Listen / Read
It was inevitable that this was going to be the chosen topic of today’s or perhaps tomorrow’s speaker. I spent some time yesterday following with great interest a discussion about it at Platitude of the Day. It’s fascinating to see how opinions fall in this debate, with like-minded secular types differing in their attitudes to the matter. Some object to the idea that Reiss should have had to resign his post for what he said, and some think he may have been the wrong man for the job in the first place. Some think creationism deserves no airtime in the science classroom while some think it should be openly discussed should it crop up.
It concerns me that Reiss was forced to resign over this because it lends further credence to claims that there are fundamentalists on both sides of the fence. While I see a world of difference between sticking to the fundamental truths of scientific fact and sticking to the fundamental tenets of mythological literature, surely it is the job of science to engage in debate rather than deny it; to answer questions, not silence them.
When Tilby talks of two kinds of fundamentalists cheerfully shouting “at each other til kingdom come from a position that can never be challenged”, I’m irritated. I’m irritated because of that world of difference. One position can certainly never be challenged because one position has its point of origin in unreason. Tilby illustrated this herself when she said that she “knows both are true”. One sort of knowledge is faith-based, the other evidence-based. There’s a world of difference. Some people can reconcile those two kinds of knowledge, some people favour faith-based knowledge above all else, and some people find it difficult to comprehend how you can claim to know anything without hard evidence. Tilby cannot reasonably know “both are true”. She depends upon her faith, not her reason, to know those things others cannot even perceive.
It is the position of unreason that can never be challenged. You cannot have a reasonable debate against an opponent who doesn’t require reason, just faith, to draw their conclusions. Certainly try, see how far you can get, but if the debate was a purely reasonable one it would have ended long ago. That’s very much how I feel about it, anyway. But I’m not a scientist.
Science has no choice but to keep trying. Science is the very thing which must always be engaged in debate, putting forward the reasonable argument whatever the opposing position might be. We look to science to do these things, hoping that scientists with knowledge and understanding of complexity will use it to argue the case for reason above all else.
My greatest concern in this matter isn’t secular dogmatism. My greatest concern is fear. I think there’s a genuine fear of the potential repercussions of teachers being encouraged to respond to questions about creationism in the science classroom. I think there’s a reluctance on the part of science teachers to engage in that debate with religious students for fear of offending their beliefs and those of their parents.
In the recent Richard Dawkins programme, The Genius of Charles Darwin, he asked a group of science teachers about this. One said “we can’t get into the business of knocking down kids’ religions and religions of families”. Another said “we teach science and I would not feel comfortable talking about anything but science, so if I present the scientific case and I make sure they understand the scientific case, I think I’ve done my job. But their acceptance of it is a separate issue.” Another teacher crystallised this point: “for some students truth isn’t something they see as coming through science”.
I worry that Reiss’ position as an Anglican priest and the headlines implying he’s some sort of apologist for creationism are a distraction from the truth of the controversy: the controversy of truth itself.
Oh, science is truth, religion is truth, and never the twain shall meet.
Relativism wins the day.