The evolution of a fight to the end - U.S. News - MSNBC.com

The evolution of a fight to the end - U.S. News - MSNBC.com

It is a mystery to me why this should be a subject for debate. A science teacher should teach science according to that discipline - science.

That life forms adapt to their continually changing environment by natural processes of selection is an important principle to understanding the modern science of biology. This knowledge has applied aspects too - with the advent of antibiotics, pharmacology is always in a race with the micro-organisms we are seeking to defeat. Understanding the evolution and adaptations of these micro-organisms is a key to keeping the upper hand.

I understand that obviously for some there are uncomfortable religious implications. A religious viewpoint that sees Genesis as an Audubon field guide to Earth circa 5,000 BC, this reality can't help but shake that rigid belief, and it might be tempting to challenge the science (although in my view, it is far easier simply to understand better what the Bible is and isn't, just as Pope John Paul said, "Truth cannot contradict truth.") But we cannot allow schools to be held hostage to this crisis of faith.

Understand this - the theory of evolution is not just a theory in the vernacular sense of the word theory, which people understand as an idea or intuition. A scientific theory is de facto fact, until a better scientific theory comes along that is more precise. For example, Einsteinian physics updated Newtonian physics. But that does not mean Newtonian physics lack value - they are still stock in trade for architects and physicists.

So how can they know the Earth is in fact billions of years old and that God didn't use a magic wand to whisk everything into being at once?

- Archaeopteryx: "creationists" challenge that there are no transitional fossils in the fossil record. But is that not what archaeopteryx, one of the oldest fossils we have, is? It is a classical theropod dinosaur - one with feathers, wings, and no wishbone. It in no way could compete against a pigeon or seagull today, yet would have gained an important advantage over flightless competitors in Jurassic Germany.

- The entire Homo Genus: we know that there have been human beings of all kinds of shapes and sizes. Last year's Ebu Gogo discovery showed us that an island was inhabited by a small Homo Erectus type creature until quite possibly this millenium. Clearly these beings, associated with fire, tools, and in the case of the Neanderthals, a carved flute, were human beings. Just as clearly, they were not us - two and a half foot hobbits were not mating with Homo Sapiens Sapiens.

- Genetics: most of our genetic code is garbage. We have many recessive traits and features that are vestigial - showing signs of something no longer useful, but still lingering. For instance, humans have slightly more of a tail than do chimpanzees (who, curiously enough, share 99% of our DNA.) We have organs, like an appendix, that serve little functional purpose. If we are off-the-shelf models, instead of inherited models, wouldn't God have cleaned up the blueprints a bit?

- Animal husbandry: we've been able to stretch and bend the lineage of our favourite companions, so that a Palmeranium bears little resemblence to a wolf. If we can do this, how can we put God's own ability to do much the same thing off-limits?

Personally, I think strict creationism limits God. Is not the God behind the anthropic principle, master architect of a fifteen billion year old universe designed to emit life, a far more powerful and potent God than a 6,000 year old model kit assembler?

But no matter what I think, the debate between science and religion belongs in a forum devoted to the study of that conflict. The instruction of science itself should be strictly about science. Religion has its own dignity, and can be taught, uncorrupted by science, in religion class or Sunday school.