In Bizzell Memorial Library, in the History of Science Collection, there is an original text from the sixteenth century of Copernicus, entitled "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies." It made the audacious claim (at the time) that the earth was not the center of the universe. From studying the motion of the planets and stars, he put forth a theory that the earth was not the center, but rather the earth revolved around the sun. At first, his theory was ignored by all but scientists, and then Galileo made reference to him in his own writings. Suddenly, the Holy Office of the Inquisition kicked into gear and every text had to have added to it a disclaimer that Copernicus' theory was a theory and not to be accepted as true. Galileo was denounced as appearing to be a heretic, and was forced to sign an abjuration.
Should creationism be included in science? Should evolution be taught with a disclaimer? A group of people inside Christianity, calling themselves "creationists", would like to insist that school textbooks and courses teach a particular creation story as somehow factual and scientific. They want creationism taught in place of or alongside ordinary science, or barring that, they want a disclaimer in front of everything to do with evolution, stating that it is only a theory. Sound familiar?
Of course evolution is a theory. Everything in science is a theory. Perhaps creationists do not fully understand the role of theory in the scientific method. But, that's fodder for another column. The creation stories in scripture are not theories and not scientific.
The creation story the creationists like is found in the first chapter of Genesis. The Bible has more than one creation story, by the way. There is another one in the second chapter of Genesis, in which Adam is created before the animals and Eve is created after the animals (unlike Genesis, chapter one, where the animals are created after birds and prior to human beings). There is still another account in Job, and, in Christian scripture, there is one in the first chapter of John. The creationists are pushing for the first creation story to be treated like science. The Bible has more than one creation story because they are each meant to convey some religious insight into the human condition. They were never intended to be treated as scientific texts, as the creationists would like. In fact, scholars in the early centuries of the church, like St. Augustine, openly taught that they were to be read figuratively, metaphorically.
Given that the church didn't treat this story as a scientific text, I wonder why the concern of creationists? Most other Christians see no contradiction between what science has said in the theory of evolution on the one hand, and what the Bible says in its many creation stories on the other.
But something else intrigues me about this controversy. I have not heard any Hindus insist that the state teach a Hindu creation story as science. Likewise, you don't hear this clamor from Buddhists, Sikhs, Muslims or Jews (and Jews read the same creation story as the creationists and don't see the problems creationists do). None of these other religions seems intent on bending science to fit their beliefs.
I suppose we could teach the Biblical accounts of creation, but why stop there? We could also teach the stories of other religions that make up our state and country. We could teach Hindu stories, as well as Choctaw, Chickasaw, Osage, and Apache. Such a project could enrich all of us regarding the religious diversity of our land, but it could never pretend to be a scientific explanation of how the universe came to be.
When religious texts are approached as religious texts they can be helpful and even perhaps liberating. When they are viewed as science curriculum, a certain lockstep sets in, rather than a spirit that frees. Just ask Galileo!
-- Joe Meinhart is a educational studies graduate student. He can be reached at dailyopinion@ou.edu.
hello there & you too