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While preparing a presentation for some of my research on the climate of Archean Earth, I stumbled across an interesting excerpt from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Vatican’s official position on science and faith is not new to me, but I think the wording in the document carries the point well.
159. Faith and science: “…methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are.” [Vatican II GS 36:1]
Pope John Paul II spoke directly about the church’s acceptance of the theory of evolution. It would be wise for Protestant leaders and churches to heed the worldview so eloquently put in the Catechism. Evangelical movements often seem to be characterized by a fear or mistrust of science, specifically concerning the theory of evolution. Yet it is not the Creator who is being replaced in these scientific ideas; of course evolution does not presuppose or eliminate a deity or designer. It is unfortunate that in the United States this ancient so-called battle between science and religion is still prevalent, but fortunately there are strong religious groups in addition to scientific communities that see this as a false conflict. After all, what kind of Creator would create purposefully misleading scientific evidence?
These are the lyrics I wrote for the Cootie Brown song “Solstice”.
Day by day I think of all I see
Dressed in the clothes that were given me
Kneeling down beneath the starry sky
I look up high and I wonder why
That first light shone so long ago
I wonder how it is I know
And soon the light it fades to grey
I look back down and walk away
And the rain comes down
As the wind blows round
And I stand alone
As the seasons change
And the rain comes down
As the wind blows round
And I stand alone
As the seasons change
Hour by hour I pass through the crowd
The consternation cries out loud
Gaze across the multicolored sea
And lose yourself, find who you’ll be
Across the trodden Earth we stand
The remnants of a fertile land
The dust beneath us covers all
Now from this dust receive your call
And the rain comes down
As the wind blows round
And I stand alone
As the seasons change
And the rain comes down
As the wind blows round
And I stand alone
As the seasons change
I finally did the classic music synchronization experiment: The Wizard of Oz with Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon”. Being a Pink Floyd fan anyways, I knew I would at least enjoy listening to the album, but the sync itself was definitely interesting and entertaining. I don’t think Pink Floyd intentionally synced their album to the movie, but some of the parallels are a bit too perfect. Unfortunately I only watched the first way through–I’ve heard that if you loop the album, the third time through is really good. I’ll save that for another day.
The best part of doing the sync, though, was listening to the music. That is, there are not too many times during the day when we sit down and actively listen to music. We may play music as we work, travel, drive, or eat, but very rarely do people sit down and just listen to recorded music. Of course, concerts provide a venue to appreciate music by itself, but the concert atmosphere provides a different outlook than a quiet room. Coupled with a familiar movie, certain aspects of the album are accentuated and amplified in ways that may have not been apparent before. Whether or not a movie was intended to synchronize with an album, there is a unique symbiosis that provides a fresh outlook on both the movie and album. In addition to doing the full rendition of “Dark Side of the Rainbow” I will certainly be trying some other movie synchronizations; I’ve heard that “Wish You Were Here” goes well with The Matrix.
The Department of Homeland Security threat level is Code Orange for the airport sector. This represents a “high risk of terrorist attacks”, and was in effect yesterday during the high-traffic Thanksgiving traffic.
I usually don’t encounter obvious racial profiling at the airport, but I did have one recent incident where a certain airline’s computers denied me a service because I “have an Arab last name”. (For the record, only half of my last name is Arab; the second half is Hindu. Also, my first and middle names are Jewish in origin. But I digress.) Anyhow, I would assume that since there was a “high risk of terrorist attacks” I might be watched a little more closely.
I make it through the long line pretty quickly and unload my carry-on bags, removing my shoes, laptop, and jacket. I make it through the metal detector and am asked for my boarding pass. I pat my pockets, only to realize my boarding pass was in my jacket. I tell the TSA guy so, and he points in the direction of either another TSA person or the conveyor belt–both were nearby. I waited a few minutes as the x-ray scanners were scrutinizing someone’s bag (the person in front of me, I think). After a bit, I collect my things, and look around to try and find this mysterious person to verify my boarding pass. No one seemed to be paying any attention, though, so I walked out.
