Evolution V Creationism

Fossil exhibit fuels dispute in Kenya

NAIROBI, Kenya — Deep in the dusty, unlit corridors of the Kenya National Museum, locked away in a plain-looking cabinet, is one of mankind's oldest relics: Turkana Boy, as he is known, the most complete skeleton of a prehistoric human ever found.

But his first public display later this year is at the heart of a growing storm — one pitting scientists against Kenya's powerful and popular evangelical Christian movement. The debate over evolution vs. creationism — once largely confined to the United States — has arrived in a country known as the cradle of mankind.

"I did not evolve from Turkana Boy or anything like it," says Bishop Boniface Adoyo, head of Kenya's 35 evangelical denominations, which he claims have 10 million followers. "These sorts of silly views are killing our faith."

He's calling on his flock to boycott the exhibition and has demanded the museum relegate the fossil collection to a back room — along with some kind of notice saying evolution is not a fact but merely one of a number of theories.

Against him is one of the planet's best-known fossil hunters, Richard Leakey, whose team unearthed the bones at Nariokotome in West Turkana, in the desolate, far northern reaches of Kenya in 1984.

"Whether the bishop likes it or not, Turkana Boy is a distant relation of his," said Leakey, who founded the museum's prehistory department. "The bishop is descended from the apes and these fossils tell how he evolved."

Source: Pioneer Express (Complete Article)

This is something that's bugged me for a while. As I understand it, throughout humankind, faith and religion have been at odds with science.

I'm not here to debate the validity of one over the other. What I have trouble understanding is "why can't we all just get along?" For the most part science had allowed religion to believe whatever it wishes (with the notable exception of Richard Dawkins - A blog entry for another time). But why is religion so threatened by science?

If their faith dictates that their deity is all knowing and all powerful and all that jazz, then shouldn't they just let the pagans believe whatever they wish? Afterall they'll have the last laugh from heaven and while the scientists burn in hell. By stifling science I feel that religion is doing humanity a disservice by quashing the potential sum of human knowledge.

Is Science ever wrong? Frequently. However the nature of science is self correcting.
Is religion ever wrong? Frequently. However the nature of religion is denial.
(Hmm, I thought I said I wasn't here to debate the validity of one of the other? Oh well...)

However, the thing that really gets me, especially in this case, is, in a country where education for the masses is difficult enough to come by as it is, the evengelicals are attempting stem what little public education there is.

Also, I will concede that evolution is merely one of many theories as Bishop Boniface Adoyo contends, if he will do the same for creationism. And no, you can't use the Bible as proof of the Bible.

The best way I know how to say it is - I don't teach in your churches, so don't preach in my museums.