Darwin deserves better
Edward Cone
News & Record
5-22-05
Do you know how gravity works? Me neither. Nobody does. Even Einstein, who improved on Newton's explanation of what gravity does, couldn't explain how gravity does it. Our scientific understanding of this quite-fundamental subject is incomplete, but we still know that things fall down, and we recognize the significance of Einstein's work.
Charles Darwin should be so lucky. His contribution to science rivals that of Newton or Einstein, but his legacy is under constant attack. Not from his fellow scientists, who recognize Darwin as a founding father of modern biology, but from people who refuse for religious reasons to give his achievement its due. They paint the pious Englishman as an enemy of faith and argue that our lack of complete and conclusive knowledge about the origin of species means that somehow the entire science of evolution is suspect, and -- here's the real problem -- insist that their beliefs be taught in public schools.
For years this campaign against Darwin and against science has deliberately misused the word "theory," as if a scientific theory is just a hunch, rather than a well-articulated argument supported by copious data.
Creationists have pretended that debates, corrections and conflicting hypotheses among scientists somehow suggest that the edifice of evolutionary thought is in constant danger of collapse, when in fact this tumult is the scientific method at work, and evolution continues to undergird much of our understanding of the world. Darwin, important as he was, is not really the issue. If he had never been born, the evidence for evolution would still be there.
Arguing with science has been a bad bet since the days of Galileo, but now the anti-evolutionists have a new strategy: They would rewrite the very definition of the word "science" itself. In Kansas, where a debate over teaching evolution in schools is under way (again), the state board of education is literally reconsidering what "science" means. According to the Associated Press, the prairie solons are mulling two possible definitions to anchor the curricula presented to young Kansans. One is a fairly traditional description of science: "a human activity of systematically seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us."
The other definition drops the part about "natural explanations" and allows for "theory building, testing of ideas and logical argument to lead to better explanations of natural phenomena." This may not sound like much of a difference, but the new definition is a direct assault on the scientific method because it would allow for supernatural explanations of natural phenomena. The teaching of science could incorporate belief as well as evidence, and it would thus cease to be the teaching of science.
And that of course is the plan: to open the schoolhouse door for creationism or at least its hipper offshoot, "intelligent design," which posits that biological systems and structures are so complex and specialized that they must be the product of design. Under the old definition (aka the real definition) of science, a classroom discussion of scientific evidence for creationism and intelligent design would be brief and conten--free and not very satisfying to anyone who wanted to argue that these beliefs represent compelling cases against evolution. But in Kansas newspeak, the lack of empirical data to support supernatural creation of any kind would be no impediment to including it in a science class.
(The irony of this debate taking place in Kansas, where the geography and fossil record provide compelling evidence of the Earth's ancient age and complex bio-history, is discussed in some depth at the Pharyngula blog).
It is an uncomfortable situation, this conflict of belief and science. When people hear that science does not support their religious view of the world, they may hear their religion being challenged, even threatened. That is something for scientists and educators -- many of whom are themselves religious -- to bear in mind, and something for religious leaders to reconcile in ways that answer to their own faith. But the answer cannot be to teach religion as science. Darwin deserves better, and so do the scientists of tomorrow.
Edward Cone (www.edcone.com, efcone@mindspring.com) writes a column for the News & Record most Sundays.
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Last update: 5/22/2005; 10:03:45 PM .
