In the Beginning
Religion, Science, ... and Politics
That the United States and the rest of the modern world are fundamentally a secular, technologically based society (albeit one generally committed to the free and unfettered practice of religion) is nicely brought out by the Y2K doomsday myth so widely adopted as we approached the recent millennial date: January 1, 2000. The dark scenario of widespread shortages and other societal malfunctions born of computer glitches, after all, was universally seen as delivered not by a vengeful, wrathful God, but rather by us humans.
Early programmers had assumed (if they thought about it all) that their shorthand, two-digit system of keeping track of yearly dates would long since have changed by the year 2000. In sharp contrast, previous millennial myths saw doom and destruction as God's payback for our sins--still our fault, of course, but with punishment meted out by God, not by errant machines. Likewise, we thanked the techno-fixers--not a merciful God--that the worst of the Y2K problem was handily cut off at the pass. That we were able to blame computer programmers, and not God, for what seemed to so many as impending doom and still manage to concoct a millennial scenario of darkest catastrophe just as all our forebears crossing the previous millennial divide did, shows us how far we have--and haven't--come.
But if the doomsday scenario this time was completely secularized, nonetheless the advent of the Millennium has intensified contact betweenscience and religion--much of it in the spirit of conciliation, though some of it with continued mistrust and hostility. Currently more than several hundred college courses specifically address "science and religion." The Templeton Foundation annually awards a sum in excess of that carried by a Nobel Prize in recognition of the furtherance of closer ties between science and religion. In 1999, for example, the award was $1.24 million compared to the more modest $978,000 handed out by the Nobel Committee in 1998 (though in fairness it must be said that there is only one Templeton Prize, whereas there are several Nobel Prizes). Numerous colloquia on science and religion have been held--some sponsored by religious institutions, such as the Vatican, and some by decidedly secular institutions, such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Television shows and, of course, many books and articles have been in full cry as well.
I see several distinct ways in which science and religion are variously engaged either in potentially fruitful dialogue, or at daggers drawn or simply as ships passing in the night. The latter relationship is simply stated: in most nations--technologically advanced or impoverished, agrarian Third World alike--there is little day-to-day contact between the realms of science and religion. That is as true of the United States as it is of most of the nations of Europe, South America, Asia, and Africa. In countries where forms of Christianity predominate, for example, the overwhelming mainstream has, for well over a century, viewed the relation of science and religion as essentially neutral: each constitutes an important sector of society, but each does a vastly different job.
From this perspective, the role of religion is spiritual, moral, and social. Science, on the other hand, is there to discover the workings of the universe--and to lead to technological advance. This is why so many scientists (such as my friend and colleague, paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould) advocate a polite going of separate ways--a sort of benign acknowledgment that each exists, but can and should have little to do with one another. That is the general stance that I myself have adopted in my earlier works on creationism in American society--a sort of "rendering unto Caesar" division of labor that would minimize conflict but at the same time not look for any particular close resonance between the two domains.
But others insist that there is either resonance--or inherent conflict--between the domains of science and religion. I believe my colleague Margaret Wertheim1 is right when she says that, in Western culture, historically speaking, the supposed warfare between science and religion has been greatly exaggerated. Indeed, most of the formative figures in the emergence of modern science were deeply religious and thought (as Wertheim has observed) that they were discovering the "mind of God" every bit as much as some modern physicists appear to think they are. Yet it is undoubtedly true that with the Darwinian revolution of the mid-nineteenth century--with the certain knowledge gained by some newer branches of science that the Earth is very old, has had a very long history (and especially that life on Earth is almost as old), and has had a history of change--has collided very deeply with conservatively held traditional religious beliefs in Judeo-Christian circles.
There are, indeed, many people who believe literally that the notion of biological evolution is the work of the devil.2 As detailed here, I have spent over twenty years talking with, debating, and reading the literature of creationists--roughly, people who believe that God created the heavens and Earth, and all living things according to accounts in Genesis. I remain convinced that their unrelenting hatred of the very idea of evolution stems from their concept of morality: where morals come from, and why people behave in a moral fashion (when they do). The argument is simple: the Bible says that "mankind" was created in God's image. If that is not true, if instead we are descended from the apes, then there is no reason whatsoever to expect humans to behave in a godlike, moral fashion. We would, instead, be expected to behave like "animals." The conviction is deeply held.
Thus, in some quarters, it is simply not possible to assign to science the task of cosmology while giving religion the role of articulating a moral and spiritual understanding of what it means to be a living human. It is not possible because the two are seen as inseparable: morality flows automatically and solely from the manner in which humans were "created" in the first place. From this perspective, religion (meaning, specifically, certain forms of religion--especially conservative Christianity, but also conservative strains of Islam and Judaism3) are fundamentally at odds with at least some forms of the scientific enterprise.
In the United States especially, creationism is associated not only most closely with aspects of Christian Fundamentalism, but with conservative (mostly, if not exclusively, conservative Republican) politics. And though I document this charge fully in later chapters of this narrative, I cannot emphasize enough at the outset that politics is the very essence of this conflict. It is the belief that evolution is inherently evil--a belief that stems from religious interpretation, and therefore poses a threat to the hearts and minds of the populace, that, I am convinced, motivates the vast majority of the creationists. Thus the issue is about what is to be taught in the public schools, and the arena in which the battle takes place goes far beyond local school board meetings and classroom confrontations: it includes bills passed by state legislatures and opinions handed down by the Supreme Court of the United States. It includes judgments passed by statewide school boards, such as the decision to downgrade the teaching of evolution in the statewide syllabus in Kansas late in the summer of 1999--a mandate issued after the first text of this narrative had already been written. On the face of it,...
