Of Science, Faith, and Feelings

Practically everyone today is heavily dependent on the results on the work of scientists. We are quite content to trust the work of scientists when we climb aboard airplanes, drive our cars, or post blog entries. Of course, a great deal of technological building has been done on the basic discoveries of the scientists, but it’s the theories that scientists have developed that allow these things to work, and we express our trust in the reliability of the scientific method each time we depend on such wonders of modern technology.

We continue this trust when we hear of theories relating to gravity, various particles, and specific vectors and mutations involved in disease. The results of modern science are so pervasive in our lives, and its theories so pervasive in our thinking that it would be hard to imagine thinking or working without them.

But all of this trust starts to fall apart for many people over one scientific theory: evolution. It’s the scary word, the one place where the scientists just must be wrong, and many people simply grab hold of any option available rather than to think that the scientists, who have been repeatedly shown to be right on so many things, may also be right on this one. If a small group of people became convinced that the rules of aerodynamics were faulty, hired PR firms to support their view, wrote popular books on it, and demanded equal time in our high school classrooms, they would simply be objects of ridicule. When the topic is evolution, it’s another matter. Experimental data, historical observations, the fossil record, and genetics all combine to provide support for the key elements of the theory of evolution–common descent and variation + natural selection. Yet what would be plenty of evidence if applied to any other scientific theory instead becomes controversial.

Now this controversy is not significant among scientists (though more on that later). Rather, it is widespread in the general public, very often debated by people who have almost no idea of the theories concerning which they are arguing. The debate is also characterized by high emotion. Physicists debating their observations on the tracks of particles that have been theorized may be dealing with data that is much more difficult to interpret, but nobody puts the kind of emotion into that debate that goes into the debate about evolution.

Why is this? Well, we’re dealing with myth, and more importantly about a creation myth, our basic story about who we are. And I’m not going to back off of the word “myth” here either. Myths are essentially powerful stories that help us define ourselves.

Let me illustrate. Part of my story is that on my father’s side I’m descended from Mennonites who emigrated from Germany to the Crimean region of the Ukraine, and then from there to the Dakotas and from there to the Canadian prairie states. It’s a fairly nice story of down-to-earth, hard working people escaping persecution and finding a place to live in the new world. But supposing I were told suddenly that this history was all a lie, and I was instead a descendant of communist revolutionaries in Russia, or perhaps Nazi sympathizers in Germany. The problem would be more than a matter of facts; it would be one of identity and purpose. I personally think I should remain who I am in spite of what my ancestors may have done, but I have a good deal of emotion invested in who I think I am. Nonetheless, in the end, the evidence should win out. Now I know of no reason to suspect my ancestry, but I use this by way of illustration.

For many, this is precisely what results from the story of evolution. They are invested in one myth–the idea that God formed the original human being from dirt and personally breathed life into him, and that they are, because of this, extra-special compared to all other life forms. Yet along comes another story, and this one says that they are >98% similar in their genetic make-up to Chimpanzees. This story tells them that rather than being descended from an original ancestor who was personally formed by God directly from dirt, they have ancestors who swung from trees, and before that who walked on all four, and if one goes back far enough, wiggled about in the ooze.

Who are they if this new story is true? Many of them conclude that they would be nothing much, and probably unconsciously decide that the facts–this new story–has got to go. Unfortunately, those pesky scientists keep saying that this new story is true, and being scientists, they seem to think that the right way to go is with the facts. As a result we get into a major cultural conflict–the conflict between these two stories. The scientists keep saying that the new story is true; the detractors keep saying that the story is terrible.

After all, that is why we’re constantly presented with only the two options. The issue is not to find the truest story; it is to defend the existing story. Other people have different stories? Who cares? It’s our story that’s the issue! This is also why it so frequently seems adequate to creationists–those who object to the story proposed by the scientists–just to point to some flaw or another in the theory of evolution. All they require is some semblance of an excuse to deny the new story and cling to the one that they already have.

And this is why evolution is so controversial in the United States. There is not that much scientific controversy about it. Oh, scientists regularly tweak things here and there, and they look for more and more explanations for the incredible amounts of new data that scientific activity constantly generates, but there isn’t really any controversy about the general explanation. Many other people simply don’t understand the controversy at all. I recall hearing the gasp in one class I taught when I put up an overhead transparency with a line illustrating the age of the earth according to geology, and the young earth view. The second line wasn’t a line, of course. It was a dot at the bottom of the page. The students had simply never realized the huge difference between the two views. They thought folks were arguing over two time lines that were relatively similar. Suddenly things like small percentage errors in various dating techniques didn’t seem nearly so helpful to the young earth crowd.

