Two great tastes that go great together

Okay, most readers won't know why I'm bothering. Creationism vs. Evolution? Is this a debate anymore? Well, apparently it is in the pages of the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus. No fault of the newspaper, the Times Argus is one of the last few independent dailies in America, which is to say it is one of the last few sources of news not owned by a media conglomerate. But somehow there's become a raging war on the letters page between Creationists and, well, everybody else.
So here it is:

Eugene Fairfield on Creation and Evolution

There's no fight here. Sorry. Not unless someone else picks it. The Bible is not a science textbook, anymore than it is a history textbook. One need not refute evolution in order to say that God created the world. Many great scientists (Einstein, for instance) believed in God, and of course there is no scientific evidence of the non-existence of God, so if one is truly scientific one cannot say that God does not exist.

Enter the so-called "theory" of intelligent design. This "theory" holds that evolution did in fact happen, but that it was guided by some sort of intelligence such as a deity. The evidence that is cited to support this "theory" is certain unexplained phenomena in the course of evolution. Well, here we have an essential problem. You can't form a theory out of a lack of evidence. A lack of evidence only creates a question: how did this happen? From this question, one can propose tentative answers. These are called "hypotheses." Then one must search for evidence that a hypothesis is correct. Intelligent Design has no supporting evidence, so it's just somebody's guess. The fact that the originators have published and promoted their guess is rather strong evidence that they are not diligent scientists.

Intelligent Design is not new, either, at least not as a concept. Theologians have long said that evolution did happen, but that God set it in motion and lovingly guided it according to God's wisdom. There is certainly room in Science for such a proposal: geneticists acknowledge that many genetic changes have no cause beyond "random chance." But the important point is who is doing the arguing. The action of God in the world is a theological argument, not a scientific one. If presented as theology, as a statement of faith, then it is on solid biblical, historical, logical, and theological footing. If presented as science it is simply error. In my humble opinion, it is only people of weak faith who seek to have science justify their beliefs. Science does what it does very well, but one thing it doesn't do is justify faith.

Having said all that, I must add one comment on

Biblical Literalism and What it Means

As most are aware, people who take literally the biblical account of Creation hold that God planted dinosaur bones in the earth to confuse the unfaithful. This is certainly possible. For all we know, God could have created the earth seven minutes ago, and planted memories of a lifetime in each of us, excepting of course that the bible doesn't say so (at least, not according to my memory...). But God would also have had more work to do to cover his tracks.

According to Creationist scholars, God created the world some 5-6000 years ago, reckoning from the biblically recorded ages of the patriarchs to historical referents such as the Davidic kingdom. 5-6000 years ago, the entire world was settled by humanity. Even North America. God would have had to plant evidence of the diaspora of the human species from Africa, including monuments, tools, kitchen trash, and linguist diversion. 5-6000 years ago, the proto-Indo-Europeans had already migrated to Europe and dispersed about it.

Which is not to say that God couldn't have been thorough. But then consider what he had to do. The patriarchs originated in the Ancient Near East, and dispersed to the world from there. God would have had to conceal their movements, so that no one could cite a resettlement of North America. The Chrysanthemum Throne in Japan has been occupied by a single family of Japanese for five thousand years. God would have had to have people arrive in Japan quite a bit later, the Kofuns (burial mounds) already built, and get them to believe that they had always been there, that they had built the mounds, and to fabricate tales of Japanese emperors that never existed. Think about it! Wherever people arrived, there would be evidence of their culture waiting for them.

Now I suppose with God all things are possible. But what kind of God would do such a thing. What kind of God would go to such lengths to deceive people, to Create the world in such a way that if anyone were curious about it, they would be inevitably lead into sin? No God I know.