How to Re-write the Textbooks

By Crispin Sartwell

The debate about teaching evolution and creationism rages on, most recently in Cobb County Georgia, where biology texts that present evolution are being adorned under creationist pressure with labels warning that evolution is "only a theory."

But on both sides, the debate has long been conducted dishonestly. And I think not only can the issue be treated more accurately, but it can be treated in a way that does justice to both sides within the textbooks themselves. Here's an outline.

The only scientific account that explains the fossil record and the physical configuration of animals and plants is some version of Darwin's theory of natural selection. Among scientists who work on these matters, there are disagreements about the details, but none as to the basic concepts. Indeed, there is no scientific rival to the theory.

However, the theory of evolution appears to contradict various religious interpretations of the origins and progress of life on earth, such as the Biblical passages asserting that God created the world in a few days, along with calculations based on the Bible that tend to show that the world was created only a few thousand years ago. These views are not based on observation or evidence, but on authority and faith.

What the conflict is about, therefore, is rival ways of generating and confirming beliefs, ways that we might call for short "faith" and "reason." Neither of these can be shown on its own terms to be the best way to generate beliefs without begging the question.

There can be no decisive reasoned argument that reason is the best way to generate beliefs - or logical justification of logic, or scientific justification of science - because such an argument assumes what it intends to prove: the legitimacy of logic or reason or science.

And if you justify the claim that the Bible is the revealed word of God on the authority of the Bible itself or the assertion of some religious authority, you are again assuming what needs to be proven. Neither reason nor faith is self-justifying, and neither acknowledges any other possible source of justification. Thus the choice between them is arbitrary: they are on an equal footing.

Creationism and evolution directly contradict each other. They cannot both be true. But they are products of incommensurable strategies for generating beliefs, and the conflict cannot be adjudicated by any means whatever.

That's the outline of my textbook.

The usual religious strategy has been to try to field a creationist scientific theory to rival evolution and push on that basis for equal treatment in textbooks. That approach needs to cease. The idea that creationism is a scientific theory is incredibly dishonest. Nobody who believes creationism believes it on the basis of scientific evidence.

And if it is presented as a scientific rival to evolution, it is laughable. If religious people are content to fight it out on scientific grounds, they have already lost miserably: it's a suicidal strategy.

On the other hand, if people who accept the theory of evolution contend that believing creationism is irrational, they are missing the entire point: that rationality is only one way to generate beliefs. They can sneer, or try to eliminate the view from textbooks, but they can't disturb its foundations at all.

Textbooks presenting the conflict as a contest between faith and reason would acknowledge the legitimacy of religious belief systems. Thus this approach addresses the objections of parents who must indeed be disturbed at the prospect of having their children taught something that contradicts their own deepest convictions.

Meanwhile the account preserves the scientific status of evolution. But it throws into doubt the claims of science to be the only legitimate source of belief. That's alright, because it is not the only legitimate source of belief.

Furthermore, presenting the conflict in this way cannot be a violation of the constitutional ban on establishing religion. It is merely an accurate statement of the actual state of play. It is hardly unconstitutional to mention the existence of religious points of view.

Re-write. Remove warning labels. Calm down.