by Bror Erickson
GUEST COLUMNIST
Last Friday I received an e-mail concerning a new documentary coming out tomorrow entitled "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed." For once, the topic of a documentary unlike anything Al Gore or Michael Moore have been able to put out intrigues me.
For one it is Ben Stein and I like his dry humor. Comedians tend to have a logic that resonates with me. In this documentary, Stein wades into the ongoing debate in the scientific world between evolution and intelligent design. Intelligent design is a theory that sees evidence for a creator in the design of the creation. This theory is propagated by men like Michael Behe ("Darwin's Black Box") who sees that the single algae cell found in a pond of scum is too complicated, much more complicated than a watch, to have created itself. As he terms it, it is irreducibly complex that is if it is missing one element, it won't work, and that everything is shaped and designed to work together. No one seeing a watch thinks it created itself, so no one looking at the complexities involved in a functioning skin cell would rationally think it could have come to be by itself.
The premise of "Expelled" is that "big science," has no room for such thought and has expelled, ridiculed and refused to listen to many scientists merely because they have had the thought that there might be some greater power behind what they see in their microscopes. I do not know how true those claims are, but they seem to be in line with my own experience in school, with teachers who were unwilling or unable to answer questions I had concerning the evolutionary process.
It also seems to be somewhat of an historic problem. For instance, the findings of Gregor Mendel, the father of modern genetics who opposed evolution and whose research backed up his opposition, was largely ignored for 32 years because of his opposition. Yet in the end his hard science has been the godsend of many mothers trying to prove paternity so they can collect child support. His research also laid the foundation for the modern DNA research that is ongoing. No one questions Mendel. His scientific research was impeccable and hard. But no one listens to him either; that is most of the western world still believes humans evolved from apes through a process of natural selection, which Mendel's research showed to be impossible.
This is what happens when a scientific theory becomes dogma. Science is hindered. Science should be about questioning, propositioning and testing, re-propositioning, and re-testing. But when a theory can't be questioned it can't be tested. When students aren't allowed to question, their creativity and interest are stifled. This may be the best thing about the movie, that it may generate interest in the topic by students otherwise bored of rote memorization of supposed facts they are not allowed to question.
I do not think this movie will end the debate one way or another. But it may, for those open-minded enough to go see it, introduce them to the other side of the issue. It may show that science is not incompatible with belief in a creator. Indeed, many of the great scientists and scientific philosophers of the world have believed in a creator. In fact, it is that belief that set them on a quest for the truth of how the world operates.
And it is this quest for truth that keeps the Christian asking the questions. Christians believe in truth; we don't want to ignore the facts. But neither will we accept something just because it was said, or so many more people believe it. Truth is not decided by majority vote. It is found by research and analysis.
However, I'm not sure that scientific research and looking under a microscope will ever be able to prove the existence of God. It may point and hint at the existence of a god, and this I do believe it does. Intelligent design itself will not contend for God, but some unknown creator, perhaps Aristotle's Demiurge, the unmoved mover. We Christians only know that God through the Son, Jesus Christ. We know this God, not because of a scientific discovery, but a historical discovery; the discovery of Mary and Martha of an empty tomb on Easter Sunday some 2,000 years ago; the tomb that was supposed to contain the body of a dead man named Jesus of Nazareth. But Jesus of Nazareth was no longer dead, but living. He said he was God, and with that he proved it. Now we can know not only that there is a god, but we can also know who that God is. We can know that we need not fear him, but love him, because he loved us enough to die for our sins in our place.
Bror Erickson is pastor of the First Lutheran Church in Tooele.