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Evolution Debate

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Phillip Pluta

Published: February 18, 2008

Randy Merrill's article "Evolution Is Not Fact or Science" is another shot across the academic bow to force religious doctrine into physical science classes. The problem with that scenario is they are two different disciplines – one physical and the other metaphysical. It is a lot like teaching numerology in an algebra class.

I won't even go into the controversial subject of the Paluxy River Basin fossils. Depending on whom you choose to believe, they were either actual man tracks among dinosaur tracks, carvings (as in hoax) or erosion of dinosaur tracks. That doesn't even scratch the surface of the myriad theories but a Google trip with the key words "Paluxy River Basin fossils" will keep a reader busy for hours sorting it all out.

This is another example of selective information to lend credence to one's own beliefs — not that evolutionists are above using the same methodology at times, but after all, how many readers are going to go through the trouble to read all the pros and cons about that controversy. Without investigation, the information would stand as a wow factor in the article. We all fall back on what we already believe and don't much want to hear any argument. Never mind that such a closed mindset does not resemble the scientific method.

While I think courses on comparative religion should be welcomed into public education, I believe doctrinal and interpretive opinions need to be outside physical science courses.

Mr. Merrill gives me reason to say this in his article. After chastising Mr. Glavey for not doing his homework, he gives his own interpretation of Genesis that explains the discrepancies in Genesis 1 and 2. In a very condescending tone, he explains that it is easily clarified as a common teaching and writing method, going from the general to the specific. If he had done his homework on the subject, he would realize there is a problem with that interpretation because we are not dealing with one document written at the same time by the same writer or team of writers. In reality, we are considering two different documents written 600 years apart from each other.

The first chapter of Genesis is known as the Elohistic document because God is called Elohim. The Second chapter written 600 years before the prose poem is known as the Jehovistic document because there God is called Jehovah. The Elohistic version is a metaphorical and metaphysical view of creation as purely spiritual. The Jehovistic version is an allegorical explanation of the human condition.

When the Pentateuch was finished, these two versions were blended so that the first chapter of Genesis spills over into the first two verses of the second chapter and then goes on to give a material version of creation. That kind of biblical exegesis is necessary to move beyond ones own doctrinal prejudices.

To me the argument between Darwin's evolving cells and the Bible is a nonstarter for a Christian. It might be more enlightening to investigate the diversity of nascent Christianity and see the diversity of interpretations and doctrines in our Christian past. It is somewhat sobering to learn that much of what we today recognize as orthodox belief was once thought to be heresy. Is what we accept today only the result of aggressive, persuasive argument by one sect of Christian thought? Now there is something to look into.

Phillip Pluta
Sebring

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