November 04, 2004

I'm a wacko...

...because I voted for Bush. I'm a Christian--whether a fundamentalist or evangelical, the media will never know--who believes Bush's stand on moral issues is stronger than Senator Kerry's. As we've seen the liberal national media are surprised that their candidate lost. And they know it's because Christians turned out in large numbers to vote for a God-fearing incumbent president. That has them perplexed; the country may not actually believe like the media says they do.

I don't believe Bush is the perfect candidate, but he's about as good as we can hope for. That being said, it's frustrating and funny at the same time that liberals think that Bush is in bed with fundamentalists. This brand-new book exposes that story. Check out the cover! (Thanks to my brother for tipping me off on this one.) I have not read the book, but just look at the reviews on Amazon. What can I say...the double standards that liberals have amaze me.

I'm also wacko because I believe in a six-day Creation. The world was created--with age--as described in Genesis. That's so easy to believe. And there's good science that supports such a belief. So many evolution proofs have been shown to be hoaxes or lacking in logic. Nonetheless, National Geographic continues to heap glowing praise on Darwin and his theories while criticizing those who believe the biblical account of creation.

Here's some of what the magazine says (beyond what they show on the website) and my thoughts:

[Darwin] was right about evolution, that is. He wasn't right about everything. Being a restless explainer, Darwin floated a number of theoretical notions during his long working life, some of which were mistaken and illusory. He was wrong about what causes variation within a specific species. He was wrong about a famous geologic mystery, the parallel shelves along a Scottish valley called Glen Roy. Most notably, his theory of inheritance--which he labeled pangenis and cherished despite its poor reception among his biologist colleagues--turned out to be dead wrong. Fortunately for Darwin, the correctness of his most famous good idea stood independent of that particular bad idea. Evolution by natural selection represented Darwin at his best--which is to say, scientific observation and careful thinking at its best.

Note: Emphasis mine, in bold.

..."stood independent of that particular bad idea." It does? How?

The article goes on to explain how by looking at fossils, we can see the stages of evolution. The author tells about a paleontologist who has a "trait that's valuable in a scientist: a willingness to admit when he's wrong." The paleontologist has been collecting whale fossils from the Middle East. As he collected the fossils, he started to see a progression in whale types that suggested they came "from a group of carnivorous Eocene mammals known as mesonychids."

Just a bit more evidence, he thought, would confirm that relationship. By the end of the 1990s, most paleontologists agreed.

Meanwhile molecular biologists had explored the same question and arrived at a different answer. No, the match to those Eocene carnivores might be close, but not close enough. DNA hybridization and other tests suggested that whales had descended from artiodactyls (that is, even-toed herbivores, such as antelopes and hippos), not from meat-eating mesonychids.

In the year 2000 Gingerich chose a new field site in Pakistan, where one of his students found a single piece of fossil that changed the prevailing view in paleontology. It was half of a pulley-shaped anklebone, known as an astragalus, belonging to another new species of whale. A Pakistani colleague found the fragment's other half. When Gingerich fitted the two pieces together, he had a moment of humbling recognition: The molecular biologists were right. Here was an anklebone, from a four-legged whale dating back 47 million years, that closely resembled the homologous anklebone in an artiodactyl. Suddenly he realized how closely whales are related to antelopes.

The article continues, getting even better, adding some serious science.

This is how science is supposed to work. Ideas come and go, but the fittest survive. Downstairs in his office Phil Gingerich opened a specimen drawer, showing me some of the actual fossils from which the display skeletons upstairs were modeled. He put a small lump of petrified bone, no larger than a lug nut, into my hand. It was the famous astragalus, from the species he had eventually named Artiocetus clavis. It felt solid and heavy as truth.

I wondered what that was supposed to mean for a while. Then it hit me. It's just like being in a junkyard and finding a spark plug. Holding that spark plug, you know it's just like the spark plug in your Ford Focus. But then you realize...this isn't a Focus spark plug, it's a from a Dodge Ram full-size pickup (with a HEMI). You can tell because there's a HEMI tag on the ground nearby. Hold the spark plug. It's real. And solid and heavy as truth.

Too bad it's from an outboard motor.

The article closes with the disclosure that the paleontologist himself grew up in a conservative Midwest church. He, too, needs to see the intermediate steps of evolution. And now that's what he's doing.

He's not satisfied until he sees solid data. That's what excites him so much about pulling whale fossils out of the ground. In 30 years, he has seen enough to be satisfied. [Don't forget the spark plug.] For him, Gingerich said, it's "a spiritual experience."

"The evidence is there," he added. "It's buried in the rocks of ages."

So, it does come down to faith. I'll keep my faith in the Rock of Ages, not rocks of ages. If this is what it's like to be wacko, I'll take it.

Posted by JRC at November 4, 2004 05:38 PM | TrackBack