It's all I think of these days.
Proverbs 1:7a (ESV) #verseOfReflection
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge...
Two entries ago we jumped on the fanwagon of Cosmos: A Personal Voyage with Neil deGrasse Tyson and the other estimated 6 million viewers. My initial reactions to the program can be found here. Although I don't anticipate having a response for each episode, I will provide commentary every so often; so long as it's fruitful and progressive to the discussion of science, religion, and everything that doesn't go together.
On tomorrow, March 30, episode 4 "A Sky Full of Ghosts" will be aired in the U.S. Today's entries (pt1 and pt2) will give thoughts and reflections on the previous 2 episodes, "Some of the Things Molecules Do" and "When Knowledge Conquered Fear". You may have noticed that the title of this entry is "KFC: We Do History Right". There seems to be underlying the Cosmos series (and science in general), this notion that the correct version pertaining to the history of our origins and where everything comes from is being presented in the series (and science thus far understood). My purpose here is to provide a reflection infused with theology (i.e. religious faith or experience; study of God) on the content of the show where necessary.
Episode 2
A long time ago in a galaxy far away...sorry, couldn't help myself #starWars. This episode focused on the origin of life and evolution to a decent degree. The full description of the episode can be found here. I appreciated the cell level investigation which forced the Ship of Imagination to shrink down to a molecular size. It was very reminiscent of my Magic School Bus Days with Miss Frizzle.
Artificial selection or selective breeding as it is also known is the "process by which humans breed other animals and plants for particular traits", whereas natural selection covers the variation within a population. It is also an explanation for adaptive evolution, as is suggested when Tyson discusses how the modern day eye came to be. I was really digging the "transformation" (or evolution/change) in how dogs potentially began as wolves. Tyson also talks about the DNA similarities between many different species, most notably himself and a tree. This makes sense if all of creation comes from the same "gene pool", or has the same Creator; traces of the pathway of creativity should be evident. I found all of this to be a refreshing look into understanding this view (most of what I had forgotten from my biology days) on life's origins and evolution.
There also seemed to be some "spiritual" undertones, and by that I mean certain language and phraseology used, which is not outright limited to religion (especially Christianity), but might make a person of faith's ears perk up. For example, there was the "tree of life" where the branches shows those species which have things in common from an evolutionary standpoint. Of course in thinking on this humans would be on the branch with monkeys (and similar types). The "tree of life" is a part of the Genesis story after Adam and Eve's "original sin" (though most acknowledgement is given to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil). Also, a mentioning of this being a "spiritual experience", might cause one to wonder on possible ulterior motives of those involved. Lastly, I couldn't help but think of the story of Adam and Eve, when the "woman and tree" were spoken of.
How could you not have spiritual undertones? We're talking about the beginning! "Where we started from...where did it come from"; this version of the Cosmos suggests we don't know or that we'll find out through science (and possibly science alone). As stated by Tyson, "science works on the frontier of knowledge and ignorance...not ashamed to say what we don't know". Sounds like a stab at those who claim to know without spelling it out directly; that's just me. I still wrestle with how we get from the one-celled organism to us, as there is so much that is not even touched upon, providing a bigger leap of faith then I'm willing to take.
What do you think?
Up next: How Science became an Enemy of Faith...
Don't forget to add your thoughts/questions/criticisms in the comments section below.
Sumthn2Ponder (s2p):
- Does the tree of life provide the key to life?
- Is there a bias in how information is presented on Cosmos?
- Am I learning anything?
Links for Consideration(L4C):
