Book Review: The Beak of the Finch
_The Beak of the Finch_
by Jonathan Weiner
1994, Vintage Books.
The book is well-written, as the various critiques / reviews will attest. As far as real _new_ information, I found absolutely nothing ... other than a sort of travelogue fo modern science with particular attention to a very disciplined team on one particular island on the Galapagos cluster, namely, Daphne Major.
However, my own interest was to see if there is really anything new to be said about evolution [i.e. change over time in the biological orders.]. Within kinds of creatures, there are obviously changes ... as humans have observed since the days fo Jacob when he set apart the black, spotted & speckled from the more ordinary goats. Change happens. This is not news.
Jesus himself said that his Father was at work to the present day, and it seems to me that the Father's work certainly includes the management of the species & their variation. However, the Biblical record is pretty simple & clear when it says that creatures (plant, animal, whatever) would reproduce after their own kind: Finches have finches. Pine trees have pine trees. Bacteria have bacteria. Viruses beget viruses. People beget people. etc. As to diversity, it seems no surprising miracle which we have just discovered in the past 200 years that there is diversity, rather ... the miracle seems to be that there is a definite limit to that diversity. It is a limit which God has fixed & we may or may not ever fully know.
Perhaps the most interesting bit in the whole book was that the presence & ongoing observation by humans & attempts to intervene so as to preserve rare / near extinct species in fact only hastens the diversification. This actually seems to reinforce the "babel effect." That is, when people try to prove they are something when we are nothing ... the result is confusion ... & divergence/differsification.
A favorite proverb of mine is "The glory of kings is to search out a matter, it is the glory of God to hide a matter." So, what does this show me? God is glorious. Even when we attempt to prove something grand & glorious: God remains God, we remain human. Only when we humble ourselves _under_ His mighty hand ... only then do we receive the fullness of His grace.
The whole Babel effect seems something like Heidegger's uncertainty principle: We are limitted!! God is not. He knows both the species, when they will change, and what it will take to make what will happen happen. At times we yeild to His good, pleasing, & perfect will ... and at times we do not. God rewards us accordingly. How much better to follow the pattern God has layed out for us in Christ Jesus as revealed through the Scriptures than to try to make our own!
This is what my fundamental faith consists of, and nothing more.
Peace,
Mert
by Jonathan Weiner
1994, Vintage Books.
The book is well-written, as the various critiques / reviews will attest. As far as real _new_ information, I found absolutely nothing ... other than a sort of travelogue fo modern science with particular attention to a very disciplined team on one particular island on the Galapagos cluster, namely, Daphne Major.
However, my own interest was to see if there is really anything new to be said about evolution [i.e. change over time in the biological orders.]. Within kinds of creatures, there are obviously changes ... as humans have observed since the days fo Jacob when he set apart the black, spotted & speckled from the more ordinary goats. Change happens. This is not news.
Jesus himself said that his Father was at work to the present day, and it seems to me that the Father's work certainly includes the management of the species & their variation. However, the Biblical record is pretty simple & clear when it says that creatures (plant, animal, whatever) would reproduce after their own kind: Finches have finches. Pine trees have pine trees. Bacteria have bacteria. Viruses beget viruses. People beget people. etc. As to diversity, it seems no surprising miracle which we have just discovered in the past 200 years that there is diversity, rather ... the miracle seems to be that there is a definite limit to that diversity. It is a limit which God has fixed & we may or may not ever fully know.
Perhaps the most interesting bit in the whole book was that the presence & ongoing observation by humans & attempts to intervene so as to preserve rare / near extinct species in fact only hastens the diversification. This actually seems to reinforce the "babel effect." That is, when people try to prove they are something when we are nothing ... the result is confusion ... & divergence/differsification.
A favorite proverb of mine is "The glory of kings is to search out a matter, it is the glory of God to hide a matter." So, what does this show me? God is glorious. Even when we attempt to prove something grand & glorious: God remains God, we remain human. Only when we humble ourselves _under_ His mighty hand ... only then do we receive the fullness of His grace.
The whole Babel effect seems something like Heidegger's uncertainty principle: We are limitted!! God is not. He knows both the species, when they will change, and what it will take to make what will happen happen. At times we yeild to His good, pleasing, & perfect will ... and at times we do not. God rewards us accordingly. How much better to follow the pattern God has layed out for us in Christ Jesus as revealed through the Scriptures than to try to make our own!
This is what my fundamental faith consists of, and nothing more.
Peace,
Mert
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