From Genesis to Genetics: The Case of Evolution and Creationism

Preface

PREFACE Of the three major conflicts between science and religion, two have already been settled. It is now generally accepted that the Earth is round, not flat, and that the Earth revolves around the sun, rather than the sun circling the Earth. The third major conflict concerns origins-the origins of the universe, the Earth, and all its living creatures . In Western culture until the middle of the nineteenth century the answer to the question of origins was divine creation as described in Genesis, the first book of the Judeo-Christian Bible. This explanation had satisfied most people in the West since the waning days of the Roman Empire. But in 1859,with the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, an alternative explanation for the origin of life's diversity appeared, and this new view of life threw Western thought into a tailspin. Darwin proposed that the many different kinds of plants and animals we see around us have not been immutable sincethe beginning of time. Instead, they have changed dramatically as the environment has changed, dividing again and again into new species that fill new niches, until-over vast periods of time-a huge number of different species has come into being. Darwin called this process evolution. The Origin immediately evoked an outcry in Darwin's own Great xii / Preface Britain, as well as on the European continent and in the United States. Many people saw his radical theory as conflicting severely with the religious teachings of Genesis, as indeed it did-and still does. Divine creation is a supernatural concept that cannot be studied, proved, or disproved with the procedures of science. It is accepted on faith. In contrast, Darwin's explanation for the diversity of life relied solely on natural processes, and therefore it could be tested, modified, and improved upon. As the nineteenth century progressed, more and more naturalists accepted evolution as an explanation for the great diversity of life because it cast so much light on a number of otherwise inexplicable puzzles in nature. Because naturalists study the life histories of plants and animals, it is not surprising that they were the first people to be persuaded by Mr. Darwin, a fellow naturalist. The various Christian denominations were much slower to appreciate his new theory, but by the second half of the twentieth century many of them also accepted evolution. And now, at the beginning of a new millennium, Pope John Paul I1 has decreed that evolution is consistent with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. Still, a very large number of fundamentalist Christians continue to reject the scientific evidence for evolution and accept as fact the literal account of creation as described in Genesis. The tension between creationists and evolutionists has waxed and waned over the decades since Darwin first proposed his "dangerous idea," but it is once again severe. The arena of contention today is mainly the public schools. Scientists, supported by the nation's courts, demand that teachers present evolution -and only evolution-as the accepted scientific explanation for the origin of life's diversity. Creationists, on the other hand, demand that educators exclude evolution from the curriculum-but if educators must teach it, they should also be required to teach a competing theory, called creation science, as a "logical" alternative. This bitter argument has disrupted science education in the nation's public schools. Many school boards, principals, and biology teachers Prcrface / xiii have opted to ignore the topic of evolution altogether rather than face the anger of parents who argue that discussionof evolutionaryconcepts in the classroom is undermining their children's religious beliefs. Exasperated , some educators find themselves asking: "Does it really matter if children never learn about evolution?" Yes, I believe that it matters a great deal, for much more than evolution is on trial. A very important principle is at stake-the principle that the science curriculum in the schools should reflect what scientists have accepted as the best that can be said about the natural world on the basis of the evidence available. The entire scientific enterprise rests on two important principles: (I) that scientists must minimize their personal preferences and beliefs about how the world works and, instead, base their conclusions on data from nature gathered through observation and experiment; and (2) that scientists must subject those observations,experiments, and conclusionsto testing and confirmation by other scientists. This rigor is...