Evolution Solution: Humility

We were reading a snarky op-ed piece by Edna Devore, the director of Public Education and Outreach for the SETI Institute, complaining that only 55% of all school districts in the United States teach evolution as scientific fact in their classrooms. Not enough, she wails.

Evolution is fundamental to modern biology, geology and astronomy. Ignoring or discarding fundamental scientific understandings of the natural world does not prepare our children well for the future. As America strives to "leave no child behind," it’s time that evolution is not left behind in our science classrooms.

(We cannot resist whimsical reflection on why the director of Public Education & Outreach of the SETI program, that bastion of evolutionary knowledge (NOT!), is so concerned about the future dissemination of the Doctrine of Evolution. Perhaps she fears that the alternative universe involving a Creator would injudiciously refuse to create Extraterrestials (ETs) for her colleagues to discover.)

She blames "politics" but what she's really railing against are politics driven by fundamental Christians (and others) who object to the teaching of evolution as scientific fact. Of course, she doesn't actually say this but is there any doubt who is standing in the way of progress, as she defines it?

Today, we find the fossil remains of extinct creatures that wandered the shores of the ancient American sea high in the Rockies and layered in the badlands of the US and Canada. The evolution of life on our planet is evident in these layers of rock and fossil. In Africa, fossil evidence of early hominids links us to ancestral species. Where did we come from? We six billion humans find our biological genesis in these African fossils.

Well, maybe.

We've been spending time with our 7th grade son using a fairly standard science text that is less than ten years since it's printing. There is no reluctance here to discuss evolutionary theory, since we subscribe to the notion that science and Christian faith are not blood enemies but rather are dear friends who just think about things differently. Still, it amazes us time and again as the textbook cites as absolute fact evolutionary speculations that have been overturned by new studies since 1996.

The ugly secret about evolution, or at least the way it's presented by too many scientists and textbooks, is that much of it is built upon educated guesses that reflect the presuppositions of early researchers, some of whom had theological axes to grind. Now some, maybe even most, of those educated guesses might turn out to be correct someday. Maybe. At least a few, perhaps even quite a few, may turn out to be just so much balderdash.

What would lend credibility to evolutionists and the textbooks they write would be an attitude of humility and scientific reserve, an occasional acknowledgement along the lines of "well, this is what we think, the best educated guess we can make given what we know and what we have learned, but we don't know for sure and heaven knows the truth could surprise the hell out of us someday."

Does that make science less scientific?

No, it makes it more fun and less confrontational. It has the added benefit of being closer to Truth than science is often presented today.

Yes, a little more humility is in order, and not just for religionists.