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There are some tough underlying questions here...

I have read part of one anti-evolution book state that there is a conflict
between religion and evolution, precisely because evolution says that the
process of natural selection and that of mutations is RANDOM.  Thus the book
argued that people who believe that the process is random can't believe that
God has any hand in any of it or ever did, and therefore don't believe in
God.  
This got me thinking and I can see one particular version of "Darwinism"
being called a religion.  That would be the version where people state that
the mutations are completely random and that by definition, this random-ness
can't be influenced by a God.  Since that extreme version of "evolutionary
theory" can NOT be truly tested (the second part of the phrase is what does
it in), it is no longer science.  What the SCIENCE of evolution really
states is that it is random, BUT it does not exclude the possibility of God
either tampering in random possibilities or not tampering.  Why doesn't it
talk of such "tampering?"  Because there is no way to determine whether or
not God works in the areas of "random-ness."  It's that simple...it is an
un-test-able area (at least I can't see a way of testing it! :).

A few people use Evolution as a way to grind their axes against those who
believe in God, and a few more people use Evolution as a way to grind their
axes against those who don't believe in God.  

However, I think the majority of the populace that disagrees with Evolution
doesn't consider ANY of this.  The people who write the books are the ones
who consider these views.  Most anti-evolution people merely consider the
statement:  "We descended from Apes" as anathema to them.  And the simple
version of this that I was taught in elementary school didn't make sense.
It was only later I realized that no scientist ever said that I was evolved
from a Chimpanzee (my teacher had said as much), instead scientists said we
both evolved from a common ancestor...which is much more logical.

-William (a random assembly of strange particles that likes to think strange
thoughts)


William Katzman			[log in to unmask]
Director of Exhibits			(828) 322-8169 x307
Catawba Science Center		(828) 322-1585 (fax)
"Try not to become a man of success, but rather to become a man of value"
-A. Einstein

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