I have been taking astro-physics and again I admit: I took it because it had 'physics' in the title (it's really just astronomy.) I have learned some things that I will probably forget: a kelvin is hotter than Fahrenheit but not as hot as joules and that the farthest star away is so far there isn't even a number for it, just a little symbol.
I have also learned some pretty cool things: an atom with the electrons and protons and neutrons is essentially the same as the universe with its stars and planets and comets. The elements that created a star are the elements that compose a person. Every single particle of energy is experiencing both internal and external pressure.
I found this today and once again I was flabbergasted by the debate. The people against creationism want the entire idea of any sort of god or 'intelligent designer' removed from the curriculum. The reoccurring argument from their side seems to be that if we assume that there is a creator, then we will no longer wonder about human origins. It seems to assume that people will look to the stars and smile while saying, "God did that" and cease to question: How did he do that?
The creationists keep trying to come up with more clever ways to insert god into the equation. First they fought the teaching of evolution, then they started talking about the intelligent designer. The way the creationists are portrayed it seems they fear that if the people are not taught that there was a driving force behind creation (the driving force being the big G of course) then people will get educated and forget about their religious belief.
It seems to me that the more we debate the issue the more we get to hear intelligent things like, "And if you believe that the world was created by a superior being you are an idiot." Isn't it funny that what this debate has done to the educational system (At least my educational systems) is that teachers can't talk about the big G--unless they are disparaging him. If they want to say something about the ignorance of the believers--that is fine. But to say something along the lines of, "SO--the similarities between the atom and the universe show signs of the efficiency and intelligent design" just ain't gonna happen.
For me personally, the more science classes I take, the more I see the hand of God.
I would like to think that eventually they will get it straightened out--the scientists will stop suggesting that a person can't believe in God and understand natural selection and the creationist will understand that science class is science class.
And guess what? Those of us the are believers will remain believers, even after we discover that we share 99% of the DNA of a monkey.
We all seem eager to hate one another lately. Republican or Democrat are not epithets, we want a two party system. A fifty party system never gets anything done (see Italy) but a one party system is autocracy or a despot. We need our disagreements. We need to be able to pull against one another in a positive way to stretch ourselves. But having us all agree is a dead end for us. What would help is if we would stop behaving as if people of good will cannot disagree about everything under the sun. It does not threaten me if you believe something different from me. It is scary if I have to hate you based on your different ideas and equally scary if because we share one idea, we must share all our ideas and beliefs. Stretching to accomodate other peoples ideas is what makes me grow. Of course I believe in what I think or I would change my ideas. But we will choke the life out of this country if we become frightened to share our beliefs with one another or if we allow leaders to take a single issue and stir us up into hatred of half of our own people. That is the appeal of science for me. If it settles on anything as the final answer it snuffs out its own existence. Science can never prove anything right. It can only prove that in this experiment something was proved false. No final answers, just feeling our way one exploration at a time.
Posted by: Gillian | 11/14/2007 at 05:47 PM