Wither the road goes?
Here is an interesting piece from Time magazine on the similarities between humans and apes. I have had several conversations on the issue of evolution and creation with friends and relatives. They usually end in friendly disagreement.
I don't really care if the world is 6000 years old or 600,000,000,000 years old. I'm quite sure that I have no way of knowing personally how old it is. I do have strong beliefs about what the Bible does and does not have to say about creation and how I am to think of it. Here's my question: For those who read the Bible as creation history, what need is there for scientific evidence? The belief in creation history, most likely, developed before any scientific inquiry on the person's part. It was formed by the Bible and often not subjected to hermeneutical scrutiny. In most cases it functions as buttressing a firm belief rather than forming a multi-disciplinary one.
Moreover, the scientific evidence that supports a creation history found in the Bible is the extreme minority view. Ironically, while holding admirably to a strong belief in the Bible (or one way of reading the Bible), those who hold to biblical creation have to operate with an extreme hermeneutic of suspicion against those with an evolutionary view. If one discounts the scientific evidence to the point that shows a questioning of the scientific endeavour, why use (one use of) science to support a position that undermines it?
The issue is, of course, a question of narratives: the systematic/existential/scientific/ philosophical/religious/some combo thereof interpretation of multi-source data into a story that achieves plausible coherence for the sources which provide data. Clearly different narratives necessarily lead to different praxis. Here's my second question: If one narrative, which takes evolutionary science (and the genetic similarities between Neanderthals, apes, and humans) as in important source, is able to achieve ground-breaking insight into Alzheimer's, AIDS, malaria, etc., will the praxis that accepts taking such medication fit coherently (and ethically consistently?) into a narrative that discounts macro-evolutionary science?
I don't really care if the world is 6000 years old or 600,000,000,000 years old. I'm quite sure that I have no way of knowing personally how old it is. I do have strong beliefs about what the Bible does and does not have to say about creation and how I am to think of it. Here's my question: For those who read the Bible as creation history, what need is there for scientific evidence? The belief in creation history, most likely, developed before any scientific inquiry on the person's part. It was formed by the Bible and often not subjected to hermeneutical scrutiny. In most cases it functions as buttressing a firm belief rather than forming a multi-disciplinary one.
Moreover, the scientific evidence that supports a creation history found in the Bible is the extreme minority view. Ironically, while holding admirably to a strong belief in the Bible (or one way of reading the Bible), those who hold to biblical creation have to operate with an extreme hermeneutic of suspicion against those with an evolutionary view. If one discounts the scientific evidence to the point that shows a questioning of the scientific endeavour, why use (one use of) science to support a position that undermines it?
The issue is, of course, a question of narratives: the systematic/existential/scientific/ philosophical/religious/some combo thereof interpretation of multi-source data into a story that achieves plausible coherence for the sources which provide data. Clearly different narratives necessarily lead to different praxis. Here's my second question: If one narrative, which takes evolutionary science (and the genetic similarities between Neanderthals, apes, and humans) as in important source, is able to achieve ground-breaking insight into Alzheimer's, AIDS, malaria, etc., will the praxis that accepts taking such medication fit coherently (and ethically consistently?) into a narrative that discounts macro-evolutionary science?
posted by Aaron Perry at
1:16 PM
2 Comments:
The one denying macro-evolution would have to construct the narrative in a way that produces a gap between genetic similarities (of apes and humans) and the insights found by those presupposing macro-evolution. In other words, they would have to figure out another explanation for why they were able to get the results they did - which isn't completely impossible.
great point, anonymous. and your phrase is completely appropriate: not completely impossible.
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