But to those determined to maintain the old story, and who believe that the two stories are not compatible, it’s important to keep people from learning to truly understand evolution. Over the last few decades there was first an attempt to prevent the teaching of evolution outright, and when that had failed, creationists returned with the attempt to add creationism to the science curriculum. When that failed on first amendment grounds, they came up with intelligent design (ID).

Now I must note how ID works in practice. To anyone with a scientific mindset, ID sounds extremely odd. Having gone to great lengths to discover an intelligent designer, suddenly the ID advocates show no interest at all in precisely who the designer is. Using the old illustration from Paley–a watch on the beach–someone with a scientific mindset would not be satisfied with simply determining that the watch must be designed. He or she would want to know who designed it, how, and why. This curious lack of desire to finish the job is one of the indicators that ID is not science.

But in the great war of the origin stories, ID does very well. In stories, we’re used to things being cryptic. People around the country grasp this very quickly–the intelligent designer is God. What ID does is allow people to sneak in the old story without actually admitting that they are doing so. And this becomes extremely important in terms of education.

What do we want to teach in science class? Well, it’s pretty simple when we talk about gravity, aerodynamics, physics, and so much of science. We want to teach what actually is the best approximation of the truth we can find. We determine that in textbook design by looking at the output of the working scientists. A new theory in science, like a new story in mythology, has to be tested and find its place. But there is a big difference. In science, there is a fixed standard by which one can test the new story, loosely called the scientific method. If your new theory or your new experimental results are no good (cold fusion comes to mind), then they will be rejected. If they are good, an old theory may be overturned, and a new one replace it (tectonic plates come to mind). Since they are working with replicable results, the general acceptance of the scientific community is the basis for current science.

Who else do you want determining it? A general popular vote? Would you get aboard an airplane designed by the collected opinions of a thousand random people in your community? (I suppose one might, if one assumed the airplane would never leave the ground–a very real probability!) Does it really matter just what the uninformed think is the correct view? When we are trusting our lives to something, we want the opinion of experts. In the case of evolution, we are suddenly concerned with the opinions of people who don’t even know what it is.

Democracy is not a method of determining the truth. It’s a method of governing. It has its flaws, but generally works. But the best decision the general public could make would be to require that the science taught in schools is the science determined by the vast majority of working scientists–the folks who actually do understand the theory.

But that’s not what some people want to do in Florida. There’s James A. Smith, Sr. of the Florida Baptist Witness (HT: Florida Citizens for Science Blog, which also provides a good analysis). In the referenced article, he’s decided to try to take down the scientific story, and thus hopefully leave room for the religious one, which he thinks is incompatible (please remember I’m going to comment on that alleged incompatibility below). He’s even discussed this with someone on the Board of Education who appears prepared to abandon facts and try to make people feel good.

Let’s look at some of the tactics in this article.

First, we have the “closed mind” tactic. It goes like this: “The absence of contradictory data is unnecessary as far as committee member Jonathan Smith is concerned. Smith told the Lakeland Ledger the new standards ‘closed the door on any ambiguity’ concerning evolution. ‘There isn’t both sides. There is only one side as far as science is concerned.’ How open-minded.” And the owner’s manual of my car closes the door on the possibility that it will run on a mixture of gas, water, and sugar. How open-minded! The difficulty here is not that scientists do not want contrary evidence presented. Rather, the problem is that what is advocated as contrary evidence actually is not. Shall I be open-minded and put water and sugar in my tank anyhow?

Second, we have the argument from numbers, even though the numbers aren’t on their side. I find this particularly amusing coming from my fellow Christians, who quite properly will argue that the majority is not always right, and that people with substantial credentials aren’t always right, yet given half a chance, they call on numbers and credentials every time. Smith doesn’t miss the opportunity to do this. He puts the Discovery Institute up against the National Center for Science Education, as though both sides were represented more or less by “think tanks” or advocacy groups. Though I think the NCSE would do quite well against the Discovery Institute were that the case, in actual fact, on the side of evolution there is practically every major scientific organization around. In terms of numbers, Smith uses the Dissent from Darwin list of 700 scientific dissenters (that’s the number Smith cites; I didn’t recount!), to which the NCSE can respond with Project Steve, which currently has 848 scientists just named some form of “Steve” supporting evolution.

