Evolution is one of the most controversial concepts for teachers to teach. The source of opposition to evolution primarily comes from a perception that acceptance of evolution is somehow incompatible with religion. In this paper, I shall discuss the sometimes bumpy relationships between science, religion, and evolution, and what this history means for teachers. First, however, I will define the critical terms evolution, science, and religion.

The broad definition of evolution is “change through time.” Not all change through time, however, is evolutionary; the water cycle, the rotation of the earth around the sun, the metamorphosis of insects and other invertebrates likewise involve change through time, but these should not be confused with “evolution.” Evolution must refer to a specific kind of change -- cumulative change through time. As such, we can talk about the evolution of a white dwarf to a supernova, or of the stars in a galaxy from gas clouds, or of the evolution of land forms on Earth. In all of these cases, there is a change through time, but a cumulative one, differentiated from the cyclical or fluctuating changes that are characteristic of other changes through time.

Biological evolution is a subset of this larger cumulative change through time. By biological evolution, we mean cumulative changes in groups of living things through time. It is the concept that living things have diverged in form from common ancestors. Darwin called this “descent with modification.” Biological evolution is a genealogical relationship among species which in the past shared common ancestors.

In this paper, when I use the term evolution, I will be speaking about the concept of shared ancestry of living things, of descent with modification. Unlike critics of evolution, I do not define evolution as a world view, or philosophical system, because to me, evolution is a science. So let me define how I will use science in this paper.

Science is a way of knowing about the natural world. As practiced in the 20th and likely in the 21st centuries, science restricts itself to explaining the natural world using natural causes. This restriction of evolution to explanation through natural cause is referred to as “methodological materialism”, materialism in this context referring to matter, energy, and their interaction. Methodological materialism is one of the main differences between science and religion (Scott, 1995). Religion may use natural explanations for worldly phenomena, but reserves the right to explain through divine intervention; science has no such option. Whether or not miracles occur, they cannot be part of a scientific explanation.

Most scientists don’t dwell much on philosophy of science; they restrict themselves to explanation through natural cause because it works. The evangelical theologian Alvin Plantinga has said that “Ascribing something to the direct action of God tends to cut off further inquiry”, i.e., it’s a “science stopper” (Plantinga 1997). By continuing to seek a natural explanation, scientists are more likely to find one. There also are philosophical reasons for restricting science to methodological materialism, having to do with the nature of science itself. (Scott, 1998). If science requires testing explanations against the natural world, and testing requires some ability to hold constant some variables, then divine intervention can never be part of science. If there is an omnipotent power in the universe, as religious people believe, then science is powerless to hold constant (control) its influence. As the old saw goes: “you can’t put God in a test tube.” In doing science, one has to proceed as if there were no supernatural interference in the operations of nature. This has worked remarkably well, resulting in an ever-expanding amount of knowledge of how the universe works.

Some individuals, impressed with the power of science in expanding human understanding and awareness of the universe, have derived from science a nontheistic philosophy based on science, known as philosophical materialism or scientism. This is the idea that there is nothing in the universe beyond matter, energy, and their interactions. Philosophical materialism postulates that there are no gods, no supernatural, no mystical powers -- nothing but matter and energy. To explain the natural world, material causes are sufficient because there is nothing else in the universe. Philosophical materialism should not be confused with methodological materialism, which is a practical rule for how to do science. In this paper, I will be speaking of science as an epistemology, not as a philosophy. Science is a way of understanding the natural world, using natural forces and processes. Period.

Of the three key concepts in this paper, religion is the one that is the most difficult to define. Although 86% of Americans are Christians (Kosman and Lachman, 1993), religious pluralism is on the rise in the United States and Canada, and it is not uncommon for teachers to have students from many religious traditions. Statistics show almost as many devotees of Islam as there are Episcopalians, and migration from East and Southeast Asia has increased the number of Buddhist and Confucian students. Native American students also may have religious views different from those of the majority -- and there are many, many different Native American versions of creation.

