Evolution through Explanation by Danny Gilmore

One wouldn’t expect an evolution lecture at a Christian college to be casual and humorous, yet many were surprised to see that Professor Matheson’s lecture was both intelligent and entertaining.

The lecture began with the ironically comical remark “Let me begin at the Genesis of the project” followed by audience laughter and another remark by Matheson, stating that he wanted to see how clever the audience was before continuing.

Matheson, who primarily teaches upper level developmental biology at Calvin College spoke about the importance of the use of explanation as a means for the development of evolutionary theory, claiming “Tonight, I’m trying to make a simple point of defending evolution.”

Matheson showed a picture of an enormous crater resembling that which could be left by a meteor and asked the audience whether anything could be known about the cause of the crater without data or explanation drawn from that data.

The theory about the cause of the crater was given first by scientists and the data gathered and interpreted second.

This process represents the model that Matheson used to carry his whole lecture defending evolutionary theory, and resembles a sort of top-down scientific method.

Counter to explanation interpreted from data leading to the theory of evolution, Matheson proposed that the theory should lead to and confirm the data as a means to find patterns in the explanation of that data.

Matheson stated that these explanations must have epistemological weight or support behind them.

“There is some kind of value system to judge what’s a good explanation” Matheson said, showing that we quickly and intrinsically, as human beings, accept or reject explanations based on their probability.

The idea of transitional steps, organisms in between evolutionary steps, was also an important issue as Professor Matheson spoke about a strict Creationist’s attempt to reject their existence.

The example was given about how Creationists would reject that a whale could come from an ancient cow-like creature, or as Matheson said “You don’t get from cow-like things to Whales without transitional steps” before he showed that such steps had been discovered recently.

As a data set, Matheson said that the fossil record provides an immense amount to transitional steps and is always growing and improving as archeologists uncover more fossils frequently.

This paints a larger picture of a pattern, which Matheson believes to be very connected and cohesive when explained by evolutionary theory.

Bob Crow, Dean of Student Development at Calvin College, was in attendance and said he “found Professor Matheson’s presentation on human origins both interesting and compelling, and at times, humorous.”

Filled with useful explanation and humorous quips, Professor Matheson’s lecture likely inspired and entertained all who were in attendance.