Creationists live in the Stone Age

Whiskey and Rye
    By John Schochet

Last month, the Kansas State Board of Education decided to show some initiative, leading the charge to pull the country backwards into an era of religious coercion. Board members voted to remove the teaching of evolution from the recommended biology curriculum for public schools. Then the board claimed that doing so doesn't promote creationism—the same way that the Yale administration claimed last year that the lack of hand soap in dorm bathrooms had no effect at all on personal hygiene.

Ever since the Supreme Court told the religious right that their religion should stay out of the public schools, creationists have tried a new strategy. They've systematically attempted to stop the teaching of evolution in these schools, leaving a gaping hole where valid science once resided. Having a biology class without any explanation of where we're from is like having an American History class without mentioning the Revolutionary War. The National Rifle Association might cry that the Revolution was all about letting colonists have more guns, but at least they haven't infiltrated school boards and tried to ban any teaching to the contrary.

The Kansas vote places ideology over science. Creationism is certainly a valid belief; we all have the right to believe in Adam and Eve. And, yes, perhaps God wanted to test our faith, so perhaps He planted evidence of evolution so that we'd have an excuse to argue about His role in our world. Perhaps.

But evolution is science, and creation is religion. One belongs in public schools, and the other doesn't. The Kansas board's decision to remove evolution will prevent biology teachers from saying anything about how the world came to be. Students' only source of information will be the Christian fundamentalist churches, which will eagerly assume their so-called "civic responsibility" to fill in the gaps left by the schools.

The religious right will tell you that evolution is a heretical scientific theory based on unsound evidence. Creationism, of course, rests on the rock-solid story of the Seven Days found in Genesis 1:1 to 2:4—it even ends, "Such is the story of Heaven and Earth when they were created." What more evidence could you possibly need? It says it right here in the Bible; just like it says that women who commit adultery should be stoned to death. The thing about the Bible is that if you actually read it and want to be a genuinely religious person following a Bible-based faith, there are some parts you just cannot take literally.

I believe in the parting of the Red Sea and that God gave the Torah to Moses at Mount Sinai. If, however, I were teaching a public school class on the Ancient Middle East, I would neither teach Jewish belief as fact nor omit any reference to the Israelites' departure from Egypt. The correct approach would be to teach historical facts—that the Israelites were slaves in Egypt and that at some later point, they wound up in what is now Israel and established a kingdom. Although reality to many Americans, the Israelites' crossing of the Red Sea and their desert wanderings are religious teachings and I would teach them as such.

Likewise, public schools need not omit all references to creationism. The majority of Americans believe in some form of creationism, and the story of Adam and Eve has affected our culture to the point where Bible stories are parodied by The Simpsons. However, creation must be taught as a belief held by many, while only evolution can be taught as science. The two categories are qualitatively different and need not exclude one another.

People are entitled to different points of view on historical events. Science is science and religion is religion, and evolution absolutely belongs in every biology classroom. I hope that the pious citizens of Kansas—and the rest of America—will one day have enough confidence in their religious beliefs to be comfortable with the open discussion of other ideas.

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