2-12-09
Tomorrow is the 200th birthday of two of the most famous men who ever lived – Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. And no one can be that famous for so long without being controversial.
President Lincoln is revered for saving the Union, at least outside Dixie. But he suspended habeas corpus, swept away states’ rights, and went through a bunch of mediocre generals before finding a winner. Slavery, that abomination which still goes on today in many parts of the world, would eventually have disappeared as it had in England, but eradicating it was a noble cause.
I believe Darwin is much more of a provocative figure, especially in our country. His theory is just that, and in this 150th year of its presence, it is perhaps less accepted than ever as truth. In an earlier blog I spoke of “science vs. truth”. Science is a path to the truth, a set of tools, but in our secularized world it has too often been used as a cudgel to threaten and punish those who have faith, who believe in divine revelation and intelligent design. No one can question that evolution occurs within a species or that millions of species have disappeared because they could not compete. If Darwin’s insight is correct, where are the missing links? How do we explain “irreducible complexity”, the staggering number of proteins and structures needed to make just one cell, much less an eye or a brain? If the Darwin ideas (many lifted from his friend Alfred Wallace) are so unassailable in the eyes of most science and education authorities, why are they so hysterical about their suppositions being challenged? If evolution explains all the wonders around us, why can’t scientists make it happen in a lab? If it matters that chimpanzees have 98% of human DNA, where are the books they’ve written, their art and music, their bridges and hospitals, their agriculture, their cemeteries – well, you get my drift.
In 1859 “The Origin of the Species” was a ground-breaking sensation. In 2009 it stands as a landmark in mankind’s search for the truth, but the ground beneath it is more sand than rock.