A Proposed Settlement in the War Over Evolution

To take just a momentary break from all-things presidential politics, I wanted to set down a few thoughts on how we might bring an end to the debate over the teaching of evolutionary biology in the nation's public school classrooms.

This idea came to me a few months ago as I was listen to Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Edward Larson's Teaching Company lecture on the history of evolution. There are some, including relatives of mine, who take the hardest possible line on teaching macro-evolutionary theory in schools. For folks like these, a visit to the Smithsonian Institution Museum of Natural History is an occasion to speculate on who buried the dinosaur bones and used them to cook-up the idea of evolution. Call it the conspiracy theory of evolution.

On the other side are those who, for reasons quite apart from any scientific evidence presented by the fossil record, are bent on using macro-evolutionary theory to do the impossible: prove the negative that God doesn't exist, and that, in the words of Carl Sagan, the universe is all there ever was, is, or will be. Call this science as ideology.

The genius of Larson's approach is that he lifts concerns about evolution -- usually characterized as its overreaching into the metaphyiscs of human orgins (chance v. design) and the impact that those metaphysics have on our attitudes and behaviors -- out of the science classroom and puts them where they properly belong, in the humanities. Helping students understand how evolutionary theory "evolves" and interacts with philosopy, politics and culture would go very far toward addressing concerns about biology classrooms being used for propaganda purposes on either side of the debate. It would also substantially strengthen the place of the humanities in helping students begin to develop a balanced framework for interpreting the world around them. It is fool-hardy for conservatives to try to undermine confidence in science when the method has yielded such fabulous results in terms of improved well-being. By addressing evolutionary theory's historical development, and helping students understand how macro-evolution, as a worldview, shapes our understanding of human origins, purpose and destiny, along with teaching on alternative worldviews and interpretive frameworks, students will be better equipped for finding answers to the questions posed by their own lives.