Philip Kitcher

Creationists are actually criticizing methods that are used throughout science. As I shall argue extensively, there is no basis for separating the procedures and practices of evolutionary biology from those that are fundamental to all sciences. If we let the creationists have their way, we may as well go whole hog. Let us reintroduce the flat-earth theory, the chemistry of the four elements, and mediaeval astrology. For these outworn doctrines have just as much claim to rival current scientific views as Creationism does to challenge evolutionary biology.

Even if Creationists continue to lose in the courts, they may still succeed in wreaking havoc upon science education (and, ultimately, upon American science). By lobbying local school administrators, the Creationist minions can affect the books that are chosen and the curriculum that is designed. Because textbooks are published to make a profit, the special-interest pressure will change the character of the books that are produced. While Creationist laws fail, the cause may triumph, as science education relapses into its post-Scopes, pre-Sputnik condition.

If “scientific” Creationism merits no discussion in the community of professionals, then it does not deserve a place in the classrooms where those professionals are being educated. This is not to deny that professional education in the sciences might not benefit if it were more open to heterodoxy, if received opinion were not sometimes subjected to pressure from minority views. But the ideas in question ought to have something in their favor. They should not fail so abjectly as Creation “science” does.

Knowledge of science can have a great impact on social and political policy. Students need to be told, clearly and directly, what statements are supported by the available evidence. It is not the teachers function to offer instead a contrived and unresolved “debate” in which one of the parties is an ill-defined position that lacks any evidence in its favor. To represent as equal ideas of unequal merit is to mislead and confuse. Because the consequences of so deceiving the students may be their later inability to perform their duties as conscientious and informed citizens, such educational practices ought to be recognized for the irresponsible charades they are.

To provide scientific explanations, a creationist would have to identify the plan implemented in the creation. The trouble is that there are countless examples of properties of organisms that are hard to integrate into a coherent theory of design. There are two main types of difficulty, stemming from the frequent tinkerings of evolution in the equally common nastiness of nature. Let us begin with evolutionary tinkering. Structures already present or modified to answer to the organisms current needs. The result may be clumsy and inefficient, but it gets the job done.… (examples of the panda’s thumb, orchid self-fertilization, and the ruminant digestive system elided)

The second class of cases cover those in which, to put it bluntly, nature’s ways are rather repulsive. There is nothing intrinsically beautiful about the scavenging of vultures, the copulatory behavior of the female praying mantis (who tries to bite off the head of the “lucky” male), or the ways in which some insects paralyze their prey.… (example of coprophagy elided)

All the Creationists’ major objections have now been examined. What appear, at first glance, to be imposing obstacles turn out, on closer inspection, to be conjuring tricks employing inaccuracy, misrepresentation, dazzling numbers, and layers of confusion. As a teacher, I sometimes wonder after an exam why some students became confused on a particular point, and I try to understand how my presentation or the formulation in a book could have misled them. In the case of the Creationist authors we have studied, there is no great difficulty in seeing how muddles arise. They want to use scientific data and scientific principles to attack evolutionary theory. So they skim, searching for ammunition. When they find a claim that seems to be at variance with evolution, they seize it as a trophy to bring back to the Institute for Creation Research for public display. If they actually tried to understand the terrain they scavenge, they would have learned some interesting science. Instead, they seem to acquire only the most tenuous grasp of complex theories and then offer their muddled caricatures of important scientific works to as wide an (inexpert) audience as they can reach. (It is possible, of course, that their understanding is greater than that revealed in their confused discussions. But I am loath to accuse them of perverting ideas that they actually comprehend.)

The Creationists are by no means the first to play on fears about what scientific inquiry will disclose. Anxieties about ourselves endure. If our proper study is indeed the study of humankind, then it has seemed—and still seems—to many that the study is dangerous. Perhaps we shall find out that we were not what we took ourselves to be. But if the historical development of science has indeed sometimes pricked our vanity, it has not plunged us into an abyss of immorality. Arguably, it has liberated us from misconceptions, and thereby aided us in our moral progress.