New NC bill on creation and evolution

[Fred Gedicks]

Jack Balkin wrote:

>      Evolution is different, it seems to me, not because it rests on a
>shakier empirical ground or methodological ground (because, and I say
>this again, it simply does not with respect to a very very large number of
>scientifically accepted "facts")  but because it directly conflicts with
>some people's interpretations of what their religion holds to be true as a
>matter of "fact."  It strikes me that this is the real issue, and that the
>debate over scientific methodology is doing more work than it should.

Science is the practice of providing naturalistic explanations of the world
by proving (or, more accurately, disproving) testable hypotheses.   Divine
intervention is not naturalistic, and "God did it" is not a testable
hypothesis.    Thus, science rules out God from the beginning; he cannot
be accomodated within the rules that govern scientific practice.  (I'm
aware that a growing minority of biologists are exploring a "designer
hypothesis," but at best that will leave us with a nonnaturalistic account
of creation; it would be interesting to see if that account would then be
accepted as "scientific.".)

Mosts of the posts have centered around the question whether evolution
should be "taught as fact."  Why isn't it simply "taught as science"--i.e., as
the best naturalistic, testable account of the creation of human life
available?  The answer, I think, lies both with the conception that science
has of itself as a (the?) discipline that reveals the world-as-it-really-is,
and with a similar popular conception of science.  No one, after all, seeks
to bolster a position by pointing out the something has been "theologically
proved"; indeed, that is probably viewed as oxymoronic.  Yet "scientific
proof" is used easily and commonly--the adjective may well be
unnecessary, since by definition in our society "proof" is almost certainly
consistent with scientific method or it wouldn't be counted as proof.

All this is to say that many scientists would not be satisfied with science
in general or evolution in particular as being taught as anything other than
a fact.  They are as responsible as religious folks for the controversy.  At
least as important to maintaining the controversy is the self-conception of
science as that activity that discloses the reality of the natural world.
Alan Gunn talks about religious arrogance, but from the standpoint of
believers it is surely as arrogant to conclude that the only things that can
be counted as "real" are those explainable by science.  In short, evolution
may be the best scientific explanation for the origin of life--I believe as
much--but that doesn't mean that this is how life originated.

Fred Gedicks
BYU Law School
gedicksf at lawgate.byu.edu.