What all religions have in common is a concept or belief in something beyond the material world, an Ultimate, or Absolute, beyond the mundane. A sense of sacredness, awe, or mystery is common to those beliefs and practices deemed religious , and almost universal is the notion of spiritual (rather than corporeal) beings that have special powers: gods, witches, powerful spirits, and the like. Most, though not all religions, include the concept of life after death, and most include a component of worship. Intermediaries (priests, shamans) between people and the spiritual world are often very powerful and authoritative. Commonly there are special places for worship (temples, churches, holy sites) that are set apart from other sites (Stevens, 1996).

How believers in a particular religion conceive of the Ultimate varies enormously, from views similar to the Christian personal God to the considerably more diffuse Hindu conception of Brahman, a generalized “spirit behind, beneath, and beyond the world of matter and energy” (Raman, 1998-99:6). Even within Christianity, the concept of God varies widely from an anthropomorphic figure such as Michaelangelo’s Sistine Chapel creator God to a generalized force undergirding the universe that, although a source of awe, is neither personalized nor supplicated.

Table 1 compares science, religion, and philosophical materialism against a number of categories relevant to religion. The two philosophies, religion and philosophical materialism, contrast sharply, having little in common. However, science as a way of knowing about the natural world, restricted to explanation through natural processes, is neutral, not hostile toward religion. The primary interests and goals of science and religion are quite different. Science is restricted to using methodological materialism to understand and explain the natural world, whereas religion is concerned with the relationship of human beings to supernatural powers.

Anthropologists studying both tribal and world religions conclude that most religions include at least some explanations of natural phenomena. Sickness, death, meteorological phenomena such as rain or tornados, the existence and location of mountains and other land-forms, earthquakes, volcanos, the passage of seasons and the positions of the sun, stars and planets frequently have religiously-based explanations. In fact, for most people living in tribal, non-industrialsettings, there is not the division between the natural world and the spiritual world that we find in western culture: the two realms are blended. Because the creation and evolution controversy in North America is predominantly a concern of Christians, my discussions of religion hereafter will refer to Christianity, unless otherwise indicated.

The Bible provides some explanations for the natural world. According to a literal interpretation of Genesis, God created the universe all at one time and gave humans dominion over it. Death is the result of human sin, and in the Bible God sends sickness and plagues. There are statements of factual error in the Bible, such as in the discussion of the dietary laws of the Jews in Leviticus. Hares are falsely claimed to chew the cud in Leviticus 11:6, and bats are described as “fowl” in 11:19, and so on. The Bible contains explanations for heredity quite at variance with those of Mendel, proclaiming in Genesis 30:35-43 that peeled sticks placed in water troughs will cause goats and cattle to produce offspring with spotted coats. In this as in many other observations, the Bible presents inaccurate explanations of the natural world — but to most Christians today, its value lies as a religious guide, not as a science textbook.

Table 1: A Comparison of Religion, Science and Philosphical Materialism

In the early centuries of the Catholic church’s existence, Augustine (354 - 430 AD) admonished Catholics not to “talk nonsense”, i.e., accept statements in the Bible about natural phenomena as true when they contradict “reason and experience”. When Scripture is contradicted by empirical evidence, it is the duty of a Christian to scrupulously examine the argument, and if it cannot be refuted, then to accept it. Augustine was concerned that potential converts would not accept the spiritual message of Christianity if the Scriptures were found to be in error on empirical matters:

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience.

Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, while presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics. ... If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well, and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about the Scriptures, how then are they going to believe those Scriptures in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven? How indeed, when they think that their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? (Taylor, 1983)

Modern science grew out of the Enlightenment, though it was based on earlier Greek ideas of materialist explanation. Paralleling the history of religion, the history of science in Europe reflects a tug-of-war over whether revelation or empiricism should be used to understand the natural world. Early scientists were content to see both natural law and Divine intervention at work. Newton, writingin the mid-17th century, that God caused all things, but He worked through natural law. This was important for religious reasons, as documented by Murphy:

It is ironic, perhaps, that Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle, two of the scientists who led the move to exclude all natural theology from science... did so for theological reasons. Their Calvinist doctrine of God’s transcendence led them to make a radical distinction between God the Creator and the operation of the created universe, and hence to seek to protect theology from contamination by science. The metaphysical mixing of science and religion, Boyle and Newton believed, corrupted true religion (Murphy, 1993:33).

