Science vs Religion

Sorry to anyone who wants me to discuss this, but I'm not going to. Instead, I'm going to discuss a ridiculous show I was watching. It's called "Incredible Creatures that Defy Evolution". In this show, Dr. Jobe Martin (who gets his title from the fact that he is a dentist) presents and explains animals that have such a complex or baffling set of traits that he claims they could not have come about by chance. He claims that the proof that these things could not have evolved is that modern evolutionary theorists don't know how they could have come about.

I think this whole thing illustrates why I tend to side with the scientific community when it comes to these things. First, they have a dentist present a bunch of pseudo-science under the guise of proving that these things happening by chance is impossible. I might be more inclined to believe it if a biologist, an archeologist, a paleontologist and a mathematician from reputable backgrounds came together and said that the chances were so remote as to be almost impossible. This still would not rule out the possibility, just the likelihood, even over billions of years. But the fact is that they wouldn't rule these things out. My experience has shown me that real scientists tend to follow the words of Socrates: "True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us."

The search for truth, it would seem, is a lot more about admitting how little we know than in claiming we have all the answers. And this, specifically, is where I disagree with the highly religious among us: they think they already have the answers. Telling me it's God's will or that he has a plan is not wisdom. I'd prefer a simple shrug. "I don't know" means a lot more than an attempt at an answer that at its heart is meaningless. Dr. Martin (the dentist) gives us the answers, or his version of them. But not only are they highly suspect, they seem ridiculous when viewed with a curious attitude. His answer amounts to: God made it that way.

If it's all about some mythical ending in which we'll learn all that is unknowable when we die, we should all just lay down and wait for it to happen. I can't hurt anyone or steal from anyone or covet anything I'm not supposed to if I'm simply laying on the ground, waiting to starve to death.

So I'm going to keep doing stuff. I'll keep drinking beer, writing stories and learning all I can (even thought I know I'll never know it all). I'm with Socrates on this one.