Defeating Creationism

An article “Defeating Creationism in the Courtroom, But Not in the Classroom” was published in the January 28 issue of Science, the official magazine of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  I characterize it as the latest in a long series of “what we are currently doing is not working” stories.  The authors suggest as a solution a minor tweak in how we educate Biology teachers.  Does anyone really believe that this is going to turn the tide?  I don’t.  It is wholly inadequate.  I advocate a much more drastic change.  Creationists want to “teach the controversy”.  I think we should go even further and teach Biblical Creationism (e.g. Genesis) in the science classroom.  Am I a Creationist?  No!  Am I nuts?  Also, no.  Hear me out.

The standard argument (cleaned up and clarified) propounded by Creationists is:

                There are only two possible explanations Evolution and Biblical Creationism.
                Since Evolution is flawed it must be false and Biblical Creationism must be true.

My point is that Biblical Creationism is never examined.  Most Creationists are ignorant about Evolution.  But if you dig a little deeper you will find out that they are also ignorant about Biblical Creationism.  Almost everybody assumes that everybody knows what Biblical Creationism is.  But almost everybody and especially almost all Creationists are wrong.  In fact, everyone in general and Creationists in particular do NOT know what Biblical Creationism is.  Sure they know that it is the first part of Genesis in the Bible.  And they know a few phrases like “let there be light” but that’s about it.  So everyone assumes that Biblical Creationism is a well understood theory.  And Creationists in particular believe there is little reason to doubt its efficacy.  The truth is actually the opposite.

So my proposal is to teach Biblical Creationism and then demolish it.  It is easily demolished but little effort has been invested in demolishing it for the last couple of hundred years.  I am a poor researcher and terribly lazy.  So I suggest that someone who is a better researcher go back and look for the problems that led earlier scientists to find Genesis problematic, search for alternatives, and eventually adopt Evolution.  In the mean time let me show you just how easy it is to find problems with Biblical Creationism.  Genesis 1, verse 5 says “And the evening and the morning were the first day”.  There is similar language for the other days.  This language implies the existence of a “light and dark” day and night cycle.  For this to happen you need the Sun.  But God does not create the Sun until day 4 (“And God made two great lights, the greater one to rule the day” – Genesis 1, verse 16).  So it is impossible to have days and nights until the end of day 4.  Another problem with Genesis has to do with when mankind gets created.  The first possible answer is on day 6 (“And God said let us make man” – Genesis 1, verse 26).  But the whole “Adam and Eve” story is later in Genesis after God has rested on the seventh day.  So when is it:  on day six or after day seven?  These two examples show the kinds of problems that can easily be found with "Genesis".

It is not necessary to demolish Biblical Creationism in the classroom, although I think it would be a good idea if it could be done.  But it is necessary to demolish it loudly and publicly where Creationists can’t ignore it.  I think the most important reason Evolution has been losing and Creationism has been winning in the forum of public opinion is that there has been no public effort to damage Biblical Creationism as a viable theory.  So the battle becomes between a flawed (if you believe the Creationists) theory of Evolution and a flawless (it must be flawless, no one has attacked it directly) theory of Biblical Creationism.  It would be nice to think that “everyone knows that Biblical Creationism is seriously flawed” but I think most people in fact don’t know.

A final thought.  I think it is important to develop a rendition of modern scientific thought on the Genesis story in Genesis language.  Here’s what I mean by “Genesis language”.  If God made the world as Creationists believe, I think we would all agree he was a very smart guy.  Nevertheless, he had a problem when composing Genesis, (the Bible is after all “the word of God”).  He was talking to a group of people with a limited frame of reference for understanding the world.  He had to stick with language and concepts that his audience could understand.  So he would be forced to provide a simplified version of what happened.  But even with this limitation he could have done a much better job of getting things right.  Presenting an accurate story of what we now know happened would necessarily be simplistic.  But it is not hard to avoid many of the problems found in Genesis while sticking to concepts people of that time and place could understand.  If the scientific community develops a correct Genesis-like story to place beside the one that is actually in the Bible it will demolish many of the arguments Biblical Creationists will put forward to rebut scientific criticisms of Biblical Creationism.