thoughts
Deleted File Recovery
Feb 14th
Karen got a portable video camera (a Creative Vado) for Christmas. We’ve recently started playing with it, recording Ian’s activities for posterity. Last week, Karen and Ian spent a whole day making and decorating cookies. They had a great time, and it was full of some fun “firsts” for Ian. Karen got most of the activities on the camera and is planning on editing them down to a highlights reel for the rest of the family. As they were reviewing the footage (on the camera), Ian got a hold of the camera and started pushing buttons. Play and pause weren’t a problem, but on this particular camera, the trash (delete) button is flush with the edge of the camera and easy to push. Ian pushed the delete button, and Karen, as she saw what was happening, reached to take the camera from him. In the handoff, someone pushed the confirm button, and the video was gone.
Or was it?
Like most digital recorders, the Creative Vado stores its data in flash memory. The Vado’s storage uses a FAT16 filesystem. When something is deleted, the data is not immediately overwritten. The space that the delete data used is simply marked as available. So, if nothing new has been recorded, there is a pretty good chance that the data can be recovered.
After some Internet searching, I found a program called testdisk. testdisk allowed me to (mostly) recover the deleted video file. That is, I was able to recover a 140MB chunk of data that had the right name. Now I was stuck with a 140MB data file that I knew must have the data in it, but it would not open in any video player. A little more online searching, and I found DivFix++, a tool that can read and fix corrupted AVI files. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. DivFix++ didn’t even recognize the file as an AVI movie.
Nearly ready to give up, I decided to follow one last hunch I had on how to recover the movie and be a hero for the day. I started looking through the recovered file and the other known good AVI files with hexdump, a tool that shows the raw data in a file. I noticed that all of the good AVI files started with the same 16 bytes, so I guessed that AVI files start with some sort of header or index that describes the video data in the file. Using dd and cat, I created a new file that was the 16 byte header + the recovered data file. It didn’t work. However, with this new file, DivFix++ gave me a more helpful error message, leading me to believe that I was on the right track. Not knowing where the headers ended, I took the first 512 bytes of a good AVI file and prepended them to the recovered data. Right off the bat, I was able to watch the first 5 seconds of the 5 minute video. Running the new file through DivFix++ resulted in the missing file. The only side effects are a few slightly corrupted frames at the beginning of the movie. The day was saved, and the memories were preserved.
The other side of the story, and a link to the recovered video, can be found on Karen’s blog.
When building a starship…
Oct 6th
I’ve been watching Battlestar Galactica again, and I was struck by something that seems to be a very common plot device in space-based stories: Starships of all shapes and sizes are able to be reconfigured in seemingly infinite ways on the fly by the crew. In BSG, the crew networks disparate systems together to create a large compute cluster and implement a multi-layered firewall to protect against the Cylon virus. In Star Trek, the crew must constantly adjust the phasers by rerouting it through the main sensor dish or change the frequency of the shields to defeat some advanced enemy. In Star Wars, Han can easily reroute power to strengthen the shields.
Starships must be large and very complex systems. They have thousands of subsystems. Computer programs controlling doors, weapons, replicators, power, life support, sensors, water recycling, artificial gravity, and many other systems need to be written and tested before being put in to use in an operating starship. Designing and implementing this much code that is responsible for the life and death of all aboard is an impossible task for one company.
Now, for all these starships to be constantly reconfigured on the fly, either the requirement specs given to the developers describe all possible scenarios that the crew of the ship may face or must detail a standard API that all subsystems should adhere to.
There is no way one can predict all situations in which a piece of software may be used. All of these subsystems must have a standard interface that allows them to all interact with one another. Because you never know–you may need to reroute the water filtration through the warp core to kill the trans-dimentional virus that is infecting the crew.
But simply having a standard API isn’t enough. Starship crews need to be able to write programs themselves in order to tell these separate systems to work together in some custom way. Sure, their may be some large patch panel of sorts to redirect some output to some other input, but at some point, Wesley will need to do something that the system wasn’t designed to do. And, of course, bug fixes and patches will need to be applied periodically.
