Genesis Revisited: A Scientific Creation Story
To the Citizens of Kansas (along with those from Ohio, Georgia, Michigan, and a dozen other states contemplating the teaching of “Intelligent Design” creationism as a “balance” to the theory of evolution in public school science classes), I present you with a small literary sampling of how the opening chapters of Genesis will have to be revised to accommodate modern scientific theories and data. I call it Genesis Revisited.
In the beginning — specifically on October 23, 4004 B.C., at noon — out of quantum foam fluctuation God created the Big Bang. The bang was followed by cosmological inflation. God saw that the Big Bang was very big, too big for creatures that could worship him, so He created the earth. And darkness was upon the face of the deep, so He commanded hydrogen atoms (which He created out of Quarks and other subatomic goodies) to fuse and become helium atoms and in the process release energy in the form of light. And the light maker he called the sun, and the process He called fusion. And He saw the light was good because now He could see what he was doing. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
And God said, Let there be lots of fusion light makers in the sky. Some of these fusion makers appear to be more than 4,004 light years from Earth. In fact, some of the fusion makers He grouped into collections He called galaxies, and these appeared to be millions and even billions of light years from Earth, so He created “tired light” — light that slows down through space — so that the 4004 B.C. creation myth might be preserved. And created He many wondrous splendors, including Red Giants, White Dwarfs, Quasars, Pulsars, Nova and Supernova, Worm Holes, and even Black Holes out of which nothing can escape. But since God cannot be constrained by nothing (can God make a planet so big that he could not lift it?), He created Hawking radiation through which information can escape from Black Holes. This made God even more tired than tired light, and the evening and the morning were the second day.
And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the continents drift apart by plate tectonics. He decreed sea floor spreading would create zones of emergence, and He caused subduction zones to build mountains and cause earthquakes. In weak points in the crust God created volcanic islands, where the next day He would place organisms that were similar to but different from their relatives on the continents, so that still later created creatures called humans would mistake them for evolved descendants. And in the land God placed fossil fuels, natural gas, and other natural resources for humans to exploit, but not until after Day Six. And the evening and the morning were the third day.
And God saw that the land was lonely, so He created animals bearing their own kind, declaring Thou shalt not evolve into new species, and thy equilibrium shall not be punctuated. And God placed into the land’s strata, fossils that appeared older than 4004 B.C. And the sequence resembled descent with modification. And the evening and morning were the fourth day.
And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that hath life, the fishes. And God created great whales whose skeletal structure and physiology were homologous with the land mammals he would create later that day. Since this caused confusion in the valley of the shadow of doubt God brought forth abundantly all creatures, great and small, declaring that microevolution was permitted, but not macroevolution. And God said, “Natura non facit saltum” — Nature shall not make leaps. And the evening and morning were the fifth day.
And God created the pongidids and hominids with 98 percent genetic similarity, naming two of them Adam and Eve, who were anatomically fully modern humans. In the book in which God explained how He did all this, in chapter one He said he created Adam and Eve together out of the dust at the same time, but in chapter two He said He created Adam first, then later created Eve out of one of Adam’s ribs. This caused further confusion in the valley of the shadow of doubt, so God created Bible scholars and theologians to argue the point.
And in the ground placed He in abundance teeth, jaws, skulls, and pelvises of transitional fossils from pre-Adamite creatures. One he chose as his special creation He named Lucy. And God realized this was confusing, so he created paleoanthropologists to sort it out. And just as He was finishing up the loose ends of the creation God realized that Adam’s immediate descendants who lived as farmers and herders would not understand inflationary cosmology, global general relativity, quantum mechanics, astrophysics, biochemistry, paleontology, population genetics, and evolutionary theory, so He created creation myths. But there were so many creation stories throughout the land that God realized this too was confusing, so he created anthropologists, folklorists, and mythologists to settle the issue.
By now the valley of the shadow of doubt was overrunneth with skepticism, so God became angry, so angry that God lost His temper and cursed the first humans, telling them to go forth and multiply (but not in those words). They took God literally and 6,000 years later there are six billion humans. And the evening and morning were the sixth day.
By now God was tired, so God said, “Thank me its Friday,” and He made the weekend. It was a good idea.
This article was originally published in Darwin: A Norton Critical Edition (Selected and Edited by Philip Appleman.) 2001. New York: W.W. Norton: 625–626.
Bible, creationism, evolution, religion, science
November 27th, 2007 at 4:47 am
Although we may point to complexity and diversity in nature as an argument against the notion of divine, special creation, complexity and diversity in nature are also used as arguments *for* divine, special creation.
December 5th, 2007 at 10:40 am
Yes, some people use complexity and diversity in nature to support the idea of divine creation.
These people do not understand the concept of evolution, speciation, or that the so called “argument from design” is a laughable piece of thoroughly discredited drivel.
