From Scratch

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.

~ Carl Sagan

Grandeur

Darwin's Creation

I'm not sure how I missed hearing about this, but was asked about the new movie on Charles Darwin just yesterday, and had to look it up. Creation: the true story of Charles Darwin is based on the biography "Annie's Box" written by one of Darwin's great-great-grandchildren. I have not yet seen it, but the trailers and video clips show the film's purpose - portraying the struggle Darwin faced of reconciling his theory with his (and his wife's) faith. It certainly looks interesting, and likely shows a face of Darwin that far too many Christians have never seen nor considered. He was raised in a household of faith and considered a life as a priest before becoming the naturalist we all know him as. Given the positions held by the church at that time (and by many today), he saw his theory as writing God out of the story, like so many still do.

It seems a great irony to me that now, 150 years later, so many Christians who reject his science outright nevertheless embrace his theology wholeheartedly.

Cultural Selection?

This is one of those discoveries that seems both intuitive and surprising at the same time. Perhaps because so many of us have thought for so long precisely what this NY Times article on human culture and evolution states, that it is "a shield that protects people from the full force of other selective pressures", it is surprising that culture is also such a strong influencer (not just inhibitor) of our evolution. All of us who love that tall glass of milk alongside a warm brownie can appreciate it. This article highlights several more of the less known ways culture can impact our evolution. It is fairly unsurprising (for as much as we humans, and our cultures, love to eat!) that many of them have to do with food.