The Evolution Setup?
By: BJ Lawson
The Internet is abuzz with a video of Ron Paul “rejecting evolution”. Check out this blog post, the video, and the outraged comments. Now watch the video again, carefully. Notice how the video jumps at 31 seconds? Someone has cropped this video to make a point, and leaves us with a few sentences taken out of a presumably broader context.
Was this editing done out of respect for your valuable time? Or was someone being disingenuous, and attempting to paint Dr. Paul as indistinguishable from, say, Mike Huckabee?
I don’t pretend to speak for Rep. Paul, but please. He is a scientist, with a healthy respect for the scientific method and the need to reject the null hypothesis. I’d love to hear the context he provided outside of that hacked-up editing job, because issues as deep as how life began cannot be dissected in fifty seconds.
Like Rep. Paul, I also graduated from Duke Medical School. From anatomy to physiology, the diversity and magnificent complexity of life is astonishing. Statistically speaking, what is the likelihood of all this spontaneous order evolving out of the primordial soup, when my three kids can’t keep their rooms clean? If one respects physics as a foundation of science, entropy typically has the upper hand over spontaneous order. This article (thanks to Lew Rockwell) is a great summary of some of the problems with evolution as the sole answer to how life began.
For me to address this question, I first have to ask what you mean when you say “evolution”. Is “evolution” the all-encompassing process by which life began and reached its present observable state? If you define evolution as how life began and then evolved into its current state, I don’t believe it either. The evidence just isn’t there.
If, however, you define evolution as an ongoing process by which organisms adapt and change both spontaneously and in response to their environment… now that’s a definition of “evolution” that is supported by evidence.
So how did life begin, and was God in charge? I don’t believe science can tell us. All science can do is describe the world around us. We can describe it from astronomic to subatomic levels, but we’re simply describing what we observe. At the deepest, most fundamental level, assuming that the “Big Bang” did occur, can you prove to me that there isn’t a loving God who whispered “let there be light” at that moment? Either way, it’s a matter of faith.
Too bad Fox News wasn’t around at the time. Then we’d know exactly what happened. 
December 30th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Wow, someone running for congress who isn’t afraid of being called an idiot by those “mainstream narrow-minded” folks who ignore intelligent answers when they don’t fit their pre-determined and ill-informed “right answer”.
I am so excited that I get to vote this year for people who are finally brave enough to say “the emperor(s) have no clothes”.
Ron Paul, BJ Lawson, and others that are beginning to stand up and be counted.
Praise the Lord that He is raising up statesman who recognize where our inalienable rights (which have increasingly been alienated) come from… or maybe these rights just evolved?
Let’s get back to the survival of the fittest for office!
December 31st, 2007 at 12:18 am
Here’s my take on it.
Ron Paul stated he doesn’t believe in the “theory” of evolution, which very well could mean the ancestry-type evolution (man came from monkey). However, I do believe, that he believes, that “evolution” occurs when organisms adapt to their surroundings. He’s may very well be a Creationist who believes in such evolution. I’ve heard him say that he believed in evolution before. I don’t remember where though :[.
December 31st, 2007 at 10:47 am
Ron Paul’s personal beliefs on evolution are really a trivial matter, in my opinion. I’m voting for him for President, not Scientist-n-Chief.
December 31st, 2007 at 10:41 pm
I honestly believe that it doesn’t matter what a politician believes. After all, he is a man of politics not science. I do think, however, he must humbly recognize the possibility that science with atheist presuppositions may be incorrect as well as science presupposing the existence of God. I’m not saying he can’t be convinced as a personal conviction, rather when dealing with others and their beliefs. These are the individuals he must accommodate in matters of general public interest. All other “personal beliefs” are irrelevant and not to be made much of.
January 9th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
“I do think, however, he must humbly recognize the possibility that science with atheist presuppositions may be incorrect as well as science presupposing the existence of God.”
It seemed to me that that’s exactly what he was saying– it was something to talk about and discuss and he welcomes the discussion.
I think it’s quite possible to be a Christian and believe in the actual theory of evolution– in fact, many of the best scientists in the world do so, including one of the founders of the human genome. It is also a fact that most scientists are atheists, which is interesting but doesn’t mean that scientists can’t be believers and so forth.
As far as one of the points made in the article you linked to: “Had the creation of a living cell been replicated in the laboratory? No, it hadn’t, and hasn’t. (Note 1)” Craig Venter is very close to creating a living organism in the lab. My scientist friends tell me it’s a question of not if, but when, he will succeed, and he just had another breakthrough on this. Story here:
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1642
So, any arguments made against evolution probably should not include this as a point– or arguments may very well be blown out of the water if/when Venter succeeds in his mission. Just as the Catholic Church once argued that the sun must revolve around the Earth as opposed to what Galileo had found, the Catholic Church has learned its lesson and now does not make judgments on specific scientific breakthroughs (as far as I know), saying only that the Bible explains things that cannot be explained through science and that science and the Bible can co-exist. I think that no matter what scientists find, it has nothing to do with one’s faith.
January 9th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Oh, and by the way, a major funder of Venter’s research in creating life is the US Department of Energy. Think of that what you will.
January 17th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
In a way, I think it doesn’t matter what Ron Paul (or BJ) believe about evolution since they’re running for federal offices and advocate getting the federal government out of education. But on the other hand, a person’s take on evolution vs. creationism (that is, naturalism vs. supernaturalism) says a lot about him. I’m just not sure how I feel about supporting politicians whose thinking is guided more by superstition and agent stories than by reason and evidence and the scientific process.
By the way, regarding this comment:
“Statistically speaking, what is the likelihood of all this spontaneous order evolving out of the primordial soup, when my three kids can’t keep their rooms clean?”
First, all this complexity we see around us today didn’t spontaneously pop out of the “primordial soup.” All one has to show is that the most basic form of life, some kind of single cell (or even less), could have emerged spontaneously through chemical self-organization. Everything else could have evolved from that. And I assure you, “statistically speaking,” the likelihood of life emerging that way is FAR greater than an explanation based on magic and a supernatural deity.
July 18th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
First of all, check out the full video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPoCsC8VT9g&e
Essentially, he has some misgivings about the theory but in stating his interest in discussing the theory, he hasn’t completely thrown it out either.
Dr. Lawson agrees with Dr. Paul in stating that evolution doesn’t completely explain the genesis of life but the bottom line is it doesn’t matter. As Dr. Paul says himself in the FULL video, “if that were the issue of the day, I wouldn’t be running for public office.” We have wars and economic problems to deal with; this isn’t an issue to be decided on a national level. I would rather my politicians focused on the important topics.
As an aside, Dr. Lawson, the occurrence of spontaneous order arising from a primordial soup is analogous to the genesis of our complex economic systems from nothing. The key is having a system with incentive for self-perpetuation. In biology, it’s replication of DNA, in the economy it’s the trade of goods between individuals and if you would just give your kids ice cream every day they kept a clean room your children may EVOLVE a habit of cleanliness ; ) As these systems evolve, simple organisms become humans, trading goat meat for grain becomes the stock market and eventually your kids will want cars instead of ice cream!
I’m a graduate student in the Pathology Department at Duke University. As both a scientist and a Christian I agree with Dr. Paul that this is a topic for scientists and theologians and that in no way are the two theories mutually exclusive; the theory of evolution does not disprove the existence of god and the bible does not disprove evolution.
Though science issues aren’t at the top of your campaign priority, if you’re interested in a policy intern with expertise in the biological sciences, I would be happy to volunteer what free time I have.