Why Evolution Beats Creationism in the Classroom, Every Time

Anytime I see anything related to evolution on this website, naturally I am compelled to take a look. This isn't because I can't wait to smack down people whose opinions differ from my own on the subject, but I'm always interested to see what people have to say about the issue and see what arguments are being used. Strangely enough, I see people on both sides parroting old arguments or the standard anti-evolution dogma from the likes of Answers in Genesis books and Icons of Evolution by Johnathan Wells. There are even ministry camps dedicated to teaching children how to confront their biology teachers on the issue. So, rather than posting the same comments over and over again I thought I would give a basic run-down of why it isn't appropriate to teach intelligent design or creationism in science class, and why the "teach the controversy" idea ultimately fails.

"Theory" is a word that gets thrown around casually these days. It seems any idea, regardless of how reasonable or crackpot it may be gets branded with the term, and this has led to a lot of confusion on the issue, especially dealing with evolution. Creationists love to say "Evolution is a THEORY," but do they even know what they're referring to? What Charles Darwin wrote about in The Origin of Species was the theory of evolution by natural selection. What this means is that evolution itself is not the theory; it is what was observed. The theory aspect is natural selection, or competition inside and between species for resources that spurred on the changes we do see. Furthermore, anyone familiar with the scientific method (which it appears is taught to just about anyone who has taken a science course, ever), will know that an unproven idea is a hypothesis, which undergoes testing for verificaiton. Even when the results are in, it doesn't mean a new theory is created. No, a theory is tested, restested, verfied, modified, or even thrown out as we gather more facts and information. Indeed, evolution is a fact made up of many theories like natural selection, sexual selection, the Red Queen, allopatric speciation, etc. Furthermore, various branches of science agree that evolution has occurred, be it in paleontology, molecular biology, genetics, functional morphology, etc. If it was just paleontologists claiming evolution occurred but geneticists had evidence that it did not, then we'd have a problem, but they agree and support each other that evolution has occurred.

For a moment I will stand on the shoulders of a giant in the field, Stephen Jay Gould, and share what he had to say about the subject in his essay "Evolution as Fact and Theory" from his long running series in Nautral History magazine. He had this to say:

"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discovered.

Moreover, "fact" does not mean "absolute certainty." The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms."

I have often thought about it myself, wondering if a student came into a physics classroom claiming that it was not gravity, but in fact God's love that held us all down on the earth. I doubt there would be as big a controversy as there is over evolution, nor would there be angry parents demanding that physics teachers "Teach the Controversy" about gravity. Indeed it seems that creationsists and ID advocates pay no attention to the rest of science at all, only to evolution. Why is this? Why isn't Johnathan Wells writing "Icons of Chemistry?" It seems to me that the rest of science doesn't matter to these groups because they don't deal with man's origins. We humans are an egotistical race, believing we are above all other creatures by own power to reason or divine right. Would creationists be trying to pick apart fossil whale lineages or Tiktaalik if it was scientifically proven that humans were created by God? Of course not, there would be no controversy then. The logic is, however, if these people can blow holes in other parts of evolutionary history, then doubt can be cast on our own origins, which is the ultimate goal. "Of course we can't be related to such brutish and slovenly creatures as the great apes, right?" Well, while this Victorian or Medeival mindset may appeal to some, but I find it has little to no basis in reality.

What most people do not realize is that creationism and intelligent design are NOT about good science: they're all about morality. Groups like Answers in Genesis are honest about their intentions, that is that they see evolution as a threat to morality because it contradicts their narrow interpretation of the Bible, and therefore must be destroyed. They employ some scientific thinkers to attempt to refute scientific data new and old, but it all just comes off as a hustle because AiG doesn't care about good science, only about saving your soul. In fact during a conversation with a creationist speaker, he confided in me that the main reason he was in the biz was not to be a good scientist or teach churches about scientific finds, but rather to save peoples souls as he sees evolution as a threat to all humanity. Intelligent design doesn't fare much better, especially when the "Wedge Document" came to light in the 1990's. What the document essentially said was that the Discovery Institute (a Seattle-based think tank) had plans to push ID to become the primary theory about origins and taught in most schools in a short period of time. Their reasoning was that evolution (or Darwinism as they like to call it, an thin-veiled attempt to polarize people) is materialistic and contributing to the moral decline of the country. Therefore it must be replaced with a system that makes people feel valued and loved by some unnamed designer, for then everything will be O.K. and things will correct themselves, right? I don't think so.

