Is there even really a battle?
A lot has been made of evolution again. It's being disregarded as being simply a faith system with no proof. It's being assaulted on the basis of the Bible. It is again being the most vigorously attacked by those professing a certain degree of Christian faith. As always, it seems the whole issue starts first with two basic misconceptions:
1. That scientific theory is the equivalent of an idea with no proof.
2. That science, in specific studies into evolution, somehow are an attack to disprove God.
First, a scientific theory is a hypothesis that has been proven to hold true given a fairly reasonable amount of experimentation. We have built a conceptual model that has thus far held to be accurate insofar as we're capable of measuring things. To date, it's the best model we've come up with to prove out the mechanics of how life handles changes over time.
Second, with the exception of the very militant athiests in the field of science, evolution is not being built out as a method to refute God. Evolution makes no statement on God. Just as studying the actions of an individual person makes no necessary statement on their parents...
You drop an apple from a given height. It will fall. We take this as fact, we trust it because we've seen it happen. We extrapolate these occurances out to say that all objects fall when dropped. From there we observe the basic behaviors of objects as they interact with one another. From here we get the laws of gravity and motion (and thermodynamics). Newton gave us these centuries ago. We understand how these work on a fairly basic level. You can look at me and with confidence say that we are held in place on the globe via the force of gravity. Dig below the surface and suddenly we start to near the realm of magic. We don't know how gravity works really. We don't know what causes it to be, why it behaves just as it does. We can simply say that we observe behaviors that are consistent with the concept of gravity. Even science can not give us a good definition of what gravity is aside from being a basic force of the Universe. But it's a law. It simply is and we take it as fact and truth because, well, it sure does look like a plausable idea. It is felt that the answer to the questions of gravity go all the way back to the big bang, or very shortly thereafter. A grand unifying force that further splits apart into gravity and magnetic forces.
The best science can do is observe how objects react to one another in various situations... and readily admit that the true answer lies with the moment of creation. It is from that point that everything diverges, it is from that point we must find answers.
Do you doubt gravity? The basic laws of motion? Do you feel that an attempt to find the answers to what is actually causing these things to be true would somehow be an assault on God? Science is not ineffable. Science at its core does not attempt to prove or disprove God. Individuals may attempt to extend what they see and research and read to do that, but the aim of science, and scientists on the whole is not very concerned with the question of God. Science can only go so far as to describe the mechanics of the Universe, it can someday perhaps show us what physically happened at the point of creation. It could perhaps someday give us an exact map of where we came from, how we came to be what we are today, and maybe give us an idea of where we're going. But only in terms of mechanics. Science can show you that over centuries birds are different from what they once were. Science can show you that apples can be vastly different from one another depending on climate and conditions. Science can show you species that were unable to adapt to their changing conditions and became extinct. Science can map out the very genetic structure of a human being, begin to pick out what bits cause hair color, what bits cause people to be tall or short. Science can show us how to cure diseases, even perhaps genetic ones. Science has shown us many things.
It was once considered a defiance towards God to dare research the methods for open heart surgery. In years past it was simply decided to be the will of God that someone die if they had a bad heart. Surely something so complex and mysterious was never meant for man to understand or attempt to tamper with.
Every time we start to look inward, into the human body and puzzle out how it really works, as we attempt to unlock its secrets, someone is always on the sidelines saying it's an affront to God, that we are attempting to once more sample from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, that we are stepping on God's toes.
God made man. In a day. Out of dirt. At least that's the idea of the literalists. 1 man fully grown, 24 hours, out of soil. Of course, at the time these traditions and forming bits of religion were in practice. God was the explanation for trichinosis, it was a sin to eat pork, the punishment of that sin was to become sick. The words are written such that those who originally lived them would understand. In the early days of Christianity, it was heretical and an affront to God to suggest that the Earth wasn't the absolute center of the cosmos. We didn't have the tools or the framework to understand pieces of our very existence, so the Word of God was given in ways that could be understood. We understand more and more every day, and that knowledge has not once offered even the slightest refutation of God. Not even when we begin to dig in towards either the origins of ourselves, or the origins of the cosmos. There was a time where erosion and geology were considered to be vastly complex systems by comparison to what we knew beforehand. Today, biology and genetics are those vastly complex topics we're attempting to broach. Lack of certain knowledge now does not preclude knowledge later.
I've never understood the desire to place science at odds with religion. Science is the how, what, when and where of the mechanical universe, God remains the why. Science can not postulate on anything beyond the realm of the physical. As God is generally understood to exist separate from this physical realm, there is no way for science to say one way or another anything about God. Positive or negative. At best, it can strive to discover the mechanical workings of what God set in motion. No where does any work of faith say that evolution is impossible. It is merely said that God made man, God did a great many things. God created the mountains and the oceans and the continents. Nowhere is it said HOW God did it. We understand how oceans, mountains and continents work and were formed now. Did that bit of information discredit God? Nope.
Why then is evolution this great battle? Why are we so afraid of what we may find if it's discovered where we physically came from? What is the threat? Where does science post a danger to faith? Is your faith so weak that you honestly fear science enough to decry it from the rooftops every time it strays near our origins?
My faith is strong. So strong that there isn't anything that can shake it. All you can do is fill in the holes of a very large framework. I've got the edges sketched out, and some of the internal supports, but the patchwork of knowledge that fills it out, while nice, does nothing to damage the structure.