Jump! A suggestion for teaching evolution at colleges teaching a "biblical worldview"

Inside Higher Education today reports a growing controversy over evolution at La Sierra University in California, a small Seventh-Day Adventist liberal arts institution. Evidently, biology professors rejected a student's final paper for their capstone course, on the grounds that it did not demonstrate sufficient knowledge of geological "data and mainstream theories." Instead it espoused some version of "creationism." The student's response was angry and disbelieving. Why be penalized for adhering to the religious doctrine that the university espouses?

That's quite a pickle. How do you teach sciences connected to the study of evolution in an institution that ultimately rejects scientific findings regarding evolution?

The Seventh Day Adventist authorities have a seemingly sensible solution. Sure, teach them evolution, but then teach them the God-centered account of creation:

I appeal to you that when you take your students out on the journey, you bring them safely back home before the day is over. And their home must always be in the world of faith.

One of the professors in question, Gary Bradley, doesn't seem to believe the scientific journey takes them from home, and deals with the issue by saying it shouldn't even be one:

It’s very, very clear that what I’m skeptical of is the absolute necessity of believing that the only way a creator God could do things is by speaking them into existence a few thousand years ago,” Bradley added. “That’s where my skepticism lies. That’s the religious philosophical basis for what I call the lunatic fringe. They do not represent the majority position in the Church, and yes I’m skeptical of that. But I want to say to kids it’s OK for you to believe that, but it’s not OK for you to be ignorant of the scientific data that’s out there.

My curricular solution is this: colleges trying to teach both evolution and creationism should require students to climb to the top of the tallest building on campus, hold hands, and then leap off the roof together. As they fall they should yell: "Gravity's just a theory!" This should drive home the lesson—for the last time, perhaps—about a key difference between a faith-driven science and one abiding by the rules of empirical inquiry. Explanatory models such as evolution are sets of testable propositions, governed by widely agreed upon rules of testing, and the model is open to amendment or refutation should the tests produce results contradicting the model. Creationism is a set of propositions that already excludes certain results as impossible because they contradict the Bible’s creation accounts. Creationists are correct in saying evolution is “just a theory.” It’s just that they don’t understand the term “theory,” and have set up a false opposition between spiritual and empirical inquiry. The findings of each must absolutely match, it seems, or they cancel each other out. Crudely put, if evolution, then no God. If no God, then evolution’s right (there are secular arguments out there guilty of this simplistic reasoning, too).

Liberal arts educators in evangelical or fundamentalist colleges and universities face a condundrum. To keep a religious denomination alive, to maintain an identity, its adherents need to be in accord with its doctrine, or at least not do things that undermine that doctrine. And for Christian biblical literalists, once you weaken one plank of the literalist interpretation, others might start to go too. Teach evolution and the next thing you know they'll be advocating gay marriage! Or worse. . . health care reform!

It seems to be me the deeper problem is that biblical literalists have built their house of faith on sand. Their faith really is rather weak, for it depends on the veracity of a particular reading of a text. Challenges to that reading, or the text, are threats to the house.

That’s not faith as a “hope in things unseen,” but rather a ‘certainty in things seen.’ Oddly, that is kind of empiricism, a common sense Baconian logic, but one that rests on questionable opening premises. The eye that sees can be so fickle. Good scientists know that. It’s unfortunate that some Christians don’t, for they end up living in a world even more fragile and frightening than it has to be.