Alliance For Science

On Sunday, Oct 21st, the Alliance for Science held a casual “potluck” dinner at the Falls Church, Virginia Community Center. The gathering featured a talk by Dr. Michael Zimmerman, Dean of the College of Arts and Scientists at Butler University in Indiana, and founder of the Clergy Letter Project. Dr. Zimmerman spoke for about an hour to a small but enthusiastic audience.

He started by briefly recapping the major periods in the evolution-creationism struggle in America, starting with the “Scopes era” in the ‘20s, the “scientific creationism era” of the ‘70s and ‘80s, followed by the current “intelligent design era”. He noted that the current threat to education and science policy is more dangerous than ever before. The scientific creationists tried to explain the creation model in scientific terms. What they put forward was bad science, but they were still attempting to do science. However, modern intelligent design advocates are attempting to redefine science itself (so as to allow supernatural causes), and this violates the essential character of science.

Dr. Zimmerman noted that many creationists suffer from “science envy”. They want the status and authority of science. But they often attribute far too much power to science. Science is one very powerful way of knowing about the natural world, but it has important self-imposed limits. Science cannot answer all questions. It cannot help with aesthetic judgments, such as those applied to music and art, and it certainly cannot help with any religious questions.

Science does not operate by accumulating facts or by offering positive proofs. Instead, it operates by disproving theories that can be shown by experiment or reasoned deduction to be false. What is left -- the theories that haven’t been disproved – forms the foundation of our scientific understanding of the world. However, once you allow supernatural factors to be included in science, you lose the essential element of testability, since it is impossible to construct an experiment to confirm or invalidate a supernatural explanation. Without testable explanations, science loses its most essential quality.

In his early work in the evolution-creationism area, Dr. Zimmerman often volunteered as a speaker on behalf of evolution supporters in education controversies. This ultimately became very frustrating because giving good scientific arguments in support of evolution just didn’t seem to be effective, and he found himself heading toward burn-out. Later, he was influenced by the advice of Dr. Eugenie Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education. Dr. Scott often advises people that having “outsider” scientists testify is often ineffective. The most effective speakers are local clergy who support evolution education. One of the reasons for this is that it highlights the fact that the real conflict isn’t between science and religion, it’s between different religious interpretations.

This line of reasoning leads directly to Dr. Zimmerman’s efforts in building the Clergy Letter Project, an online resource that lists the names of more than 11,000 Christian clergy members who have signed a strong letter supporting the compatibility of evolutionary science and their understanding of Christianity. Dr. Zimmerman was enthusiastic about the quality of writing embodied in the Clergy Letter, while emphasizing that he did not write any of it.

Dr. Zimmerman said that he was “absolutely certain” that when the Clergy Letter Project reached 10,000 signatures, that this event would be a watershed event and (jokingly) that this would “change the world”. Press releases were issued when the 10,000 mark was reached, but the media response was nil. He was surprised when later a group of 73 evangelicals announced their statement of concern concerning global warming, which made the front page on the New York Times.

Rather than allow himself to be discouraged by the media disinterest in the Clergy Letter Project, he has pressed on with other initiatives. He has been very successful in launching Evolution Sunday, wherein clergy members actively engage their congregations with talks and workshops dealing with the evolution issue. The first year, 2006, exceeded his expectation by enlisting participation from 467 congregations in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Evolution Sunday was even bigger in 2007, with 618 clergy members active in all 50 states, DC, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and five nations.

In 2008, Evolution Sunday will expand into Evolution Weekend, and for the first time will include programs led by Jewish and Muslim clergy.

Still not content with these initiatives, Dr. Zimmerman has launched an effort to build a referral service of technical consultants who are willing to volunteer to answer questions posed by clergy. This is very valuable, since many clergy who reject biblical literalism and support evolutionary biology, are nonetheless ill-equipped to answer the complex and often obscure science questions that their congregants may raise. Here again, the results have exceeded early expectations. As of this writing, the consultant referral list includes 484 scientists spanning all 50 states, DC, Puerto Rico, and 27 countries.

There was a question and answer session following Dr. Zimmerman’s talk, and one questioner asked about the impact of outspoken atheists like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. Dr. Zimmerman dismissed Hitchens, stating that he isn’t a scientist, just a public commentator. But Richard Dawkins is another matter. Dawkins is a scientist – a very good one at that – and his claim that science itself provides evidence that God does not exist has garnered lots of attention. Zimmerman disagrees strongly with Dawkins, stating that one cannot use science -- the study of the natural world – to draw any conclusions about the supernatural. Dr. Zimmerman indicated that because of the way this science-justifies-atheism argument provokes such a strong negative reaction among Americans, it plays into the hands of creationism. No one does more to harm science literacy in America than Richard Dawkins, noted Zimmerman.

Dr. Zimmerman’s talk was introduced by Dr. Irv Wainer, Chairman of the Alliance for Science. His talk at this potluck dinner event was one of a series of five appearances in Northern Virginia, DC, and Maryland.