In February 450 churches celebrated Charles Darwin’s birthday with sermons arguing that religion and evolution do not contradict one another.
Called Evolution Sunday, the event grew out of a project organized by Dean Michael Zimmerman and his colleagues at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh. They wrote an open letter signed by nearly 200 clerics in response to a 2004 resolution by the Grantsburg, Wisconsin, school board requiring that biology classes incorporate “various models or theories” of the origin of life. Later that year, the Grantsburg board backed down a bit, modifying its curriculum resolution to stipulate that “students shall be able to explain the scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolutionary theory.”
Noting the ongoing evolution wars in the United States, Zimmerman decided to expand the project beyond the borders of Wisconsin. The result was “An Open Letter Concerning Religion and Science,” which has received endorsements from 10,000 clergy members around the country. Most endorsers hail from relatively liberal mainline Protestant denominations. (There were just seven endorsements from Southern Baptists, almost all of whom were associated with hospitals or academic institutions.)
The open letter declares: “We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as ‘one theory among others’ is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children.” So far, so good.
The letter goes on to draw a distinction between “two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.” Religious truth, according to the letter, is “of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts.” The divines seem to be reaching for the proposed accommodation between science and religion devised by the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould.
Gould argued that science and religion are two “nonoverlapping magisteria.” According to Gould, “if religion can no longer dictate the nature of factual conclusions properly under the magisterium of science, then scientists cannot claim higher insight into moral truth from any superior knowledge of the world’s empirical constitution.”
But can this formulation survive the continuing scrutiny of religion by science? While it is true that science has nothing to say about whether souls are divinely infused into people, religion is still part of the world’s empirical constitution.
I have no doubt about the ability of religion to “transform hearts.” Religion motivates the charitable works of the Salvation Army; it helped President George W. Bush stop drinking; and it inspired 19 Muslims to slam airliners into buildings. It is an undeniably powerful force in human lives. Something that has such a far-reaching influence cannot escape the scrutiny of humanity’s most powerful techniques for uncovering the facts of the world.
According to Gould, “The net of science covers the empirical universe: what is it made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory). The net of religion extends over questions of moral meaning and value.” Possibly because he despised evolutionary psychology and sociobiology, Gould was comfortable making this distinction. But in a sense, values are facts about human beings and as such can be studied by scientists. Today researchers into evolutionary psychology, neuroeconomics, genetics, and other fields are elucidating the sources of human morality and how it functions.
Dean Hamer, a biologist at the National Cancer Institute, even claims to have found “the God gene,” which affects how certain mood-regulating chemicals are transported in people’s brains. This variant of the VMAT2 gene seems to make people who have it more susceptible to spiritual beliefs.
Of course, theology is still a long way from being reduced to biochemistry. Scientific research into the sources of religious belief is just beginning, so any of the current findings could be rejected or revised as further evidence becomes available. Nevertheless, the magisterium of science is surrounding and constricting the magisterium of religion. Zimmerman’s letter declares, “We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator.” It may well be that that same capacity for critical thought eventually leads us to understand how the universe and humanity came to be in such a way that God fades away, and we no longer need to believe in Him.
There's a war going on in our schools and universities, our laboratories and lecture halls.
The scientific community is so enraptured with Charles Darwin's theory of evolution that they are working as one to stamp out anything that may contradict it, especially the notion of intelligent design. Scientists with impeccable records are being ostracized from that community -- losing their jobs, their tenure, their professional credibility -- for even giving voice to the notion that life may have been the work of an intelligent creator.
At least that's the premise of the new movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. The documentary, produced by Premise Media and starring speech writer, actor and game show host Ben Stein, is set to open on Friday, but it has already ignited controversy.
It remains one of the most talked-about (and blogged-about) topics on the Internet, and producers are so concerned about pirated copies of the film showing up online that they've instituted strict security measures for preview screenings. Photo IDs are checked, bags are searched, and all cell phones and other electronic devices must be left in cars.
On Thursday night, the Total Living Network held one of those screenings in Aurora. TLN is a Christian television studio and broadcasting network based on Aurora's far West Side, which creates its own faith-based programming and beams it out via satellite to stations across the globe.
TLN's CEO and president, Jerry Rose, prides himself on using his network to spark open debate about important issues.
Expelled will certainly start a few of those. The film starts off with Stein, perhaps best known as the droning teacher repeating the title character's name in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, interviewing biologists who believe they've been censured for giving credence to the idea of intelligent design. Stein also interviews biologists who vehemently disagree with intelligent design, particularly Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion.
Later, the film attempts to draw connections between Darwinist theory and Nazism, and compares the perceived debate in the scientific community to the erecting of the Berlin Wall.
Science, religion co-exist
The main criticism of intelligent design from evolutionary biologists is that it isn't really science. Darwin's theory of evolution states that species adapt and grow over time to suit their environmental and biological needs, and that one can trace that evolution down the chain. Biologists will tell you there is more than 100 years of observable, verifiable data to support evolutionary theory.
But evolution does not provide an answer to the big question -- where did we all come from? That's a hole the intelligent design theory attempts to fill by saying complex structures in nature can only be the work of an intelligent creator. The theory has been criticized as an attempt to bring religion into the classroom, but proponents are quick to point out the theoretical creator isn't necessarily the Christian God.
Scientist: Belittling evolution has dubious origins
BY BRIAN WILLIAMS Monday, April 07, 2008
VALPARAISO | The Darwinian theory of evolution, because it has not been disproved by rigorous testing over time, has become accepted knowledge, and disbelieving it is not an option.
That was the conclusion of Murray Peshkin, a physicist with Argonne National Laboratory, in a recent talk on science and religion at Valparaiso University.
Opponents of teaching Darwinian evolution have lost the court fight to keep it out of the public schools, Peshkin said, so they have changed the battle to push for equal billing for creationism, or intelligent design.
