Grok: Thanks for taking my posts the way I mean 'em.

Rabbi-Sol: Thanks for the enlightenment. I agree with the idea of being tested by God. I think the test will ultimately be if we can (forgive the quote) all get along, and accept that anything handed down from the past needs to be re-evaluated in every age.

GUEST: I may be wrong, but I believe Darwin's first book didn't specify man, therefore use of the word 'race' probably was a general way of referring to species. I do not know if Darwin ever made an observation of human 'race' the way we term it these days. He was, after all, a scientist and the scientific definition of race continues to elude us.

You provoke an interesting point, however, tied in with Rabbi-Sol's Explanation #3 . The religious conception of man was expressed as 'The Descent Of Man' indicating that since the creation, mankind had not improved, far from it. In Hal Holbrook's recreation of Mark Twain he expresses: "Man was created a little lower than the angels, and he's been getting lower ever since." Not to misinterpret Rabbi-Sol who is tying specific points in man's biblical history after the Creation to specific points of sin and divine judgement, but the religious conception of man was overhauled by the coming of science.

Jacob Bronowski named his spectacular 13 part 1973 history of science and understanding "The Ascent Of Man" to bring out one of the major revolutions in thought brought into the world by the advent of The Enlightenment and the use of the Scientific Approach. Simply put, starting about the time of Galileo, human beings began to find out things that not only were new information, but were known to be new information. In particular, Galileo discovered the rings of Jupiter by use of the new instrument the telescope. Not everyone would look through the telescope, a telling point of the bonds over our minds caused by superstition. And of course, Galileo got in trouble with the RC Church by expounding the Copernican / Kepler theory of the movements of planets, which indicated that Aristotle and Tycho Brahe were wrong (or at least uninformed). Not only were they wrong, but modern man could do better.

The concept that we can be better than the ancients has been a revolution in thought.
There is a danger of hubris here, we've already paid a huge penalty in the misunderstanding and misapplication of Darwin: It is twofold:
Social Darwinism of the 19th and 20th centuries. Used to justify the status quo since the 'successful' people have a right to be successful because they are 'the fittest'. It's a modernization of the divine right of rulers and merely updates a tool by which the powerful seek to justify hence re-establish themselves (and their progeny - a social tactic with evolutionary consequences). Social Darwinism had no true basis in science, and its denigrators have used its existence to attack capitalism, which I think is not fair, since the successful in all societies seek to justify their success in its own terms.

Secondly is a modern fallacy, that natural selection is constantly improving the species. The concept of 'improvement' is purely human (like 'fairness'). It is used to make us think that things naturally get better, more advanced, more complex, and again and again I've heard humans placed as the most advanced mammals, and mammals as more advanced than reptiles, amphibians, etc.

Natural selection does not say this. Natural selection states simply that the more successful of the creatures have more progeny which can themselves reproduce. In fact, that IS the definition of success. It doesn't say that the progeny are faster, stronger, smarter. The requirements are simply that they be. A popular theory of how the dinosaurs came to both exist and die off is that earth history has been 'punctuated' by disasters of such magnitude that a great proportion of species died out.

There is nothing to prevent assigning God the power of the asteroid, by the way.

When I look at the incredible success of such critters as ants, and things I find really hard to understand from an evolutionary standpoint, such as the process of metamorphosis, I feel as humble and inspired as any religious person who finds wonder in this common yet seemingly incomprehensible act of a vulnerable creature (Yet I am confident that it IS comprehensible).

Recently, genetic sampling of the DNA of such 'simple' examples of life as rice has found there's a lot going on there, great complexity in the genetic code. A very good book (which I haven't read yet) called "The Botany of Desire" goes into the adaptations plants have made and the adaptations humans have made to grow certain plants.

So, YES, it bothers me if the President and those around him don't believe in these incredibly productive concepts which are fascinating and powerful and will shape all our futures.