Nonetheless, Newton’s calculations of the orbits of the planets suggested that there was a need for occasional divine adjusting of orbits. Theologically, this was not very satisfactory, as it suggested that God didn’t (or couldn’t?) get it right the first time, and from time to time had to tinker with His creation. Later, when La Place was able to show that the planets could remain in their orbits without such tweaking, that natural law was sufficient, many theologians considered this not to be a blow against the Glory of God, but rather praise that God had designed things so well.

God was seen by these devout scientists (and virtually all 17th and 18th century European scientists were Christians) to be the Ultimate cause of everything, but not necessarily the proximate cause. “Let there be light” did not require God to personally break light apart into rainbows. The growth of Deism, the theological doctrine of a more distant, less hands-on (if more majestic) God, is correlated with the growth of science in the 18th century.

History shows that Christianity gradually ceased trying to explain the natural world through the direct hand of God largely because science was so successful at it. There were theological reasons as well. If God's wishes are offered as proximate explanations for events, then as science explains more and more, God is diminished. Theologians call this the "God of the Gaps" problem, where God is plugged into ever-narrowing gaps of knowledge that science has not yet explained. If sound waves cause thunder, and evaporation and condensation cause rain, there is less for God to do. Christianity's solution was to withdraw from the business of explaining nature, thus avoiding a major arena of potential conflict between science and religion.

By the mid 19th century, Darwin’s proposal that living things shared common ancestors indeed contradicted a literal interpretation of the Bible, but yet was not especially shocking. It was well-established among men of letters that the Earth was old, and the succession of fossils (to say nothing of anatomical similarities among living forms) certainly cried out for the inference of a genealogical relationship among species. The large amount of information Darwin marshalled for the idea of evolution was in fact accepted without much fuss. A bigger stumbling block was Darwin’s other claim that he had found a purely natural mechanism to explain descent with modification, a process he called “natural selection.” Evolution, like rainbows, did not require the direct hand of God. It could occur through natural law.

Natural selection was a way to explain design in nature -- the observation that structures and organisms were “fitted” to their environments -- without recourse to Special Creation. The streamlined shape of a fish need not be the result of a direct creative act; it and the equally streamlined shape of a sea mammal could be the result of a natural selection of traits that made creatures with that shape more likely to survive and reproduce in an aquatic medium. Darwinian natural selection overthrew the old Aristotelian doctrine of teleology, or design according to a previously specified outcome, which had been incorporated into Christian Special Creationism, the view that God created everything in essentially its present form, all at one time (Durant, 1987). Darwin’s materialist mechanism to explain design was the theologically most difficult part of The Origin of Species, not the argument that evolution had taken place (Bowler, 1989).

Some Christian scholars such as Charles Kingsley, Asa Gray, and Aubrey Moore accepted both evolution and natural selection with enthusiasm. Moore stated that Darwinism was “infinitely more Christian than the theory of special creation” because it implied “the immanence of God in nature, and the omnipresence of his creative power.” (Moore, 1889). There were rejections, to be sure, but the majority of both British and American intellectuals were able to make the final theological step to accepting both evolution and Darwinism (Numbers, 1998).

Within twenty years after the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859, nearly every naturalist of repute in North America had embraced some theory of organic evolution. The situation in Great Britain looked equally bleak for creationists, and on both sides of the Atlantic liberal churchmen were beginning to follow their scientific colleagues into the evolutionist camp. Although the majority of Bible-believing Christians undoubtedly remained true to the idea of a specially created world, evolution was infiltrating even the ranks of evangelicals by the closing years of the nineteenth century. (Numbers, 1992:3)

If everything got here by evolution rather than through Special Creation, then theology itself would have to change. In Britain:

In the 1920's modernists such as Charles Raven and E.W. Barnes insisted that the church must take evolutionism more seriously by rethinking the doctrines of the Fall and the Atonement. If humans evolved from apes,there was no original state of grace and the concept of Original Sin must be reinterpreted. (Bowler, 1999:39)

The exception to this accommodation arose from conservative American Protestants during the second decade of the 20th century. The theological position called “fundamentalism” was — and is — a back to basics approach to Christianity stressing the authority of the Bible. Although the Twelve Fundamentals, the defining documents of fundamentalism, were not strongly antievolutionary, over the years the movement took on a more biblical literalist cast, and evolution became seen as contrary to the Bible. Biblical literalism still underlies a part of the conservative Christian movement today, and provides a substantive theological foundation for the rejection of evolution for many Americans.

