Alliance For Science

We come from a variety of backgrounds and therefore have very diverse viewpoints, yet all of us find evolution to be sound science. We thought to highlight our diversity-- while at the same time laying to rest the myth that evolution is anti-religious-- by speaking out individually about evolution, creationism, and our personal beliefs.

In the latter part of the 16th century, Francis Bacon introduced the revolutionary idea that traditional learning (a mixture of scholasticism and magic) should be replaced with empirical and inductive principles - that which we now call science. There is little disagreement in the developed world that technology, which is the practical application of science, has led to a significant betterment of the human condition. The branch of science that deals with life is called biology. For more than a century, biology has embraced the theory of evolution to explain the diversity of species. Since the discovery of the structure of DNA in the 1950s, evolution has become the central tenet of modern biology. There is no empirical evidence for a model that is contrary to evolution that explains the progression of life. Intelligent design, which is an application of the belief in the supernatural, has no place in biology.


--Sanford, 69, Consultant, Nuclear Engineering Ph.D., Chair of NoVA Americans United for Separation of Church and State

At the time of Charles Darwin, I can think of only two other bio-scientists whose work was of equally lasting significance, Gregor Mendel and Louis Pasteur. Mendel and Pasteur were Catholics. Unfortunately, although he was an abbot, no one appears to have recorded Mendel's views on science and religion. However, Paster had very specific opinion that is just as valid today:

"In each of us there are two men, the scientist and the man of faith or doubt. The two domains are distinct, and woe unto him who seeks to make the one encroach upon the other in the current imperfect state of our knowledge."

In other words, science and religion are distinct domains that should not be confused.


--John

I view the natural world with wonder, but my basic assumption is that it is inherently understandable. I believe that the world around us is governed by physical laws, and that they, too, are understandable. While I am not an expert in physics, chemistry, geology, etc., I believe that there are people who are experts in these areas and other scientific disciplines, and that they have provided proven explanations for natural phenomena.

More importantly, I believe in the process of science. The scientific method of making observations, forming hypotheses, making predictions, and then testing the hypotheses against factual evidence slowly “peels the onion” of the natural world, gradually revealing why things are the way they are. This process has created the technological society that we enjoy today, bringing us longer, healthier lives, faster & better communications, and so on.

In particular, I believe nature is more wonderful when we understand it than when we ascribe it to supernatural causes. Like everyone else, I have wondered how the Earth came to be populated with such an amazing diversity of life. My curiosity led me to the library, where I found dozens of books on evolution. Having read quite a few of them, I am persuaded that Darwin proposed one of the most elegant and powerful theories ever conceived by man. Darwin’s idea is astonishingly simple, yet it explains how life evolved into the “endless forms most beautiful” that we observe today without relying on divine intervention to make it work. In the century and a half since he published it, his theory has been attacked continuously by people who could not accept the idea that humans are descended from apes and share a common heritage with all life on Earth. Yet it has withstood all rational challenges and has been confirmed and supported by genetics, microbiology, paleontology and geology.

At this point, I am satisfied that evolution is an observable fact of nature and that Darwin’s theory, supplemented by subsequent discoveries, explains how it works. I believe that it would be a giant step backwards to require biology students in public schools to be taught a religious opinion instead of a proven scientific theory.


--Neil

I've always felt that religion provides answers to me personally that I don't seek in science. Each area of human understanding -- religion and science -- addresses different questions and so these two do not conflict but, rather, coexist. As a child and then a teenager I learned in science classes the scientific method and general science concepts. Never did I see this education in opposition to the religious instruction that I received simultaneously in Sunday school. I always understood that lessons from the Bible were intended to provide moral insight and understanding of God as the source of all that is spiritual in nature. My understanding of this spiritual nature of God's realm was a bit jolted at first when I learned that evidence of a flood had been pinpointed somewhere in Turkey and that this was supposedly the flood described in the biblical story of Noah's Ark. Since I assumed that Noah's Ark was a moral tale about taking care of God's creation, fixing a Bible story in the physical world didn't fit. However, I later realized that an event that seemed cataclysmic to people of that long-ago era grew into a story with greater moral meaning and became the biblical story, and I realized that that biblical story did not conflict with reality. To this day, I believe in a spiritual world and a physical world, one addressed by matters of religion and one addressed by science. Each strengthens my understanding; neither conflicts with the other.