Given these realities, I’ve come to the conclusion that starships must run open-source software. The crew needs access to the source code to make changes as necessary. Disparate systems need to be modified to work together. Crew members (and captains, apparently) need to know exactly how these systems work. Proprietary software would probably not include the source code in the installation. Even if the code were included, it would most likely have so many disclaimers and warranty-voiding clauses in the EULA (or worse, DRM) to make any such modifications useless or impossible for the end-user.
Imagine Galactica docking and being told, “I’m sorry. You have modified your installation of the software, and we can’t upgrade you to the Cylon-proof Weapons Pro v12 unless you revert your changes.”
Or maybe Han is getting pulled in by a tractor beam (as he is wont to do). He engages the auxiliary power, and, “Thank you for using Power Systems 3.0. A new patch is available for this software. Would you like to download it now? Answering ‘No’ will disable the auxiliary power systems.”
The only way for all the complicated interconnected systems of a starship to be useful, reliable, and developed in an efficient manner is for it to be open source.
When building a starship, use open source software.
Use open source software–it’s the future.
Use open source software–don’t let the Borg/Cylons/Empire win.
South with the Sun to San Antonio
Jul 13th
It’s official. I have accepted the formal offer to work at Rackspace. I will be working in the Cloud Files division in beautiful downtown San Antonio. This next month will be full of transition: leaving one job, moving, and starting a new job.
Update (08/07/09): We’ve moved. Everything went smoothly. The moving company was great. Our new washer and dryer were delivered today. We are in the process of unpacking a lot of boxes and learning our way around this new town. I’m looking forward to starting the new job on Monday.
Useful Tools
May 25th
I use several online tools that make my life easier, and I’d like to share them in the hope that they make someone else’s life easier.
- Readability
- Readability is a bookmarklet that reformats your current page and makes it readable. It’s a wonderful tool in the world of web pages full of ads and useless junk.
- Mint.com
- Mint.com is a free online service to keep up with your finances. It offers a quick way to see where all of your money goes and shows where you can save money of get better deals (on bank accounts, credit cards, etc).
- Nike+
- Nike+ is a two-part service that allows you to keep track of running or walking with ease. The first part is the accelerometer you put in your shoe that connects to the receiver plugged in to an iPod. This records the run and offers real-time feedback during the workout. The second part is the website that keeps a history of your runs and allows you to compare and compete with the millions of other Nike+ users. The only non-free service on this list, the Nike+ will set you back $30 (assuming you already have an iPod nano or touch).
- Print What You Like
- Another free bookmarklet, print what you like allows you to selectively print sections of webpages without all of the cruft. Although I don’t print web pages very often, this tool is very helpful when I do.
A little puzzle
May 6th
I was listening to NPR on the way home today when a story about college entrance essays got me thinking. How do admissions officers judge the merits of an entrance essay? Is it based on some fixed scale? I can’t imaging that something as subjective as an essay can be effectively judged on a fixed scale. Is it judged relative to the other essays? This makes more sense to me, but I don’t understand the logistics. So I thought of a simpler problem that has the same elements, but is easier to identify with.
Suppose I were to come to you and offer you 100 boxes. In each box is a random amount of money between $0.01 and $100. After each box is offered to you, you must decide to keep it or to return it to me. If you return it to me, I will show you the amount of money in the box, but you will never see it again (and you won’t get the money). You are allowed to keep the first 10 boxes you choose. If you have not taken all of your 10 boxes by the time I offer the last boxes, you must take the remaining boxes to round out your total of 10. When you pick your tenth box, I will not offer any more boxes. What strategy optimizes your earnings?
Or suppose you are in a fishing tournament. At the end of the day, you must weigh in with your 10 biggest fish. If the game warden catches you with more than 10 fish in your boat, you will be disqualified from the competition. What strategy will assure your highest total weight?
File server update
Feb 6th
Unfortunately, I haven’t made much progress on my new file server. I got OpenSolaris installed last weekend. After I figured out that I had accidentally turned off the SATA controllers in the BIOS, the install went flawlessly.
