The Natural History Museum, Romanesque cum Gothic cathedral of natural history, designed by Alfred Waterhouse. The black figure of the Victorian naturalist Richard Owen has gone, replaced by the white enthroned figure of Darwin which now occupies the central landing of the escalia; the "high altar" of the building; rather appropriate perhaps; don't forget that the engine of evolution entails death! (“search, reject and select”)
I was interested to see a report in the February "Christianity" magazine on Prime Minister David Cameron’s speech promoting Christianity and the project of sending Bibles into schools. In response the National Secular Society Spokesman Terry Sanderson said:
“…if Mr Gove (the governments education secretary) intends to go ahead with this, will he please ensure that a copy of “On the origins of Species” is sent out on Darwin day”
The subtext here is, of course, the “Darwin vs. God” paradigm; namely, that if you’ve got Darwin you don’t need God and if you’ve got God you don’t need Darwin; in short either “God did it” or “Darwin did it” and that is the view of the secularist–anti evolutionist axis of polarization.
As I’ve tried to indicate this axis of polarization is a false dichotomy : If anything “Darwinism” compounds the problems of improbability that prompts thoughts of Intelligent Design. How ironic.
God is pictured as a kindly old bearded gentleman all in white, seated on a throne surrounded by light and who lives upon high.
(Picture from http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimshannon/3823248802/)
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