So What is Up With Evolution?

For most Christians who are concerned about the subject, evolution is troublesome because it contradicts the "special creation" status of humans, as well as reinforcing the inaccuracy of claiming an approximately 6 to 10 thousand year-old earth. For ID proponents like Behe, who seems to accept that evolution does in fact work as described, the complaint is that evolutionary processes, in themselves, are insufficient to account for certain (highly complex) steps. Note there is nothing in his complaint about the unguided nature of evolution. ID is "religiously agnostic," while the YEC movement (which provides most of ID's support) is up in arms at the (inaccurate) portrayal of evolution as being a purposeless and unguided process.

As well, the theory of evolution DOES NOT claim that evolution is purposeless and unguided (in a "ultimate" sense). True, this is what YEC-ers say about evolutionary theory, because it suits their purpose. Science has no comment on any kind of ultimate or spiritual purpose or lack thereof for evolution. Science has no tools to detect and comment on the supernatural. Science limits itself to a description of what happens, and teaches that several things guide evolution, including the concept of reproductive advantage. It is true that science has found no reason to believe that the "purpose" of evolution is the human race, but again, this is not a refutation of purpose, just a description of the fact that science does not (cannot, should not be made to try to) detect God.

Further, science does not stop religion from proclaiming that "God did it." Nor does it deny that God did it. Science proper has nothing to say about God at all, for or against - because science is about the properties of the natural world.

So why is there a problem? Because science does demonstrate that the earth is billions of years old, and that all life came from common ancestors. This conflicts with YEC religious belief. This is the only sticking point. Note that when there is no religious conflict, YEC proponents are happy for science to produce the advances that we have all come to depend on (electricity, cell phones, computers, increased crop yields, medicine, ...).

The world view that produced these advances is the scientific one. The discoveries that made these advances possible came because we did not have to settle for "it is too complex" or "God did it."