I didn’t set up the storage pool right after I installed OpenSolaris because I didn’t have all of my hard drives. When I first ordered my four hard drives for the Drobo, one of them was bad, so I sent it back for a replacement. The replacement came on Monday. I opened up the case, screwed in the hard drive, plugged in the cables, neatly arranged everything, and closed the case back up. I pushed the power button, and…nothing. No beeps, no clicks, no anything. Quite disappointed, I opened up the case again and took a look. Nothing smelled bad, and I couldn’t see anything that looked burned, so I assumed the magic blue smoke that makes all electronics work was still inside. I pulled the power supply (no easy task) and tried it in a computer at work. No change. I boxed up the supply and sent it back to get replaced. UPS says it was delivered today, so I hope to get a new one next week.
Karen and I finished watching season two of Battlestar Galactica last night. Unfortunately, without a working file server, I don’t have enough hard drive space on my computer to download season three. I hope to get the replacement power supply soon.
I’ve added a page that gives more specific details on setting up my home file server, including parts, screenshots, and example commands.
Finding a good storage solution
Jan 27th
I realized the other day that I have 110GB of stuff in my iTunes library. I don’t even think I have enough hard drive space left to get the last two seasons of Battlestar Galactica. I guess I should move everything to my 500GB external drive I bought last year.
Oh wait…it died. But I’ll get to that later.
And Karen is running out of space on her external drive, too. (How does she use up space so quickly? Why are Photoshop files so big?)
So it looks like it’s time to find a good solution for all of my home storage needs.
To tell the whole story, I need to go back a bit. Karen’s laptop has a 100GB internal drive. Not bad, but by no means sufficient when doing a lot of graphic design work. A few years ago, we got a Western Digital Passport drive. I really liked it. It has a great form factor–you could literally put it in your pocket. It was powered by the USB connection. It was relatively cheap. All-in-all, I thought we were getting a really good deal.
And then Karen’s files started getting corrupted. You know, the files that she uses to run her business? So much for Western Digital.
Shortly after that saga, Apple released OS 10.5. It included Time Machine, a truly elegant home backup solution that is seamlessly integrated into the desktop. It has saved me from accidental deletes on more than one occasion.
So to take advantage of Time Machine and to replace Karen’s failed Passport drive, we ordered two 500GB LaCie drives. Again, they were a pretty good deal: cheap, lots of connections on the back, lots of space. I used mine for backup and Karen used hers for backup and storage for work documents and the thousands of pictures we have of Ian.
I think you can guess where this is going.
LaCie drives have a problem with their power supplies. Wait, that’s not quite right. I think the LaCie representative on the phone said, “This is a rare problem, but since you have 2 drives, I’ll go ahead and send you the replacement power supply for the broken one and an extra so you will have a spare.” LaCie, you aren’t really giving me a lot of confidence in your product.
Karen is still using her LaCie drive (but running out of space), and it seems to be working just fine, but mine died. It seems like the power cable is fine, but some of the electronics in the case went bad. Now I don’t have any backups on my computer, and I’m running out of space.
So I’ve been in the market, as it were, for something that is a little more reliable. Since I’m looking at something new, I figured I could dream a little and think of what I would really like. What kind of things do I want in a home storage system?
- Lots of space
- Future proof. That is, I want to be able to grow my space.
- Reliable. It should not break if a hard drive breaks.
- Usable with Time Machine for backups
- In total, cost less than $1000. Preferably, much less
- Easy to use. I don’t want to have to be a full-time system admin at home every evening. I don’t have time for that, and I do it enough at work.
- Small and quiet would be nice
- Network accessible so Karen can get to her files when she is working in another room
Doing a lot of research online, I discovered that there aren’t a lot of good options out there. One product I looked at is Netgear’s ReadyNAS NV+. It looks like a good product, but I had two qualms about it. First, it is somewhat expensive. Without any disks, it is about $700. Second, it doesn’t have any official support for Time Machine. On the other hand, the ReadyNAS has some really nice features I like. There are a lot of people that use it and love it. It has built-in network support. People have been able to get it to work with Time Machine (although this use is unsupported). Overall, it seems like a good product; my main beef is the price.
