Monday, April 12, 2004

 

Stepping on your spiritual toes

I often talk about controversial things without even knowing they're controversial. The other day in anatomy lab I skillfully slipped my foot into my mouth when a professor came by and explained the origin of the ruminant toes. Being an anthropocentric human and knowing that all vertebrates have homologous skeletal structures, I asked him how the ox toes compared with human toes. He made a comment about embryonic development, which led to a comment about gills, to which I replied (here comes the yummy foot):

"We all have gills at some point. And can you believe that some people don't buy that we all come from the same place?"

Correctly interpreting my comment as one about evolution, he said "I'm not going to go there."

But I persisted: "Why? Do a lot of people here not buy into it? Well, I guess there are a few people in our class. . ."

Prof: "There are A LOT of people walking around this building who might get upset about that."

A few minutes later I realized that perhaps said professor may be upset by the theory of evolution, and then I looked over at my lab partner and realized I may have offended her. So I asked her "Did I offend you with my comment? Do you believe in Creationism?"

She said: "I guess I believe in a little of both."

Amen.

So, the reason for my faux pas is the same as usual: I don't realize that what I'm talking about is controversial. But after hearing the recent news that laws may soon require textbooks to have warning labels stating "Evolution is a theory, not a fact" and recent concern that teaching evolution may undermine (Judeo-Christian?) religious beliefs, I should have known better.

Thinking more about it, I realize now how difficult it must be to sit through lectures that always refer to evolutionary history, evolutionary origins, evolved mechanisms and the sort when you don't believe in one ounce of evolution theory. So now I wonder how many of my colleagues buy into evolution 100 percent, how many are on the fence, and how many think it's just garbage.

I guess I never saw a conflict of interests between Biblical religion and evolution, because I take for granted that all creatures, including humans, could have been created through evolution. And if that just sounds like a cop-out, here's my reasoning:

(Keep in mind I never took the Bible too literally, especially the parts that say "an eye for an eye" and that men are accountable for their wives' sins, therefore wives should obey their husbands, etc.)

Ambiguous timeline

Genesis 1 states that God made everything—heaven, earth, seas, plants, animals and people—in six days. It also says that days were measured by the light in the sky. We measure days as being 24 hours long, but maybe the earth was not spinning yet, or was spinning at a slower pace. So back then one of God's "days" may have been equivalent to several of our millennia. Time itself was probably a pretty ambiguous thing to God back then (and still is)—I mean, according to the text, Abraham lived for hundreds of years!

Anyway, I know that much controversy exists about the age of the earth because some people feel that creationism theory clashes with the idea that the earth is billions of years old. But if we assume time is arbitrary, the order of things matches up very well:

The chronological order

Genesis states that the earth was covered in water, then water and land separated. Geologists agree. Genesis states that swimming creatures came first. Evolutionary and fossils record confirm this. Genesis say that on land, plants of all sorts and creepy-crawly creatures (invertebrates?) came next, followed by flying creatures. Evolutionary theory agrees. Then came "wild" creatures (maybe referring to wild mammals), then came livestock creatures (undulates?). Then, finally. . .people. Some scientists argue that humans are the most highly evolved of all creatures. So, if human beings were the "ultimate goal" of evolution, this process could have been an intricate method to "create" people.

This chronological order correlates with the geological record and the evolutionary tree, which is quite amazing, seeing that geological digs and Darwin didn't come about until thousands of years after Genesis was written. Now if God's "day" may have been 24 million years instead of 24 hours, the process we call "evolution" can just be a lame-ass human term for "The Almighty Creative Process."

Well, that's why I don’t see "evolution" as a dirty or controversial term. Still don't buy it? Here are some other possibilities:

- Our creator figured "hey, what works for one creature may as well work for another" and gave creatures homologous bones, organs and biochemical pathways. What is one creature's useless fingernail can serve as deadly weapons, digging tools, climbing/running shoes for others. It's efficient and clever! (God must be female. . .)

- Everything was made in 144 of our "hours." God's just left a fossil record to mess with our brains.

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