Religious fundamentalist refute evolution on biblical grounds.
The only Christian religious groups that have problems with evolution are the Protestant fundamentalists, who insist on a literal interpretation of the Bible, much as Muslim fundamentalists insist on a literal interpretation of the Koran. This group is trying to infuse their brand of religion, taught as science. Having failed in the past to have evolutionary theory banned from the classrooms, the fundamentalists have adopted a patchwork enterprise they call “creation science.” In spite of a pretence to scientific language, these creationists ultimately are reduced to using supernatural explanations to answer scientific questions. This is a profound contradiction and an anti-science view since the scientific method by definition cannot deal with the supernatural.
This position has no scientific substance.
Regardless of what they call themselves, the goal of the religious fundamentalist is to have the biblical version of creation taught alongside evolution; and to disguise the essentially religious nature of creationism, they have dressed it up in scientific terminology. Since they have no persuasive arguments of their own, or even intuitively satisfying suggestions, their plan is to attack selected particulars of science and pretend to have a science of their own.
A principal advocate of “scientific creationism” is a group of fundamentalists called the Creation Research Society (CRS).
The Creation Research Society claims to be scientific but members must forsake any scientific evidence for religious tenets.
· To be a voting member of the CRS one must have an advanced degree in some field of science and sign a statement of faith.
· This belief statement begins as follows:
1. “The Bible is the written word of God, and we believe it to be inspired throughout, all of its assertions are historically and scientifically true in all the original autographs. To the students of nature, this means that the accounts of origins in genesis is a factual presentation of simple historical truths.”
2. “All basic types of living things, including man, were made by direct creative acts of God during the Creation Week described in Genesis. Whatever biological changes have occurred since Creation Week have been accomplished only [by] changes within the original created kinds.”
3. “The great flood described in Genesis, commonly referred to as the Noachian Flood, was an historic event worldwide in its extent and effect.”
· The membership of the CRS consists mostly of engineers, chemists, aerospace workers, technicians, computer specialists, and such. Few legitimate biologists, geologists, or anthropologists are willing to sign such a statement of faith; and a degree in engineering, chemistry, or computer science scarcely qualifies a CRS member to speak with knowledge and authority about biology, geology, astronomy, or anthropology.
· The aim of the CRS is nonetheless to force the scientific evidence into compliance with the literal interpretation of the Bible. The arguments of these fundamentalist missionaries often involve tortured logic, a stubborn denial of evidence, a shallow understanding, or a reckless disregard for the truth.
Religious fundamentalists will create wide-ranging science illiteracy since they reject the objective scientific method.
The arguments of the religious fundamentalists are not only anti-biology but also anti-physics, anti-astronomy, and anti-geology. In short, they reject all scientific knowledge that does not fit their view of the world. They do not question the methods or philosophy that yield, say, the science of flight, for who could doubt that airplanes fly? But when the same methods and philosophies are put to the study of life and human origins — a subject the Bible does address — they question the integrity of science. The religious fundamentalists fight a desperate, rear-guard action, seeking to increase their numbers while refusing to accept the obvious.
Science and religion should not be at odds since each function in a different realm.
Conclusion
The scientific method is the most successful approach for discovering how the natural world operates. Scientific hypotheses are continually tested and re-tested before theories are presented to explain the workings of nature. Science does not try to explain God or the supernatural. Such matters are outside the realm of science. Science’s domain is the natural world and the scientific method has been spectacularly successful at discovering knowledge about this world.