I came across another product I liked: Drobo. Data Robotics makes a little toaster-sized box called Drobo that holds four hard drives, protects against disk failure, connects to a computer with USB or Firewire, and makes management about as complicated as using an iPod. It doesn’t have built in network support (but you can add a DroboShare for another $200), and it is a little pricey for what you get. Retail price for a Drobo without any drives is about $500. In my opinion, $300 to $400 would be a much better price for what you get. One thing that is not mentioned in the marketing material for the Drobo is the $50 annual licensing fee that lets you get firmware updates and tech support for the Drobo.
Not liking the price a whole lot, but liking the promise of hands-off storage, I ordered a Drobo and four 750GB hard drives. They were delivered, I took it home, and the tragedy of errors continued.
I spent quite a bit of time looking online about the best way to use the Drobo for Time Machine backups and storage. I connected the Drobo to my computer, thinking that I could set it as a shared drive so Karen could see it on her machine. That saves me the $200 for the DroboShare, right? Well, since Karen’s info is “mission critical” to her business, I figured I would risk my data before using her as a guinea pig. I set up a sparsebundle file on the Drobo to use for Time Machine backups. This lets me limit the amount of space used by Time Machine. I didn’t want to fill up the Drobo with backups and have no space for any media, and since the Drobo is reported to the OS as being bigger than it really is (a nice feature that allows for seamless future expansion), Time Machine, when left in an unlimited state, could try to save backups to hard drive space I don’t have. Everything seemed to be going very well. I started my initial backup of all my data (including my iTunes media), and let it churn. Hmmm….did that really just take the better part of a day to copy 180GB to the Drobo?
Finally, the backup is done. Mount the sparsebundle, browse the Time Machine backup, everything seems to be working well. Yay for the Drobo. So I moved my iTunes library over (another long wait to copy 110GB). Things are going well. I can see my data in iTunes. I can play the music. Well I guess I don’t need to keep using all the space on my hard drive, right? The data is on my Drobo, safe and secure. Move the iTunes folder to the Trash. Gulp. Empty trash. That was kinda scary, but now I’m in the brave new world of redundant data storage. Even if something goes wrong, I have a Time Machine backup of my iTunes music. I can just restore it and go on with my life.
Unless the backup is corrupted.
AUGH!!
The first sign of trouble was when Time Machine reported that it couldn’t save the backup because the target disk was read-only. “That’s weird,” I thought. Everything looks ok to me. So I eject the Drobo and plug it back in.
“This disk has errors that could not be recovered and has been made available to you with limited functionality. Please back up your data and reformat the drive.”
Errors? I looked down at the Drobo. Four soothing green lights stared back saying, “Everything’s ok here.”
A little more digging and the damage is worse than I feared. iTunes is listing all of my music, but dozens of files are reported as missing. I open the folders on the Drobo and searched for them. The folders were there, but they were all empty. Some are files that I ripped from CDs. Some are files I bought on iTunes.
A feeling of dread begins to set in.
Scared of making it worse, I didn’t touch the computer again for three days.
Having steeled myself to the task ahead, I started to look for the missing data. It’s nowhere to be found. I copied what files I had back to my internal hard drive and vowed to never, ever, delete it again. I tried to think back to what I had done with the Drobo that had caused me to loose data. Although little more than a guess, I think I have an explanation for the problem.
At some point in my first adventures with the Drobo, I restarted my computer. However, the Drobo (or something) seemed to hang and not let the computer shut down properly. Seeing that, I used the power button on my Mac to turn the computer off. Having done it many times before with no ill effects, I didn’t think anything of it. My actions seemed to offend the Drobo mightily, and the filesystem on it got corrupted. Unfortunately, this is one of the worst kinds of problems. I know immediately if a drive dies, because I can’t see it anymore. When the filesystem got corrupted, there was no warning. I didn’t know about the problem until it was too late. Although I don’t completely blame the Drobo for this error, it didn’t do anything good for our relationship. After all, isn’t the Drobo supposed to protect against data corruption errors? That’s why I bought the thing.
Several hours and $120 later, I had finished running Disk Warrior on the Drobo. Disk Warrior fixed the corruption of the Time Machine backup and I was able to restore all of my iTunes library. If your data is worth more than about $100 to you, get it. Disk Warrior is one of the best programs I have ever used.
