not<\/em> the case that everything is uncertain.<\/p>\nThe same holds true for evolution. There is certainly room for debate about the pace of evolution, whether it at times acts \u201csporadically\u201d from a geological perspective (i.e. punctuated equilibrium). There is room for debate about the relative importance of various mechanisms. But there is no doubt about the approximate age of the earth, or that all living things are related, or that evolution has occurred and continued to occur. A favorite strategy of the anti-science crowd is to point at individual uncertainties and then declare victory for their side. This is dishonest -it is like saying that because a batter missed the ball, the game is over and the other side won. There is plenty of room for us to learn more \u2013 that is why biology is such an exciting field \u2013 but there is a great deal that we know for certain.<\/p>\n
This means the news is good all around. On the one hand, we do know a great deal. On the other hand, there are lots of exciting opportunities for further research and discovery. The only people likely to treat this as bad news are people who think that books written a long time ago and in many cases long after the events they claim to describe should be treated as factual even when there is overwhelming solid evidence from genes, fossils, artifacts, archaeology, and countless other sources.<\/p>\n
My students often say that this is where \u201cfaith\u201d comes in. Certainly I agree if they mean that this is the point at which it is appropriate to rely on God in the midst of unsettling uncertainty. But if they mean that by strongly wanting something to be factual, \u201cfaith\u201d allows one to bypass questions of historical evidence, then I cannot go along with that. Hebrews 11:1 says that faith is the evidence of things not seen \u2013 not that it is evidence that the things seen don\u2019t really exist. Affirming the genocide depicted in Joshua, or denying the genocide carried out by Hitler, are both equally examples of people being willing to deny more than sufficient evidence on the basis of ideology and wishful thinking. I do not think that the content<\/em> of such beliefs matters, because if one can be persuaded to believe one thing in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, then one may next time be persuaded to believe something else, something far more insidious.<\/p>\nStrongly wanting something to be true is never a sound basis for rewriting history. There is certainly a lot we don\u2019t know, and a lot that is at best probable. But that is the way history works, and some of the things mentioned above as \u201ccertain\u201d, while only certain in the sense of \u201cproven beyond reasonable doubt\u201d, are as certain as anything in historical study can be. To deny them would be to throw out history and science altogether.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7622297540113836091-737235593328505423?l=exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\")
<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"