"For some, the wonder may be that a monk contributed anything at all to science. Don't people in monasteries spend all their time praying, singing, and fighting off dirty thoughts? Not so the friars of the St. Thomas Monastery in Brno, the Czech Republic." Gregory Mendel, the father of genetics, entered the monastery in 1843, uneducated but intelligent. The abbott recognized his intelligence and sent him to the University of Vienna. When he returned to the monastery, he engaged in the rigorous intellectual life there. "St. Thomas was a vibrant center of science and culture. Its friars taught and researched in philosophy, mathematics, mineralogy, and botany. The library housed many scientific works."
Mendel subjected the basic observations of how attributes are inherited to scientific and mathematical rigor. He studied one trait at a time in his pea plant experiments, describing how dominant and recessive genes work. He is part of a legacy of scientists who believed God created an orderly world that we could study and know.
Some scientists are like Mendel, believing that God created the orderly, understandable world. Other scientists simply believe that the world is orderly and understandable.
Posted by: John Moore | May 08, 2014 at 03:45 AM
The difference is that in the former case, there's actually a reasonable defense for that claim, whereas in the latter case, there's no reason at all why one should hold that view.
Posted by: f | May 08, 2014 at 09:28 AM
There is an interesting quote that "Nothing in Biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." That sort of quote fascinates me since so much of Biology today operates through Mendel's legacy (genetically enhancing crops to provide vitamin K through rice, new patient specific cancer therapies, gene pool diversity across zoos, etc), but absolutely nothing follows in Darwin's legacy. That is, there is not a useful (using the term carefully) thing or advancement in all of human history that you can point to and say "without the theory of evolution we wouldn't have this."
Another aside - the entire support for evolution has generally been described as simply an extrapolation of the changes you can see between successive generations. However, Mendel's work fully explains these difference without ever having to resort to random chance generating useful information. So the entire theory of evolution sits on evidence that is more fully explained with a well validated hypothesis that does not require evolution to function.
Deeply devoted Monk generates a correct useful theory. Atheist generates an unfalsifiable useless theory. Go figure.
Posted by: Chad | May 08, 2014 at 10:18 AM
True science is compatible with the Bible. Evolution is simply not science.
Posted by: Ian Nairn | May 09, 2014 at 03:03 PM