What do you believe?

Firstly, you may have noticed that I’ve changed my profile to describe my location as Jozi. I realised that by virtue of the fact that I’m associated with Peas, there’s no point in trying to hide my identity – after all, most people I know have found my blog (hi colleegs!) While amending the location I decided heck, let’s throw in a couple of links and a site visitor counter too. But I digress…

It dawned on me the other day that while the US is always associated with a large following of creationist believers (New Scientists often carries stories like this), not much has been said about evolutionists and creationists around the rest of the world.

As a result, I thought very few creationists occurred in my social / work circle, as I never thought to assume any otherwise.

(In case you need an explanation of the difference between the two, I will sum it up in a spectacular oversimplification by saying the most inflammatory implications are that evolutionists believe that mankind descended from ape-like creatures, while creationists believe this is not the case, and that God created every ‘kind’ of living organism – i.e. no macro-evolution takes place, but micro-evolution occurs to allow for variation between species in each ‘kind’ of organism).

After an admittedly too-flippant remark the other day in the office, I learned that one of my colleagues (with a Masters in Engineering) is an ardent creationist, which took me by complete surprise. He proceeded to send me a two and a half hour video clip of a creationist expert debunking ‘lies’ in high-school textbooks.

Whilst in Sepoenda, I casually mentioned the conversation to the Gilb’s housemate – another engineer – and wisely stopped short to ask whether he was of the creationist or evolutionist school of thought. Again, completely surprised.

My agenda here is not to slate one side and back the other, but to list some general thoughts that have come to mind over the past few days. (If you must know, I have no problem believing that my very distant forefathers were ape-like. After a recent visit to the zoo, I spent hours enthralled in front of the chimpanzees, amazed at how human their behaviours, gestures and facial expressions are).

1 – I know far too little about evolution theory and how scientific conclusions about evolution have been drawn to argue convincingly with anyone. I shall amend this over the coming months with a lot of reading.

2 – No person should ever base their personal convictions on watching/reading a single one-sided piece of media. Everyone is trying to prove their own side of the argument, so you never know how many indisputable opposing facts they’re leaving out. You also often don’t know how insignificant the facts are that they’re using to break down the opponent’s entire theories. Does one little hole in the opponent’s theory render their whole argument unfounded, or just point out that certain aspects of the theory need further clarification?

3 – Pro-evolutionists have a tendency to dismiss creationists as non-scientists. This is not true, the definition of science does not preclude the religious from its study. After all, who first developed sound principles around the genetic laws of inheritance? None other than an Austrian monk, Mendel.

4 – The converse is entirely true, too. Creationists tend to dismiss evolutionists as atheists (or scoffers, after a biblical reference which apparently warns against evolutionists). I happen to know quite a few God-fearing folk who completely accept the concept of evolution. Are they really heathens, or just advanced apes that have come to love God?

At the end of the day, I don’t think either party would ever conceive of being swayed to the other viewpoint by sufficient evidence. The debate has ventured far beyond the goal of revealing ultimate truth, and resides in the territory of pride. It’s political. Science has been viewed by religious ‘extremists’ as a way of belittling the historically religious control of a state, while religion has sometimes been quoted as a way of controlling the ignorant masses.

Thus, there is nothing you or I can do to change the status quo. We can hopefully just agree to disagree with people of opposing viewpoints, and maybe accept the challenge to learn a little more about the reasons for each other’s beliefs.

(As an addendum, I found a site interviewing Richard Dawkins, one of evolutionary theory’s most ardent proponents, which has a poll going that asks the following questions – numbers in brackets signify poll results:

- The universe was created in six days as described in Genesis (30%)
- Evolution began but God began and/or directs it (43%)
- Evolution is true, and religion has nothing to do with it (26%)

I don’t know whether these results are skewed – are you more likely to visit a site like this if you’re very religious (it is after all called “Belief Net”) or if you’re very anti-religious?)