(2:02 PM) | Adam Kotsko:

Some Thoughts on Evolution

This should not be so f---ing hard, people. Here's my argument in favor of the theory of evolution:

1. People who spend their whole lives studying biology have found Darwin's basic theory overwhelmingly convincing.
   
2. Most Christians who are concerned about evolution have virtually no scientific knowledge, either on the methods of science or on the body of facts that science has amassed.
   
3. Thus, while it is certainly possible that a radically new theory will someday replace Darwinism, much as Einstein's theory and then quantum mechanics replaced Newton's theory, that theory is not very likely to look any more strikingly "biblical" for the following reasons:
   
   
   • The Bible includes multiple creation accounts, which should be evident to anyone who, I don't know, reads the first two chapters of f---ing Genesis!
     
   • The writer of Genesis chapter 1 was adapting already existing Mesopotamian myths into a Yahwist theological framework. No one believes that Ba'al created the world after a battle with Marduck, so why should we take literally an account that just replaces the name Ba'al with YHWH and erases Marduck? Did the writer of Genesis 1 believe that the empirical evidence supported the idea that YHWH really created the world? Is this really a scientific document, rather than what it appears to be -- a piece of theology dressed up in a literary form familiar to audiences of the time?
   
   
4. As should be clear from the above points, those who advocate "the Bible" don't even appear to have any grasp of what the Bible actually contains. If you're so concerned about God and Jesus and all that, then maybe it would be a good idea to actually study the Bible instead of trying to "disprove" a theory that you also have no knowledge of.
   

In conclusion, just shut up about evolution, until you actually learn something, both about the Bible itself and about evolution. I suggest you start with the following:

• The New Oxford Annotated Bible, ed. Bruce Metzger.
  
• The Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin.

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