Alright, I love a good bike ride as much as the next guy. I think those Tour de France racers are awesome. I'll do a 15 mile bike ride over a 2 mile run any day, and I've done stuff on my bike that makes my wife cringe in fear for my well-being.
Just wanted it to be clear where I'm coming from. With that said...
I have noticed over the years that certain bike riding people have caused mutations to their own bodies and minds. No, I'm not talking about soft-tissue injuries and broken bones...I'm talking widespread physical and mental changes and alterations. I call them the Mushroom-headed Spandex Mutants, or MSMs. In fact, I notice such a deviation from the normal Homo sapiens sapiens, that I'm even thinking of renaming them Homo sapiens spandexicus.
The mutations in these people are thought to be caused by the unique combination of spandex, car exhaust, human sweat, adrenaline and testosterone exacerbated by a few good falls to the pavement. Geneticists are still examining the genome, so we're not quite sure yet.
It isn't hard to view these species in their natural habitat. In fact, anyone who lives near mountains can spot them. Some notable characteristics:
- protective helmet permanently fused to the cranium, giving the MSM's head a distinct mushroom shape.
- brightly-colored spandex fused to the dermis, often replaced by outright shedding rather than the gradual sloughing of epidermis in Homo sapiens sapiens.
- blatant disregard for traffic laws and personal safety shown as they ride near the edge of a crumbling road as 55-80 mph traffic passes. This characteristic suggests a significant dampening of the normal human intellect, possibly due to spandex poisoning.
- spandex-enhanced androgeny that, along with the helmets, masks most secondary gender characteristics from cursory observation. Occasionally, tertiary gender characteristics are seen (pink spandex, for example), but they cannot be used as a reliable indicator of gender.
While solitaries are sometimes seen, they are usually pack creatures with a clear societal structure. The alpha individual is usually at the head of the pack on the trek uphill. While these colorful mutants can be seen just about anywhere there's a hill, I have personally seen them:
- the road around Crater Lake, a road characterized by a crumbling shoulder and high dropoffs
- riding along Hwy 22 in Oregon in the middle of smoke from the Black Butte fire
- Hwy 285 and just about every other dangerous narrow mountain road in central Colorado
- Interstate 90 @ Snoqualmie pass, despite Washington state laws restricting bike travel on the Interstate
Forget bird-watching...go check out your local MSMs!
Just be careful not to hit them with your car....
SHARE THE ROAD!
Monday, September 3, 2007
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Devolution of Evolution
My wife and I recently went to see Stanford Professor and author Joan Roughgarden give a presentation on her new book, Evolution and Christian Faith. As a Christian who studies and teaches science, I was very interested in what she had to say.
I will preface my comments by stating that in her presentation and her book, Dr. Roughgarden demonstrates VERY clearly that she is a sincere Christian and a dedicated scientist. Her views and her book are an attempt to rectify differences between her faith and her science and to bring harmony to what is often a very vitriolic debate.
However...
What I see in her book and heard from her personally suggests to me VERY strongly that she is looking at the Bible through evolution-colored glasses. She attempts to use scripture to bolster evolutionary theory, but the verses she chooses and the connections to evolution are a bit of a stretch. For example, she uses the Biblical account of the creation of flora and fauna to demonstrate the evolutionary "tree of life" commonly found in Intro Bio textbooks. She speaks of Biblical accounts referring to Christians being of "one body" and concludes that Christ Himself alluded to common evolutionary ancestry.
It seems very clear to me that Dr. Roughgarden is unwilling to give up any what she has been taught and has taught about evolution, even if a literal interpretation of the Bible says differently.
I recognize this clearly because that is where I used to be in my faith. As my depth of understanding of scripture has changed, so too my view of the sciences has changed. Rather than simply accepting evolutionary theory as taught in the secular Universities, I default to the Biblical account. Unless a scripturally sound compromise is presented, I cannot believe otherwise.
The root for Dr. Roughgarden's difficulty, I wager, is described on page 10 of her book where she concedes that her depth of understanding of the Bible is far from her depth of understanding in evolutionary theory. As she points out, she has been teaching evolutionary biology and ecology for thirty years and has made a lifelong study of the subject.
This is a very large investment of herself and it is fully understandable that she is loathe to recant what she has promoted for three decades. What she needs to realize is that you cannot compromise on scripture simply because it doesn't agree with your worldview. God's law is based on love and it is just, but it is absolute.
No "ifs" "ands" or "buts" about it.
I will preface my comments by stating that in her presentation and her book, Dr. Roughgarden demonstrates VERY clearly that she is a sincere Christian and a dedicated scientist. Her views and her book are an attempt to rectify differences between her faith and her science and to bring harmony to what is often a very vitriolic debate.
