Jun 5

Written by:
6/5/2008 7:07 AM 

I guess I was sort of naïve in believing that the idea of teaching creationism alongside evolution in science class is something that would just fizzle and die. Then creationism evolved into "intelligent design" to appear more scientific and less religious. Now, the NY Times article Opponents of Evolution Adopting a New Strategy describes the next step in the evolution of this misguided campaign. The idea is for school boards of education to direct teachers to teach the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution. Of course the scientist in me says, "sure, why not?" But I see that this strategy is just a ploy to keep creationism's foot in the scientific door.

It is my view that religion and science are two related but orthogonal axes -- like the X and Y axes on a graph. Science is about things you can prove, religion is about things you believe but cannot prove. There is a place in the world for both. But we should not confuse or mix up the two. We should not present religion as science any more than we should present science as religion. Beware of people or organizations that try to do just that.