"What's wrong is teaching those as part of science -- they are not. They belong to religion because their assumptions and their logic belong to religion," he said.
Dismissing science with "it's only a theory," Peshkin said, is "intellectually appalling" and a material threat to the country. Science in the 21st century offers chances to conquer diseases and achieve other advances, opportunities that could be lost if students aren't taught the best science and if parents aren't taught respect for science, he said.
Scientists have failed to explain the limits of science, Peshkin said. Science deals in what can be observed and measured through experimentation. Assertions or beliefs are not part of it. A theory, he said, is a hunch about how the world works that is then subjected to experimental observation.
Religion, on the other hand, accepts revealed knowledge. The two, therefore, take different approaches to reality, Peshkin said.
But each is valid and the conflict between the two is unnecessary, he said.
Peshkin said experimentation can only disprove a theory, but never finally prove it.
With proof always impossible, then, scientists rely on the repeated successful testing of a theory to make conclusions about the physical world, he said. Newton's laws of mechanics are accepted because they have accurately described observable phenomena consistently over centuries. They have been found to apply not only to planets, as Newton started with, but also to baseballs and jet engines. An airplane designed to fly under a different theory of motion would not get any riders, Peshkin said.
Disbelieving well-tested theories is not an option intellectually or practically, he said.
Since the 1900s, Darwin's prediction of primates' descent from a common ancestor through natural selection has been confirmed by repeated observation. The theory of evolution has been subjected to numerous and varied tests and has not yet encountered limitations, he said.
‘Evolutionary evangelists’ reconcile science, religion in book, talks
By Rob Cullivan
Apr 4, 2008
Do you believe the biblical story of creation is literally true, symbolically true, a little of both, or none of the above?
No matter what you believe, the Rev. Michael Dowd wants you to consider that there may be another story behind the creation story – and that’s the story of evolution. He’s presented his belief in “sacred evolution” to Christians, Buddhists, atheists, agnostics and other groups, and has earned kudos from scientists and religious thinkers alike for his work.
Dowd, 49, notes that he met a number of Christians on his spiritual journey who also believed in evolution and who changed his mind on the subject. As he learned more about science and evolution, he saw them as pointing toward God, not away.
“What I was gaining was a sense of divine revelation that wasn’t going back a few thousand years, but going back millions of years. Science is showing us what God is revealing.”
Dowd has become a zealot for his faith, which reconciles evolution and religion, and has written about it in his book “Thank God for Evolution.” In his view, God is the ultimate “nest egg” of all that is, the “Ultimate Reality,” so to speak, out of which all other “eggs” are hatched – namely, all that is. Evolution is not some meaningless, random series of events, but a meaningful march of the universe trying to come to know itself.
One reason people have rejected evolution, he says, is because it’s taught as a coldhearted “survival of the fittest,” when it should be more accurately described as “survival of what fits.” On that note, cooperation among living things to survive is as much a component of evolution as competition, he says, noting that humans can take charge of their evolution by cooperating more, a stance religious and non-religious people alike can understand.
“Cooperative individuals and organizations will almost always out-compete non-cooperative individuals and organizations.”
He adds that he has Portland ties – he lived in the city from 1996 to 2000, and served as campaign manager for the Portland Sustainable Lifestyle Campaign, organizing “eco-teams” of neighbors who encouraged each other to live sustainable lifestyles, consuming less water and composting as just two examples.
He and his wife, science writer Connie Barlow, have spent the last several years on the road, as “evolutionary evangelists.” He adds that the gospel they preach contains elements that people of conservative, moderate and liberal mindsets can accept, even if they don’t always agree on other matters.
“What ultimately I think matters is how well we cooperate across ethnic, religious lines to co-create a just, healthy, beautiful and sustainable life-giving future.”
Science meets belief as couple put evolution in a sacred context
Science meets belief as couple put evolution in a sacred context
By Sandi Dolbee UNION-TRIBUNE RELIGION & ETHICS EDITOR
February 23, 2008
Michael Dowd preaches an evolutionary theology.
Some say you can tell a lot about people from the cars they drive. The Rev. Michael Dowd drives a camper van with drawings of two fish, one labeled “Jesus” and the other “Darwin,” who are kissing each other with red hearts above them.
For nearly six years, Dowd, a former United Church of Christ minister, and his wife, science writer Connie Barlow, have traveled the country preaching the gospel of evolution with evangelistic zeal.
It's time to declare an end to the war between science and faith, he argues. He says the facts are indisputable: Earth and its inhabitants evolved over billions of years. But that's OK, he adds, because God, or whatever name you want to give to a higher power, was and is still involved.
“Imagine a realm of nothingness,” says Dowd, invoking an image of the beginning of time. “God is the essence of that everything. Everything that emerges is not emerging outside of God, but within God.”
In the beginning
Biblical creationism: God created the earth and everything in it over six days, as told in Genesis, the opening book of the Bible, going back roughly 6,000 to 10,000 years ago. There are varying interpretations over whether the time frame was six literal days or six long periods.
Biological evolution: Earth and its life forms developed over a gradual process, beginning with the most primitive organisms billions of years ago. According to the National Academy of Sciences, evolution “has been confirmed repeatedly through observation and experiment in a broad spectrum of scientific disciplines.”
Theistic evolution: Sometimes referred to as evolutionary creationism, it embraces both God and evolution. God created the universe through an evolutionary process, therefore Genesis and science complement each other.
Keith Mesecher, a longtime member of First Unitarian Universalist Church, says he's “totally turned on” by Dowd's message that humans contain billions of years of evolution inside of them. “We have the wisdom of the universe in us,” says Mesecher, who led the music at last Friday night's revival.