As an aside, I want to write programs like Disk Warrior. I want to be a hero when my programs are run. Those developers have my gratitude and admiration. They have made a wonderful program, and, if they are ever in town, drinks are on me (that’s Dr Pepper for all my conservative family members reading this).
So now that I have my data back, I’m left looking at a little black box, and I can’t help but thinking of the phrase “black hole.” Do I really want to try this again, or was this just a $500 mistake? To say the least, my confidence was shaken.
I spent the rest of the week carefully reseting and using the Drobo. Things seemed to be working better the second time around, but I still wasn’t using it as any sort of primary storage. I copied (not moved) my iTunes files back over to the Drobo and found another problem. The Drobo is slow. I could not watch HD TV shows that were stored on the Drobo without any stuttering of the picture or sound.
The last strike against the Drobo was when one of my drives was reported as bad (it’s a week-old hard drive). I took out the drive, put it back in, and haven’t had any problems with it. Now I’m really unsure about what the Drobo tells me.
Overall, my opnion of the Drobo is that it is a great little box that would be good for backups, but I can’t recommend it as primary storage for data. And, unfortunately, there are other options that offer cheaper backups out there, if all you are looking for is lots of space and hard drive failure protection.
Unfortunately, with the Drobo having struck out, I’m back to square one. I have no backups for my computer. Karen is running out of space on her external drive. I’m running out of space on my hard drive.
I went back to my list of requirements and started dreaming. If I could have anything, what would I have? What I want is a Drobo that is faster and more reliable.
A few years ago, I started hearing about this wonderful new filesystem called ZFS. In a nutshell, it’s free, it offers tremendous file protection that is completely transparent to the user, and it can hold so much information that I could literally record every second of my life and not fill it up. There are several implementations of ZFS, but the official version is included in OpenSolaris, an open-source operating system made by Sun that is similar to Linux.
I’m fairly proficient at technical things, and although I don’t relish the thought of maintaining a file server at home, I know that I have the knowledge to do so. Plus, ZFS looks really easy to use. I should be able to set it up once and not worry about it. So I started looking for a computer that I could use as a home file server running ZFS. I decided that I wanted a little more customization than I get just ordering something from Dell, so I started putting pieces together at newegg.com to see what my costs would be. It turns out, you can get a really nice computer that does everything the Drobo + DroboShare does and more for about the same cost as the Drobo + DroboShare. Looking good so far.
Not wanting to order a computer without knowing for sure if ZFS would meet my needs, I decided to run a little test. Sun makes a great little (free) program called VirtualBox that lets you run different operating systems in a window on your current computer. I installed VirtualBox and made an OpenSolaris machine in it that is just like what I would put together myself. I started it up, followed some simple ZFS tutorials I found online, and quickly realized that I could do everything I want. I can have a large pool of storage for iTunes media and pictures. I can have a second large pool for Karen’s work files. I can set up volumes that look like blank hard drives to our current computers that we can use for Time Machine backups. And everything is protected from disk failure and corruption by ZFS. I think I found the greener pasture.
So this morning I mailed back my Drobo for a refund (minus a restocking fee, grrr), and placed my order for my new computer parts. Let’s hope this one works out.
Wordle tag cloud
Jan 20th
Tag clouds are all the rage, and wordle has created a site that makes some really pretty ones. I have seen their creations around on the web (most recently with today’s inauguration speech), and I finally got around to making one of my own. Below is a tag cloud accurate as of this posting.
Darwin and Church History, Part 3
Nov 19th
As promised, I am offering up some answers to the questions I posed earlier.
- Must one choose between young-earth creationism and an atheistic interpretation of evolution by natural selection? Is there a middle ground?
I feel I have answered this question in my previous post.
- Is your view consistent with as-yet-undiscovered scientific facts? In other words, is your argument based on a current unknown remaining unknown?
Because my response to question 1 incorporates science and human reason, I do think my viewpoint accounts for new discoveries. In this, I find myself tending to the views of Augustine and Spurgeon. Both were of the opinion that Scripture must be interpreted in light of human knowledge. By this, I mean that if some discovery is not compatible with an interpretation of Scripture, the interpretation is flawed, not Scripture. I do not think this view removes the role of divine revelation or the existence of miracles.
