"Seek first to understand then to be understood"

It seems that on Videosift there is a great gap between hardcore science buffs and hardcore creationists. Although the numbers are very unbalanced I would like to post a few thoughts in order to promote understanding between the two opposing view points and hopefully close some gaps so that both parties can come to a better understanding of the real issues on those topics. I encourage people to join in after reading this, and would ask for mutual respect in regards to such an emotional issue.

Probably the biggest reason people outside of the sciences have such a hard time with evolution is the idea that something can't turn into something different. (somewhat of a remnant of Aristotle's thought on our culture.)

Often scriptures are appealed to so as to defend the notion of innate categories of creatures. However it is important to realize that the notion of species is a man made creation. It was a way various people guessed about how the world was structured. While it is very useful up to a point, once one leaves the kind of experiences you encounter in your day to day existence, it becomes unreliable.

The discovery of molecular biology suggests that the old categories of Aristotle just don't make sense as some sort of ontological absolute limit on life. Life simply doesn't work that way.

A lot of the old categories from both the ancient world, and even the early modern world are wrong. Consider the rather common notion that energy and matter are completely different. Einstein showed that they are fundamentally intertwined and that one can convert energy into matter and vice versa. As science progresses we find that many of the traditional notions to explain the world, while accurate to the everyday man, are false when examined more in a larger perspective. The question really ought to be, why should we expect life to be any different?

Regarding the origins of man and it's pertinance to science. theologist and scientist James E. Talmage said:
"This record of Adam and his posterity is the only scriptural account we have of the appearance of man upon the earth. But we have also a vast and ever-increasing volume of knowledge concerning man, his early habits and customs, his industries and works of art, his tools and implements, about which such scriptures as we have thus far received are entirely silent. Let us not try to wrest the scriptures in an attempt to explain away what we can not explain. The opening chapters of Genesis, and scriptures related thereto, were never intended as a text-book of geology, archeology, earth-science or man-science. Holy Scripture will endure, while the conceptions of men change with new discoveries. We do not show reverence for the scriptures when we misapply them through faulty interpretation."

Now to the religious individual who feels his beliefs are threatened by evolution. The scriptures as you know them cannot and do not answer the questions about evolution. They were never intended to be used for such a purpose. Evolution should not contradict your beliefs, rather it should support them.

And to the scientific mind who has no regard for a being of higher power. Be patient with the education system, many are simply relying on an outdated schooling system that is several decades behind.

Now if you would like to comment, please keep it civil, I know it's a touchy subject for both theists and atheists.