I wrote an earlier post all about why intelligent design is not science, but I'll do the short recap here. Other than being a child of moral superiority more than science, it is ridiculous on both scientific and theological grounds. The theology of ID is this- There is a designer, but we don't know who it is. It could be God, it could be aliens, it could be your mother, we have no clue and there's no way to test it. Imagine if an atheist all of a sudden believed in a designer, that just leaves them in a worse place than when they started. Who is the designer? What is their relationship with me? Are they active in the world? Etc. In fact I have yet to hear from anyone who was an atheist or agnostic and changed their mind because of ID. ID appeals primarily to Christians and people of other religions who don't want to take Genesis (or any other creation story) as historical fact but don't want to give up their religion either, so it's easy to plug in to any already-existing belief system. Furthermore, if ID really is science, whomever this designer is should be availible for testing. Simply saying "Well, we'll never know" or "They're outside of space and time" is not an answer and not scientific. If there is indeed a designer we should be able to test and verify who they are, what their physical (or non-physical) characteristics are, what their relationship is with us, how long they've been around, etc. ID makes no claim because it does not want to ally itself with creationists, but that's all it really is:creationism in sheep's clothing.

It's also amazing that many of ID's claims have already been described by evolutionary scientists long before they ever showed up on the ID agenda. The idea of irreducible complexity is not new to Michael Behe. Although the "Watchmaker Argument" could be traced back to William Paley, the idea as far as biological systems (and not just philosophical drek) was proposed by Hermann Muller in the early 20th century, essentially saying it should be expected that evolution would produce complex systems over time. Theories of scaffolding and exaptation (using old structures for new purposes) feed into this, and over time it should be expected that structures like the much-maligned bacterial flagellum should become complex and lose or change parts during the process. In fact all of the claims Behe comes up with in his book Darwin's Black Box involving IC structures have been refuted by scientists. Johnathan Wells is another DI offender, his most famous book being Icons of Evolution (he's only just come out with another and these 2 popular polemics are his only contributions to the debate). Over and over again Wells assigns archaic ideas to todays scientists, claiming that science is stuck in the 1800's. The book is essentially a string of lies, and many scientists have updated or thrown out the icons Wells so proudly displays. For instance, wells takes issue with the famous painting of man's suppossed evolution, starting with a monkey and going all the way up to Homo sapiens. Now the copy on my desk says Icons was printed in the year 2000, but over a decade earlier (1989) Stephen Jay Gould prominently displayed the fallacious painting (and many of its interpretations in pop culture) in his book Wonderful Life about the Cambrian Explosion. Now Wells writes about the Cambrian explosion in his book, and Gould's work is regarded as one of the most important on the Burgess Shale, so either Wells read it and overlooked Gould's treatment of the laughable sequence or Wells did no real research on the Cambrian Explosion at all and merely asserted his opinion. I don't know which is worse.

So what does all this have to do with schools? Well, if creationism and ID had any science to them, I'd say "Fine, teach them in science classrooms," but the fact is, they do not. They are moral arguments that think believing that we are related to animal forebears and not specially created from dust (or a rib) will lead the world into the moral sewer. Condescending paternalism is all it is, yuck. Millions (even billions) of dollars have been spent in creation ministries, yet they have no real scientific data to support their claims. Do they attempt to do scientific work? Surely, but everything first goes through the lens of "God created in 6 days" and so anything that doesn't fit that assumption is thrown out or not researched at all.  Over $4 million has been spent by the Discovery Institute but they have yet to come up with anything other than a few popular books. In fact, it seems creationists and ID advocates put more effort into popular work than real research because they know the public will eat it up, and the public will in turn influence politicians, and then someday they may get their way. It's a lot easier to indoctrinate people in rubbish than do any real work yourself. When asked where their research is, many of theses pseudo-scientists cry conspiracy, and they cannot and will not tell any of us evilutionists about it because we'd run them out of town on a pole. This is just a "Don't look behind the curtain" argument, because in this case we know that the all-powerful creationists are just little men pushing buttons.

