I haven’t been in the habit of linking to items in the news so much, but this particular story strikes me as important. It is no secret, as I have stated on this blog, that I see no contradiction between the first chapters of Genesis and evolution. They are completely compatible. Furthermore, I believe evolution to be as much a fact of life as gravity. It is the way it is and us arguing about the way it is will not change a single quark. Instead, I think our task should be to discover how it is through good science, good philosophy, good debate, and the senses and powers of the mind that God gave us. We should be using good science to help us understand the bible better. And we should be using the bible to help us understand good science better. They are compatible and complementary, and you get more out of one when you consider the other.
The cool thing about this new fossil discovery is that it is felt to be at a branching point in the evolutionary tree. That branch is along primate evolution where one trunk divides into two branches. One branch goes down the direction of lemurs and such and the other branch goes to monkeys and humans. There are characteristics that differ among these groups which make them separate and this fossil sits right at the crux of where those two branches diverge. It really is very exciting. I’ll let you read the article to find out the details if you like.
The real problem with this debate, evolution vs creation, is very interesting. to me. I see both sides making the same mistake really. Both sides hold fundamentally to their way of considering the world, and it is odd that both sides hold to reason as the utmost value. Creationists hold to the bible as literal (historical vs metaphorical). Why? Because it removes doubt. It allows you to believe in something solid. It relys on reason. And that starts with Genesis. If it is literally (historically instead of metaphorically) true then we have some foundation on which to base our interpretation of the remainder of the bible. It is logical. Evolutionists do the same thing except that they throw faith completely out. Why? Because is not logical. God and the spiritual cannot be proven to exist through objective data so they are not real. In the end it is the same mistake on opposite ends of the line. And there is a whole lot of truth in the middle that gets missed.
