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This gentleman speaks with great passion concerning his
faith in God, with which I sympathize. He also asks good questions that many
average people have who are not familiar with how science works. It's only
unfortunate that he takes those questions as evidence for the
"stupidity" of scientists and science only because he hasn't taken
the time to research some of these concepts in greater depth. As a result, he
is quite confused. Here are some common but important misunderstandings by this
gentleman:
1) Evolution is *not* the idea of one man: Charles Darwin is
most often credited with the formulation of evolution, but the idea was already
circulating in the scientific community at the time of his work. (For instance,
Alfred Russel Wallace came up with the idea of evolution by means of natural
selection independently from Darwin at around the same time, and the friar
Gregor Mendel is famous for discovering the mechanism of genetic inheritance,
which is integral to evolution.) More importantly, many, many biologists that
have come after Darwin, Wallace and Mendel have corroborated evolution through
very careful research over 150 years.
2) Evolution is *not* a “theory” in the popular sense: This
is one that people often get confused about. It’s understandable because words
have different meanings depending on the context in which they are used and
spoken. If the weather is chilly, and I say, “It’s cool out here,” while
rubbing my arms for warmth, the meaning of “cool” I am using is in reference to
temperature. But if I go to a club with bumping music in Ibiza, and I am sweaty
from grooving on the dance floor, and turn to my fellow partier and say, “It’s
cool out here!” what I mean by “cool” is now something completely different:
that this foreign environment we are visiting is exciting and interesting. But
if my fellow partier is a native-Spanish speaker rather than a native-English
speaker, he might think I was insane for suggesting the temperature is chilly
in a stuffy club.
This variation of meaning applies to the word “theory,” as
well. The way the word “theory” is used in everyday speech is that a theory is
like a fancy idea—maybe it is interesting or seems to have far-reaching
consequences if true, but it is by nature questionable, which is why we aren't
calling it a “fact.” But that is not how the word is used in the scientific
community. (In fact, the word in science very close to the way we use “theory”
in everyday speech is called a “hypothesis.”) In the context of science, the
word “theory” instead means an idea that is both well-tested and
well-substantiated: that is, it has not proven false in those tests, and is
thus considered very likely true, especially when tested over a period of 150
years. It’s very natural to ask, “Why don’t scientists just say it’s true,
then?” And that’s because it’s technically very difficult for something to be
proven 100% true, and why science gives values of truth in terms of
probability. We can ask the question, “Do we actually exist?” and I think most
scientists would say we very, very probably do exist, but it’s technically true
that our existence is not 100% certain. In Buddhism, for example, the concept
of “emptiness” denies the reality of the self—that “I” exist.
This concept of belief expressed in probabilities is also
directly relevant in reference to atheism: when an atheist says, “I don’t
believe in God,” that person is not necessarily saying, “I 100% don’t believe
in God.” Instead, what they are often expressing is shorthand for actually
meaning: “I believe that God is highly unlikely to exist,” and they feel
comfortable stopping their inquiry at that point until some significant piece
of evidence (probably based on physics) is presented.
3) Mr. Feuerstein does not understand the second law of
thermodynamics: This law of physics, often referred to as the law of entropy,
basically states that all things in a closed system will generally devolve
toward chaos. But when you oversimplify the law, as this gentleman has done, it
ends up sounding like, “Things always become more chaotic” (an idea which seems
to contradict the theory of evolution because, likewise, evolution itself is
often oversimplified as meaning, “Everything becomes more orderly”). However,
an important component that is left out of the second law of thermodynamics in
this oversimplification is that the law applies to a “closed system.” This
means an environment in which nothing can get in and nothing can get out, sort
of like a box. But the process of evolution through natural selection actually
needs to interact with the rest of the world to work: that is, the kind of
process described by the theory of evolution does *not* take place in a closed
system, and thus, the second law of thermodynamics does not contradict
evolution. (And, actually, the second law of thermodynamics doesn't say that
all things move toward chaos in a closed system, but only that they
*statistically* tend to. This is another common misunderstanding of the law.
With enough time—such as infinity—the law also predicts that inevitably all
things in that closed system will move toward order.)
I am not sure which
religion Mr. Feuerstein professes faith to but, based on his arguments, I am
going to guess it is some form of Christianity. That said, not all forms of
Christianity believe the same thing. For instance, Catholicism—generally
considered a very conservative form of Christianity—has absolutely no quarrel
with evolution. In 1950, Pope Pius XII declared (in an encyclical called Humani
Generis) that the teachings of the Church and evolution were not in conflict,
stating that the only thing the Church insisted on was belief that God was the
one responsible for placing souls in human beings, whatever the specific
process by which men and women came to exist. Then, almost 50 years later in
the mid-1990s, Pope John Paul II went further and praised evolution, saying:
"Today, almost half a century after publication of the
encyclical, new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution
as more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been
progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in
various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of
the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant
argument in favor of the theory."
This is significant because we see that it's not impossible
to be both a Christian and to accept evolutionary evidence from the scientific
community.
In this video, Mr. Feuerstein also seems to think that
acceptance of the Big Bang theory is incompatible with religious belief or
belief in God. But that also is not true. Here, again, John Paul II—generally
considered a very conservative pope—actually loved the idea of the Big Bang,
because he felt that it not only actually *proved* that God exists but that the
theory tells us when the act of universal creation actually took place. He
said:
"Thus, with that concreteness which is characteristic
of physical proofs, [science] has confirmed the contingency of the universe and
also the well-founded deduction as to the epoch when the world came forth from
the hands of the Creator. Hence, creation took place. We say: therefore, there
is a Creator. Therefore, God exists!"
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On a side note I would like to point out his mistaking what the word "universe" is derived from. The word universe is from:
"Uni" - meaning one (got that part right)
"versus" - The past tense of vertere, which means to turn. (Dictionary.com, Online Etymology Dictionary)
(It drives me nuts when people don't research such simple things as the origin of words before spewing their nonsense.)
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