A great number of thoughtful people, especially those on the left-hand side of the political dial, don’t see an inherent conflict between religion and science. Some of those thoughtful people, such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, were founders of this country.
(Emerson, as usual, is the writer who puts it most forcefully. In an entry in his journals in 1831 he noted: "The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide.")
The problem for scientists is that a great number of Americans, almost exclusively those on the right-hand side of the political dial, insist on the Bible as literal, not metaphorical, truth, and feel compelled to attack scientists who bring forward evidence for natural matters not discussed in the Bible, such as dinosaurs, glaciers, and–of course–the theory of evolution.
In the 19th-century, scientists who discovered glaciers, which proved that the earth was far older than four thousand years, were attacked as heretics. (Emerson, in fact, came to the defense of his friend Louis Agassiz, who more than anyone else is credited with discovering glaciers, and who subsequently became a professor at nearby Harvard.) In the 20th-century, we had the infamous Scopes trial and the creationists.
Now in the 21st century, the anti-evolutionists are resorting to tactics formerly used by leftists. A startling article in the San Jose Mercury-News reveals how a Christian couple from Roseville sued an excellent website put up by UCBerkeley to help biology teachers teach evolution. The argument from the anti-evolutionists? Amazingly, they charge that the site "strays into religion" when it points out that "most Christian and Jewish religious groups have no conflict with religion!"
Bizarre. Barring some equally fanatical judge, I dare to suggest this suit won’t get far.
But in an excellent essay in the most recent Harper’s (not available on line, unfortunately) called "Academic Cross-Dressing." Stanley Fish points out that anti-evolutionists have had considerable more success with an argument borrowed from left-wing academics. Fish writes:
What the Christian Right took [from leftist academic Gerald Graff, of the University of Illinois] was the idea tthat college instructors should "teach the conflicts" around academic issues so that students will learn that knowledge is neither inertly given nor merely a matter of personal opinion but is established in the crucible of controversy. What is ironic is that although Graff made his case for teaching the controversies in a book entitled Beyond the Culture Wars, the culture wars have now appropriated his thesis and made it into a weapon. In the Intelligent Design army, from Bush on down to every foot soldier, "teach the controversy" is now the battle cry.
Left is right. War is Peace. Up is down. George Orwell, you were far righter (so to speak) than you could ever know.
Kit Stolz 