Real Talk

Peace and blessings,

This piece is in regards to an idea I had about 6 months ago, but for various reasons I'm just now writing it. One obvious reason for the delay is because I've been pretty busy these past six months with wedding planning, school, and life, and thus haven't had the time to put update the site like I want to you. Another reason may have to do with the strike that took place with TV show writers, and the resulting cease in the production and airing of new episodes of major television shows. Anyhow, I'm finally sharing a few thoughts on the television show

Heroes,

which in my opinion is one the best television shows in terms of concept and overall quality in years. Although I am a huge fan of the show, this piece is not about the details of the show thus far, but about two "debates" that I think are highlighted within the show and plays out amongst the characters.

Debate #1: Evolution "versus" Divine Creation/Ordinance

The major premise of the show is that there are individuals in the world who are genetic anomalies in the sense that they have superhuman abilities. What I found interesting while watching the show (so far I've watched the first season twice, making me a certified, hardcore fan, lol) was not just the type of powers people had, but their beliefs about where these abilities came from. Relatedly, this debate reflects the larger debate regarding the origins of life itself. Some characters believe that these genetic anomalies are definite proof that science (esp. Darwinism) was right in that species are capable of large, qualitative evolutionary leaps. For these characters, superhuman abilities are primarily a product of gene transformation via evolution. Other characters, however, march to a different tune. They believe that their abilities are a gift from God, and therefore they must be used for a purpose. Although this debate may not be an explicit within the show, I would be interested to see if in the next season or upcoming seasons they identify characters who believe their abilities are products of both evolution and divine creation/ordinance.


Debate #2: Freewill "versus" Pre-destination

I think this debate is more evident throughout the show that the previously mentioned debate because in both seasons thus far, there has been the threat of a major disaster, and an intimately complex relationship between the past, present, and the future (e.g., a couple of characters can travel through time and see the consequences of past and present action and inaction). At the same time, however, there seems to bee a bit of ambiguity in that while some things can be changed through making different decisions, other things cannot. For these other things, simply making different decisions justs changes how a particular how an outcome manifests, not what outcome manifests. In this sense, there seems to be "discussion" throughout the show as to whether we as humans have freewill and are able to change life's course, or are we merely playing our parts in bringing about an inevitable outcome. Unlike the first debate, I think that the show does a good job of highlighting both sides, as well the middle ground position (e.g., we have freewill over some things, but not others).


So there you have it. Two reasons that I really like the show (aside from its superhero/X-Men/comic storyline steez) is that in many ways, it addresses some deep questions that we as humans have wrestled with throughout history and continue to wrestle with today:

1) How did life originate?

2) What is the meaning of life? My purpose for being here?


What do you think? Stay blessed, take care, and speekonit...


Season 1 Trailer



Season 2 Trailer



Season 3 Trailer (visual and sound quality is suspect)

Labels: divine creation, evolution, Superheroes, TV

Peace and blessings,

I just wanted to briefly clarify my position on Darwin's theory of evolution (as well as the idea of evolution in general), because I realize that it was not clear in the previous post. As someone who is training to be a social scientist, I have the upmost respect and appreciation for science, theories of evolution included. After all, our ability to hypothesize about the world and search out to test those hypotheses is one of the characteristics that make us human.


Before proceeding, I must preface this discussion by acknowledging the fact that my take on this issue is heavily influenced by my Christian beliefs. The issue I have with some scientific theories, however, is that some theories try to replace God's ever-important role in the creation of the earth and in humanity. I feel that because we as humans could never possible understand the complete nature of God's creations, then the best that we can do as thinkers and scientists is to identity and analyze to the best of our ability, observable phenomena. In doing so, we must realize two things:

1) we will never get it "fully" right because there is way too much variation in human actions and observable phenomena for our human (limited) faculties to catch everything, let alone accurate describe it.

2) regardless of how accurate we get at identifying and analyzing the things we are able to observe and grasp, we cannot deny the fact that there are many things that we will simply never be able to observe, but yet are nevertheless "real" in every sense of the word.

By realizing these two things, I feel that it is perfectly normal for the "things of God" and science and intellectual inquiry to co-exist, insofar as it is understood that the former always precedes and takes priority over the latter. Therefore, I do not deny that evolution does not occur in certain instances, such that for example, over time dogs who live in regions where they have to constantly run from predators will probably develop stronger legs than dogs who live in regions where they are not threatened by predators (I know that wasn't the best example but bear with me, lol). What I do deny is the claim that evolution is so encompassing that it can explain the origin of life itself, and that it can account for all types (or at least most types) of purpose-driven developments, structures, and behaviors.

What do you think? Take care, God bless, and speekonit...

Labels: Darwin, Darwin On Trial, divine creation, evolution, science

"I do not think that many scientists would be comfortable accepting Darwinism solely as a philosophical principle, without seeking to find at least some empirical evidence that is true. But there is an important difference between going to the empirical evidence to test a doubtful theory against some plausible alternative, and going to the evidence to look for confirmation of the only theory that one is willing to tolerate. We have already seen that distinguished scientists have accepted uncritically the questionable analogy between natural and artificial(e. g. intentionally breeding species to increase chances of survival) selection, and that they have often been undisturbed by the fallacies of the "tautology" and "deductive logic" formulations (e. g. the fittest of species are those who survive/evolve, and the reason why they survive/evolve is because they are the fittest). Such illogic survived and reproduced itself for the same reason that an apparently incompetent species sometimes avoids distinction; there was no effective competition in its ecological niche."

