The Boundaries Between Science And Religion -- Evolution And Religion Doesn't Have To Be Either/Or. But Teaching Creationism As Science Confuses Children About What Science Is, And How It Works.

Commentary. The issue of evolution vs. creationism has arisen occasionally over the past 70 years. We seem to be living in one of the times, as different ways of looking at the world compete.

Most scientists would agree science does not replace religion, and need not even conflict with it. So should religion be part of science?

The issue has periodically surfaced in the United States ever since the famous Scopes "Monkey Trial" in Tennessee in 1925, despite two subsequent Supreme Court decisions overturning state laws requiring that creationism be taught in school.

Now, after a stormy public hearing on whether to require creationism locally, Snohomish County's Sultan School Board has rejected creationism as part of the school curriculum. But it also left a loophole that may generate future controversy on what textbooks and materials teachers use.

Oddly, the debate keeps re-emerging during the most creative, brilliant, and discovery-rich period of science in history. More scientists are at work today than in all previous history combined. They publish more discoveries in a year than they did in 10 years just a few decades ago.

The Seattle area is at the cutting edge of this: In medicine, bioengineering, computers, environmental sciences and aerospace, this region is as brilliant as any on the planet.

With this explosion of knowledge has come an ever-more wondrous story of our universe and of us. Tools such as the Hubble Space Telescope (developed in part by astronomers at the University of Washington) are showing us a cosmos that each week, seemingly, is more vast, more intriguing and more beautiful than the week before.

New microscopes are showing us an inner world in which each of our 60 trillion cells is a "city" in itself, with factories and highways and bustling messengers. The genetic instructions for our assembly, present in nearly all our cells, would each fill hundreds of encyclopedia volumes if printed out - and are just now being deciphered.

At the smallest level, scientists have found unity with the largest. The chemical elements that make up your body's cells were forged in the fires of stars so old that they were born, burned, exploded and died before our own solar system even formed. You are made, literally, of ancient star stuff, abuzz with your own electricity and directed by a brain that has more possible connections among its trillion neurons than there are atoms in the universe.

Many Christians have embraced this rush of discovery as confirmation of the miracle of our existence.

But science does not always make us feel good. If you do not find some of its discoveries disturbing, baffling, frightening or threatening, you are not paying attention. The universe we are discovering can sometimes seem intimidatingly vast, bleak and old. Small wonder that some Christians view some of science with alarm and hostility.

The Times Science page routinely refers to evolution. It is hard to discuss biology or environment or genetic engineering without it. And just as routinely we get calls or letters or e-mail from readers:

Why do we treat a "theory" as a "fact"? Why don't we give the biblical story of Creation equal time? Or, from another group, why do we stick to "mainstream" science? Why don't we write more about UFOs or Atlantis or astrology or more maverick explanations of physics?

Because science has rules. As a discipline it is different, radically different, from most of human thought. It was revolutionary when it began in Greece 2,500 years ago, and it remains revolutionary today.

First let's acknowledge what science does not, or cannot, do. It can't answer everything. It does not pretend to detect or measure the supernatural. It has limits to what it can say about morality or sin. It happily leaves all sorts of questions to theologians, poets and artists.

Science can often explain how, but sometimes can't explain why: It can find compelling evidence the universe began billions of years ago in a big bang, but it can't say why the explosion occurred, or whether God caused it, or what came before. Scientists speculate as much as the rest of us but really have nothing to say about why we exist, or whether God exists, or the divinity of Jesus, or what happens after we die.

Science is not based on faith. Nor is it a belief system, like a political philosophy. It is an intensely competitive, somewhat cruel process of physical observation and deduction in which young scientists make their reputation by heresy: challenging, overturning, modifying and building on the discoveries of their elders.

Because humans love to speculate, science has a highly formalized system to rein scientists in. Their training is rigorous and exhaustive. Findings must be recorded with care and backed by physical evidence. Experiments or observations must be replicated by other scientists. The findings are presented at meetings where the job of other scientists is to scrutinize and challenge them. Argument can be fierce.

