I agree with Verlyn Klinkenborg that many skeptics of evolution have an inaccurate concept of time. Life on earth is about 3.5 billion years old. That’s 3,500,000,000 years. How many years is that, really? The square root of 3.5 billion is approximately 59,160. Therefore, imagine 59,160 discrete units of time. Now imagine each of those discrete units of time, each itself containing 59,160 years. So if 59,160 years pass (or, all of humanity’s recorded history times 12), you’re only 1/59159th of the way there. That’s a fucking huge amount of time. And as Klinkenborg says, “All those years have really passed, moment by moment, one by one.” We puny human beings can’t grasp such immensities, of course, but a few billion years seems like a reasonable amount of time for us to have evolved to our current state of existence. (Just imagine what our descendants in 3.5 billion years will look like!)
Humanity is just a small, insignificant part of what is Out There. Time, like most grand concepts, is beyond full human comprehension. Religion is a desire to bring the incomprehensible within the realm of human comprehension – to create meaning where there is none. (Or at least none that we human beings will ever be able to understand.) That may sound like a criticism of religion, but I mean it merely as an explanation.
I’m not religious. But that doesn’t mean I think everything can ultimately be known. On the contrary, I think it’s the adherents of the world’s major religions who claim to know more than they do. I think that we, as a species, are tremendously well-suited to figuring out how things happen. But the whys? We’re not terribly well-suited to those.
I’m not religious. But I will always look at the universe with awe and wonder.
This film is a sure cure for religion, and any stray thoughts you may entertain about Miss God.
One of the true issues of contention here is time. While the 3.5 billion years noted is a long time it does not represent a linear course to life as we know it. The Cambrian Explosion occurred “only” about 550 million years ago in which most phyla appeared within a relatively short amount of time. This is when the first chordates are seen which are the ancestors of all vertabrates. While this is a long time it is a significantly shorter than the typical 3.5 billion typically offered. The question is, would 15% of the 3.5 billion years listed be enough time?
Also how can you know that humanity is small and insignificant? The Greek philosopher Protagors thought that humans were the measure of all things. Just because evolution appears to have taken place on our planet doesn’t mean it has occurred on others. Statistical evidence could suggest such a thought but that really is just an extension of faith.
A belief in a meta-intelligence or god does not lead one to abandon science. It is actually because many of the earlier scientists had a religious faith that science occurred. Galileo remained a devout Catholic. Copernicus, Kepler, Newton and Leibnitz were all very religious. They all pursued science because they believed it would reveal god in a fuller picture. Similar to yourself, they approached the universe with awe and wonder. The Reformation theologian John Calvin is noted as saying that both the book of the bible and nature should both be read.
From what I have read of the ID literature the scientists do not take a literal reading of Genesis nor do they subscribe to the 10,000 year old earth. The arguements I have read and found convincing are scientific ones which address mechanistic issues lacking in the neo-darwinian narrative.
Sorry if I ran long but find it hard when the time issue is raised without a proper context.
Joining in awe and wonder of the universe,
John
Well written, John.
But what arguments are you referring to? Every argument I’ve read in support of ID has been refuted. And I wouldn’t refer to those who believe in ID as “scientists,” since ID is not science. In fact I had to read that sentence twice in order to figure out who you were referring to.
Just because evolution appears to have taken place on our planet doesn’t mean it has occurred on others.
I didn’t say it did, and I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. Even if life began on only one planet in the universe, that doesn’t make it miraculous – merely rare.
A belief in a meta-intelligence or god does not lead one to abandon science.
That’s fine. I have no problem with scientists believing in God, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of their science.
You seem to misunderstand me. I’m not looking for reasons that it’s okay to believe in God. I would be convinced only by proof. Otherwise I might as well believe in a Flying Spaghetti Monster. And this isn’t a challenge to come up with proof. I’m fine not believing.
Reading Klinkenborg’s piece I had this mental image of myself having traveled backwards through time a billion years or so, sitting on a rock, checking my watch every few minutes to see if it was 158,000 BC yet so I’d have someone to talk to.
In a way, I can almost respect creationism more than ID; at least creationists make no apology for their belief, which requires nothing more than faith, however misguided I may believe that faith to be. ID, though, just seems absurd in trying to present itself as a scientific argument; and the tenet of irreducible complexity fundamental to its precepts seems particularly bizarre and illogical. If we’re to accept that certain features of life on earth are so complex that they must have been designed, then surely that designer is even more complex, and therefore also requires its own uber-designer, and so on ad infinitum. That’s even more ridiculous than Christianity’s (or any other religion’s) creation myths.