Super-duper Tuesday is fast approaching, and I am still hoping against hope that Mike Huckabee gets the nomination, so that we can hash out this God v. Science thing once and for all. After famously raising his hand to silently indicate his disbelief in evolution, Huckabee has been a bit prickly on the subject. I actually feel some sympathy for him; reconciling faith with science is a thankless--some might say impossible--task. But I can't help bridling a bit at the conclusion of Huckabee's stock response, which amounts to "I don't believe in science, I believe in God!"
The fact that this argument works--on Huckabee voters, at least--seems to stem in part from a confusion regarding what, exactly, science is. To hear it discussed in evangelical circles, one might be forgiven for drawing the conclusion that science is a sinister cabal. In some ways, this is understandable: long gone are the days of gentleman lepidopterists in their smoking jackets, pinning specimens to velvet-covered cork boards. Amateurs have gone the way of the dodo. The technological requirements of science today necessitate an association with a faceless corporation, a liberal university, or the government. It's an intellectually exclusive world, cloaked in mystery and obscured with jargon. If you were to ask the average person to define science, it is unlikely that they would come up with an answer like "looking at something, and then thinking critically about what you've seen." It just can't be that simple.
But what if it were? What if the teaching of science got all the funding and respect it deserves, and all children were raised to be keen observers of the world around them? One thing that fundamentalists and atheists can secretly share is the belief that proper science education would result in a proportional increase in atheism. Perhaps, but only if you believe that God and religion are interchangeable. Science is never at variance with God; it's science and religion that clash. When you have a natural, independent relationship with God, there is nothing threatening about learning how old the earth is, or at what point humans became human. Discovering the wonders of God's universe should be a sublime experience. Each new bit of information gives us deeper understanding. Why not embrace science for the insight it brings to our spirituality? This is the beautiful, unfathomable, breathtaking existence which God has caused to be. So be it.
From the archives: Step back in time to the magical heyday of Intelligent Design, A.D. 2005. From May, the New Yorker reports on the infamous Dover, Pennsylvania school board; and from July, David Kestenbaum's excellent piece for Morning Edition on why scientists don't like to debate ID proponents (and it's not for fear of being struck by lightning).