While most religion prides itself on the constancy of its teachings, science prides itself on its ability to change. The fact of evolution can be confirmed by observing changes in contemporary animals, evolution in laboratory micro-organisms, or the fossil record, but the theory of evolution - how evolution works - is still being researched, modified and argued.

Darwin's theory has held up remarkably well since he wrote it in 1859, but we now think that the Earth is a much more unstable place, and evolution much more uneven in its pace, than Darwin did. Scientists regard this refinement as evidence of science's strength, not its weakness.

Put another way, science is something that can't be challenged by conviction, but can be by new evidence. The new evidence will receive harsh scrutiny, debate may rage for decades, and ultimately it will either be accepted by a consensus of scientists or rejected.

The theory of evolution underwent this scrutiny in the 19th century and, because it explained so much, it was accepted by the vast majority of scientists as a better explanation of what they observed than anything that had come before. It was not proclaimed by scientists as a refutation of religion. It was outside religion.

Unlike religion, science does not have denominations. The core of science is not a heap of facts from which scientists pick and choose what to believe. It is an integrated whole, our best understanding of the natural world by international consensus. Science facts and theories are the same in Russia and Japan and Pago Pago as in the United States. They are the same for Hindus and Christians, the same for Republicans and Communists. Therein lies its power.

The reason that creationism is not science is not because creationists lack intriguing arguments or clever evidence. Rather, there is no physical evidence the true creationist will accept that could prove creationism wrong. Ultimately, creationism rests on religious faith, and no fossil bones, radiocarbon dates, DNA linkages or observed evolution can - by the definition of that faith - dissuade the faithful.

Such conviction is an acceptable personal choice, but it is not science.

Religion is a belief to which people sometimes apply physical evidence, while science is physical evidence to which people sometimes bring beliefs. If you want your belief judged as science, you must be willing to abide by the consensus of scientists. The vast majority rejects creationism.

Well, why do scientists treat a "theory" as if it were a "fact"? Here great confusion reigns.

A theory, as scientists use the term, is not just an idea or a proposal. That is called a hypothesis. A theory is a broad explanation of the results of observations and experiments, based on considerable evidence, that becomes a general principle for understanding natural phenomena. A theory is not a final truth - it will often be modified, and sometimes overturned - but it has a much greater degree of probability than a hypothesis.

Evolution is both fact - change we can observe in the natural world - and theory, or an explanation of the rules that drive those changes. Similarly, we have a theory of gravity and the fact of gravity. A theory of relativity and the fact of observed motion. A theory of electromagnetism and the fact of electricity.

Scientists don't pretend to fully understand gravity or electricity. Details of how gravity works, or what electricity is at the most fundamental level, remain somewhat mysterious. Nor do they pretend to know for certain how life formed or all the details of subsequent evolution. There are many unanswered questions, which is what makes science so exciting. But these theories are our best explanations of the natural world so far.

It is simply impractical to accept only some science. A good example is time. Deep time is necessary not just to explain evolution or the big bang but to our understanding of nuclear fusion in stars, the cratering of the moon, the atmospheric records in ice cores, the shaping of Puget Sound or even why Seattle dirt has round glacial rocks.

Modern drug development hinges on laboratory evolution in micro-organisms and molecules. Modern understanding of human behavior and why the body has seemingly useless or ill-adapted parts depends on evolution. The explanation of why air has oxygen is tied to the evolution of algae and plankton in the ocean.

Does this mean science is right and religion is wrong? No. Science does not address the core of religious belief. And most Christians have little problem reconciling their beliefs with science.

Does this mean science is a replacement for religion? Some people think so, but most, including many scientists, have beliefs in origins, reasons for existence and higher powers that go beyond science.

Does this mean science is better than religion? No, it is simply different. One studies the natural world and physical law, the other the non-material world and moral law. Each can teach us valuable things.

But creationism is not science, and can't be. It plays by different rules.

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Questions surrounding the issue of evolution and creationism invariably spur diverse responses and much discussion. What do you think? You can express your thoughts three ways - postal mail: Evolution/Creationism, The Seattle Times, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111; voice mail: 464-8452; e-mail: mwat-new@seatimes.com