- Johnson, p. 28-29 (words in parentheses are mine)


Peace and blessings,


One of my professors often emphasizes the importance of scientists (social, physical, electrical) to having a default orientation towards theories and ideas (including their own) that is skeptical. In other words, he says that the purpose of our research is not to seek to confirm our theories and ideas; but to dis-confirm them. One of my favorite TV shows is "CSI" (Las Vegas), one of the reasons being due to the importance they give to evidence and its ability to reveal "truth." Although there are exceptions and there are times when even the evidence may be misleading in certain situations, for the most part, the path to truth lies in following the evidence. As a Christian, there are all kinds of evidence that I witness (first and second hand) that reveal the truth of the presence and sovereignty of God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. while the evidence sought on CSI requires the use of our physical eyes and for Christians the evidence of God is seen both through our physical and spiritual eyes (e. g. our ability to see things in the spiritual realm and the things we are assure of through faith), the idea is the same: one of the best ways to seek truth is to follow the evidence.

In Phillip E. Johnson's book, "Darwin on Trial" (1991), he applies this relationship between evidence and truth within the context of Darwin's theory of evolution and natural selection. As with any issue that is controversial and/or involves academic/intellectual inquiry, it is important for those involved to acknowledge potential personal biases and to do their best to check them. Johnson does this from the jump:

"I am a philosophical theist and a Christian. I believe that a God exists who could create out of nothing if He wanted to do so, but who might have chosen to work through a natural evolutionary process instead. I am not a defender of creation-science, and in fact I am not concerned in this book with addressing any conflicts between the Biblical accounts and the scientific evidence....My purpose is to examine the scientific evidence on its own terms, being careful to distinguish the evidence itself from any religious or philosophical bias that might distort our interpretation of that evidence. I assume that the creation-scientists are biased by their pre-commitment to Biblical fundamentalism, and I will have little to say about their position. The question I want to investigate is whether Darwinism is based upon a fair assessment of
the scientific evidence, or whether it is another kind of fundamentalism." (p. 14)





As a law professor, Johnson approaches Darwin's theory not from a scientific perspective, but from a legal one. Therefore, the book is sort of organized like a quasi-court case, where Darwin's theoretical formulations and concepts are each outlined and examined in terms of its related evidence, and the conclusions Darwin made and his proponents made and continue to make, based on this and other evidence. In addition, he discusses Darwin's theory on a more ideological level, and poses the question of whether or not the popularity of the theory as well as the potential "power" it could yield if it were actually true, work to shape/create dominant interpretations of the evidence so that anything that could potentially be evidence is treated as valid and anything else treated as not valid.


Of the many aspects of Darwin's theory addressed in the book, I will only mention a couple of them here. The first is Darwin's notion of natural selection, which is pretty much the meat and potatoes of Darwin's theory. This notion has two related parts. The first part holds that new species exist as modifications of old species , and that this trend can be evidenced throughout life's history. The second part holds that such evolution with modification can account for pretty much of life on earth, because all life originated from common ancestors. One of the points Johnson (1991) raises is that a necessary piece of evidence needed to strongly support this notion are transitional fossils, which are for the most part absent from scientific findings. A very simplified example of a transitional fossil is the following: If it is true that humans evolved from fish, then there should exist fossil evidence of a fish-man. To elaborate on this point, he asserts,

"The question is not whether natural selection occurs. Of course it does, and it has an effect in maintaining the genetic fitness of a population. Infants with severe birth defects do not survive to maturity without expensive medical care, and creatures which do not survive to reproduce do not leave descendants. These effects are unquestioned, but Darwinism asserts a great deal more than merely that species avoid genetic deterioration due to natural attrition among the genetically unfit. Darwinists claim that this same force of attrition has a building effect so powerful that it can begin with a bacterial cell and gradually craft its descendants over billions of years to produce such wonders as trees, flowers, ants, birds, and humans. How do we know that all this is possible?" (p. 16)



The other issue I wanted to briefly touch on was the fossil problem. Johnson (1991) notes how that the famous "Piltdown Man," which was believed to be a pre-human fossil and thus groundbreaking evidence for Darwinian thought, was a hoax (it turned out to be nothing more than a modern human head placed on the body of an orangutan). Further, he notes that the "Nebraska Man," which was was claimed to have included a pre-human fossil tooth turned out to be a misfire, as the tooth actually belonged to a kind of pig. Darwin's theory claimed that (pretty much) all life could be traced to common ancestors and classified according to those ancestors. However, the Burgess Shale fossils contain 15-20 fossils that cannot be related to any known group, and should be classified as separate phyla (i. e. a level of species classification). Lastly, he mentions two characteristics of most fossils that appear to not support Darwin's theory. The first is "stasis," or the fact that most species exhibit no directional change while on earth, therefore their fossil record shows very little change if any. The second is "sudden appearance," which is the fact that in any local area, species appear all at once and fully formed, therefore not exhibiting any evidence of transformation (evolution) from earlier ancestors.

Overall, Johnson (1991) concludes that to be so widely supported in many scientific circles, Darwin's theory has not appeared to be subjected to the same rigorous scientific testing as other theories are normally (and should) undergo. Why the easy pass and wide acceptance without conclusive evidence? Johnson suggests that Darwin's theory represents not just a theory, but an ideology. Further, it is the only "contender" against the belief in divine creation. In this sense, hardcore supporters of his theory without conclusive evidence and/or despite evidence to the contrary is no less a demonstration of fundamentalism and close-mindedness than the religious fundamentalists the theory contends with.

What do you think? Any thoughts on Darwin's theory? Divine Creation? Similarities/differences between the two? Take care, God bless, and speekonit...

Labels: Darwin, Darwin On Trial, divine creation, evolution, science