[Doorsopen]

Building upon the information posted on this thread (heredity), and the thoughts of the individuals who have contributed to it (genetics), and at the risk of forgetting some of its less useful comments (natural selection), albeit very interesting in their specific context (evolution), I humbly submit that the scientific suspend some disbelief, and that equally the more religious attempt to cast a scientific eye over certain esoteric anomolies, in an attempt to reconcile the perceived seperation of Science and religion. Perhaps discover together the (dare I say) purpose of the original topic of this thread...

Naturally this thread has made for deeply gratifying reading for one who is perched on the fence (aren't we all?) between the two forces that drive our society- watching the battle to justify the more viable. It has been far more entertaining then watching a football match, which as best I could ever tell has NO purpose to speak of. Coming from the Humanities, I take the liberty of quoting Andre Malraux: "The 21st century will be spiritual...or it will not be"...

Can any science which draws foregone conclusions without attempting to search beyond its own paradigms be considered superior in reason to a sacred text which contains the nexus of knowledge? Why would such a field of study leave so vast a resource unconsidered? Is science then only a study of surface perceptions that fragments all aspects of our obervable experience? Or, does Science look through this illusion of surfaces to perceive the truth of our existence towards useful ends?

We do not need a new religion, as has been suggested quite early on in this post; we need to alter our perception, or more accurately: our understanding of what we perceive, in order to advance a knowledge of Truth.

If science casts aside the entire history of knowledge and in doing so, retreats into its archive of empirical data and religion clings to the dogma of its archiac interpretations of the same, both forms die.

A scientific reading of Genesis, to begin, reconcils this perceived seperation of Science (with a capital S) and religion (with a telling lower case 'r').

PS fundamentalists beware of preconceived notions