Debating Creationism
by Sharon Hughes

Charles Darwin is reputed to have said that everyone believed in evolution except "the ignorant, stupid or wicked." If you check out MSNBC's online emphasis on the future of evolution  you may be surprised to see what's going on today regarding  Darwin's 'worldview.' For one thing, teachers at the recent National Education Association convention debated how to teach creationism without straying from science and "without stifling creative thinking.'"

As reported by Ben Feller for MSNBC, teachers want their students to be creative thinkers, like Lisa Marroquin, a biology teacher at Downey High School in Southern California, who says she tells her students that 'they must learn it (evolution) even if they don't like it, because 'they've got to live in the real world.' In California the real world includes evolution as a key part of California science standards.

There is a growing challenge today regarding teaching evolution-only in schools, due in great part to the Intelligent Design (ID) movement. But, this challenge is not without reaction from those who fear that teaching creationism will erode '"real" science. Intelligent Design is called religious vs. scientific, supernatural vs. natural, while Darwinism is called theory. This is the very reason evolution is being challenged by a growing number of ID advocates in the scientific community.

Biologist, Professor Dean Kenyon of S.F. State, challenged this issue 10 years ago, teaching Intelligent Design while rejecting the term creationism, "because immediately people stereotype me as a biblical fundamentalist." (San Jose Mercury News, 2/6/94) Rather, he would teach that an 'Intelligent Designer' created the first life on earth. This brought some complaints by students and great enmity by his colleagues in the science community. However, at SF State, at what is certainly one of the most liberal campuses in the country, he found support among his fellow professors. U.C. Berkeley Law Professor, Phillip E. Johnson, the unofficial spokesman for the ID movement, is one of those who are carrying the baton in this decade.

There are those who believe in 'intelligent design but not by a Creator. They believe an alien life force is a possible option for explaining creation, and they' are serious. Many may be surprised to know that Francis Crick, Nobel Prize winner and one of the discoverers of the DNA, believes that life forms were sent to earth in a space ship by a dying civilization. As a matter of fact, both discoverers of the DNA, Watson and Crick, are outspoken atheists.

Some scientists are investigating whether or not there is empirical evidence that life on earth was designed by an Intelligent Designer. However, despite ID sometimes being called a theory, the scientific community does not recognize it as such. I have a question for them: Why would the scientific community not welcome the search for evidence in regards to the possibility of intelligent design when it is the very purported nature of science to explore all possibilities? Or is this no longer true?

The Intelligent Design community is throwing out the question: Is science broad enough to allow for theories of human origins that incorporate the acts of an intelligent designer? And is the teaching of the theory of ID appropriate in public education, using scientific evidence, the same that is claimed in teaching Darwinism?

The theory of evolution has only existed since the 19th Century. Christianity has existed for over 2,000 years and Judaism, longer still, teaching and acknowledging a Creator/God. So do many other worldviews. Why should intelligent design not at least get a hearing? Is the debate over teaching creationism alongside evolution in schools a scientific battle or a worldview/religious battle? I am afraid the answer is obvious. 

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