--Mary

Evolution is an important scientific theory because it presents a basis for understanding how natural forces can influence life on our planet, as well as other worlds. I believe in God, but I do not require God to influence my understanding or pratice of science. In fact, it is the responsibility of any good scientist to remove their personal religion from their work so their vision is not impared by it. Throughout history there have been scientists who have tried to force-fit observed data into a religious ideal of the universe. But it has only been the scientists who finally allowed the data to speak for itself (even if it disagreed with their religious ideal) and reveal new mysteries of the universe, that have made the greatest breakthroughs in expanding mankind's knowledge. Darwin defined a "process" for evolution based on natural rather than supernatural forces. This is the mark of good science--to find out how it works, rather than claming miracles aalong the way. Science is all about doubt. A good scientist will work harder at disproving his or her own theory so that they don't waste too many neurons on it if it turns out to be bogus. Evolution is not a bogus idea, however. True, it has areas that need to be more fully explored, but that's exciting to a scientist because it means there are still some very interesting things that we have yet to learn about evolution. However, stating that the best explanition for these areas of missing information is some kind of untestable miracle (or intellegent being), accomplishes nothing. It is more beneficial for mankind to explore the physics and chemistry involved, and break down the complex biology into testable, understandable pieces, rather that just write it off as due to some intervention by God. If a scientist is not up to that difficult task, than he or she has the responsiblity to pass it to more capable scientists rather than claiming evolution is wrong.


--Steve, 53, United Methodist, High School Science teacher

Throughout my life I have described my religious and philosophical outlook in a number of different ways; I was raised Catholic and considered myself such through high school, then nondenominational Christian my first few years of college. Towards the end of college I deconverted to atheism, adopting more of a secular humanist worldview. Lately I have been investigating Theravada Buddhism as a non-religious philosophical perspective due to its compatibility with neuroscience and theories of consciousness.

Despite the vastly different outlooks I have held in my life, I have never considered any of them to be in conflict with the science of evolutionary biology. When I was Christian I believed that the Bible was, as the popular saying goes, a book that tells us how to get to heaven, not how the heavens go. Quite simply it was never meant to be a hard science book, but a metaphor for godly living. I reasoned that it was arrogant to try and fit God in a box labeled “science”, and likewise if the evidence from the natural world suggested that evolution was the mechanism by which God chose to shape human life, then it would be nothing less than idolatry of the Bible itself to deny the natural evidence in favor of a narrow, rigid scriptural interpretation. In other words we were meant to merely study the creation, but worship the creator.

I also find no conflict between science and Buddhism. Indeed, a central tenant of Buddhism is that suffering is borne of ignorance. Evolutionary theory provides us with a mechanistic explanation through which we can alleviate suffering; we can understand and predict the spread of antibiotic resistance in bacteria with evolution and thus prevent outbreaks of “superbugs”, or extrapolate how biota will react to the sudden introduction of foreign species. We can understand how to protect our food supply from diseases and pests by using other organisms and without destroying the effectiveness of pesticides. We can, using the explanatory and predictive powers of evolutionary theory, make the world a better place for those who come after us.

Intelligent design, on the other hand, is one giant argument from ignorance. If a biological phenomenon is purported to lack an explanation then “solving” the problem by saying “a designer did it” (thus concluding the phenomenon constitutes evidence of design) will get us exactly nowhere. No natural phenomenon should be regarded as intractable; this is intellectual laziness and not excusable, and certainly does future generations an injustice.