As for Dowd, 49, he credits his wife with pushing him to follow his dream of becoming an itinerant preacher for this cause. Barlow, a 55-year-old author of several science books, joins him in his presentations, coaxing audiences to regard the evolution of the world as an evolving narrative. “Michael and I view this as the story of the changing story,” she says.
The New York couple shed their belongings (they don't even have a storage bin) and took to the road in April 2002.
They live out of a white Dodge Sprinter, staying in people's homes during their speaking gigs and supporting themselves with donations and proceeds from the sales of books and tapes. They also have two Web sites: thegreatstory.org and thankgodforevolution.com.
He admits that most of their audiences are liberal congregations who are not wedded to biblical literalism and are already sympathetic to evolutionary teachings. But he says he admires creationists for their fervor and admonishes atheists for “having no respect for religious language.”
Dowd's not alone in this campaign to mend fences between science and religion. Earlier this month, more than 800 U.S. congregations participated in the third annual Evolution Weekend, when sermons and seminars are geared to what supporters regard as the compatibility of evolutionary science and spiritual beliefs.
Still, however, opinion polls show that Dowd remains in the minority.
Americans have repeatedly embraced creationism over evolution. As recently as 2006, a poll conducted for CBS News found that 55 percent of Americans surveyed said they believe God created humans in their present form, compared with 13 percent who said they believed in evolution. The remainder favored theistic evolution, a belief that humans evolved but God guided the process.
Dowd figures he'll be spreading this message on wheels for the rest of his life. So far, he has bookings into fall 2009. Tomorrow, he is due to be in Lancaster, followed by stops in Riverside, Ojai and Anaheim. Then, the white camper van with the kissing fish will push farther north, continuing to spread his gospel that Jesus loves Darwin.
Darwin Day, February 12 each year, is an international celebration of the birthday of Charles Darwin, who first developed the modern scientific theory of the evolution of life.
What would the world be like today without Darwin and the science of evolution?
It is no exaggeration to say that this world would be a much more terrible and impoverished place—in every dimension. There would be no modern medicine—no way to know that we could use tissue from animals sharing a common ancestry to fix a failing human heart valve. No chance to stop infections that evolve and grow resistant to treatments, or discover cures for viruses like AIDS. Moreover, we’d be deprived of the wonderment and exhilaration from learning how the natural world actually works. Conversely, because Darwin did make this contribution, his work also served to strengthen the scientific method and its role in modern society. And that is very important.
There is beauty as well as usefulness to the truth that Darwin discovered. As Darwin himself put it poetically in the conclusion of On the Origin of Species, the path-breaking book which first put forward his theory: “It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us…. There is grandeur in this view of life....”
Evolution is true. There is evidence of it everywhere (and nobody has ever found evidence to disprove it). To take just one example, the book The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism—Knowing What’s Real and Why it Matters by Ardea Skybreak explores the evolution of whales: First, the earliest ancestors of all animal life on land evolved from fish and developed the capacity to walk on land, and then one branch of those animals, the ancestors of whales, over many generations, evolved to live in the sea again. From the sea, and then, many millions of years later, back into the sea! That’s why examining the skeleton of a baleen whale reveals the remnants of hipbones that once supported legs!
Evolution shows that—starting from simple forms of life—all living things transformed out of other living things in a tremendous branching tree, including humans and all their mental capacities. This has been firmly established by scientists from many different fields coming at this from different angles. And all this happened without any overall preset direction, let alone being orchestrated by a (non-existent) god (what kind of an inept god would create a whale with tiny skeletal hips?). The changes in life forms are driven by naturally occurring variations (changes) in the genes that make up living things. And many of those changes are then “sorted out” through natural selection, as different plants and animals confront and either survive, or die off, in constantly changing environments.
Today, with people agonizing about the future and feeling alienated and isolated, the core of the U.S. ruling class supports the most backward and outright obscurantist religious fundamentalism as a way to channel this anxiety into hard-core support for the system. And it supports this fundamentalism against science. Bush himself states that “the jury is still out” on evolution. Research into realms ranging from global warming to preventing the spread of AIDS to stem cell research for cures to tragic diseases is suppressed because it conflicts with political programs and ways of thinking that are integral to keeping people ignorant and enslaved.
As part of this war on science, the theory of evolution is suppressed, banned, distorted, and just not taught. Recently, an administrator in the Texas school system was forced to resign simply for forwarding an e-mail announcing a speech by a prominent scholar on evolution!
There is battle raging in society over epistemology—that is, over the nature of truth and how people come to know the truth. Is this to be done by seeking the real material causes of things in reality? Or, instead of that, by turning off critical thinking and seeking answers from some supernatural being that doesn’t even exist? Darwin Day contributes at this important time to supporting the understanding that we can and must know how the world changes through developing and testing theories in relation to the evidence of the real, material world.
There’s another dimension as well. An important aim of the communist revolution is to “free the spirit from its cell,” as the song the Internationale says. That is to say, to liberate people’s minds from the chains of ignorance and traditional ways of thinking—including the shackles of religious belief in non-existent supernatural powers (gods). These “old ideas” both justify oppression and foster a dog-eat-dog mentality, and also keep people from understanding, appreciating, and being inspired by the real world. In the case of religion, these ideas ultimately justify “the way things are” (“render unto Caesar”) and instill passivity and ignorance in people (“God works in mysterious ways”). Firmly grasping science, in all its rigor and wonder, is essential to the crucial rupture with that kind of thinking.
Correspondingly, in a revolutionary socialist society—and on a whole other level when humanity reaches the goal of worldwide communism—the method of scientific discovery will be taught in schools and promoted throughout society. Science, and a scientific worldview, will be made the common province of all society—including those who have up to now been locked out of that. Scientific research—including scientific inquiry that does not promise any particular immediate practical benefit, as well as research that is directed to the most pressing problems of the masses—will be unleashed on a level far beyond anything humanity has seen. Previous socialist societies have accomplished great things in this—and overcoming weaknesses and tendencies to narrow this sphere in those revolutions is a critical element of Bob Avakian’s re-envisioning of communism.
