Evolution

The science service Newswise reports that scientists across the nation are enraged at Bush’s recent statement that the mainstream scientific theory of evolution should be presented side-by-side with the competing doctrine of intelligent design. In the September 17-23 issue of New Scientist magazine, eminent scientist Richard Dawkins says, “Darwinian natural selection can produce an uncanny illusion of design. An engineer would be hard put to decide whether a bird or a plane was the more aerodynamically elegant.” As someone who is fascinated by science but largely self-taught, I don’t understand the whole conflict, because surely evolution merely describes a process. In other words, it’s how God did it.

This makes sense if you think seriously about the alternatives. How ELSE did God do it? Did a giant hand with a paint brush in it come out of the sky one day? I guess there are people who believe that something like this happened, but these people need to learn more about legends and metaphors. They need to read more William Henry.

On the science side, some quantum physicists say their science proves the existence of God, because reality only exists if there is someone there to observe it. That means that the Big Bang that started the universe couldn’t have happened if God wasn’t already there first. As Martin Rees (who has been interviewed by Whitley on Dreamland) says in the same issue of New Scientist, “Cosmologists believe they know what our universe was like a few seconds before its beginning.” Was God already there?

I frankly think that people who want to argue about such unknowable ideas are on the wrong track. Great philosophers and beings, like Jesus, Mohammed, Abraham and Buddha, have arrived here periodically and taught us how to live. The tragedy is that we ignore or distort their words. The recent New Orleans tragedy brings that home to us every night on our TV news.

I couldn’t care less about people’s beliefs anymore, unless they lead to good actions. I remember being in a group of mothers once, where we were arguing about what store to select for a gift certificate for a teacher who was getting married. A mother who was a breast-cancer survivor said, “I don’t care about that kind of stuff anymore; let’s just give her the money.”

Nearly dying, like I have twice so far, really clears all the brush out of your brain.

NOTE: This Diary entry, previously published on our old site, will have any links removed.