Age-old religion vs. science war meets modern issues
Acourt recently ruled that a school board in Atlanta cannot place a sticker that cautions students about the reality of evolution inside a science textbook cover. The conflict between science and some church leaders continues.
Church leaders of many denominations and sects have carried on a running battle with science and scientists for centuries. After the invention of the telescope and advanced mathematics, the concept that planets revolved around the sun conflicted with church doctrine that the Earth, and people (God’s creation), was the center of the universe.
‘‘The Descent of Man,’’ Charles Darwin’s 1871 book of evolutionary observations, challenged the accepted church view that people were created by God, and discussed the evolution from a more primitive and older form. A raging conflict between a number of religions and some science concepts has ensued. Much of it hinges on the science term ‘‘theory.’’
Theory is normally used in science to explain an observed phenomenon in nature until repeated experiments can prove the concept. Often the term remains attached to the idea long after it has been substantiated. We have had the ‘‘theory of gravity’’ and still talk about gravitational theory. We have proved atomic theory and the theory of continental drift. Some churches want to denigrate the science of evolution by pounding the term theory.
Chromosomes and genes were identified in the 1950s. When it was determined how they interact, are reduced for sexual reproduction and mutated (changed), the mechanism for Darwin’s theory was proved. Change over time through survival of the most fit was a fact and no longer a theory.
We are well into mapping the entire genetic structure of the human body.
Genes, and DNA — the chemical protein that carries the command sequence for the various functions of life — are well understood. Church leaders resisting evolution are much like the individuals standing on shore shouting at Columbus that he would sail off the edge of the world.
It would be humane, more loving and Christian, to get off the Darwin-bashing and on to some real science that explains our humanity. Studies now under way indicate that all humans alive today are descended from a few individuals who lived in northern Africa. Here are two sentences from that report:
‘‘Scientists have now identified the human lineages of the world descended from 10 sons of a genetic Adam and 18 daughters of Eve. This ancestral human population lived in Africa and started to split up 144,000 years ago. This time period is when both the mitochondrial and Y chromosome trees first branch out.’’
This theory is undergoing testing. Sifting through almost 150,000 years of history will be exciting. Climatic changes, including ice ages and volcanic ash inundations, may be the evolutionary pressure to modify plants and animals — migration to different regions of the Earth the pressure to change humans. We are of different sizes, shapes and appearance. From Africa, we must have had some protection from the sun.
It may cause a problem for some that our ancestors were dark-skinned or black. But for others, the idea that our humanity is real, is physical as well as emotional or spiritual, will be welcomed. That is a powerful incentive to look at each other in a different way, see each other as truly special — individuals, yet a part of the whole.
-Carl Means
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