Finally, if we are to bring forward a real revolutionary movement, then it must involve people engaging in science and the scientific method. If we don’t understand the world as it really is— its underlying dynamics and driving forces, including as a key part of that where the possibility for big revolutionary changes can come from and how to seize on such potential opportunities—then we won’t be able to change it in the direction that it needs to go for humanity. Making that change—making revolution—will take millions struggling to figure out and grasp the truth and moving to act on it, decisively—not only from among the intellectuals, but also and especially from the brutally oppressed and exploited people who must and can be the backbone force of a revolution to throw off and put an end to all forms of exploitation throughout the globe. To emancipate humanity, we must emancipate our minds.
In this spirit, and from this perspective, we encourage all our readers to find and attend Darwin Day events, and to engage Darwin’s work in this annual celebration of a wonderful breakthrough in human understanding.
A list of Darwin Day events is available at darwinday.org. There are events all over the world—from Spain to Australia to Bangladesh. In San Francisco, people are being invited to an “Evolutionpalooza to celebrate Darwin Day with your fellow primates”; Darwin’s Bulldogs are gathering in Grayslake, Illinois; and a whole week of programs at Indiana State University includes “The Adventures of Darwin’s Chihuahua.” In the U.S. hundreds of religious congregations are planning to join in, with talks and sermons upholding evolution on Evolution Weekend, February 9 and 10.
“I believe in God -- nothing will ever change that. You can hook me up to a torture machine and I’ll still say I believe. I’d die if I didn’t have God. But I also believe in science. Does that make me a bad Christian? Why do I have to ignore facts just to prove my faith is strong?”
These words, the unmistakably dramatic words of a teenage girl, belong to Mena Reece, the central character in Robin Brande’s YA novel Evolution, Me & Other Freaks of Nature. Mena’s story twists the coming-of-age high-school novel toward the American culture wars, and reading it, we learn something about the state of religion-science writing these days.
Everyone knows the deal by now: the sizeable percentage of Americans who call themselves creationists and pledge fidelity to the “fact” of a 6000-year-old Earth; the fancied-up, pseudo-science ID (intelligent design) cadre that acknowledges an ancient Earth but reifies the “irreducibly complex” structures and processes that, they insist, could not have evolved and could only have been created; the scientists who lament both of these views, acknowledging creationism and ID as our country’s twin pillars of scientific illiteracy; and the subset of those scientists who, bloated with certainty of their own one real truth, condescend to people of any faith and link all religiosity with rampant stupidity.
Behind each of these caricatures are living people -- we’ve all met them. But the four categories above omit so many people, people who leave room inside for a new rock-your-world idea to be digested, or even just nibbled and then spit out. These churchgoers and scientists, and churchgoing scientists, pair up science texts with sacred texts and read both with a critical eye.
Like real people in this latter group, Mena Reece can think for herself. This annoys her strait-laced, ultra-religious parents. The novel begins as Mena tries to cope with her new status as pariah both at home and at New Advantage High School. Swept up in the tide of peer pressure, she recently joined a nasty and (for much of the book) mysterious campaign against a fellow student, orchestrated by her supposedly Christian peers. I won’t reveal the nature of these doings; it’s enough to know that Mena came down with a severe case of guilt as a result. (Guilt! Staple emotion of any bathed-in-religion novel worth its salt). Mena seeks redemption by performing a counter-act, one that sets these same Christians, and her own parents, soundly against her. Now, she’s alone….
Until she observes, one day in biology class, the Mena-shunners’ protest: “Ms. Shepherd had barely gotten the word ‘evolution’ out of her mouth when suddenly there was this dramatic scraping of chairs. Next thing I knew, almost half of the room -- fourteen people, to be exact -- stood up, flipped their chairs around, and plopped into their seats with their backs to Ms. Shepherd. God help us. Because this was it, the Big Stand, the ‘taking it to the front lines’ Pastor Wells had bragged about.”
Ms. Shepherd cites separation of church and state, and pushes on. True to her name, she also herds Mena towards Casey, a compatible boy-soul. Together with his spirited sister Kayla and Ms. Shepherd herself, Casey works magic on Mena. She mutates into increasingly rebellious science-blogger Bible Grrrl, breaks from the sheep-pack of peers, and decides her God can make room for Darwin.
Sprinkled through the text are welcome references to the big stars and bit players of human prehistory, ranging from gorillas to Homo floresiensis, the unexpectedly tiny (and recent) Hobbit hominid. I was disappointed to see, though, that our closest primate relatives, living or extinct, become in Brande’s hands only metaphors for mean or dumb characters. Early on, “Adam turned his apelike face toward Casey… The stupid gorilla decided to ram his shoulder into Casey and bounce him off the wall, too.” Later, Kayla calls anti-evolution picketers “Neanderthals.” For my money, gorillas are, and Neanderthals were, group-living, complex-communicating smart primates, and I’m proud to have them in the family.
Brande is at her best when she lets us peek inside Mena’s mind, at its genuine confusion: “So what does [all this] mean for Genesis? Evolution says we’re all descended from a common ancestor, too, but it doesn’t exactly sound like Adam and Eve. So when did they come along? Were there already apes and other creatures, and then God picked us out to make us special? Or were we always planned from the beginning, human souls waiting until the time was right to be in human bodies that walked upright and used tools and could appreciate the Garden of Eden?”