This is the strength of our science; anyone, of any religious creed or none, can agree upon the central tenets of the scientific method. We can also achieve consensus on evidence supporting the theory of evolution, provided we agree to leave religious or philosophical presuppositions at the door and let the natural world speak for itself. The supernatural, by definition, does not fall under the purview of science. Forcing God into a test tube is not doing science, for the result of any experiment will ultimately be then fixed upon a predetermined outcome. Herein lies the primary difficulty of Intelligent Design Creationism, who state that we can see the designer’s handiwork in nature. However, the conclusion flows from the premises, creating a logical fallacy and empirical contradictions; IDC’ers like to trot out examples like Mount Rushmore as support for design, stating that it could not be the product of wind and erosion, but conveniently ignore the infamous "face on Mars", which is the result of natural processes. They give us no objective criteria by which we can distinguish what is actually intelligently designed. The supernatural, while being compatible with everything, never really explains anything. Multiple supernatural “explanations” are available for any given phenomenon, but there is no conceivable experiment to parse out what a correct one might be. Our only recourse, if we wish to progress as a society, is to agree to disagree on metaphysics and to get to work in the laboratory.


--Ethan Rop, 30, Ph.D., scientist

When I was four years old, I got a toy dinosaur in a box of cereal. It was an introduction to a fabulous world of prodigious animals in fantastic landscapes – a world I could lose myself in for hours at a time. Soon, I learned that this world came by courtesy of people called “scientists” who spent their time uncovering the magic that lay inside, outside, and around the mundane things of everyday life. The depth of geological time, the heart-stopping vastness of space, and the intricate mysteries of relativity brought me untold wonder and joy, and in time I was privileged to be included in the ranks of scientists. Their way of thinking became my way, and their accomplishments and discoveries were my heritage.

I have always known that some think differently. In recent times, I have become alarmed at the rising power of those who distort and denigrate the work of scientists. Today’s “intelligent design” theorists claim to care about science and truth, but they mock the motives and methods of scientists, exaggerate their own accomplishments, form alliances with purveyors of nonsense, and misrepresent the current state of scientific thought. But their most lamentable project is to twist both science and religion into forms that bring them into destructive conflict.

I owe much to science, and it is time to pay back some of that debt. The men and women who make the great discoveries should not be hounded by small souls who think they already have the answers. Well-meaning people should not be misled by those who would sacrifice scientific truth to religious or political agendas. I may never make an important discovery, but I am proud to stand among those who honor the heritage of truth that began with Charles Darwin.


--Jerry, 52, Ph.D., physicist

Being raised in a Lutheran parochial school, and a strict one at that, I was taught the literalness, as well as the divine inspiration, of the Bible. The MidWest has fertile fields for some things but not religious skepticism. But sometime during that bedrock Indiana education, I came across things like The Golden Bough and Bullfinch's Mythology and thought, Is there an echo in here? Some of this sounds familiar, the sacrifice of Prometheus, the tale of Ceres and Persephone and springtime resurrection, etc. Hmmm....

Another fortunate event in my liberal education (a little schizoid--focusing on both science and literature) was some exposure to anthropology and sociology and reading that virtually all cultures ever known ascribed power to something bigger than and beyond themselves. I can't think of one that hasn't or doesn't. This appears to be a fundamental part of the human condition that most of us use to inform our lives, whether we call it religion, humanism, spirituality, ethics, philosophy, voodoo, whatever. Undoubtedly because of my early history, my brand of choice is religion because it is familiar and comfortable (plus, it comes with really magnifcient music, and you can't say that about ethical humanism!).

Are the people in the Bible, including Jesus, real? Fo many there is historical evidence. I have seen this firsthand in Israel. Are the stories in the Bible real? Virtually everything in the Bible can be seen as the result of a long oral story-telling tradition, perhaps once based on some incident, that eventually got written down. Does that diminish its value? No. See Bullfinch et al., as referenced above. Science is fact; "religion" is metaphor. We need both to direct and enrich our lives.


--Barbara, an Episcopalian