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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/06/science/sciencespecial2/06canyon.html
Seeing Creation and Evolution in Grand Canyon
By JODI WILGOREN
Published: October 6, 2005
The article ‘Seeing Creation and Evolution in Grand Canyon” by Jodi Wilgoren gives the reader a look into the debate between Creationism and Evolution in the context of the Grand Canyon. Since creationism and intelligent design can be considered two sides of the same coin, this piece remains relevant to science and intelligent design theory. Wilgoren spent a few days different tour guides of the Grand Canyon. The first, Tom Vail, the founder of Canyon Ministries, gives tours of the Grand Canyon with, what he likes to call “biblical lenses”. The other is Dr. Eugenie Scott from the National Center for Science Education, who formally opposes creationism as science. The reporter spent sometime interviewing both of the guides and the attendees and brought out the main points of the evolution argument and the one of creationism. Through, the reading, one gets a sense of what both arguments are and can actually see the clear cut differences between science and creationism.
Wilgoren, reports that gallop polls state that most people believe that “the Bible is the actual word of God that should be taken literally” and while viewing the canyons, and that the creations all over the earth were done ”in less than a week”. This idea is astounding and does not have scientific merit at all. The very idea of all of the rocks, bodies of land and water being created, along with just two people who are responsible for the creation of all the people in the world now, is just ridiculous. Mr. Vail, has no scientific credentials, prior to his “calling” to be a creation minister, he was a computer manager, therefore, this man does not have any real or credible scientific merit. From outsiders prospective, he could easily seem like an evangelical fraud that has gone nuts.
As I go through the article, I am bombarded with diagrams from how the world is only 4500 years old, opposed to the evidence showing that, really the earth is very very very old. All of Mr. Vail’s explanations for the formation of the Grand Canyon and fossil formation are based solely off of his observations and have went through no testing at all. It is not good enough to state, that just because something is “too complicated” that it has to be part of a divine power and neither does it justify writing off credible science.
It is confusing that people who believe in biblical literalism have taken it upon themselves to wage a war on science. I am sorry that I chose this topic for my works, because I am afraid of being too redundant throughout my papers. The writer at the end of the article accused the scientist on Dr. Scott’s trip of being ”dismissive and at times disrespectful of religion.” I find this to be a silly statement for the reason, that the fact is biblical literalist have consistently and constantly have been disrespectful and dismissive of science, because they have chosen to take science as a threat to their dogma. My hope is sometime, scientist and religious folks will all come together and realize that religion is not a science and science is not a religion, one does not determine the other, and people are a lot safer, if the two leave each other alone.
Seeing Creation and Evolution in Grand Canyon
By JODI WILGOREN
Published: October 6, 2005
The article ‘Seeing Creation and Evolution in Grand Canyon” by Jodi Wilgoren gives the reader a look into the debate between Creationism and Evolution in the context of the Grand Canyon. Since creationism and intelligent design can be considered two sides of the same coin, this piece remains relevant to science and intelligent design theory. Wilgoren spent a few days different tour guides of the Grand Canyon. The first, Tom Vail, the founder of Canyon Ministries, gives tours of the Grand Canyon with, what he likes to call “biblical lenses”. The other is Dr. Eugenie Scott from the National Center for Science Education, who formally opposes creationism as science. The reporter spent sometime interviewing both of the guides and the attendees and brought out the main points of the evolution argument and the one of creationism. Through, the reading, one gets a sense of what both arguments are and can actually see the clear cut differences between science and creationism.
Wilgoren, reports that gallop polls state that most people believe that “the Bible is the actual word of God that should be taken literally” and while viewing the canyons, and that the creations all over the earth were done ”in less than a week”. This idea is astounding and does not have scientific merit at all. The very idea of all of the rocks, bodies of land and water being created, along with just two people who are responsible for the creation of all the people in the world now, is just ridiculous. Mr. Vail, has no scientific credentials, prior to his “calling” to be a creation minister, he was a computer manager, therefore, this man does not have any real or credible scientific merit. From outsiders prospective, he could easily seem like an evangelical fraud that has gone nuts.
As I go through the article, I am bombarded with diagrams from how the world is only 4500 years old, opposed to the evidence showing that, really the earth is very very very old. All of Mr. Vail’s explanations for the formation of the Grand Canyon and fossil formation are based solely off of his observations and have went through no testing at all. It is not good enough to state, that just because something is “too complicated” that it has to be part of a divine power and neither does it justify writing off credible science.
It is confusing that people who believe in biblical literalism have taken it upon themselves to wage a war on science. I am sorry that I chose this topic for my works, because I am afraid of being too redundant throughout my papers. The writer at the end of the article accused the scientist on Dr. Scott’s trip of being ”dismissive and at times disrespectful of religion.” I find this to be a silly statement for the reason, that the fact is biblical literalist have consistently and constantly have been disrespectful and dismissive of science, because they have chosen to take science as a threat to their dogma. My hope is sometime, scientist and religious folks will all come together and realize that religion is not a science and science is not a religion, one does not determine the other, and people are a lot safer, if the two leave each other alone.