This novel couldn’t be more hot-topic. This year, U.S. presidential candidates will play the faithier than thou game, and may face outing if they endorse evolution. In 2009, the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s The Origin of Species will force natural selection and ape-like ancestors into everyone’s face. In the shorter term, we can hope for a Texas-sized miracle. Recently, the Dallas-based Institute for Creation Research gained state approval for an online Master’s program in science education. Yes, for science education! Check out this bulleted point from the Institute’s website: “The harmful consequences of evolutionary thinking on families and society (abortion, promiscuity, drug abuse, homosexuality, and many others) are evident all around us even infiltrating our churches and seminaries.” Isn’t it just swell when being gay gets lumped with drug abuse? When evolutionary thinking is made into evil? Stay tuned: the final vote from the state of Texas on ICR’s Master’s program is slated for later this month.
Kids, like adults, need to understand what’s behind issues like these -- almost as much as they need to learn the bedrock principles and facts of evolution. A countryful of courage, that’s what we need, on behalf of the kids. Courage to continue to insist that teachers teach science in science class, and religion in religion class. Courage to write an array of books, fiction and otherwise, that look at God and evolution. Sure, let’s explore what it means for teens to bridge science and religion. But since when have YA readers been fragile? Not everyone has to pray their way through the issues; an atheist heroine or two (non-sneering variety), anyone?
-- Barbara J. King awaits a spring semester at William & Mary filled with science, and 37 students in two primatology classes.
U.S. science academy stresses evolution's importance
Thu Jan 3, 2008 By Will Dunham
(NOTE: This is page one of two. Please click on "external link" to view entire article.)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. National Academy of Science on Thursday issued a spirited defense of evolution as the bedrock principle of modern biology, arguing that it, not creationism, must be taught in public school science classes.
The academy, which operates under a mandate from Congress to advise the government on science and technology matters, issued the report at a time when the theory of evolution, first offered in the 19th century, faces renewed attack by some religious conservatives.
Creationism, based on the explanation offered in the Bible, and the related idea of "intelligent design" are not science and, as such, should not be taught in public school science classrooms, according to the report.
"We seem to have continuing challenges to the teaching of evolution in schools. That's something that doesn't seem to go away," Barbara Schaal, an evolutionary biologist at Washington University in St. Louis and vice president of National Academy of Sciences, said in a telephone interview.
"We need a citizenry that's trained in real science."
Evolution is a theory explaining change in living organisms over the eons due to genetic mutations. For example, it holds that humans evolved from earlier forms of apes.
The report stated that the idea of evolution can be fully compatible with religious faith. "Science and religion are different ways of understanding the world. Needlessly placing them in opposition reduces the potential of each to contribute to a better future," said the report.
But teaching creationist ideas in science classes confuses students about what constitutes science and what does not, according to the report's authors. Continued...
More Americans believe in the existence of hell and the devil than Darwin’s theory of evolution, according to a nationwide poll.
Nearly two-thirds (62 per cent) of US residents polled said they believed in a literal hell and the devil, 60 per cent said they believed in the virgin birth.
Only 42 per cent of those surveyed, however, said they believed in Darwin’s theory of evolution, or “natural selection”. Some 39 per cent of respondents said they believed in creationism.
Broken down by religion, the survey found that only 16 per cent of born-again Christians (or evangelicals) compared to 43 per cent of Catholics and 30 per cent of Protestants believed in Darwin’s theory.
Meanwhile, 60 per cent of born-again Christians, but only 43 per cent of Catholics, believed in creationism.
Overall, the poll reflects the centrality of faith to American life, politics and culture, with 82 per cent saying they believed in God.
Three quarters agreed there is a heaven while 72 per cent believed Jesus is God or the Son of God and 79 per cent believed in miracles.
The question of faith is proving a key issue in campaigning for next year’s presidential election.
The poll, by market researchers Harris, involved 2,455 US adults from across the country selected to reflect the national population in terms of age, sex, race, education and household income.
It also found that significant minorities of Americas believe in ghosts (41 per cent), UFOs (35 per cent), witches (31 per cent), astrology (29 per cent) and reincarnation (21 per cent).
Born-again Christians were more likely to believe in witches (37 per cent) while Catholics were found more likely to believe in astrology and re-incarnation
Commentaries regarding the recently aired NOVA documentray: Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial
Judge John E. Jones III, the federal judge who presided over Kitzmiller v. Dover, appeared on The NewsHour on November 13, 2007, to discuss Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial, the documentary that recently aired on PBS stations nationwide. Following a clip from the program, Jones discussed his background knowledge of "intelligent design" and evolution, the Establishment Clause and its applicability in the Kitzmiller case, the role of the independent judiciary, and the influence of his seminal decision. Jones commented, "It's not precedential outside of the middle district of Pennsylvania, but I thought that if other school boards and other boards of education could read it, they would possibly be more enlightened about what the dispute was all about."
Judgment Day aired on PBS stations nationwide on November 13, 2007. It will be available to watch on-line as of November 16, 2007, and it is likely to air again in various places -- schedules for local affiliates can be checked on-line via the PBS website. Be sure also to visit the generous website, featuring interviews with Kenneth R. Miller on evolution, Phillip Johnson on "intelligent design," and Paula Apsell on NOVA's decision to produce the documentary; audio clips of Judge John E. Jones III reading passages from his decision in the case, and of various experts (including NCSE's Eugenie C. Scott) discussing the nature of science; resources about the evidence for evolution and about the background to the Kitzmiller case; material especially for teachers, including a briefing packet (PDF) for educators; and even a preview of the documentary.
Meanwhile, Judgment Day is continuing to receive high praise from reviewers, both in Pennsylvania, where the historic trial took place, or across the country. The York Dispatch, one of the two daily papers serving Dover, Pennsylvania, editorially offered (November 11, 2007), "Thumbs Up to PBS for bringing tribulations of the Dover Area School District to national attention in the two-hour Nova special 'Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial' ... The blatant attempt to introduce religion-based 'creationism' into the public school classroom is detailed along with a recreation of the ensuing battle in a federal courtroom in Harrisburg that resulted in a humiliating defeat for the intelligent design proponents. A reminder that fiddling with public education to impose an individual religious viewpoint is a non-starter, 'Judgment Day' should be required watching."