The NCSE says:

Project Steve mocks this practice with a bit of humor, and because “Steves” are only about 1% of scientists, it incidentally makes the point that tens of thousands of scientists support evolution. And it honors the late Stephen Jay Gould, NCSE supporter and friend.

So 848 coming from just 1% of the names, and 700 (according to Smith) on the dissenter list. Interesting, no? So we try to argue from numbers that are not there.

Then he gets into a conversation with Donna Callaway, a member of the Florida Board of Education. She actually gets down to what this is about–feelings. Smith quotes her thus:

Although she is not attempting to “arouse controversy,” Callaway told me she is concerned about what’s best for children. “I want an informed public so that when these and other similar decisions are made that affect all of us that they are reflective of how the people feel.”

The science standards should reflect how people feel? Not in aerodynamics, nor likely in medicine, or engineering. In those areas we quite rightly ignore how people feel and go for the actual data. I, for example, feel that I am much more likely to die flying in an airplane than driving a car. The facts are the reverse. I try to feel differently, and I’m fairly determined to behave differently, but my feelings just won’t come along. Despite nearly 7,000 hours in the air while in the U. S. Air Force, I don’t like getting on a plane now. But I do it because I know for a fact that I am actually safer in the aircraft than driving a car.

Now are people’s feelings on this issue valid? Well, Smith again suggests that Christians should pray, and he doesn’t conceal what they should pray for very well. But in a statement that may come back to haunt her, Donna Callaway said:

A longtime, active member of First Baptist Church in Tallahassee, Callaway added, “My hope is that there will be times of prayer throughout Christian homes and churches directed toward this issue. As a SBOE member, I want those prayers. I want God to be part of this. Isn’t that ironic?”

The only ironic thing I find in that is that a Christian is asking God to help her conceal the truth as God revealed it in the structure of the universe he created.

Which leads me to my notes on the two stories. The problem we have is that certain Christians have decided that in order to be true, their creation myth must be historically factual. Let’s take simply one point. Christians have been happy for centuries with the notion that God took plain old dirt, and from it formed the first human being. There’s your fine ancestry folks–dirt! And it is fine, because God got into the mix and made a living soul out of the dirt. Now supposing instead that God takes a fine looking Chimpanzee, and forms from him the first human being? Would that work? What is the difference? We have something that is not human, and it become human with God’s intervention. (Now note that I’m not proposing this as the actual, historical process. There are, in fact, many intermediates.)

Let’s alter the story again. God, being eternal and not bound to the limited way in which we view things, designed a universe that would eventually produce humanity. Would that be adequate? We still have something that is not human, and with God in the mix, it becomes human. It is quite possible to read the Christian creation myth (and I acknowledge that we are not the originators of it) non-historically and nonetheless get the key meanings.

Let me suggest this: God inspired the creation story in a bronze age world with bronze age cosmology. He did not teach them 21st century cosmology. He simply indicated how he was involved using the categories, vocabulary, and literary style which they already knew.

There is no need to ditch the old story over the new one. More importantly for our educators, the creation story is not the subject of science class. The theory of evolution is. It doesn’t matter how people feel. You think a frog is icky, you dissect him anyhow in biology class (or do they do that any more?). Feelings may drive politics, far too much in fact, but they shouldn’t drive the science curriculum.

Let me close here with a quote from the National Council of Churches brochure Science, Religion, and the Teaching of Evolution in Public School Science Classes:

Q: Is it possible to think that both religion and science are important?

Of course. Many people would say that religion and science are separate categories of learning. The evolutionary biologist, and historian of science, Stephen Jay Gould, described them as “nonoverlapping magisteria.” The judge in a recent Dover, Pennsylvania court decision that affirmed the teaching of evolution in science classes criticized what he believes is a “contrived dualism” that pits science against religion. He wrote, “In deliberately omitting theological or ‘ultimate’ explanations for the existence or characteristics of the natural
world, science does not consider issues of ‘meaning’ and ‘purpose’ in the world. While supernatural explanations may be important and have merit, they are not part of science.” Many well informed and well educated people believe that the learnings of science and religion enrich each other.

That will show, at least, that it is not just Henry the Heretic that holds that the two do not have to conflict!