Many if not most Americans think of the creation and evolution controversy as a dichotomy with “creationists” on one side, and “evolutionists” on the other. Along with this assumption comes the unfortunate conclusion that because creationists are believers in God, that evolutionists must be atheists. The true situation is much more complicated. I like to encourage teachers and others to reject the creation/evolution dichotomy and recognize the creation/evolution continuum. What is clear is that creationism comes in many forms. If a student tells a teacher, “I’m a creationist”, the teacher needs to ask, “What kind?”

Figure 1 presents a continuum between creationism at one end and evolution at the other. I will begin with the strictest creationists, the Flat Earthers.

Flat Earthers.-- Members of the Flat Earth Society believe that the shape of the Earth is flat because a literal reading of the Bible proclaims it (Schadewald, 1991). Charles K. Johnson is the head of the International Flat Earth Society, headquartered in Lancaster, CA, and he is very serious about the planet being as the ancients perceived it: circular and flat, not spherical. The Earth is shaped like a coin, not a ball. The International Flat Earth Society has only about 200 members (Schadewald, 1980) and is insignificant in the antievolution movement. It is an example, however, of extreme biblical literalist theology: the Earth is flat because the Bible says it is flat. The views of science are of secondary importance.

Geocentrists.-- Geocentrists accept that the planet is a sphere, but deny that the sun is the center of the solar system. Like flat earthers, they reject virtually all of modern physics and chemistry as well as biology. Geocentrism is a somewhat larger, though still insignificant component of modern antievolutionism. At the Bible-Science Association creationism conference in 1985, the plenary session debate was held between two geocentrists and two heliocentrists (Bible-Science Association, 1985). Similarly, as recently as 1985, the secretary of the still-influential Creation Research Society was a published geocentrist (Kaufmann, 1985).

Both flat-earth and geocentrist views reflect the perception of the Earth held by the ancient Hebrews, which was that the earth was a flat disk that floated on water. (Fig. 2) The heavens were held up by a dome (or firmament ), and the sun, moon, and stars were attached to it (Cartmill, 1998). The waters above the firmament , flowing in through the windows of heaven , were the source of the forty days and nights of rain of Noah’s Flood.

Figure. 2: The Ancient Hebrew Conception of the Universe (from Robinson, 1913, p. 13)

The next group of creationists on the continuum are less strictly literal in their interpretation of the Bible, but they still hold to Special Creationism.

Young-Earth Creationism.-- The term Young-Earth Creationism (YEC) is usually reserved for the followers of Henry Morris, founder and recently-retired director of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), and arguably the most influential creationist of the late 20th century. Few classical YECs interpret the flat-earth and geocentric passages of the Bible literally, but they reject modern physics, chemistry, and geology concerning the age of the earth, and they deny biological descent with modification. The Earth in their view is from 6 to10 thousand years old. Comparatively radical YECs will accept an age of the Earth of 15,000 years, but none accept the standard scientific view of billions of years of Earth history.

Henry Morris defined antievolutionism in its modern form. In 1963, he and John C. Whitcomb published The Genesis Flood, a seminal work that claimed to provide the scientific rationale for Young Earth Creationism (Whitcomb and Morris, 1963). As the title suggests, the authors accept Genesis literally, including not just the special, separate creation of humans and all other species, but the historicity of Noah’s Flood. Although efforts to make a literal interpretation of the Bible compatible with science, especially geology, occurred throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, The Genesis Flood was the first significant 20th century effort. Religious antievolutionists were given “evidence” that evolution was scientifically flawed as well as being religiously objectionable. “Creation Science” was fleshed out by subsequent books and pamphlets by Morris and those inspired by him.

