Really, you are not the first one to have heard that creationist claim you just heard. Almost guaranteed. The next time you hear something like any of the following, go to the Index to Creationist Claims published by TalkOrigins. Darwin himself was racist. Fairness demands evolution and creation be given…
One of the many miscommunications between people of science and Creationists is the assumption that the universe was created for man. If so, the engineer behind this place was wa-ay off the mark. The universe is nowhere near human scale, and the vast majority of it has nothing to do with Man.
We only began to understand the heavens when some very careful measurements were made using precision instruments. Copernicus had to note the precise movements of dots in the heavenly sphere for a long time to be sure enough that they were centered on the Sun, not the Earth. It was easier for Galileo, who polished some chunks of glass to see that even these dots had smaller dots in orbit around them. Dots that couldn’t possibly be seen by, nor affect, the average human.
Then Leeuwenhoek ground some smaller lenses and noticed that there were complete creatures too small to see, and that they were everywhere! He opened up the microscopic revolution in which it turned out that humans (and other creatures) are not made of continuous stuff, but rather each organ is composed of colonies of lesser lifeforms, cells. In fact, each organ is an ecosystem. Our skin (our largest organ after birth) is host to an abundance of microbes, mites, bacteria, and fungi that ideally coexist peacefully to maintain the health of our skin. These “parasites” are essential to our well-being, but they do not share our DNA.
When Mendeleev worked out the periodic arrangement …
Check out these identical twins:
They are really identical twins. This photo is from the November 2006 issue of Discover Magazine. See the related article: “DNA Is Not Destiny The new science of epigenetics rewrites the rules of disease, heredity, and identity.”
Though these two men are genetically identical, they were separated at birth. The man on the left was malnourished for years. Bone structure changes brought about by environmental factors is thus one of many ways (physical and behavioral) in which the environment can dramatically affect the way in which the genes express themselves
As the Discover article points out, the 25,000 genes of our human DNA are widely considered to be an instruction book for our bodies. However, “genes themselves need instructions for what to do, and where and when to do it.” These additional instructions are not in DNA, but
on it, in an array of chemical markers and switches, known collectively as the epigenome, that lie along the length of the double helix. These epigenetic switches and markers in turn help switch on or off the expression of particular genes.
It has long been known that epigenetic switches are critical to the healthy development of organisms. These can be dramatically tweaked by exposure to a vitamin, a toxin or even mothering, altering “the software of our genes in ways that affect an individual’s body and brain for life.” Green tea, for example, has been shown to prevent the growth of cancers.
New research has even …
Debate goes on, seeming forever, about the issue of religious belief in a secular society. The validity of sacred texts becomes grist for the mill and sides line up over What Would Jesus Do bumper stickers. We see competing fish on cars–Darwin fish with feet in answer to the unembellished christian fish symbol, then a bigger fish labeled Truth swallowing the diminutive Darwin fish, and on and on.
What is really at issue here hasn’t got one thing to do with who believes in god or evolution. Belief is a self-contained, private matter. The issue that gets lost in all the polemic is very simple: behavior.
Those who would sap the poison from the “inerrant word” crowd are defending their assumed right to live the way they want. One might argue that belief in god doesn’t really limit people, and as far as it goes, that is true. If you, as an individual, choose to believe in god, then you have elected to reform your life according to the tenets of your new faith. You may adopt whatever modest or byzantine traditions and habits you wish. After all, you have chosen this, you get to do it.
What you don’t get to do is tell everyone else to behave accordingly, and that’s where the meat of the issue lies.
Because fundamentalists–and we’re talking about fundamentalists here for the most part, of any stripe–do not adopt such an extreme view of faith out of intellectual curiosity or even spiritual need. They …
In Eastern cultures (Chinese, Navajo, Sri-Lanka, etc) they respect and even worship their direct and distant ancestors as a part of everyday life. The religions all embrace this basic respect for your elders. However, in the West, what's done is done, and the past buries its own dead. Except when…