By Paul Kelly
Biology Department

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.” – Bertrand Russell

The well-publicized battles between evolutionary theory and the religious beliefs of some fundamentalists are just the latest in a series of struggles against the advancement of knowledge. History is rife with examples of opposition to science when those in power fear that new knowledge will threaten their position in society. From my perspective as a teacher and scientist, the Intelligent Design controversy is part of a larger issue of the acceptance of fiction over fact, of unquestioning minds accepting demonstrable falsehoods.

“Intelligent Design,” as presently understood, is a thinly-disguised attempt to introduce the beliefs of some fundamentalist Christians into classrooms under the guise of science. In several court cases, the attempts of proponents to force the teaching of Intelligent Design as a competing “theory” to organic evolution were soundly defeated.¹ Still, when I ask my students the question, many still subscribe to creationist thought and either reject the idea of the evolutionary process or state that both “theories” should be taught in an attempt at fairness.

In addressing the issue in class, I ask students to explain the rotation of the planets around the sun. I then have the opportunity to explain that their answers could have resulted in their imprisonment or execution in the time of Galileo on grounds of heresy. The Roman Catholic Church feared that Galileo’s description of the rotation of the planets around the sun threatened their core beliefs, and the Inquisition compelled him to recant. I have yet to have a student claim that the heliocentric solar system is incompatible with his or her faith. Similarly, almost all students support blood transfusions and organ transplants, procedures which once were commonly opposed on religious grounds. As evolutionary theory became increasingly accepted during the 19th century, the anti-evolutionists devised competing arguments, many of which were so outlandish that most present-day creationists would be embarrassed by them. Some refused even to acknowledge the existence of extinct species because it implied that God was fallible in His creation of the earth. In attempting to reconcile the fossil record with the four-thousand-year-old earth of the Bible, Philip Gosse made a case that can be paraphrased as: “The earth is not really old,’ he said, in effect. ‘It just looks old, because God made it so. He even created fossils to deceive unbelieving geologists.’”² All introductory science courses should include a discussion of the scientific process, stressing that science is an empirical endeavor, our attempt to understand the world through observation and experimentation. A scientific theory is our best explanation of an observed phenomenon, not a wild guess, and not a form of religion. Calling a theory our best explanation rather than the correct one acknowledges that all knowledge is imperfect and new data may change or replace the theory. This contrasts with religious dogma, which, for better or worse, is the acceptance of things which are not subject to question or examination. Fallibilism is a great strength of science, not, as creationists think, a weakness.

In all areas of teaching, we should be aware that we are in an age in which we may have a classroom full of students who have the mistaken idea that their beliefs on any number of subjects have validity even when those beliefs are contradicted by overwhelming evidence. A majority of my Anatomy and Physiology students (many of them future health professionals) believe that megadoses of Vitamin C prevent or cure colds, silicone breast implants cause cancer, and vaccines cause autism. All of these are demonstrably untrue and a sign of scientific ignorance, a willingness to trust anecdotes and rumors over hard evidence.

Education must stress and demand the primacy of empiricism when discussing scientific principles. Science is not anti-religious; it is non-religious. Science is about observed knowledge; religion should be about values and ethics.

Literature Cited

¹Eldredge, Niles. 2001. Triumph of Evolution: And the Failure of Creationism. New York: Holt.

²Hayward, Alan. 1995. Creation and Evolution: Rethinking the Evidence from Science and the Bible. Minneapolis: Bethany.

This article is part of ASpect’s May 2008 issue, Values in the Classrooom.