Thoughts on what can be done to soften the
conflict on teaching evolution in high schools
The manner in which the evolution/intelligent design debate is being
presented to the American public is not only damaging science
education, the perceived conflict between the world of science and the
world of faith can worsen science funding and further reduce the
critical influence of science on public policy. Mainstream
America
needs to hear that evolution need not be in conflict with religion.
In the legal battles being waged over evolution and intelligent design
it is easy to forget that there were problems well before the recent
push for Intelligent Design. The problem is well stated by Lauie
Goodstein her NY Times article (Aug. 31, 05) "Teaching of
Creationism Is Endorsed in New
Survey". The article begins as follows:
In a finding that is likely to intensify the debate over what to teach students about the origins of life, a poll released yesterday found that nearly two-thirds of Americans say that creationism should be taught alongside evolution in public schools. The poll found that 42 percent of respondents held strict creationist views, agreeing that "living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time." In contrast, 48 percent said they believed that humans had evolved over time. But of those, 18 percent said that evolution was "guided by a supreme being," and 26 percent said that evolution occurred through natural selection. In all, 64 percent said they were open to the idea of teaching creationism in addition to evolution, while 38 percent favored replacing evolution with creationism.
The poll was conducted July 7-17 by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. The questions about evolution were asked of 2,000 people. The margin of error was 2.5 percentage points. John C. Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum, said he was surprised to see that teaching both evolution and creationism was favored not only by conservative Christians, but also by majorities of secular respondents, liberal Democrats and those who accept the theory of natural selection. Mr. Green called it a reflection of "American pragmatism."
It is in the spirit of American pragmatism that we consider several
steps that can reduce the science/religion conflicts over the teaching
of evolution.
1) Students of all faiths need to hear something like the following
statement.
The teachings of science need not be in conflict with the teachings of
religion. We teach evolution in our children's science courses because
the best available scientific evidence reveals life emerged that way.
Whether one believes evolution is how the Almighty made it happen,
revealing His wondrous creativity, or whether it happened by the near
infinite potential of randomness coupled with selection, or whether
these are two languages describing the same events (as commonly found
in physics), is something that must be left to one's faith. The choice
does not come under the purview of science.
2) Various web sites would be provided that have information on how to
connect the languages of science and religion.
a) Part of the misunderstanding is that critical words have different
meaning in science and in religion. Eugenie Scott is the director
of the National Center for Science Education. Her essay titled Problem
Concepts in Evolution: Cause, Purpose, Design, and Chance has the following conclusion:
I have suggested that four terms, cause, purpose, design, and chance are used differently in science than they are in the general public, and because of existential meanings the nonscientific public attributes to these terms, their proper explication is especially pertinent to the teaching of evolution. Professors and teachers should keep in mind the potential for miscommunication, and make explicit the differences between the students’ "street" use of these terms and the way they are used in science class. Because students and the American nonscientific population in general are highly religious, and have a low acceptance of evolution, I have also recommended that teachers and professors not force students to make an unnecessary choice between evolution and faith. Professors should be clear that the methodological materialism of science does not require philosophical materialism. What should be avoided is presenting scientific ideas in a fashion that slams the door in the face of a religious student.
b) The Episcopal Church has developed a three part
document, with part 1 "Theology of Creation" in a langauge
familar to theists, part 2 "Creation and Science" in a language
familiar to scientists and part 3 "Caring for Creation' using langauage
that speaks to both parties.
c) An
Open Letter on evolution has been signed by >7,000 Christian clergy.
That open letter was more controversial than expected. It wasn't
specific enough for our WorkGroup member, John Cobb to be willing to
sign
(see discussion by David Griffin below) and it was too specific with
its God language like "God's loving plan
of salvation for humanity", to be fully supported by non-theists. That
gave our Work Group the opportunity to try being more specific about
the language.
When our Work Group met a month ago we felt it might be possible to
come up with some language that would be specific enough to make
progress on this evolution/ID topic.
The following is a first draft of
an evolution working
paper 8/22/05 that starts with the Open Letter and seeks to
clarify some of its language. I believe this "First draft" to now be
obsolete and replacable by the
more carefully worded materiial from Eugenie Scott and the Episcopal
Church cited in (a) and (b). However the Open Letter and an improved
version of this working paper may be useful.