If you’re a McDonald’s employee, you probably support raising the minimum wage.
If you’re a female age 13 to 21, you probably know which Edward I’m referring when I say Edward.
If you’re a college student, you probably believe in the theory of evolution.
Stereotypes are often accurate descriptions of a group (if you say differently then you’re stereotyping stereotypes!), but when it comes to the issue of evolutionary theory, this holds particularly true: college students believe in evolution.
Last semester The Shield ran an article reflective of this common mindset, entitled “The defense of ‘True’ Science.”
In the article, a clearly intelligent USI student responded to a creation science seminar held on campus, providing evidence against the seminar’s content and for evolutionary theory.
The finished piece, which covered past ecclesiastical fallacies, the creation seminar’s speaker and purported biblical errors, had to be cut in half and printed over the span of two weeks.
As I read the article, I remember thinking: “How would a creationist respond to these arguments?”
What follows is the answer.
Now, I don’t claim extensive scientific knowledge or a Master of Divinity, but I am a learning college student and follower of Christ.
So from one knowledge-seeker to another, I present these few simple counterarguments for thought:
First, the author made the claim that the Bible is full of scientific fallacies which, were scientists to believe, would have prevented the development of “vaccines, antibiotics, satellites, or an understanding of why something as fundamental as changing seasons, or retrograde motion of other planets in the night sky, occurs.”
I understand the author’s argument, but a glance into the history of these developments reveals that most of the scientists responsible for such advancements believed the Bible.
Many were professing Christians — a stance difficult to maintain if you do not believe the claims of Christianity’s holy book.
Vaccines, for example, exist largely due to Edward Jenner, a member of the Church of England. The father of antibiotics, Alexander Fleming, was a Roman Catholic.
Sir Isaac Newton is known for his discoveries relating to gravity, which laid the framework for future man-made satellites, but he is also known for his religious beliefs and this quote concerning the universe:
“This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.”
Another professing Christian, Copernicus, contributed to the development of retrograde motion and upheld heliocentricity years before Galileo was born.
I cannot argue their devotion to an absolutely literal interpretation of Scripture, but considering their religious contexts, I would not dismiss the idea.
Furthermore, creation science does not reject or contradict useful and observable science.
Microevolution, also known as adaptation, clearly occurs.
Though this is typically presented as evidence for the whole of evolutionary theory, a distinction must be made between microevolution (i.e. adaptation) and macroevolution (i.e. the theory that all beings have evolved from a shared ancestor).
Creation scientists typically hold to the belief that all creatures do not derive from a single ancestor, but rather from several “original kinds,” or baramin.
Within those kinds, high degrees of adaption occur, but not so much as to result in humans and monkeys, for example, being from the same kind or ancestor.
Secondly, the author attacked today’s adherents to creation science, likening them to past flat-earth believers.
But this analogy isn’t quite right.
The flat earth theory in its day wasn’t an isolated, renegade belief held by the uneducated few, rather, it was supported by the consensus of the scientific community.
This gives it more of a semblance to modern evolutionary theory than creation science.
And while one might argue that the church was largely responsible for propagating flat-earth beliefs, this would hardly explain why groups unaffected by the church, such as peoples of America prior to the arrival of the Europeans, likewise considered the earth to be flat.
Before scientific discovery proved otherwise, many societies held to the flat earth theory regardless of church influence.
This observation does not prove evolution false, but it does suggest that the confident majority can err.
Finally, the author gives much attention to the Bible itself, asserting that the book inaccurately portrays illness, the shape of the earth and the orbit of the earth around the sun.
The author said that Scripture contradicts scientific facts because it attributes illness to evil spirits, never mentioning germs.
However, there is a long list of things that the Bible never mentions — such omission does not denote contradiction, but physical restraint.
You can only fit so much into a book.
If God had inspired the authors of the Bible to mention germs, would he be denying the possibility of vaccines by not explaining them also? And where could He stop?
Also, while the demon-possessed of Jesus’ day often experienced harsh side effects of their possession, including illness and apparent insanity, nowhere does Scripture teach that all illness is the result of demonic forces.
The apostle Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, requested that his friend Epaphroditus be honored for enduring a near fatal illness while serving the church (Philippians 2:25-30), and the gospels frequently distinguish between the healing of illnesses and the casting out of demons (c.f. Matthew 10:1).
In other words, demons are a source of illness, but not the only source.
As for the shape of the earth, the author cites Daniel 4:10-11 to support his claim that the Bible says the earth is flat.
In the verses above, Daniel describes a tree which is visible from every part of the world — an impossibility on a round earth.
In these verses, however, Daniel is not referring to an actual tree, but, in his words, to something he saw in one of “the visions in my mind as I lay on my bed” (Daniel 4:10).
Daniel chose his language primarily to indicate the enormity of the tree he saw, not the shape of the earth.
God could have intervened and revealed the earth’s shape to Daniel, but this would only have distracted readers from the more important message He sought to convey.
And Psalm 104:5 and 1 Chronicles 16:30, both of which the author references in his article, do not oppose heliocentricity.
Each verse states that the earth is immovable, but each verse was also written from the standpoint of men (in the form of praise songs, actually).
In relation to mankind, the earth is not moving; that is, if one was to use me as a reference point, the ground beneath me would be moving at 0 m/s.
In the same way a scientist would still tell his neighbor that he enjoyed the beautiful sunrise that morning, the sun was not rising in relation to the universe, but it was in relation to himself.
If you believe evolution to be true, I do not expect an article like this to convince you otherwise. Nor do I think it should.
But I do hope it will encourage you to research both sides of the evolution-creation debate, as well as to pick up a Bible and seek out the alleged contradictions for yourself.
You may be surprised by what you find.