Evolution

As a member of the United Methodist Church, the recent four-part analysis of BioLogos by Thomas Cudworth sparked my interest. I have no special training in theology and certainly no office within the UMC, but common sense and my historical sense of the church prompted me to wonder, is this a legitimate application of Wesleyan theology or is it merely an attempt to gain standing for a Darwinian brand of theistic evolution by invoking the argumentum ad verecundiam? Here’s a view from the pew.

Here’s an open access paper, just published in Nature online (May 16, 2012) , about whose abstract a friend writes to say, “You could request a full paragraph of explanation for each sentence.” Well-known examples of South American butterflies mimicking each other’s wing patterns may be due – not to wing panel by wing panel natural selection – but to hybridization. That would make more sense. Never mind the famous question “What good is five percent of an eye?” Well, some good. A more important question for many life forms is, what good is looking only five percent less like lunch? Five percent of an eye may be useful; looking only five percent less like lunch is not likely to Read More ›

There are two regular tragedies in the Intelligent Design movement. The first tragedy is the student who airs his or her doubts about Darwin, and a faculty member then makes it their life mission to block that student from a degree, or, if they get a degree, prevent them from getting any further. This sometimes happens via a bad letter of recommendation or a notice in their file or sometimes even calling other programs to tell them not to include the student. The second tragedy is the student who plays it safe, presuming that some day in the future they will have the position, stature, or whatever to present their doubts about Darwin. Many people counsel this procedure – keep Read More ›