Couldn't be said better, Todd. This piece from my cousin, a petroleum geologist in Denver, might help Brady, and all of us, understand the difficulty of "just reading the Bible and doing what it says."

Duane Diller

Todd Duncan wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I would like this to be mostly an open discussion, but in the interest of
> keeping things somewhat on track (remember this is specifically a *science*
> discussion list :) and friendly, let me make a couple of comments to tie
> things back to the original quote and question about how science affects our
> choices:
>
> - As Brady pointed out, evolution is a part of science that has had a strong
> influence on how we see ourselves. It is therefore a very good example of
> how we may live differently because of things we know about the world
> through science. It's also a good example of how that influence can go far
> beyond what the theory actually tells us about the world: As John noted,
> evolution is a summary of some information we have learned about how the
> world apparently is. It describes and unifies evidence into some general
> principles; it doesn't specifically encourage any particular behavior on our
> part. But we know that people do distort information to serve their own
> purposes (as Kim mentioned) - that's one reason why it's very important to
> understand the evidence for things and know exactly what a theory says. It
> seems to me that the best way to defend ourselves against those who try to
> use science to manipulate us is to have a clear enough understanding of how
> science works that we can ask critical questions and check up on things.
>
> - The essential elements of the theory of evolution *are* a well-established
> part of science, supported by a great deal of experimental evidence. It is
> as well-established as many other theories in science which are put to use
> every day to run our computers, send radio signals, power our lights, etc.
> So for the purposes of our discussions here of what science says about the
> world we live in, I think our default should be that evolution is basically
> a correct statement about how the world is, just as our default is to accept
> other pieces of information from science: the rules of quantum physics or of
> gravity, or that the earth orbits the sun. This doesn't mean we can't
> question these things or must accept them blindly. Far from it, asking how
> we know something, what's the evidence, is very important and helpful in
> understanding and finding out where we might actually be wrong. But I'd
> suggest that (on a science discussion list) any time we want to question a
> well-established part of science, it's best to do it in the spirit of a
> discussion/debate about the *evidence*. For example, asking, "What's the
> evidence that the earth is round?" may seem sillly, but is actually a very
> interesting and valuable question that sheds light on how we know things.
> (If you were dropped into a society on earth 3,000 years ago, with the
> knowledge you have now, could you prove to people that the earth is round?)
> But stating that the earth is flat and operating on that assumption is not
> very useful in an environment where most people take it for granted that it
> is round. Similarly, in a science discussion I think it's best if we either
> take for granted the standard view that evolution is correct, or else debate
> the *evidence* directly. Otherwise we risk veering away from science.
>
> In any case all of this certainly illustrates that ideas from science do
> have a powerful and complex impact on our view of the world.
>
> Todd