The war over creation

By Brian Jacoby

A  battle over the creation of the world is currently being fought in the United States. Reportedly about 60% of Americans do not agree with scientific evolution and subscribe to some form of creationism—the belief, based on a literal interpretation of the biblical creation story, that the universe was created directly by God in one fell swoop over a short time. Dinosaurs and humans co-existed no more than 6, 000 years ago, they say.

Creationists have an underlying fear that the randomness of Darwin’s notion of natural selection makes humans the product of chance rather than design, thereby eliminating divine purpose and God. Another growing group of creationists has adopted what is called intelligent design (ID). This argues that the order of the physical and natural laws found in the universe is best explained by the existence of an intelligent designer: the Christian God.

ID is a form of one of the old proofs for the existence of God, first put forward by Aristotle then brilliantly reworked by St Thomas Aquinas. The argument from purpose or design goes like this: If you look at the mechanism of a watch, you will conclude that the parts have a design which leads to a purpose: to tell the time. It must have a designer: the watch-maker. Now look at the human eye. It too has parts working together in order to see. Therefore it must have a grand designer: God.

However, as the philosopher Immanuel Kant pointed out, the argument is not logically compelling. If it were, there could be no atheists. Rather it is more of an expectation than a proof. It assumes the conclusion in the premise. Anyway, logical arguments reduce God to one object among many. Yet the argument continues to intrigue and convinces many.

So what is wrong with this? Why is the Vatican evolution conference next March excluding speakers who are creationists or intelligent designers? The shortcomings of creationism are clear, but why are they excluding ID?

Although the ID proponents are sincere Christians, they are twisting things to suit their fundamentalist biblical agenda. They are desperately trying to preserve the need for a creative God. They do so by saying that ID is a legitimate scientific theory which can compete on equal footing with evolutionary theory. If ID turns out to be the better theory, divine creativity is upheld.

This is intellectually dishonest. ID is not science. It is pseudoscience. To be scientific a theory must be based on empirical evidence and be falsifiable through rigorous and critical testing. ID as a theory lacks this requirement. It is actually a religious belief very cleverly disguised as a scientific theory. Indeed, those in favour of ID are redefining science to meet their own ends. As another philosopher, Karl Popper, said, there are truths outside of science, but don’t pretend something is science when it isn’t.

Nobody would mind if it stopped there. But the proponents of ID are wealthy, influential people, many high up in politics, who are lobbying through court cases for ID to be published in high school science and biology textbooks. Teachers are required to teach ID alongside evolution as a legitimate competing scientific theory, and encourage young students to make up their own minds.

That approach is anti-intellectual because it undermines the reality of what science is. Worse, it is subtly deceiving young people into believing that the truths of religious belief are scientific. Such textbooks are already in use in many schools in  America. Hopefully none of their content is filtering into South African education.

A literal interpretation of biblical creation which distorts reality is dangerous and can be very harmful. True, our faith must not be based on science, but neither should science be based on faith, which is what ID tries to do. We must not go into denial about what science is revealing about the physical universe. Facts are facts.

Those who say that we can choose not to believe in evolution because “it’s only a theory”are living in a fool’s paradise. It’s like jumping off a ten-storey building and saying gravity is only a theory. Gravity is a fact and Newton’s law is only one theory to explain it. Evolution is a fact and Darwin’s theory is one explanation. We can choose to replace Darwin’s explanation (as some biologists do), but we are not free to deny the fact of evolution.

As believers in a creating God, we have no choice but to respect that. If anything must change, it is the theology behind the creation story.

Science, of its very nature is always open to change. And interestingly, scientists are today leading the way in showing how complexity, chaos and random unpredictability are leaving room for creative growth and human freedom without jeopardising the notion of divine purpose and design. This is what the Vatican conference aims to bring out.

I am proud to be a member of the forward-thinking Catholic Church which is open to the future and is willing to risk promoting the dialogue between science and religion.

Brian Jacoby is a physical science teacher in Cape Town.