The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) remains the flagship creationist institution to which all other YEC organizations look. It has a large publishing arm (Masterbooks) a graduate school offering masters degrees in science and science education, and a public museum. Most other YEC organizations sell and otherwise distribute ICR books, pamphlets, filmstrips, videos, movies, and other materials through their newsletters, and the movement leans heavily on Morris’ writings and perspectives (Toumey, 1994). The ICR also sponsors “Back to Genesis” revivals hosted in local churches during which ICR faculty lecture for one to three days. Thousands of people may attend these sessions, which are held at least once a month. Other outreach activities include radio programs broadcast on several Christian radio networks, and occasional tours of the Grand Canyon and other sites. Little research is performed by ICR faculty.

Most of the literature received by a teacher from a parent or student promoting “creation science”will originate with the ICR, and promote YEC. The National Center for Science Education and the National Academy of Sciences have information refuting the scientific claims of creation science. Criticisms of creation science from a pedagogical standpoint can be obtained from the National Association of Biology Teachers and the National Science Teachers Association. The US Supreme Court has declared the teaching of creation science to be an illegal advancement of sectarian religion (Edwards v. Aguillard). More information on YEC can be found in Scott, 1997, Scott, 1994, and Scott and Cole, 1985.

Old Earth Creationism.-- (OEC) As mentioned, the idea that the Earth is ancient was well-established in science by the mid-1800's, and was not considered a radical idea in either the Church of England or the Catholic Church (Eiseley, 1958). From the mid-1700's on, the theology of Special Creationism has been harmonized with scientific data and theory showing that the earth was ancient.

Theologically, the most critical element of Special Creation is God’s personal involvement in Creation; precise details of how God created are considered secondary. The present may indeed be different from the past, but OECs see God as an active causal agent of the observed changes.

Gap Creationism One of the better-known accommodations of religion to science was the Gap or Restitution Creationism, which claimed that there was a large temporal gap between Genesis chapter I:1 and chapter I:2 (Young, 1982). Articulated from about the late 18th century on, Gap Creationism assumes a pre-Adamic creation that was destroyed before Genesis I:2, when God recreated the world in six days, and created Adam and Eve. A time gap between two separate creations allows for an accommodation of the proof of the ancient age of the earth with Special Creationism.

Day-Age Creationism Another attempt to accommodate science to a literal, or mostly literal reading of the Bible, is the Day-Age theory, which was more popular than Gap Creationism in the 19th century and the earlier part of this one (Young, 1982). Here science and religion are accommodated by having each of the six days of creation be not 24-hour days, but long periods of time -- even thousands or millions of years. Many literalists have found comfort in what they think is a rough parallel between organic evolution and Genesis, in which plants appear before animals, and human beings appear last. Anomalies such as photosynthesizing plants being created before the sun are usually ignored.

Progressive Creationism (PC) Although some modern activist antievolutionists may still hold to Day-Age and Gap views, the view held by the majority of today’s Old Earth Creationists is some form of Progressive Creationism. The PC view blends Special Creationism with a fair amount of modern science. Progressive Creationists such as Dr. Hugh Ross, of Reasons to Believe ministries, have no problems with scientific data concerning the age of the Earth, or the long period of time it has taken for the Earth to come to its current form. Ross, an astronomer with a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, even cites the Big Bang as evidence of the creative power of God. Although modern physical science is accepted, only parts of modern biological science are incorporated into PC.

PCs generally believe that God created “kinds” of animals sequentially; the fossil record is thus an accurate representation of history because different animals and plants appeared at different times rather than having been created all at once. PCs reject the inference that earlier forms are genetically related to later ones: kinds are separate creations: descent with modification does not occur. The definition of kinds is inconsistent, but usually refers to a higher taxonomic level than species. Most PCs accept that God created creatures containing at least as much genetic variation as a Family (such as Felidae, Canidae, etc). and then considerable “evolution within a kind” occurred. A created cat kind thus would have possessed sufficient genetic variability to differentiate into lions, tigers, leopards, pumas, bobcats, and house cats, through the normal microevolutionary processes of mutation and recombination, natural selection, genetic drift, and speciation. The “basic body plans” of major phyla which appear in the Cambrian “explosion” are seen by most OECs as evidence of Special Creation. In PC, God is seen as acting through natural law (i.e., microevolutionary processes) but also as an active creator.