Reviewing Judgment Day for the Philadelphia Inquirer (November 13, 2007), Jonathan Storm praised not only the scientific content of Judgment Day but also its objective approach: "Nova, the science show, stoutly defends science against the attack of the surprisingly hard-to-pin-down intelligent-design brain trust. It does use such loaded words as 'claim' and 'so-called' to describe tenets of the supposed theory, but it is surprisingly clear of a 'nyah-nyah, we won' tone. That makes this significant program more accessible to all." He also quoted Judge Jones as saying, "If you glibly embrace intelligent design, or if you're in that 48 or 50 percent who believe creationism ought to be taught in school, I hope [you] will watch this."
It was as a legal drama that Judgment Day struck Rob Owen, writing in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (November 12, 2007). Describing the program as "a fascinating and gripping look at the trial and both sides of the issue," Owen wrote, "I didn't know much about so-called 'intelligent design' theory beyond its name and a sense that it's synonymous with creationism. So I went into the film willing to be persuaded that maybe there's some validity to intelligent design. If there is, those in favor of ID failed to prove it. And failed miserably. That's what makes 'Intelligent Design on Trial' such a thriller. As a legal exercise, the pro-evolution team presents a slam-dunk case; in the end, even a defense attorney says his losing side received a fair trial."
In The New York Times (November 11, 2007), Cornelia Dean admired the scientific content of Judgment Day, commenting, "the program as a whole recognizes that there is no credible scientific challenge to the theory of evolution as an explanation for the complexity and diversity of life on earth. And it shows how witnesses attacked two of the central premises of intelligent design -- that there are no 'intermediate' fossils to show one creature morphing into another (there are) and that some body parts are too complex to have formed from the modification of other body parts (not true)." She added, "But viewers also learn a more important lesson: that all science is provisional, standing only until it is overturned by better information. Intelligent design, relying as it does on an untestable supernatural entity, does not fall into that category."
Elsewhere, the Cincinnati Post's reviewer (November 13, 2007) wrote, "Leave it to the respected PBS science show "Nova" to put some common sense back into the often hysterical debate over whether intelligent design is science or religion -- and remind us that Darwin's theory of evolution is a solid one that should be taught in science classes." The Deseret News's reviewer (November 13, 2007) described the progam as "captivating," and quoted Judge Jones as saying, "I think there's a lesson here for communities and how they elect their school board members." And the Oregonian's reviewer (November 13, 2007) wrote, "'Judgment Day' offers an admirably compact and methodical presentation of the sides in the debate. It should be highly useful in years to come."
Finally, writing in Salon (November 13, 2007), Gordy Slack, the author of The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything: Evolution, Intelligent Design, and a School Board in Dover, PA, looks forward from the trial, explaining that although "intelligent design" aspired to be a big tent under which creationists of all stripes were welcome to shelter, "Judge Jones'[s] decision was like a lightning strike on the big top, sending many of the constituents running home through the rain." He ends by quoting NCSE's executive director Eugenie C. Scott's warning: "Evolution remains under attack ... If creationists have their way, teachers will eventually just stop teaching evolution. It'll just be too much trouble. And generations of students will continue to grow up ignorant of basic scientific realities."
On paleontologist priest Teilhard de Chardin's search to reconcile faith and science.
By Jonathan Kirsch October 7, 2007
The Jesuit and the Skull
Teilhard de Chardin, Evolution, and the Search for Peking Man
Amir D. Aczel
Riverhead Books: 304 pp., $24.95
The clash between science and superstition is one important theme of Amir D. Aczel's biography of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, "The Jesuit and the Skull." A respected paleontologist, Teilhard was a member of the team of scientists who discovered the remains of Peking Man, a promising candidate for the "missing link" in human evolution, at Dragon Bone Hill in 1929. It was only one episode in an adventurous, tumultuous life that coincided with the wars and revolutions of the early 20th century.
Aczel, who has written on key figures in mathematics and science, is gifted at explaining complex concepts and introducing the men and women who first articulated them in fast-paced, story-driven accounts. For example, he makes good use of the mysterious disappearance of the Peking Man during the chaotic first days of World War II, an episode reminiscent of "The Da Vinci Code."
Then too, the Frenchman's life story is so deeply soaked in conflict and contradiction that it sometimes reads like an invented one. Tall, dapper, handsome and aristocratic, Teilhard was a charismatic figure who inevitably attracted the attention of the women around him. But as a Jesuit priest who had taken a vow of chastity, he refused to enter into the sexual union that some of them sought. And because his vows included one of obedience, his most important work, his philosophical writings -- an effort to embrace both a mystical faith in religion and the hard facts disclosed by scientific inquiry -- remained unpublished during his lifetime because the Roman Catholic Church decreed that they were heretical.
Teilhard's most vexing problems revolve around his membership in the Society of Jesus. His popularity and success in the secular world prompted his superiors to send this most cosmopolitan of men into exile in the wilds of Asia and Africa. And because he elected not to break his vow of chastity or withdraw from his order, the love he shared with a sculptress eventually withered and died.
Yet Teilhard, who kept images of Christ and Galileo beside his bed throughout his life, wanted to reconcile the mysticism of religion with the rationality of science, especially with regard to evolution. "[T]he ideas of evolution became so powerful that they convinced him that everything in the universe [was] in constant flux, ever evolving as decreed by God," explains Aczel. "The goal was a point where everything would converge to form the body of Christ. This was Teilhard's Omega Point."
Teilhard also was willing to abase himself to his superiors in a desperate effort to prevent his work from being placed on the list of banned writings called "the Index."
A certain elegant irony lies just beneath the surface of Aczel's superb story. Teilhard took pleasure in scientific trips to Spain and France to view cave paintings -- the first stirrings of religious imagination that are regarded as a line of demarcation between prehistoric hominids, essentially apes that walked upright, and the early human beings we must recognize as our direct ancestors.
