Yesterday's post on Darwin yielded a number of very interesting comments. I got upbraided a few times for not showing a little more humility in regards to my making it a God-or-Darwin scenario, but I noted that I had a post on my own site that's a little fairer to all parties involved and said I'd post it. And here she be.
I don't mean for this to be a 'conversation starter', and I probably won't be very interested in debating the subject in the comments. Arguing over things that can't be proven is, admittedly, something of a waste of time. I just thought it would be fun to throw another idea into the ring.
It was written about five years ago when suddenly Evolution vs Intelligent Design was in the news because some Kansan school board was considering putting pictures of Jesus riding around on dinosaurs in their Science books or something. But the first sentence is certainly relevant after yesterday.
I find it interesting that in all of the current discussion of Evolution vs. Creationism, I have yet to read anyone propose what I believe is an answer that could satisfy almost everyone.
There are three main groups battling for the How We Got Here title; the Creationists, the Evolutionists, and the Intelligent Design people. As it stands now, they're miles apart on this black & white issue. Only one of the three groups can be right. There can be no compromise.
Or, can there?
Try this on for size:
Many moons ago, when the earth was a cauldron of heat and water and storms and volcanic upheaval — a froth just waiting for new life to appear — an intelligent entity stopped by and planted one tiny microbe in the ocean.
Having a couple billion other worlds to attend to, the entity then went on about its business and left the earthly cauldron to simmer and stew for a couple of aeons. The microbe split in two, then split again. Bigger microbes ate the smaller microbes, and the rest is history.
And?
The Creationists are mostly right. God exists and created Man, albeit starting with a microbe rather than Adam. The Bible is a book of morals, not a history book.
The Evolutionists are mostly right. Man evolved from a single microbe. Why should they care how it got here? Is it 'okay' if we started off as some spore hitching a ride on an asteroid, but somehow 'wrong' or 'bad' if the spore arrived via some power we don't understand? Please explain how.
The Intelligent Design people are mostly right. Man evolved from a single microbe, but needed a little outside help to get going.
To keep the Evolutionists happy, we're going to have to stipulate that evolution didn't need any external help after its initial start. The I.D. people aren't going to like that, because they're big on things like "evolution wasn't smart enough to create the eye," but, my feeling is, if evolution can create the platypus, it can create pretty much anything.
To keep the Creationists happy, and because it wouldn't interfere with the Evolutionists and IDers, it could even be said that the entity re-visited the earth at a later date, saw that religion needed a small boost and caused the holy birth of Christ. It might even have been part of the original plan; to come back to a planet at that particular point in its societal evolution and create a 'miracle' so it could evolve to the next step. The intelligence then went on to the other billions of worlds in the universe to see how they were doing. It might drop back by at any moment, just to see how things are coming along.
Of course, it's no surprise that no one has ever proposed this answer. It's really not in man's nature to compromise, and certainly not on such a fundamental issue as this. The Creationists would be screaming about losing all those cool Genesis stories, the Evolutionists would be screaming about the idea of a god in the first place, and the IDers probably wouldn't know what to think because, while delighted with their victory, they'd still be pissed about losing that "eye" thing.
But, indeed, it certainly could be the answer. And why not? It certainly satisfies more parameters than the other theories do. I can almost convince all three groups that I'm right.
Can you say that about yours?