Intelligent Design Creationists (IDC) Intelligent Design Creationism is a lineal descendent of William Paley's Argument from Design (Paley, 1803), which argued that God’s existence could be proved by examining his works. Paley used a metaphor: if one found a watch, it was obvious that such a thing could not have come together by chance; the existence of a watch implied a watchmaker who had designed the watch with a purpose in mind. By analogy, the finding of order, purpose, and design in the world was proof of an omniscient designer.

The vertebrate eye was Paley's classic example of design in nature, well known to educated people of the 19th century. In fact, Darwin deliberately used the vertebrate eye in The Origin of Species to demonstrate how complexity and intricate design could come about through natural selection, which, of course, is not a “chance” phenomenon. In IDC, one is less likely to find the vertebrate eye and more likely to find DNA structure or cellular complexity held up as too complex to have evolved by chance. The high school biology supplemental textbook, Of Pandas and People (Davis and Kenyon, 1989), weaves information theory into an exposition of the “linguistics” of the DNA code in an attempt to prove that DNA is too complex to explain using natural causes. In the PC tradition, IDC allows for a fair amount of microevolution, but supporters deny that mutation and natural selection are adequate to explain the evolution of one kind to another, such as chordates from echinoderms, or humans from apes. Major plans and the origin of life supposedly are phenomena “too complex” to be explained naturally, thus IDC demands a role be left for the intelligent designer -- God.

There have been calls for IDC to be taught with evolution, much as equal time for creation science and evolution was promoted before the Supreme Court disallowed the advocating of creationism in 1989.

One of the leading proponents of IDC is a University of California law professor, Phillip Johnson. Holder of an endowed chair at Berkeley’s Boalt Hall school of law, Johnson appeared on the anticreationist scene in 1991 with the publication of the first edition of his book, Darwin on Trial (Johnson, 1993). Because of Johnson’s academic credentials, and because he ignored arguments about the age of the earth and was even faintly contemptuous of YEC, the book was perceived as different from traditional creation science, even though no new arguments were presented. Darwin on Trial was reviewed by people and in journals that would never have reviewed a publication by Henry Morris (e.g., Gould, 1991; Hull, 1991). All concluded that Johnson lacked a solid grounding in the theory and factual basis of evolutionary science.

There is considerable variation in attitude towards evolution among the IDC group. Most IDC activists are not scientists, but philosophers or historians. The few biologists among them actually accept a fair amount of evolution. In 1996, Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe published the most scholarly and scientific IDC book to date, Darwin’s Black Box (Behe, 1996), which offers little comfort to typical antievolutionists. Behe accepts that natural selection produces most of the complex structural adaptations of plants and animals, and even accepts that modern living things descended with modification from common ancestors. In a debate with Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller during the summer of 1995, Behe accepted that humans and chimps sharea common ancestor (Miller, 1996).

Still, Behe asserts that there are biological phenomena that can’t be explained through natural processes. He claims that at the level of cell biochemistry lie “irreducibly complex” processes and structures, such as the blood clotting cascade and the rotor motor of a microorganism’s flagellum. Such structures cannot be broken down into individually-functioning component parts, says Behe, and therefore cannot be explained through the incremental activity of natural selection. They therefore could not have evolved, and because they could not have evolved, they must have been specially created. Behe argues, as did Paley, that complexity is proof that there must be an intelligent designer, but his examples of complexity are biochemical.

Because Behe is a research scientist with a track record of legitimate publications (although not in evolutionary biology), his book has been reviewed with more seriousness than lawyer Johnson’s Darwin on Trial (Coyne, 1996; Miller, 1996, see also a web site that has accumulated reviews of Behe) Although Behe claimed in Darwin’s Black Box that his views would sweep the scientific world in a manner comparable to the discoveries of “Newton and Einstein, Lavoisier and Schroedinger, Pasteur, and Darwin” (Behe, 1996:233) the response from the scientific community thus far has been decidedly tepid. Reviewers were quick to point out flaws in reasoning, and factual and conceptual understanding.

The Creation/Evolution Continuum, like most continua, has few sharp boundaries. There is a sharp division between YEC and OEC, but less clear cut separation between the various OEC persuasions. Even though OECs accept most of modern physics, chemistry, and geology, they are not very dissimilar to YECs in their rejection of descent with modification.