Tens of thousands of years later, the worst features of organized religion distorted and delimited the life and work of this visionary whom the inheritors of the Inquisition saw as a dangerous heretic. Only after Teilhard's death were his most important works printed, and only because he put the manuscripts beyond church control by bequeathing them to one of the women who had befriended him. On Easter Sunday in 1955, he died of a heart attack in New York. Later that year, "The Phenomenon of Man," the first of his many books, at last was published, despite every effort of the church to prevent it. *
Articles of Faith: Conflict between religion, science seems everlasting
Last updated August 17, 2007
By Anthony B. Robinson GUEST COLUMNIST
Who would have thought that on a summer Saturday night in Seattle a professor of philosophy could pack the house?
Alvin Plantinga, a professor at Notre Dame, did just that for a talk on science and religion last weekend. The crowd turned up at Rainier Beach Presbyterian Church in southeast Seattle where Plantinga's daughter, Jane Pauw, is the pastor. The topic was, "Science and Religion: Why Does the Debate Continue?"
... the topic of science and religion remains a hot one. Moreover, Seattle audiences have been treated to a string of appearances by authors such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennettand Christopher Hitchens. All three represent the popular, if simplistic to the point of silly, viewpoint that religion is the source of the world's problems and getting rid of it is the path to salvation.
Religion and science are two different ways of knowing. Both have a place. Religion tends to deal in the "Why?" questions. Why is there a world? Religion answers, "God." No one has to accept that answer, but it is an answer that science can neither confirm nor deny. Science works on the "How?" questions. How have the world and its diverse life forms come to be? Science answers that the world has evolved slowly over time through the mechanism of natural selection. There's nothing about that answer that rules faith in a Creator out or in. After all, for believers, there's no reason that God can't make use of natural selection.
Plantinga argued that there is no intrinsic conflict between religion and science. Conflicts arise when spokespersons for one or the other make claims on behalf of science or religion that are exaggerated. For example, said the professor, it is perfectly appropriate that scientific work proceed without religious assumptions or references. Plantinga called that "secularism with respect to science."
But that's different than "scientific secularism," which argues that scientific method and knowledge are enough for all human understanding and that a secular approach to all of life is either satisfactory or required. In making the argument of "scientific secularism," that science is enough and that anything else is illegitimate, people go too far.
Turning to the hot button topic of evolution, Plantinga, who described himself as a "serious Christian," again saw no intrinsic conflict between religion and science. He argued that it is perfectly possible to credit Darwin's thesis of evolution through natural selection by genetic mutation and still hold to the Christian doctrine of creation, which believes that God created life and humans in God's image.
Plantinga said that scientists such as Dawkins who want to read religion out of the picture offer a faulty argument. In his book "The Blind Watchmaker," Dawkins argues that we know of no irrefutable objections to the possibility that all of life has come into being by way of unguided Darwinian process. But from this premise Dawkins jumps to an unwarranted conclusion, namely, "All of life has come to be by way of unguided Darwinian processes." Dawkins claims too much.
Some proponents of religion also claim too much. For example, they argue the Genesis story of creation over a seven-day period is a factual account of how the world came to be. Plantinga noted that a Christian as eminent and ancient as Augustine cautioned fellow believers not to treat the Genesis story of creation as a factual explanation or to waste their time developing calculations based on it.
So why does the conflict between religion and science rage on? Misunderstanding and exaggerated claims for either science or religion by their more zealous proponents is one explanation. Another is what's at the root of many, perhaps most, of our world's conflicts: fear and the lust for power. Religion has a word for that, "sin." And that is one religious doctrine, perhaps the only one, which is empirically, that is to say scientifically, verifiable.
Anthony Robinson's column appears Saturdays. He is a speaker, consultant and writer. His recent books include "Common Grace: How to be a Person and Other Spiritual Matters," and "Leadership for Vital Congregations."
Category: Religion Posted on: June 21, 2007 1:02 PM, by Razib
Greg Graffin & Will Provine report on the results of the Cornell Evolution Project in The American Scientist. Emerging out ot Graffin's Ph.D. work it is a survey of prominent evolutionary biologists (see the full list) in regards to their views about religion and science.
Their conclusion is:
Only 10 percent of the eminent evolutionary scientists who answered the poll saw an inevitable conflict between religion and evolution. The great majority see no conflict between religion and evolution, not because they occupy different, noncompeting magisteria, but because they see religion as a natural product of human evolution. Sociologists and cultural anthropologists, in contrast, tend toward the hypothesis that cultural change alone produced religions, minus evolutionary change in humans. The eminent evolutionists who participated in this poll reject the basic tenets of religion, such as gods, life after death, incorporeal spirits or the supernatural. Yet they still hold a compatible view of religion and evolution.
By Chris Cillizza And Shailagh Murray The Washington Post
May 07. 2007 8:00AM
When former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado and Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas each raised his hand in response to a question from moderator Jim VandeHei during Thursday night's Republican presidential debate in California, signaling that they did not believe in evolution, it raised more than a few eyebrows among journalists.
A recent Newsweek survey presented people with three explanations for the origins of human life: that humans developed over millions of years, from lesser to more advanced forms of life, while God guided the process; that God played no hand in the process; and that God created humans in their present form.
The first option is a sort of hybrid creation-evolution endorsed by Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, during the debate.
"I believe in evolution," he said. "But I also believe, when I hike the Grand Canyon . . . that the hand of God is there also."
The second option is evolution as explained by science, and the third summarizes the idea of creationism.
Nearly half the sample, 48 percent, said the creationism option was closest to their beliefs, and 30 percent chose the hybrid option. Just 13 percent of the sample chose evolution alone as the best approximation of their view of human development.
