Salon.com Books | Seeing the light -- of science http://www.salon.com/books/int/2007/01/02/numbers/print.html http://www.salon.com/books/int/2007/01/02/numbers/print.html To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser Seeing the light -- of science Ronald Numbers -- a former Seventh-day Adventist and author of the definitive history of creationism -- discusses his break with the church, whether creationists are less intelligent and why Galileo wasn't really a martyr. By Steve Paulson Jan. 02, 2007 | Despite massive scientific corroboration for evolution, roughly half of all Americans believe that God created humans within the past 10,000 years. Many others believe the "irreducible complexity" argument of the intelligent design movement -- a position that, while somewhat more flexible, still rankles most scientists. This widespread refusal to accept evolution can drive scientists into a fury. I've heard biologists call anti-evolutionists "idiots," "lunatics" ... and worse. But the question remains: How do we explain the stubborn resistance to Darwinism? University of Wisconsin historian Ronald Numbers is in a unique position to offer some answers. His 1992 book "The Creationists," which Harvard University Press has just reissued in an expanded edition, is probably the most definitive history of anti-evolutionism. Numbers is an eminent figure in the history of science and religion -- a past president of both the History of Science Society and the American Society of Church History. But what's most refreshing about Numbers is the remarkable personal history he brings to this subject. He grew up in a family of Seventh-day Adventists and, until graduate school, was a dyed-in-the-wool creationist. When he lost his religious faith, he wrote a book questioning the foundations of Adventism, which created a huge rift in his family. Perhaps because of his background, Numbers is one of the few scholars in the battle over evolution who remain widely respected by both evolutionists and creationists. In fact, he was once recruited by both sides to serve as an expert witness in a Louisiana trial on evolution. (He went with the ACLU.) Numbers says much of what we think about anti-evolutionism is wrong. For one thing, it's hardly a monolithic movement. There are, in fact, fierce battles between creationists of different stripes. And the "creation scientists" who believe in a literal reading of the Bible have, in turn, little in common with the leaders of intelligent design. Numbers also dismisses the whole idea of warfare between science and religion going back to the scientific revolution. He argues this is a modern myth that serves both Christian fundamentalists and secular scientists. Numbers stopped by my radio studio to talk about the competing brands of creationism, his quarrel with atheism and his breaking with faith, and why some famous scientists -- like Galileo -- hardly deserve the label "scientific martyr." Given the overwhelming scientific support for evolution, how do you explain the curious fact that so many Americans don't believe it? I don't think there's a single explanation. To many Americans, it just seems so improbable that single-celled animals could have evolved into humans. Even monkeys evolving into humans seems highly unlikely. For many people, it also conflicts with the Bible, which they take to be God's 1 of 9 1/3/07 7:16 AM Salon.com Books | Seeing the light -- of science http://www.salon.com/books/int/2007/01/02/numbers/print.html revealed word, and there's no wiggling room for them. And you have particular religious leaders who've condemned it. I think there's something else that I hate to mention but probably is a serious contributing factor. I don't think evolution has been taught well in the United States. Most students do not learn about the overwhelming evidence for evolution. At the university level or the high school level? Grade school, high school and university. There are very few general education courses on evolution for the nonspecialist. It's almost assumed that people will believe in evolution if they've made it that far. So I think we've done a very poor job of bringing together the evidence and presenting it to our students. There's a stereotype that creationists just aren't that smart. I mean, how can you ignore the steady accumulation of scientific evidence for evolution? Is this a question of intelligence or education? Not fundamentally. There is a slight skewing of anti-evolutionists toward lower levels of education. But it's not huge. One recent poll showed that a quarter of college graduates in America reject evolution. So it's not education itself that's doing this. There are really dumb creationists and there are really dumb evolutionists. Of the 10 founders of the Creation Research Society, five of them earned doctorates in the biological sciences from major universities. Another had a Ph.D. from Berkeley in biochemistry. Another had a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. These were not dumb, uneducated people. They rejected evolution for religious and, they would say, scientific reasons. But that's so hard to understand. If you get a graduate degree in the biological sciences, how can you still allow religion to trump science? They don't see it that way. They see religion as informing their scientific choices. I think it's extremely hard for human beings to see the world as others see it. I have a hard time seeing the world as Muslim fundamentalists see it. And yet, there are many very smart Muslims out there who have a totally different cosmology and theology from what I have. I think one of the goals of education is to help students, and perhaps help ourselves, see the world the way others see it so we don't just judge and say, "They're just too stupid to know better." My guess is that the most persuasive arguments for evolution are not going to come through scientific reasoning. They're going to come from scientists, and from theologians and other people of faith, who say you can believe in God and still accept evolution, that there's nothing incompatible about the two. Do you agree? To a large extent, I do. But I think the influence of those middle-ground people is limited. Conservatives don't trust them. They think they've already sold out to modernism and liberalism. And a lot of the more radical scientists spurn them as well. Richard Dawkins, for example, would argue that evolution is inherently atheistic. That's exactly what the fundamentalists are saying. They agree on that. So you have these people in the middle saying, "No, no. It's not atheistic for me. I believe in God and maybe in Jesus Christ. And in evolution." Having these loud voices on either side of them really tends to restrict the influence that they might otherwise have. If you're going to persuade devout Christians to accept evolution, don't you also have to show that you can't read the Bible literally, especially the story of Genesis? 2 of 9 1/3/07 7:16 AM Salon.com Books | Seeing the light -- of science http://www.salon.com/books/int/2007/01/02/numbers/print.html Good luck! They do read it literally. Six thousand years, six 24-hour days, a worldwide flood at the time of Noah that buried the fossils, people that lived over 900 years before the flood. There are millions of people who don't seem to have much trouble reading it literally. What about those creation scientists with Ph.D.s at the Creation Research Society? That's what is hard to understand. Well, most people who reject evolution do not see themselves as being anti-scientific in any way. They love science. They love what science has produced. It's allowed the conservative Christians to go on the airwaves, to fly to mission fields. They're not against science at all. But they don't believe evolution is real science. So they're able to criticize one of the primary theories of modern science and yet not adopt an anti-scientific attitude. A lot of critics find that just absolutely amazing. And it's a rhetorical game that has been played fairly successfully for a long time. In the latter part of the 19th century, when Mary Baker Eddy came up with her system that denied the existence of a material world -- denying the existence of sickness and death, which flew in the face of everything that late 19th century science was teaching -- what did she call it? "Christian science." The founder of chiropractic thought that he had found the only true scientific view of healing. The creationists around 1970 took the view that's most at odds with modern science and called it "creation science." They love science! And they want to partake in the cultural authority that still comes to science. Given your field of study, you have a particularly interesting personal history. You grew up in a family of Seventh-day Adventists. That's correct. All my male relatives were ministers of one kind or another. All? Going how far back? Both my grandfathers. My maternal grandfather was president of the international church. My father and all my uncles on both sides worked for the church. My brother-in-law is a minister. My nephew is a minister. Did you go to Adventist schools? First grade through college. I graduated from Southern Missionary College in Tennessee. And what did you think about life's origins as you were growing up? I was never exposed to anything other than what we now call "young earth creationism." Creation science came out of Seventh-day Adventism.