Last Spring, I taught a course in philosophy of science for graduate
students in the UW MD/PhD program. One assignment they had was to write a
position paper to a fictitious school board that was considering teaching
creationism alongside evolution. To my great surprise, only one student
(of 10) was adamantly against this idea. The others basically felt that we
should teach all points of view and let people make up their own minds.
None of the students identified themselves as a creationist.
Frankly, I was appalled at the inclusiveness of what they would allow in
the science classroom. They seem to say that teaching should be
all-inclusive and from that, individuals arrive at their beliefs.
Alongside evolution, should we teach that the cosmos originated from the
ejaculation of a masturbating god (I forget which pagan myth holds this
viewpoint--does anyone know?). Or perhaps that the moon is made of green
cheese? These, and other viewpoints could be included in science
instruction under the guise of inclusiveness. But, such relative
inclusiveness is the antithesis of science which purports that there are
things about the natural world that can be factually known and taught.
In addition, there are topics that better fall under the heading of
science, while other topics belong to other disciplines which deal with
different kinds of knowledge. Thus, evolution and creationism strive to
answer the same question, but do so in very different ways and this is a
sufficient basis for not intermingling the two. To illustrate this point,
consider the following answers to the question, "Why did you put poison in
your boss's coffee?"
A1. Well, a neurological impulse began in my brain, travelled along my
spinal cord to eventually activate the muscles in the arm innervated by a
particular set of nerves. This caused specific groups of muscles to
contract which enabled me to pick up the vial of hemlock and tip it into
his coffee.
A2. Well, he really picks on me and I could not stand it any more so
decided to get even.
A1 gets to mechanisms and A2 gets to relationships and purpose. Completely
different ways to answer the question.
Similarly, science and theology have completely different ways to answer
the question of why the cosmos came into existence. Creationism and ID do
not make mechanistic answers to the question. Evolution does. Science
deals with mechanisms and not purpose or meaning; theology and philosophy
deal with purpose and meaning, not mechanism. While science and theology
certainly complement one another and should not be done in exclusion from
the either, they should NOT BE MISTAKEN FOR EACH OTHER. Thus, Dawkins
should NOT say that evolution disproves God (which confuses science for
theology). By the same token, we should NOT teach ID or creationism in a
science classroom (which confuses theology with science).
Having said all that, I firmly believe that evolution should be taught in a
fair and accurate way--explaining its weaknesses as well as strengths.
Steve