December 7th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
I think I remember reading this somewhere in Why Darwin Matters.
December 13th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Wonderful!!
December 23rd, 2007 at 8:36 pm
This is my favorite passage in the whole book, its a well crafted satire that wrecks I.D.
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Oh, well, since you put it that way, I guess it all makes sense!
January 8th, 2008 at 4:49 am
Would love to present the above to any Bible-thumper or fundie minister. (A non-fundie would probably just say, “See? God works in mysterious ways and this proves it.”)
January 10th, 2008 at 8:50 am
I enjoyed the passage but I can’t figure out why there is an assumption that if G-d created the world there would not be evidence of evolution. According to the dismissal of creation you must have an idea of what G-d’s creation would look like in order to know this is not it. What do you know about God and creating planets that makes you think evolution is not part of a divine plan?
January 10th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Hey Mayer, your question misses the point. Can you really make an argument from Genesis regarding evolution?
Public schools have no business teaching creationism unless its in a religious studies course, which should give equal time to other religious traditions and their creation accounts.
Evolutionary studies belong to the field of science.
Don’t confuse the two.
January 12th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
It’s really very simple although the ‘Intelligent Design’ crowd does not think so. Evolutionary biology is science and faith is philosophy. Two different subjects that should be taught in different venues. They both can and should be taught but…..talk about an apple and orange comparison. The empirical world and the spiritual world. How and why should they ever be in the same classroom anywhere? I’ll go ahead and answer. Because they both think it their job to disprove the other. But how can they? Non-overlapping Magisteria anyone?
January 27th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
What many secularist fail to recognize is that creationism follows two distinct philosophical lines: Young earth vs old earth.
The 4004 BC date was set by James Ussher, an Irish gentleman with money and, consequently, time to spend plotting an Old Testament chronology. Creation, it turns out, occurred at sundown preceding 23 October. Ussher’s work was published in 1654. It was the immensely popular Scofield Bible that published the 4004 BC date in its footnotes that canonized the literal six day creation event in the collective psyche of fundamentalism.
Old-earth creationists, astrophysicist Hugh Ross being a key contender, believe the creation days are not literal days at all but describe eras that fit with secular science. They don’t bulk at micro evolution and point to the Cambrian explosion as an example of a creation event. The first humans were created about 50,000 years ago.
The point being: when scrapping with creationists, first inquire as to which branch of the Christian army they belong: New earth or old earth.
google: Dr. Hugh Ross
January 31st, 2008 at 6:57 pm
My cambrian exploded once…quite a life changing experience at the time. Thanks to the advanced evolution of our founding fathers collective intellects, we now enjoy the fruits of their wisdom, ie: separation of church and state. Without this legal protection from reason suspended, the development and acceptance of scientific answers to our deepest questions would have most certainly been punitively curtailed. Imagine school age students being asked to close their chemistry books and open their alchemy texts.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:00 pm
I find this quite amusing (”a”musing means to not think, btw) because you act like you guys were there at the beginning. Children enjoy stories like when the Princess kissed the frog and it turned into a Prince. Silly you say?According to evolution prince charming may have been a frog at one point. Oh, of course…just add millions of years. I will personally offer anybody who has *emperical* evidence for macro evolution $250,000. You may email me at mattvessey@att.net with your evidence and I will review. Don’t give up your chance to get rich.
March 4th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
I know of no evolutionist that believes any frog could possibly live millions of years and then turn into a Prince. This is what separates a thinker from people who will actually BELIEVE a children’s book, even if it’s called a “Bible”.
By the way, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, amuse means more like “cause to think”
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=amuse
amuse
1480, from M.Fr. amuser “divert, cause to muse,” from à “at, to” (but here probably a causal prefix) + muser “ponder, stare fixedly.” Sense of “divert from serious business, tickle the fancy of” is recorded from 1631, but through 18c. the primary meaning was “deceive, cheat” by first occupying the attention. Bemuse retains more of the original meaning. Amusement “a pastime, play, game, etc.” is first recorded 1673, originally depreciative. Amusement park is first recorded 1909. Amusing is noted late 1920s as a vogue word.
March 12th, 2008 at 12:09 am
The weekend is indeed a good idea. Thanks, God!
April 16th, 2008 at 10:48 am
“What many secularist fail to recognize is that creationism follows two distinct philosophical lines: Young earth vs old earth.”
Ok, but doesn’t it go without saying that this article only addresses new earth Creationism? Why would you bother pointing out this distinction if the essay doesn’t make an references to old earth Creationism?
May 5th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
[…] 32. Michael Shermer, Genesis Revisited: A Scientific Creation Story […]
June 29th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
…telling them to go forth and multiply (but not in those words).
This is lovely, really. I’m memorizing this for my speech class. And to use against my dear {but Mormon} friend.