can’t we all just get along?

Evolution- my area of special study in college- is a fascinating topic. For it’s scientific implications, mainly. But also for its social implications. Since I will be writing a hefty amount about evolutionary processes, I think it is a good idea to be upfront about how I feel about it.

I used to avoid telling people that I majored in evolution. Not because I was embarrassed, but because I immediately became a Godless a-hole to people whom otherwise previously really seemed to like me. And to be honest, I to this day don’t really tell people whom I suspect will disown me. It’s silly, I know. But I like friends! What can I say.

In my Evolution and Systematics class at Auburn, my professor Dr. Armbruster devoted two whole lectures to talking about the societal aspect of evolutionary theory. Any way you slice it, it’s an important pivot point between science and people. And as with any hot button issue, there are the extremes. There are those who want to use evolutionary theory to disprove the existence of God. There are those who believe the existence to God disproves evolution. And then there is the majority- reasonable folks that fall somewhere in the middle.

The fact of the matter is, God cannot be disproved. So to all of the faithful- let me reassure you that science is mute on religion. No amount of research hours, expensive machinery, departmental funding, or clever experimental set-ups can prove or disprove God. Sleep well knowing that science will never be able to touch faith. MC Hammer style.

That being said, there is as much evidence for evolution as there is for gravity. On this blog, I will write of evolution as a scientific fact. Because that’s what it is. It happened. It’s still happening. And it’s completely inspiring.

I’ll leave you with a quote from Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species. I like this quote because it is hard to read it and have negative prejudices towards this wondrous process from which we came into being.

“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having originally been breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”