- Supposing that the modern understanding of evolution is true, life, even sentient life, may have developed some other place in the universe. How does your theology handle this possibility?
This is a hard question. In included it because it was asked in one of my sources for my paper, and I consider it to be a serious challenge. I do not think that life (bacteria, plants, furry woodland creatures, etc.) offer any serious challenge to Christian teachings but sentient life does. There is no evidence of sentient life (or any life, for that matter) in the universe apart from that found on Earth, and my faith requires that I say that sentient life on Earth is unique. I would struggle greatly if sentient alien life is ever found.
- What is the definition of science?
From Wikipedia:
Science is the effort to discover, and increase human understanding of how the physical world works. Through controlled methods, scientists use observable physical evidence of natural phenomenato collect data, and analyze this information to explain what and how things work. Such methods include experimentation that tries to simulate natural phenomena under controlled conditions and thought experiments.
I think the important thing is to remember that scientists (not science) can very easily stray towards making philosophical claims about the world. These claims are not science and should not be accepted as such.
- What is to be done about the science upon which evolution is based (chiefly geology and paleontology)?
Keep the science and ignore the philosophizing. My faith does not require a young Earth to hold together, so I see not big conflicts with my faith and these foundational sciences.
- How does your viewpoint account for the problem of evil in the world?
Christianity assigns blame for evil and the decay of creation to human disobedience to God. Unfortunately, this view can raise additional hard questions that, at best, have uncomfortable answers. Although a difficult position to hold at times, I too will explain evil in the world as the result of human disobedience to God. I don’t have answers to all the questions this perspective raises, and in such cases, I will freely say, “I don’t know.”
Darwin and Church History, part 2
Nov 5th
Charles Darwin’s ideas presented the church one of its greatest challenges. With his publication of Origin of Species in 1859, Darwin completed the Scientific Revolution begun by Copernicus and firmly divided science and theology in the Western world. The church’s response to this challenge has varied—liberals have changed the very meaning of Christianity and conservatives have all but rejected the advances of science. However, I do think there is a middle ground where one can both accept scientific truths and hold to orthodox Christian theology.
The most liberal view I have come across claims that the evolutionary process of nature itself reconciles us with God. In this view, the human mind, developed from lesser to greater to greater still, is the means to know God. As our mind developed from lesser species, our ability to comprehend God has similarly grown. This process will continue on as the human species continues to evolve and adapt.
The problem with this liberal view is that it completely negates the need for the Incarnation. This view focuses on higher moral values and has little need for sin or redemption (Bowler 166). Other views have claimed the Incarnation is the culmination of the entire process of nature, but again, the focus is on nature and natural processes as the means of spiritual renewal. These liberal viewpoints significantly depart from Christian orthodoxy on several important points.
On the other end of the spectrum, strict conservatives, often known as fundamentalists, embrace biblical literalism and treat the word therein as accurate scientific and historical truth. In the fundamentalist view, God has preserved Scripture as inerrant and a single departure from the clear meaning of the text erodes the very foundation upon which Christianity is built. If Genesis cannot be trusted as being true, how can we accept any part of Scripture as true?
The conservative viewpoint has trouble reconciling the clear meaning of conflicting passages in Scripture (from two Creation stories to what day Jesus was crucified) and understanding other problematic verses (pi = 3 from I Kings 7:23-26). Additionally, the fundamentalist perspective tends to limit scientific research and advancement in areas deemed sacred or unknowable. A fundamentalist view leads to a harsh, legalistic view of Christianity that ends up doing more harm to the Kingdom of God that good.
Both the liberal and fundamentalist views have merit, however. The liberal view encourages human progress and greater knowledge of our world. The fundamentalist view reminds us of the sacredness of Scripture and the need for a saving God.
Both sides’ advocates truly believe their side is correct, so any attempt to find a balance can be easily attacked by both camps. Nevertheless, I will be brave and press on.
