Musings in Search of a Muse

Judge to Rule on Georgia Evolution Disclaimers: "'This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered.'"

I'm not sure how that statement pushes religion at all, let alone one over another or Christianity specifically. Science, pardon the pun, cannot exist in a vacuum and must be examined under the light of other disciplines such as Sociology. Here's what I mean: About a half-dozen years ago I was asked to cover a Biology class for a colleague that was going to be away for a few days. The topic was cells, specifically meiosis and mitosis. After a couple days of class some big news hit -- Dolly the clone sheep was announced. Boom! That was the whole idea of the unit so I tossed the next day's lessons and came up with something quick on cloning. The kids ate it up. So much so that we covered a 45 minute lesson in almost 20 minutes. What to do for the rest of the period? We batted around the big question "Why do this?" In each class the kids left scared and pale. Not in a bad way, but shaken because it turned out not one of them had ever thought about the ethics of anything in science. I left each group with the thought that my generation had to worry about nuclear weapons -- child's play compared to the ramifications of cloning and other advances in science that their generation would have to deal with. The next day the kids were very quiet at the start of each class. Eventually they asked to continue the discussion. One student added that she had to talk about it again as she had not slept the night before. That's what education should do ... make the students think and relate the material to their own lives.

This needs to happen in any classroom, but especially the science classroom. The students need to be given the information and the tools to make their own decisions. They can't exercise free will otherwise and it would be wrong of me as a Christian to let them do so. No one can be forced into a belief. And just as Christianity is a belief so is atheism and agnosticism. The sticker mentioned in the above story simply draws attention to an issue, not a faith. If I was not a religious person I'd welcome it as an opportunity to open a dialogue. Clearly others don't feel that way or they feel threatened. Or -- and I laugh when I write this -- they are afraid of something. Being wrong, perhaps? Or of finding their lack of faith shaken?

As a side note: There's a part of the article that reads "Creationism rejects modern scientific explanations for the origin and development of life, preferring instead the idea of supernatural creation by God. Evolution, which is accepted by virtually all biologists, contends life developed from more primitive forms and was dictated by natural selection." These definitions are far too simplistic and this does harm to both causes. Sure, most material written by journalists is geared toward a 7th or 8th grade reading level, but that doesn't mean the content has to be "dumbed-down." An honest debate can't be had if the issues are well-defined or the participants are ill-informed. I've yet to come across any article or story in any media that really does the issue justice.

On another side note: I do believe in evolution. Or, at least I wouldn't be surprised if it was a method that God used to populate Creation. This is bordering on creating God in my image (a 1st and 2nd Commandment issue) certainly, but the Bible doesn't tell us how God worked, just that He did. So what's the problem? I don't know but it's something I often ponder.