Science, creation discussed

Panel: Ideas need not conflict
By Kevin Eigelbach
Post staff reporter

Science answers the 'what' and 'how' questions, not the 'who' and 'why' questions.

David Kime, an adviser in the honors program at Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights, heard the science/religion debate put that way once, and he agrees.

He doesn't see a conflict between evolution and belief in God. But some people do.

Kime and a lecture room full of professors listened Friday afternoon to a presentation about some of those people.

Alan Gishlick, a visiting professor with the National Center for Science Education, talked about two alternatives to Darwinian evolution - creation science and intelligent design.

The Oakland, Calif.-based non-profit exists to keep evolution in the classroom and creationism out of it.

Gishlick spoke as part of a weekend conference on science and math education sponsored by the leaders of NKU, the University of Cincinnati and Xavier University.

It's an important issue for educators who want to present the claims of science without undermining a student's faith.

Gishlick said something similar happened to him when he told a Christian friend that the creation stories in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2-3 contradict one another.

In the first chapter, God creates men and women on the sixth day, his last act of creation before resting. In the second chapter, he creates Adam, then the animals, then Eve.

Gishlick's friend eventually came to agree with him, lost her faith and became an atheist. It made him feel terrible, he said.

But his belief in evolution has had the opposite effect on him, he said.

"The more I learn about the natural world, the more I believe in God," he said.

All the same, he has little patience for those who hold to the literal word of Genesis, such as the Hebron-based Answers In Genesis, one of creation science's most influential voices.

For creationists, the Bible as literally interpreted is the prime source of truth, but they try to find scientific justification for its claims.

As Gishlick contended, they tend to blame all of society's ills on acceptance of evolution.

He faults them, among other things, for saying one can't call himself a Christian if he believes in evolution - in effect, forcing a choice between the two.

That criticism hit home with Tom Rambo, an NKU biology teacher who's also a lay minister.

The literal interpretation is only one way to read Genesis, he said, but some ministers have children believing that their entire faith rests on it.

"My faith is in Jesus Christ, not in some scientific thing that's going to convince me," he said.

One could call intelligent design "creationism in a cheap suit," Gishlick said.

Simply put, it's the belief that life is too complex to have evolved by chance.

Many intelligent design advocates accept evolution and also an Earth billions of years old, not thousands. But they see God putting together the building blocks for the simplest forms of life.

Rambo said Gishlick's tendency to poke fun at his opponents didn't sit well with him. But on the other hand, creationists do the same thing to evolutionists, he said.

He asked Gishlick what he thought of scientists who maintain that evolution has disproved God's existence.

They are being just as unscientific as creationists, Gishlick replied.

Rambo's wife, Elinor, an NKU biology lecturer, wondered if the uncertainty and insecurity of the times have prompted people toward fundamentalism.

"There's got to be an inner need for simple answers," she said.

One reason these ideas have caught on is that people lack the basic scientific knowledge to refute them, Gishlick said.

That's why it's so important to start teaching evolution when children are young, just as creationists are doing, he said.

He urged professors to get into their communities and talk with children about evolution, to run for school boards and talk to reporters doing science stories.

The public needs to know that scientists aren't scary, he said. "They're not atheists. They're not out to destroy Christianity."

The Cincinnati Post - Science, creation discussed