The Creationist Ghetto

Many of us have a commonsense reaction to the beauty and complexity of life - "Surely all this (myself included) is not an accident." What is more, many also believe that God says evolution didn't happen. If God said it didn't happen, and our "gut feel" is that evolution couldn't have happened, Darwin's theory is a hard pill to swallow. Evolution is not a "neutral" theory in this context; it is a direct challenge to the authority of God and our sense of place in the world.

Polls indicate that a significant number of adults reject evolution, and politicians, urged on by well-financed special interest groups and conservative religious leaders, have managed to galvanize them into voting their belief. As a result, there is strong political pressure that will (apparently) require public schools to teach that ID (and let's face it, Biblical Creationism) are valid "scientific" perspectives.

A triumph of the democratic system. The problem? Evolution, in fact, accurately explains what we see around us in the world, and successfully predicted such discoveries as DNA and dinosaurs with feathers. What is more, ID introduces religion into the classroom, which is unconstitutional. "If evolution is so strong, why worry? Just prove ID wrong," might be the response. The difficulty is that there is no way to prove ID wrong, because it makes no testable predictions. Jonathan Wells' recent attempt at responding to this criticism does not help, because even if true, the claim of design is not proven, because the mechanisms of evolution could also produce the same result. In what way does something Intelligently Designed differ from something brought into being through evolutionary processes? How can we tell that this aspect of a thing evolved, and this bit was designed? How and when was the designed bit introduced into the organism?

In the recent Dover trial, Michael Behe, a main proponent of ID, made two telling statements. First, he admitted that ID is not testable, because it has no mechanisms. Second, he offered the opinion that if ID is true, there is no point in looking for more detailed answers - ID is a science-killer. "So what?" you might respond- well, for one, you wouldn't be reading this on a computer without a scientific approach to the world. For another, we would be stuck in fear, ignorance, superstition and sickness - even more than we are - without a scientific perspective on things.

So teachers are left with the unpalatable situation of having to explain to bored and hostile students that truth is what you believe it to be. Truth not judged against any objective criteria is of limited value. Behe's arguments of complexity notwithstanding, concrete examples of ID last barely long enough for publication before they are explained away, and proponents reach for new examples. If this sounds like the old "God in the gaps" approach, that's because it is. What is more, by redefining science to consider non-natural explanations, you open the door to astrology, psychics of all persuasions, and the creation stories off all the religions - not just Christian literalists.

Rather than engage in the scientific process (for example, ID scientists could offer their own alternative explanations to their theories, and design experiments to prove their theories wrong- a normal part of mainstream science), we get well-crafted logical arguments. "Logic is fine," we should say, "but show me results! Make predictions, perform experiments! Gather data!" If James Dobson announced that he needed 10 million dollars to fund an experiment to prove that granite can form in decades under pressure, he would have the money in weeks. Where are these studies? Why won't creationists do the research?

Instead, Creationists are both the victim ("no one will publish our papers!"), and the bully ("We want ID in our schools, and we'll have it"). What creationists are doing is pushing conservative Christians into a ghetto of ignorance and fear. Ignorance because they are taught to distrust science, and to believe things (like a 6,000 year-old earth) that are not true. Fear, because they are told that the hostile world is out there trying to destroy them. It is a hostile world, but science is a tool, not an enemy. If Christians won't use the most powerful tool people have ever devised, they will end up being as relevant to our culture as the last group of science drop-outs, the Amish (but without the close-knit community).