe that schools should point out some of the flaws in evolution, as many ID authors do. We tend to believe that evolution has been worked out perfectly when in fact that is quite far from the truth. 3. Another problem with ID is that it literally can be applied to everything. The Ancient Greeks applied ID to lightning and decided that since they cant explain lightning the Gods must have something to do with it. We now know that lightning is just static electricity, but the logic applies today. Just because we can't explain something doesn't automatically warrant placing the ID label on it. It COULD just be that we don't know enough yet. 4. At the very most, make this a small paragraph in our science books about how evolution has problems and that ID might be one alternative. Although this is a debate for philosophy classes not science.
The Top 12 Established Scientific Concepts as Reinterpreted by Creation Scientists 12> Unplanned Teenage Pregnancies: God's way of saying, "Attention, abstinence-preaching parents: You are not praying hard enough!" 11> Nuclear Weapons: the burning bush, updated by God to address our short attention spans and demand for better special effects. 10> Clouds: Hey, even God lights up a doobie now and then. 9> Global Warming: God giving the wicked a taste of eternal hellfire. If it's true, that is. 8> Nuclear Fission: Protons belong with neutrons, so when two protons or two neutrons collide, it's homo-ish and God gets angry and makes them explode. Also, it's pronounced nuke-you-ler, just like in The Bible. 7> Thunder: the 12 disciples after a lunch at Taco Bell. 6> Sunlight: the heavenly glow of God thinking positively of George W. Bush. 5> Tornadoes: It's right there in Hosea 8:32-34: "They who dwelleth in houses upon wheels and erecteth idols of the one-legged pink demon bird committeth abominations against the LORD, and yea shall His mighty swirling winds smite them." 4> Plate Tectonics: Floating on a miles-deep layer of molten magma, the earth's continents are slowly drifting... to the right. 3> Einstein's Theory of Relativity: crazy Jew talk! 2> Lightning: Even angels forget sometimes you can't put metal in the microwave. and the Number 1 Established Scientific Concept as Reinterpreted by Creation Scientists... 1> Human Reproduction: God punishes those who engage in sinful activity by inflicting children upon them. [ Copyright 2005 TopFive.com ]
Apologies if this has already been posted: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/23/opinion/23tue3.html?incamp=article_popular Grasping the Depth of Time as a First Step in Understanding Evolution By VERLYN KLINKENBORG Last month a team of paleontologists announced that it had found several fossilized dinosaur embryos that were 190 million years old - some 90 million years older than any dinosaur embryos found so far. Those kinds of numbers are always a little daunting. Ever since I was a boy in a public elementary school in Iowa, I've been learning to face the eons and eons that are embedded in the universe around us. I know the numbers as they stand at present, and I know what they mean, in a roughly comparative way. The universe is perhaps 14 billion years old. Earth is some 4.5 billion years old. The oldest hominid fossils are between 6 million and 7 million years old. The oldest distinctly modern human fossils are about 160,000 years old. The truth of these numbers has the same effect on me as watching the night sky in the high desert. It fills me with a sense of nonspecific immensity. I don't think I'm alone in this. One of the most powerful limits to the human imagination is our inability to grasp, in a truly intuitive way, the depths of terrestrial and cosmological time. That inability is hardly surprising because our own lives are so very short in comparison. It's hard enough to come to terms with the brief scale of human history. But the difficulty of comprehending what time is on an evolutionary scale, I think, is a major impediment to understanding evolution. It's been approximately 3.5 billion years since primeval life first originated on this planet. That is not an unimaginable number in itself, if you're thinking of simple, discrete units like dollars or grains of sand. But 3.5 billion years of biological history is different. All those years have really passed, moment by moment, one by one. They encompass an actual, already lived reality, encompassing all the lives of all the organisms that have come and gone in that time. That expanse of time defines the realm of biological possibility in which life in its extraordinary diversity has evolved. It is time that has allowed the making of us. The idea of such quantities of time is extremely new. Humans began to understand the true scale of geological time in the early 19th century. The probable depth of cosmological time and the extent of the history of the human species have come to light only within our own lifetimes. That is a lot to absorb and, not surprisingly, many people refuse to absorb it. Nearly every attack on evolution - whether it is called intelligent design or plain creationism, synonyms for the same faith-based rejection of evolution - ultimately requires a foreshortening of cosmological, geological and biological time. Humans feel much more content imagining a world of more human proportions, with a shorter time scale and a simple narrative sense of cause and effect. But what we prefer to believe makes no difference. The fact that life on Earth has arrived at a point where it is possible for humans to have beliefs is due to the steady ticking away of eons and the trial and error of natural selection. Evolution is a robust theory, in the scientific sense, that has been tested and confirmed again and again. Intelligent design is not a theory at all, as scientists understand the word, but a well-financed political and religious campaign to muddy science. Its basic proposition - the intervention of a designer, a k a God - cannot be tested. It has no evidence to offer, and its assumptions that humans were divinely created are the same as its conclusions. Its objections to evolution are based on syllogistic reasoning and a highly selective treatment of the physical evidence. Accepting the fact of evolution does not necessarily mean discarding a personal faith in God. But accepting intelligent design means discarding science. Much has been made of a 2004 poll showing that some 45 percent of Americans believe that the Earth - and humans with it - was created as described in the book of Genesis, and within the past 10,000 years. This isn't a triumph of faith. It's a failure of education. The purpose of the campaign for intelligent design is to deepen that failure. To present the arguments of intelligent design as part of a debate over evolution is nonsense. From the scientific perspective, there is no debate. But even the illusion of a debate is a sorry victory for anti evolutionists, a public relations victory based, as so many have been in recent years, on ignorance and obfuscation. The essential, but often well-disguised, purpose of intelligent design, is to preserve the myth of a separate, divine creation for humans in the belief that only that can explain who we are. But there is a destructive hubris, a fearful arrogance, in that myth. It sets us apart from nature, except to dominate it. It misses both the grace and the moral depth of knowing that humans have only the same stake, the same right, in the Earth as every other creature that has ever lived here. There is a righteousness - a responsibility - in the deep, ancestral origins we share with all of life.