A bit of housekeeping first: To find a Christian response to Darwinian evolution, one must recognize certain basic assumptions. One, every perspective in this debate is colored by context (Mike Stroope has some great thoughts on this topic). To remain civil, we must try to take other perspectives into consideration. Two, humanity has been struggling to reconcile theology and natural knowledge for millennia. Any conclusions we may draw will not end the debate.
Likewise, I refer to those that follow the strict conservative view as fundamentalists. This is not meant to be a derogatory term. I use it to differentiate from other, more moderate, conservative viewpoints and because these views rose to prominence as part of the fundamentalist movement of the 1920s.
Finally, to properly respond to Darwin, we must understand his ideas. The theory of evolution by means of natural selection was fist presented by Darwin in Origin of Species and has been further developed over the last one hundred fifty years. Evolution simply states that the vast diversity of life can be explained by small changes over time. Natural selection claims the evolutionary changes are the result of environmental pressures that “select” for certain attributes beneficial for the survival of an individual of group. It is an unguided process with no outside influence—it is random and has no final purpose.
As an example, consider a population of Jabberwocks. Suppose some members of the group develop a mutation that allows them to hide from their predators slightly more effectively than their peers. These Jabberwocks will be more likely to produce more offspring, and soon the entire colony of Jabberwocks will have acquired the helpful mutation. Similarly, if two populations of Jabberwocks are genetically separated (by a mountain range or large body of water, for example), each population will continue to develop their own unique characteristics. These characteristics may lead to an inability to mate and produce fertile young Jabberwocks; two new species are created from the one common ancestor.
Often, the theory of evolution is criticized because it is “just a theory.” A theory is just a guess, right? Not according to the National Academy of Sciences:
In everyday usage, “theory” often refers to a hunch or a speculation. When people say, “I have a theory about why that happened,” they are often drawing a conclusion based on fragmentary or inconclusive evidence. The formal scientific definition of theory is quite different from the everyday meaning of the word. It refers to a comprehensive explanation of some aspect of nature that is supported by a vast body of evidence.
So the theory of evolution is not just a vague idea about life. It is a well-established and well-researched explanation of the likely causes of the variation of life in the world around us.
“But wait,” you say. “That’s not good science. It’s not really science at all. We can’t go back in time and watch it happen, and we can’t duplicate evolution in a lab. The best you can hope for is to see small variation within a single species, but we certainly can’t see one species change into another.”
Like a courtroom trial, though, periodic observational evidence, as scientists have for evolution, is sufficient to provide a convincing explanation for past events. One may surmise a likely sequence of events based on observed evidence. If new evidence comes to light, however, the conclusion may be drastically altered. Evidence for evolution is abundant. For a high-level overview for the evidence of evolution see evolution.berkeley.edu or talkorigins.org. One specific study completed this year shows the evolution of a complex trait not generally considered a characteristic of the original species. Many other sites can provide similar information.
The observed evidence of evolution does not preclude the existence of God, nor does it negate the role of theology in our lives. Science is concerned with natural explanations of the natural world. The Christian God, by definition, is not of this world. Science cannot comment on the existence or non-existence of God. The absence of observed evidence does not conflict with a God that is essentially “other.” Fundamentally, science and theology are concerned with two separate parts of human life: science can answer the questions of how or what and theology gives meaning to answers.
It is possible for science and theology to coexist. Science cannot confirm religious belief, but it can confirm or deny facts about religious belief. Likewise, religion can judge science by guiding the direction of study or commenting on the meaning of scientific truths (Sweet 225-227).
In my opinion, science and theology go together like architecture and aesthetics. Solid architecture does not mean a structure is beautiful; likewise, a structure’s aesthetic appeal does speak to its structural soundness. One may admire the architectural principles of a building or see order in its aesthetic properties, but great structures require attention to both architectural and aesthetic principles. Similarly, individuals must incorporate scientific principles and religious truth to determine meaning and purpose in life.
Darwin Bibliography (pdf): bibliography for my research on the paper I recently wrote on a similar topic
Darwin paper (pdf): a paper I recently wrote that started this whole discussion
Stay tuned for more. I’ve been accused of always sitting on the fence, so I’ll try to follow up with more assertive statements about how science and theology can work together.