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I doubt it has escaped anyone’s notice that this year is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his book On the Origin of Species in which he sets out his theory of evolution by natural selection. Darwin carried out much of his research on the Galapagos Islands 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador and also at his home Down House. There is no doubt that Darwin was a brilliant observer and biologist who has inspired many people to look at the natural world more closely. But what I do find troublesome is the way the theory of evolution has been turned into the fact of evolution by many TV natural history programmes – if not in word then by implication. There is no doubt that animals, plants and human-beings are extremely adaptable to both climate and environment and that variations do seem to exist within certain species. But the conclusions drawn from such observations about the origins of life on earth should be handled with extreme caution. One leading scientist has gone even further claiming that not only is nature subject to natural selection but the universe is as well. Really!
What this person seems to be implying is that the universe we inhabit has survived as “the fittest” of many other universes that did not survive! It’s breathtaking isn’t it? If a theist wrote something like that without evidence to support it they would be hung out to dry. We might legitimately ask, then, who visited these now defunct universes to gather the “evidence” to make such a claim. It’s a bit like two ball- bearings having a conversation in the oily darkness of a bicycle spindle as they go round and round and saying: “I know how we got here and why. We started out square but with the constant rotation the corners got rounded off so that now we’re smooth. And that’s it” Wrong! The ball bearings would have no perception of the world beyond theirs. Of the spokes beyond the spindle, the rim beyond the spokes, the tyre on the rim, the rim on the wheel, the wheel on the road, the rider on the bike not to mention the vast world beyond the rider.
So we should take with a pinch of salt the speculations of those who insist they have the answers to life’s mysteries based on their limited observations. Why? Simply because we are not independent observers on the outside as it were looking in upon our world; we (all of us) are part of the system we seek to understand and explain. Besides, as one great thinker once said, just because a ball bounces the same way nine times out of ten doesn’t mean it will bounce that way the tenth time! We simply don’t know! And we should beware of those who tell us otherwise. There’s an arrogance in human-nature that seeks after its own way in rebellion against God.
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