Evolutionary Creationism (EC). Despite its name, evolutionary creationism is actually a type of evolution. Here, God the Creator uses evolution to bring about the universe according to his plan. From a scientific point of view, evolutionary creationism is hardly distinguishable from Theistic evolution, which follows it on the continuum. The differences between EC and Theistic evolution lie not in science, but in theology, with EC being held by more conservative (evangelical) Christians (D. Lamoreaux, p.c). I will therefore move on to theistic evolution.

Theistic Evolution (TE). Theistic Evolution is a theological view in which God creates through the laws of nature. Not just the physical laws, either: it is acceptable to TEs that one species can give rise to another; they accept descent with modification. TEs vary in whether and how much God is allowed to intervene — some slide pretty close to Deists. Other TEs see God as intervening at critical intervals during the history of life (especially in the origin of humans), and they in turn slide closer to PCs. In one form or another, TE is the view of creation taught at the majority of mainline Protestant seminaries, and it is the official position of the Catholic church. In 1996, Pope John Paul II reiterated the Catholic TE position, in which God created, evolution happened, humans may indeed be descended from more primitive forms, but the Hand of God was required for the production of the human soul. (John Paul II, 1996).

Materialist Evolutionism (ME). On the Fig. 13 continuum, TE is followed by a nonreligious view, Materialist Evolutionism. As discussed above under “Science”, modern science operates under a rule of methodological materialism that limits it to attempting to explain the natural world using natural causes. Materialist Evolutionists go beyond the methodological materialism of science to propose that the laws of nature are not only sufficient to explain all of nature and evolution, but that the supernatural does not exist. This is a form of philosophical materialism (naturalism or scientism), which is distinct from the practical rules of how to do science.

Antievolutionists such as Phillip Johnson criticize evolution and science in general for being philosophically materialistic (Johnson, 1995). This is a logical error, as can be seen by Fig. 3. It is very likely the case that all philosophical materialists (P) are simultaneously methodological materialists (M). It does not hold that therefore all M’s are P’s (all methodological materialists are also philosophical materialists). It may be the case -- if both circles were the same size and right on top of one another -- but this would have to be determined empirically, not logically. In fact, such a claim is empirically falsified, as there are many scientists who use methodological materialism in their work, but who are theists and therefore not philosophical materialists. In addition to many living scientists, Gregor Mendel is a classic case of a scientist who was a methodological materialist but not a philosophical one.

Figure 3: All philosophical materialists are methodological materialists, but not the converse.

Americans are some of the most religious people in the world, with 90% or more of them identifying themselves as believing in God (Kosman and Lachman, 1993). Numerous polls show that less than half of the American public accepts evolution (Bishop, 1998, Gallup, 1995). Antievolutionists routinely present a false choice to people: they must choose between faith and acceptance of evolution. Given this choice, and given the high incidence of religious belief among Americans, it is not difficult to understand the high levels of rejection of evolution. Because students are part of this general public, many of them are likely to share this general unease about evolution, fearing a perceived incompatibility with religious faith. Although antievolutionists also claim that there are scientific flaws in evolution, the message that hits home with the public is the religious one. The existential issues are more important to the public than the scientific ones (Pennock, 1996). Teachers must address these issues if evolution is going to be taught.

Students present differing degrees of reluctance to learn evolution, from slight to extreme. Many will have only a vague idea that there is something wrong with evolution, whereas others will have been instructed to not “believe” the teacher -- or worse, not even to listen. Of course, a student has to hear the information before it can be learned; it is necessary to figuratively “get the fingers out of the ears” before evolution can be taught. One way to do this is to allow students to retain their antievolutionist views, but require them to learn the material in order to be educated citizens (and not incidentally, to pass the course!) As accurately stated in the California Science Framework:

Education does not compel belief; the goal is to encourage understanding. Students do not have to accept everything that is taught in school. But they do need to understand the major strands of scientific thought because this thought is the backbone of our intellectual heritage and the basis for the construction of future knowledge (Science Curriculum Framework and Criteria Committee, 1990:19).

