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Evolution vs Creationism
An Introduction to the Debate
From time to time there are discussions and debates in the press about whether schools should teach ‘creationism’ as an alternative explanation of the origins of the world to ‘evolution’ in Religious Education or, more controversially, in science. It is a particularly live debate in parts of the US, but ‘creationism’ has been associated also with a number of City Academies in the North of England, For Press Reports click here. For a Statement from the Royal Society click here. Creationism is propagated by a small number of Christian groups in the UK (click here).
In America the debate is even played out on bumper stickers!
Director of Education and Training, Canon Tim Elbourne writes:
It is not our Church’s policy is that Anglican schools should teach a balanced view in the sense that ‘creationism’ should be taught as simply a valid alternative to ‘darwinism’ . Archbishop Rowan Williams has helpfully described this as a ‘category mistake’. The biblical account of creation in Genesis is a profound religious response to the mystery of our existence and its moral challenges. It conveys to people that we are not simply accidental and that we are persons who are responsible for our moral actions. In that sense the account is profoundly true.
The notion of natural selection, ‘darwinism’, is not concerned with our moral and existential predicament. It is a theory of how our species comes to exist in terms of how we look, act and evolve. It is a scientific theory. No scientific theory is irrefutable fact: all theories are simply the current best way of making sense of all the available evidence available to us.
That is one of the reasons for the ‘category mistake’. Evolution can only ever be a theory (however sound) and our culture craves certainty over theory. So some people, with a religious agenda, mistakenly assume that because it is just a theory, although it is the most rational scientific hypothesis we have, it should be balanced by alternative theories as if it is simply a case of laying out different hypotheses as if they were of equal merit and suggesting learners should simply choose as though they were expressing a preference between ‘red’ being better than ‘blue’.
Evolutionary theory (which has been refined a great deal since Darwin) is simply the scientific account that makes the current best sense of the evidence we have. In the years since Darwin the evidence has accumulated in a way that suggests the fundamental hypothesis is sound. It should not be taught in science as absolute truth because nothing in science can ever be so described. Science is about passing on the best account we currently have, no more. So before Einstein, Newtonian physics was the most complete explanation we had. Einstein introduced a new theory that, to an extent, has superseded a wholly Newtonian explanation. Quantum theory has since superseded some of that. Every so often in science there comes a ‘paradigm shift’ that suggests a radical and better theory for how something occurs. Darwin’s was such a paradigm shift as was that of Copernicus before him. The ‘paradigm shift’ takes hold, not because it is simply new or different, but because it offers a fuller explanation for the evidence we have seen and measured. ‘Creationism’ is not such a scientific theory: it suggests more contradictions than it explains.
But the biblical account of creation does not purport to be a scientific theory or explanation. It belongs to a different category; a religious not a scientific one. Our post-Christian British culture may dismiss the religious as less ‘truthful’ than the ‘scientific’ but, people of faith believe, that is its mistake. The religious and the scientific are different categories (hence the Archbishop’s comment). Only if you have bought the secular dismissal of religion as outdated or irrational are you deceived into thinking there can be only one truth, ‘creationism’ or ‘darwinism’ (which should therefore be presented as rivals or alternatives). People of faith delight in the fullest and most refined scientific descriptions of (they believe) the God given universe. But they value even more the religious insights they believe God reveals. Thus some of the world’s most eminent scientists remain committed (Christian) believers, without the slightest sense of tension or contradiction.
Consider this analogy:
Fact: A baby is born to committed parents.
Are the two descriptions below mutually exclusive? Should they be taught as alternatives? Is one more accurate than the other?
Explanation One: The baby is the inevitable consequence of the fertilisation of a tiny egg by an invasive sperm.
Explanation Two: The baby is a unique person conceived in love.
Explanation One is always true. But perhaps Explanation Two conveys a truth that has the potential to influence how people actually relate to each other (and to God).