Evolution: What's all the fuss about?

Many in the conservative community are trying hard to do away with the theory of evolution and replace it in students' textbooks with intelligent design or creationism. However, if they had learned about evolution as I did in college 40 years ago, they wouldn't need to be so upset.

My biology teacher in the Bible Belt explained that there doesn't have to be a conflict between evolution and religion, and that the word "evolution" itself means "slow, gradual change."

There are examples everywhere in nature of slow, gradual change. Consider how ancient glaciers traveled across North America changing the land, gouging out the Great Lakes and wearing down the land. In other areas, volcanoes erupted, spewing forth lava that built up into mountains. In the Grand Canyon and other areas, rivers eroded the land, carving out giant canyons.

As for humans, we all started out as helpless babies, usually with no hair, then grew taller, bigger, and stronger until we became older, usually with gray hair and then sometimes no hair. Nature is full of other examples of the evolution of various life forms.

As for the Bible's declaration that God created every living creature, the sun and the moon and that each creation occurred in a "day," or during a total of six days, my professor explained that the word "day" doesn't necessarily refer to a 24-hour period of time but rather to an epoch, or particular period of time in history.

She mentioned a Bible verse from 2 Peter 3:8 that supports the idea that a day is not necessarily a 24-hour period: " É one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." In other words, with God, any period of time, no matter how large, could be a day. Thinking of a day in this way, there is no conflict between the Bible and what scientists say when they tell us that the earth was created over billions of years instead of six days as we know them.

Further, my professor explained that if we think of God as setting things in motion and then allowing things to change, or evolve, over time, it actually makes God more powerful than if we think God had to attend to each detail of creation personally. In other words, God didn't have to have his hand in each act of creation, such as creating each species of fish or each species of tree. This makes him more powerful than if he had had to create each thing personally.

Finally, she pointed out, for the Christian it doesn't matter how God created the heavens and the earth or whether he did it in six days or six epochs. All that matters is that he did. She said that any Christian can believe in evolution and still be rock-solid in his faith that God created the heavens and the earth and all that exists. Evolution does not diminish God. It makes him greater.

To quote David Limbaugh for my own purposes, "Opponents should lighten up." There is nothing to fear from the teaching of evolution when it is taught in this way.

Janice Watrous lives in Knoxville, Tenn., and read David Limbaugh's Aug. 6 column ("Intelligent design: What's all the fuss about?") while visiting Cape Girardeau.