However...
What I see in her book and heard from her personally suggests to me VERY strongly that she is looking at the Bible through evolution-colored glasses. She attempts to use scripture to bolster evolutionary theory, but the verses she chooses and the connections to evolution are a bit of a stretch. For example, she uses the Biblical account of the creation of flora and fauna to demonstrate the evolutionary "tree of life" commonly found in Intro Bio textbooks. She speaks of Biblical accounts referring to Christians being of "one body" and concludes that Christ Himself alluded to common evolutionary ancestry.
It seems very clear to me that Dr. Roughgarden is unwilling to give up any what she has been taught and has taught about evolution, even if a literal interpretation of the Bible says differently.
I recognize this clearly because that is where I used to be in my faith. As my depth of understanding of scripture has changed, so too my view of the sciences has changed. Rather than simply accepting evolutionary theory as taught in the secular Universities, I default to the Biblical account. Unless a scripturally sound compromise is presented, I cannot believe otherwise.
The root for Dr. Roughgarden's difficulty, I wager, is described on page 10 of her book where she concedes that her depth of understanding of the Bible is far from her depth of understanding in evolutionary theory. As she points out, she has been teaching evolutionary biology and ecology for thirty years and has made a lifelong study of the subject.
This is a very large investment of herself and it is fully understandable that she is loathe to recant what she has promoted for three decades. What she needs to realize is that you cannot compromise on scripture simply because it doesn't agree with your worldview. God's law is based on love and it is just, but it is absolute.
No "ifs" "ands" or "buts" about it.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Science & the LORD
So this school year I was hired as a science teacher at a small Christian school. Most of my secular colleagues would gape incredulously at this, as they and pretty much the ENTIRE scientific world are pretty sure the two are mutually exclusive.
I beg to differ.
In fact, my love for science and the study of God's universe only serves to strengthen my faith.
"But...but...but...." I can hear them stammering, "but what about the theory of evolution? It's been PROVED and has supplanted the need for 'god' in modern times!"
Proved, eh?
Try reading the thoughts of Michael Behe who has pointed out that evolutionary theory, while it can be made to make sense on the "macro" level, cannot stand up under biochemical analysis.
Oh, and by the way...Dr. Behe is not a Christian...
Try reading the thoughts of Francis Collins, a VERY highly educated scientist who turned to Christ from atheism in his study of the human genome.
Even better, take a look at the recent news regarding Homo habilus and Homo erectus. For quite a while, scientists, teachers and professors have been insisting that H. habilus was the evolutionary precursor of H. erectus. But now...OOPS! they were wrong.
Stir into the mix the fact that several of the "icons" of Darwinism (the Miller experiment, Haeckel's embryos, mammalian fetus "gills") are based on faulty assumptions, incorrect procedures or outright falsehood.
Don't get me wrong, folks...I am not bashing science. Quite the opposite. Current evolutionary theory is the absolute best that secularists can come up with given their assumption that there is no God.
But what a limitation!
Frankly, I prefer my knowledge that everything that we see and know came about by the divine workings of an omnipotent loving God. Knowing that God can do ANYTHING opens up SO many more doors in scientific exploration!
I beg to differ.
In fact, my love for science and the study of God's universe only serves to strengthen my faith.
"But...but...but...." I can hear them stammering, "but what about the theory of evolution? It's been PROVED and has supplanted the need for 'god' in modern times!"
Proved, eh?
Try reading the thoughts of Michael Behe who has pointed out that evolutionary theory, while it can be made to make sense on the "macro" level, cannot stand up under biochemical analysis.
Oh, and by the way...Dr. Behe is not a Christian...
Try reading the thoughts of Francis Collins, a VERY highly educated scientist who turned to Christ from atheism in his study of the human genome.
Even better, take a look at the recent news regarding Homo habilus and Homo erectus. For quite a while, scientists, teachers and professors have been insisting that H. habilus was the evolutionary precursor of H. erectus. But now...OOPS! they were wrong.
Stir into the mix the fact that several of the "icons" of Darwinism (the Miller experiment, Haeckel's embryos, mammalian fetus "gills") are based on faulty assumptions, incorrect procedures or outright falsehood.
Don't get me wrong, folks...I am not bashing science. Quite the opposite. Current evolutionary theory is the absolute best that secularists can come up with given their assumption that there is no God.
But what a limitation!
Frankly, I prefer my knowledge that everything that we see and know came about by the divine workings of an omnipotent loving God. Knowing that God can do ANYTHING opens up SO many more doors in scientific exploration!
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