I actually have no problem with creationism and ID being taught in a philosophy or theology class. In fact I think American schools should have courses on religion and approach it in much the same way European History is approached. Hell, half of my Western Civ. classes are about religious influences and changes, so why not discuss religion? So many people take issue with Muslims or people of other faith without knowing the slightest bit about other faiths, so why not teach about the history, roots, and implications of religion in classrooms to help increase tolerance and understanding? Science class, however, has no room for moral superiority or claims that can't be backed up. If creationism or ID have anything to them, through the scientific method we should be able to identify, verify, and test who the creator is. But this won't happen, because ID and creationism advocates say we either can't test for God or that God is outside of space and time, which are really just convenient ways to say "Accept my morals into the classroom, but don't ask for any real substance, please." Hell, I've looked over some proposed lesson plans and creationism and ID don't even figure prominently in them. All they seem to have is a sticker or disclaimer saying evolution is somehow intellectually in trouble, but with no other reason why. I would love to see someone come up with a real parallel evolution/ID (or creationism) curriculum for students. To tell you the truth I don't think we've seen one because the advocates of ID and creationism know they don't have a leg to stand on when it comes to science, and it's all just moral posturing.

If there were anything real about their claims, they would put their money where their mouth is and do the work. Darwin agonized most of his life trying to figure out the mechanism by which life could change, and put a lot of work and thought into finding out the facts. At the time he left on the Beagle, he actually was a creationist himself, but he was more concerned with looking at life as it was, not as he wished it to be. In fact I sometimes wonder if the creationists of his day had not been so forceful in their interpretation of the Bible, or had not essentially created a vengeful God who would punish loved ones if they did not believe (Darwin couldn't accept his brother or father were in hell just because they didn't believe), would Darwin have turned away from his faith? I don't know the answer to that, but I think an environment is being created in today's society that wishes to impose one definition of morality upon the masses, making me constantly more wary of the "people of one book."

Do scientists assume evolution? Of course, we know it happens. As I alluded ealier, asking scientists not to assume the fact of evolution would be like telling physicists they couldn't assume gravity exists either. This is not the province of truth, but of reality and what can be observed. What's the difference between this and assuming God did it all? Other than morality, those who claim God did it in 6 days believe they have unchanging, absolute truth. Those that believe there is some unnamed creator also aspire to have some untestable absolute truth, and neither is science: it's faith. There's no test to see how accurate someone's faith in anything is because we don't know the reality of the supernatural, and if the creationist/ID crowd really wanted to make a splash they'd worry more about scientifically directly proving such a creator exists rather than through Scripture-fueld inference. Science will continue to change and progress, but there will always be those who think they have a corner on the absolute-truth market, and that's actually anti-science. At this point I feel it would be disingenuous of me if I didn't admit something. I am a Christian. I believe in God and believe He is behind life in our universe, although in what exactly way I am not sure. This is my belief, and I keep it as such- I would not propose for a moment to call that science or present it in a scientific paper. What I want to fight for is the freedom to think and strive for the facts, and I will leave truth to the philosophers and theologians. I am fed up with people saying "This is science" when it is merely an appeal to "reclaim the country for Christ" or some other such nonsense. If anything faith is invitational, not something to be proved beyond the shadow of doubt and forced upon people in a theocracy. People need to educate themselves more about this issue and others that involve faith and make up their own minds. Step outside environments condusive to group-think and think that God must be defended by the evangelical right. I'd say if you want to make your faith grow (or figure it out), don't read a book like Lee Strobel's A Case for Christ, but instead read something by Richard Dawkins or an atheist or secular author and then explain why they're right or wrong. It's so easy to slip into the Christian bubble and listen to only Christian music, read books by only Christian authors, talk to only other Christians, etc. Why not challenge your beliefs a bit? There are at least two sides to every argument and only making yourself familiar with the side you agree with at the time does no good other than to foster your own comfort.

Anyway, I've digressed far enough. The facts are the creationism and intelligent design are merely moral arguments concerned with preserving Scripture and/or morality. There's no science there, just interpretations of morality they'd like to impose. Evolution is a fact made up of many theories that best explains how we got here today, leaving everyone to make up their own mind about faith. Evolutionary theories do not seek to destory anything, but rather explain this wonderful diversity we see on our planet and how we are irrevocably connected to it. Evolution does not demand we shed our faith or morality, in fact it seems that creationists are more concerned with imposing one set of values over others than anyone else. For my own part I will continue to attempt to speak for responsible science and responsible faith, two aspects of myself that influence each other but need not destroy one another either. In any case, I am proud that I can look at a lungfish, a gorilla, a starfish, a shrew, and any other creature on this planet and see the connections that are there. That instills more compassion and fulfillment in my soul than anything else.