Monday, May 12, 2008
Theories on the Evolution of Man.
So, I finished "Clan of the Cave Bear." I really enjoyed the book, although it seemed to have a rather abrupt ending. The strange mind reading thing in the book was a little spooky, but interresting. It also appears that the author is of the school of thought that Neanderthals disappeared due to interbreeding with Homo Sapiens. This would indicate that they were not actually different species since they are capable of having fertile children. My personal uneducated opinion is that the differences between Neandertal and Homo Sapiens were great enough that interbreeding could not have occured. The differences were real physiological traits, including drastically different brains, not superficial variations in unimportant characteristics. The two lines had diverged long enough ago to have developed superior changes in their brains, but in different ways. That type of genetic distance is likely to preclude interbreeding. So, that part of the book was somewhat unexpected to me. However, I don't think it really took anything away from the story, but rather was an essential part of the plot advancement. As I mentioned before, I love to read of other people's speculations on how other "intelligent" species might differ from ourselves. "Clan of the Cave Bear" did not disappoint in this respect.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I loved Francis Collins book, The Language of God. Here is my review of that book. Again, it's long. Read it if you wish.
This book was Fantastic. If it were up to me, this book would be required reading for every college freshman or senior in high school. I listened to Dr. Collins speak at last year’s scientific sessions of the American Diabetes Association. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to listen to the head of the international group responsible for sequencing the human genome. I was impressed with his clear forward-thinking mind. Probably because I'd heard Dr. Collins speak, knew his work, and had a very good impression of him, I was a little dismayed when I saw the title of his book. I thought maybe he was a little off track. Personally, science hasn't shown me anything that confirms, OR DENIES, the existence of God. I figured I had to read his book just to see what he had to say on the matter.
Fortunately, I was more than pleasantly surprised to find what this book contained. This book isn't an attempt to use scientific knowledge and proofs to demonstrate that God exists, but it contains a very beautifully laid out reconciliation of religion and science. (Reconciliation is really a terrible term, because religion and science never have been at odds. Unfortunately, some religious people have attacked science because they felt threatened by its findings and chose to fear it rather than understand it. Likewise, some people thought that scientific theories, such as the Big Bang and the evolution of species, proved that God didn't exist. Anyway, some people have wrongly put science and religion at odds when, in fact, there was no need for the two to be mutually exclusive. All truth is good for man: whatever its source.)
I was extremely surprised to find in this book the nearly exact conclusion I have come to after years of considering how the scientific theories on the origin of the universe, the origin of man, and of religion may fit together. I struggled over these issues for a long time, because I felt that it was my duty to not ignore two seemingly incompatible (big bang/evolution and man created by God in his image) things that I knew (as strongly as a scientist can ever claim to "know" that a theory actually represents reality) to be true. I knew that it wouldn't be right to reject either of these truths because it was inconvenient to have them together. This conundrum caused me to spend plenty of time thinking about this issue. Thus, I was very surprised to see that Collins had come up with basically the exact same conclusions that I had come to. (In fact, this is exactly the book I would have written on the subject if I just weren’t so lazy and had the ability.) Did this happen because the world-renowned scientist, Francis Collins, and I are on the same intellectual playing field? No, unfortunately no... I think that we came to the same conclusions because if one puts him/herself to thinking on the matter for long enough and uses the best material to aid in the process, then the conclusion comes very naturally and logically.
I would suggest that everyone read this book. There is no contention between science and religion. Science and religion have no disagreement or incongruities on how man came to live on earth. Of course, the most important thing to remember is that it doesn't matter how man came to earth, but why man is on earth and what we do while here. However, understanding how this process occurred is extremely interesting and gives me so much more appreciation for the creation of mankind than the traditional "poof theory" that many cling to tightly with eyes and ears closed to avoid being tainted by scientific theory. (Oh yes, and thank you very much, Dr. Collins, for spending appropriate time on what it means for something to be a scientific theory.) This book is very stimulating and satisfying to the scientist because shows that religion need not be discarded because of scientific theory, and to the religious person because it shows that the greatest and most proven and unifying scientific theories need not be discarded to protect religious beliefs.
Ellis, it is very interesting that you mention the big bang theory. This theory itself has rather a more interesting origin that many are aware when it comes to the science/God issue. If I am not mistaken the big bang theory was first postulated by a Jesuit priest (yes, a catholic!). At the time, the scientific community was working under the belief of a static universe, one which does not change in time. The idea that the universe could change in time was used to support a creationist view of the universe. Interestingly enough the two views have switched. The evidence for an evolving universe has become so compelling that the scientific community has had to accept it as a fundimental tenet. It is a testiment to the rift between science and religion that this did not lead to a unification of the two realms. It has always been my personal way of looking at it that religion tells us why, and science tells us how. ~The Great Ruth
I read a history of the Catholic church that really decried the misperception that the Catholic church has a history of being anti-science. Of course, the church yoked this perception based on the whole Galileo Galilei issue. Anyway, this book made a good agrument for the Catholic church having a central role in advancing science over time.
Post a Comment