Not a huge breach of security, of course, but if TSA is going to remain insistent that these security measures are necessary for national safety, you would think they should notice the Arab-looking guy who didn’t end up showing his boarding pass.
On this date 147 years ago Darwin’s pivotal work was published with the full title: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. In addition to changing the biological sciences, the work generated enormous controversy with the public. This controversy continues today in some places, most recently last year in Dover, PA where intelligent design was put on trial against the theory of evolution. I had the opportunity to attend a day of this fascinating trial, and I thought today would be fitting to post my reflections on that day in court. (I wrote this immediately after I attended court, but I never posted it here.)
I just returned from a full day at the trial in Harrisburg (Kitzmiller et al vs. Dover School Board). Today was probably the only day in the entire 5-week trial that I could attend, and I think I lucked out: the defense began testifying yesterday, beginning with Professor Michael Behe (the ID biochemist). Behe testified all day yesterday and half of today. Cross-examination went until the end of today, and I expect will continue for at least another day or two. Must more interesting and exciting than a bunch of school board members on the stand…
Behe began with the example of blood clotting as an “irreducibly complex” system; irreducible complexity comprised most of yesterday’s testimony as well. He maintained that no scientist has sucessfully described the blood clotting cascade with a Darwinian mechanism. He proceeded to refute the claims by Doolittle that the problem had been solved by pointing to popular magazine articles, omitting any mention of the peer-reviewed literature. When he finally addressed the scientific literature, it was to point out that none of the literature was relevant because the exact phrases “random mutation” and “natural selection” did not appear in the body of the papers in his sample.
He continued to refute several specific papers by bold underlining words like might, argue, and could, as the presence of these words clearly indicates the conclusions are not conclusive.
Behe spent a good deal of time describing and refuting the molecular clock hypothesis. I found this part very odd, because everything he said about the controversy surrounding the molecular clock hypothesis was true—and largely irrelevant. Near as I can tell, he was attempting to make the judge believe the molecular clock hypothesis was generally accepted in the scientific community (which it is not) and synonomous with the theory of evolution (which it is not). Unfortunately I think it would be tough to catch that without some former knowledge of the molecular clock theory.
Behe also took every possible opportunity to compare Intelligent Design with the Big Bang theory, mostly because they both could have religious/philosophical implications; but he also made the comparision in many other contexts as well. (Behe quote: “I’m surprised I didn’t mention it [in this article], I try to mention the Big Bang as often as I can.”) Of course there was also the comparision to the SETI project a few times.
Lastly, he asserted that the theory of evolution was a “special case” from other scientific theories, since it had far-reaching implications in non-biological fields (psychology, political science, etc.). He even went so far as to say the teaching of Darwinian evolution furthered the liberal political agenda (which I find odd—which party seems to operate under the auspices of “survival of the fittest”?).
The plaintiff’s job is essentially one of reduction: show that the theory of ID (as defined by the Dover School Board) is creationism in disguise and the case is won. They nearly finished one avenue of reasoning in cross-ex today, with success, and I can tell they have many more lines to pursue.
At the very least, once all is said and done I would be shocked if the school board continues to recommend the same reference book on ID (Of Pandas and People) as it was clearly demonstrated today that the multi-authored book is filled with internal contradictions on the actual meaning of ID (one chapter asserts ID does not allow for common descent, another chapter allows for it, etc.). But the plaintiff seems to have a relatively strong case, and removal of ID from the biology curriculum seems like a reasonable outcome.
Just in case you never followed this story the plaintiff won the case, and the school board was forced to remove mention of ID from the curriculum. The school board members who supported the ID initiative were also all ousted by the Dover, PA voters that year. Unfortunately, this battle still continues in other places around the nation (but interestingly enough, only in the United States). Dover was a landmark victory, though, and it will hopefully set a precedent for cases in the future.
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