Crichton at least saw the problem and tried to work with it. He was what I would call an Honest Evolutionist. Wrong, but honest. Another form of the breed is the Confused or Dishonest Evolutionist. This would be people like Richard Dawkins. I don’t know if you saw the documentary by Ben Stein called Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed. The film is an up-front attempt to present the case for Intelligent Design as an option for Natural Selection. One of the people interviewed was Richard Dawkins who makes the rounds mocking people who believe in God. When Stein asked Dawkins about the problem of inadequate time for the development of intelligent life and how he explained it Dawkins said he thought the source of intelligence was either crystals or aliens, you know the kind from outer space. I had a hard time not disrupting the theater with my laughter.
I know that this is one of the big problems with evolution and the time limits that science is putting on the process. The people who are true believers in evolution are trapped between the age of the universe and the time needed for change to happen. The two don’t mesh. As a result of this one of the constant themes I see in science fiction is to explain the source of life and intelligence. Like Dawkins, they tend to go with aliens. Of course that ignores the problem that if you believe in evolution those aliens would have needed to evolve also and if there was not time for it to evolve on earth based on the age of the universe, there would be even less time for aliens who came before.
So evolution just does not measure up to the scientific data. It doesn’t allow for the emergence of life. It doesn’t explain the development of intelligence. Of course that doesn’t mean that creation is the answer either but it takes less “blind faith” than a theory based on chance with inadequate time.
To be continued...
homo unius libri
And Maranatha!
ReplyDeleteGrace and peace.