Those results have been mirrored in a series of Gallup polls that have asked the same question several times over the past 25 years. They probably shouldn't be that surprising given that, in exit polling conducted on Election Day 2006, more than 80 percent of Americans said they either attend church "weekly" (45 percent) or "occasionally" (38 percent). Or when you take into account that a 2004 ABC News poll found 61 percent said the creation story in the Bible - that God created the world in six days - is "literally true."
The reality is that many Americans see themselves as believers both in a higher power and in science. In a Time poll conducted last fall, 49 percent said it is possible to believe in both evolution and "divine creation by God," whereas 41 percent said the two ideas are incompatible.
Diverse groups meet to weigh issues that vex public education.
By Andrew Trotter Digg This Nashville, Tenn.
How can the nation’s public schools accommodate students’ religious practices, prepare them for living in a society with a multiplicity of faiths, and avoid related conflicts that disrupt the schools’ educational mission and consume time and money in lawsuits?
Those were the central questions that a conference of some 50 educators, curriculum experts, religious leaders, and legal scholars tried to tackle here last week. And none too soon, because “there’s a lot of religion going on in public schools,” said Charles C. Haynes, a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center of the Washington-based Freedom Forum, one of three groups hosting the conference at Vanderbilt University, which is also affiliated with the First Amendment Center.
Like a few others at the conference, Mr. Haynes has been working for more than two decades on building a consensus on religious issues in the public schools. He has seen students become more assertive about expressing religious sentiments in school, a growth in the number of religions embraced by students, and heightened interest in adding instruction about world religions and the Bible as a cultural text to the curriculum.
Teaching, Not Advocacy
Those trends create more areas of potential conflict—especially when national groups and the news media get involved in local controversies, many here agreed.
“Schools are a battleground for the culture wars,” said Steven Shapiro, the national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which has sued districts to enforce strong church-state separation in schools.
The ACLU, based in New York City, co-sponsored the conference, and Mr. Shapiro explained that he hoped the discussions would clarify the difference between students’ “expression of religious speech and government endorsement of religion.”
The third co-sponsor was the Council for America’s First Freedom, a Richmond, Va.-based group that promotes the use of dialogue, rather than litigation, to solve conflicts over religion in the public schools.
The council’s president, Robert A. Seiple, told participants that “slash-and-burn litigation” civil-liberties groups has been harmful to the nation.
Oliver “Buzz” Thomas, an ordained Baptist minister who is the executive director of the Niswonger Foundation, an educational and charitable organization in Greeneville, Tenn., said, “People get so polarized by this emotional stuff, they can’t get on with the primary task of the school district.”
Seeking Consensus
Meeting March 5-6, participants representing a range of religious and nonreligious perspectives tried to identify areas of agreement that could help districts and outside groups avoid unnecessary conflict, and especially litigation.
Working groups tackled religion in the public school social studies curricula, including world religions and religious holidays; religion in the science curriculum; Bible courses; and student religious expression.
The talks were a reminder that consensus on general issues—say, that public schools should teach “about religion”—can evaporate as discussions get into specifics or touch on current legal cases.
A working group considering religion in science curricula ran into trouble on how to handle “intelligent design,” which many scientists say is religion masquerading as science.
Some participants said the concept, which holds that humans and other living things show signs of having been created by an intelligent being, deserved mention as an alternative to the theory of evolution, which is overwhelmingly accepted by scientists. But curriculum specialists in science said that intelligent design should be handled in social studies—a position opposed by the social studies experts in the room.
A group discussing the school calendar pondered the “December dilemma,” in which Christmas dominates the scheduling of the winter school break. One school superintendent described how he found consensus to close schools on the most significant Jewish and Muslim holidays as well. He assembled a committee of educators and community members that designed a calendar, which was approved by the school board, that gave evenhanded treatment to all religions represented in the district’s schools.
A Muslim attendee described ways that school districts have successfully accommodated Islamic religious holidays and used classrooms after the school day for Friday prayers by students. He advised that by consulting with local religious authorities, school administrators would learn where Islam permits flexibility in certain practices—useful information for accommodating students within the confines of school operations.
The group also agreed that teachers’ jewelry that used religious symbols, such as a cross or a Star of David, could be permissible and an opportunity to teach about religious pluralism.
During a general session, an attendee reporting on the discussions of the Bible-as-an-elective working group said that some conservative Christians in the group argued that the public schools cannot teach about the Bible without undermining students’ faith. Those with this perspective also disapproved of schools’ teaching about sacred texts in general, preferring as a less troubling option a general course in world religions.
Although most participants seemed to accept that schools could teach about religion in the school curriculum—something that is permissible under court rulings, as are elective courses about the Bible—several people acknowledged that many teachers resist taking up the subject. Either the teachers fear that their lessons will interfere with their students’ religious training at home or church, this argument went, or they have objections to courses that may inadvertently help spread a particular religion.
The participants agreed to exchange summaries of their deliberations; and the organizers plan to craft a document discussing the conference’s key points, including strategies and recommendations.
Teaching About Religion
Experts in law, education, and religion at a recent conference on religion in public schools discussed how conflicts over religion could be minimized.
• School districts should develop policies on handling religious issues before disagreements at schools explode into public controversy and lawsuits.
• Educators should develop such policies in consultation with their communities, including local religious leaders. They should try to identify areas of agreement, as well as “safe harbors,” where groups disagree but will not take school districts to court.
• Schools that address religion in the curriculum need better instructional materials, including textbooks and Web sites.
• Teachers need to be better trained about the law on religion in the public schools; of the facts about major religions; and of the recommended pedagogies for teaching about religion.
• Public schools can lessen friction over religion by promoting neutrality, on matters such as the religious holidays that are recognized on the school calendar, and by making reasonable accommodations, such as allowing teachers to wear jewelry featuring religious symbols.
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