Of course, there are many subjects in a science class that might be offensive to a student for some reason or another. It works well to begin a semester (not just the section on evolution) with a preamble along the lines of “We’re going to be dealing with some subjects during the course of the year that some students may have objections to, religious or moral or political or for some other reason. I just want you to know that it’s my job to transmit the view of science to you in a science class, and that it’s your job to learn the material. If you don’t agree with it, that’s your business -- I’m asking you to learn it to pass the tests.”

With a preamble of this sort, you’re giving students permission to keep their personal views -- and the fingers start coming out of the ears. Ironically, by permitting students to retain the views they bring into class, you often end up with students who discover that evolution isn’t something to hate and fear. Acknowledging that evolution is controversial (without being defensive about it!) helps to break the ice, and provides for a better learning environment.

Teachers need to correct the misconception that evolution is incompatible with religious faith. This can be done by educating students about the wide range of views on evolution and religion. With high school and college students, an historical approach is a good one: through time, the Christian church has shifted from reliance upon Scripture to explain the workings of the natural world, to accepting scientific explanations of nature. Few students have a vested interest in geocentrism, and the Copernicus/Galileo story of the eventual acceptance of heliocentrism can be studied dispassionately. The Darwinian story is just another chapter in this gradual withdrawal of the Church from using Scripture for proximate explanations of the natural world.

The variety of Christian perspectives on evolution can also be illustrated by walking students through the “Creation/Evolution Continuum” presented earlier in this paper. When I have used this exercise -- whether with members of the general public, high school students, scientists, or teachers, I find audiences immediately engaged: everyone is figuring out where he or she fits on the line. Teachers who have used this approach report an “Aha!” reaction from students, who are used to thinking of creationism and evolution as a dichotomy. A simplified version can be used for high school students.

An effective approach which illustrates the variety of religious approaches to evolution is to require students to interview a pastor/priest/rabbi about their religion’s view of evolution. Unless one lives in a very religiously-homogeneous community, students will come back with a variety of perspectives -- which is the point of the exercise. Even if one student comes back with, “Rev. Brown says evolution is the way God did it,” and another student says, “Rev. Smith says evolution is Satan’s lie,” students will be exposed to the idea that there is more than one view on evolution and creationism. Just learning this simple fact helps to break up the image of a dichotomy between evolution and religion, and to get the fingers out of the ears.

Teachers must be clear, however, that they are not to advocate any religious view (or advocate a non-religious view) in any discussion of this sort. Because of the First Amendment, the public schools must be religiously neutral, which means teachers can neither advance nor inhibit religion. It is not only legal, but advisable to teach about religion in the schools, and that is what exercises of this sort will do. The job of the teacher is to expose students to a variety of perspectives on evolution and religion, but it’s the student’s job to integrate these ideas with whatever position he/she brings to the classroom.

If students understand that they have options, and can indeed choose among them, rather than being boxed into a false dichotomy of choosing either religion or evolution, they will be more likely to learn the subject matter. They should have a clear understanding of the differences between science and religion, and being able to differentiate between science and scientism (philosophical materialism). It is also important to define evolution correctly, as something that happened, rather than as a philosophical statement about ultimate cause. I encourage teachers to use the definitions presented in this paper.

It is important for students to learn evolution, because it is a major component of science. There is opposition to evolution education, fueled largely by the misconception that acceptance of evolution is incompatible with religious faith. Religious ideologies, especially when based on alleged revealed truths expressed in sacred texts, have long clashed with science. Modern day biblical literalist creation “science” supporters believe the Bible requires a sudden creation of all living things at one time, a literal, corporeal Adam and Eve, and a physical, world-wide Flood. Because of changes in theology over the centuries, these Special Creationist views are a minority within Christian theology, being rejected both by Catholics, and mainline Protestants.

There is and long has been a range of theological views of evolution, an understanding of which makes it easier both for teachers to overcome student animosity towards learning evolution, and for students to learn and understand evolution. In this paper, activities are suggested which will expose students to a range of views rather than a dichotomous “choose evolution or creationism”. Once the fingers are out of the ears, students are much more likely to be able to learn the actual science of evolution, and as discussed in the other chapters of this book, this is a fascinating subject!

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Reprinted with permission from The Paleontological Society
Evolution: Investigating the Evidence
The Paleontological Society Special Publications – Volume 9 1999 Edited by Judy Scotchmoon and Dale A. Springer

June 19, 2001