I think the answers to these questions lies in what is NOT said by, or about, either camp. The answer does not have to do with the truth of science and the falsity of religion, although both of these claims can be made in most cases in my view. My position is clear: 1) the "truthfulness" of the claims of evolution are born out every time evolution is tested; 2) the specific claims of fact by creationists are almost always false, or at least deceptive and incomplete. So, why is the discussion on-going, persistent, seemingly ubiquitous. Let me deal with each side, and how each side is perceived by the other side.
First, let's take the side of evolution, which I am certain is accurate insofar as it has been developed and tested. This is a theory but not, as too many say, "only a theory." A theory is an idea tested and found accurate insofar as it can be made accurate by known facts. The facts about evolution are "true." But scientists, and others, assure us that all they want to do is to explain the known universe -- from its smallest particles to its cosmic dimensions, from how the smallest elements in the universe work, to how the universe has unfolded and is unfolding. There is a disingenuousness in this, despite the fact that popular science and popular culture likes to believe there is a quest for pure knowledge.
The fact is that the "truthfulness" of science leading to an understanding of a knowable universe is only a romantic, perhaps just mythic, part of the scientific enterprise. Pure science -- just finding out how things work -- is a noble ideal held by many scientists (including my son) but none of them would be funded for any of this if there were not others who would willingly exploit scientific discovery for practical purposes.
Let's take neuroscience as an example. Does anyone really believe that we fund neuroscience just to find out how the brain works?? Does anyone really believe that once we find relevant particulars about brain function that we will not eagerly exploit that knowledge for practical, applied purposes? Do any neuroscientists today believe that they are not a part of a large project to "correct" brain function when necessary. Who, even among an ignorant public, would deny science and those who apply scientific discoveries, the right to stop Parkinson's disease, or MS, or Altzheimer's disease, or ---- and now the road gets slippery --- depression, mental retardation, anti-social behavior . . . . You fill in the rest of the blanks, and what you will finally get is the re-formation of the human being, ultimately made smart, stable, less varied, and, well, not quite so "human" anymore.
As Hannah Arendt pointed out long ago in "The Human Condition," the "truthfulness" of science is NOT about meaning, it is about factual certitudes that are put to applied use -- in this case she was most interested in atomic weaponry. Oppenheimer was not an innocent bystander. Nor are scientists in most fields. They all know that their work will be applied to some human "problem." This does not mean that scientists are villains; it just means that scientists are part of a social body that is all too willing to use whatever technology or use that science offers.
What is the point to all of this? The point is that the way we see science, and the way too many scientists present the issues, is too coy. Science is not just about discovery, it is about manipulation of nature, and manipulation of nature inevitably means changing the nature of nature. Above all, it means changing "MEANING" in a very large sense. It is this that many religious advocates cannot abide -- that science will define "meaning" by its pro-action, not its discoveries, and perhaps even that science itself has become a religion of a sort.
And, what of creationism? or creation by design (I saw an article in the local newspaper that literally re-hashed William Paley's watch-maker argument, an argument debunked even in his own day by Hume and others). What creationists (in their hearts) want to do is to claim that only in religion (usually only in THEIR religion), human beings will find "MEANING." Religion is about meaning, about our relationship to nature, to everything.
But creationists, and many other advocates of religion, broadly over-reach. They want their cake and eat it too. Unsatisfied with accepting the "mystery" of God or of their beliefs, they want the meaning of their religion and facts about the natural world to be entirely true. Kingsley Amis wrote a prophetic little novel in the 1960s entitled, "I Want It Now," about a super-selfish young woman. She would be the prototype of modern hedonism. What we forget is that Creationists, even the most humble religious followers (outside of Islam and Buddhism), are part of what I define as the "I want it now; I want it all" culture. If others grew up with a sense of material entitlement, they all grew up with a sense of "religious entitlement." There is very little humility, Christian or otherwise, in the demand by some "believers" that the Bible is literally true or that their religion is the possessor of all truth. True religion is about a lot more mystery and uncertainty than these folks would have it.
Science plays God with nature, and religion corrupts its best qualities by demanding to be the possessor of "truthfulness" that is patently not true in "fact." Science needs to stop pretending to be the innocent; it has not been for more than a century at least. Religion needs to stop pretending that it "knows" factual truth about nature; there was a day -- well, centuries ago now, or at least so it seems -- when it would have been heresy of the highest sort to pretend to know God's will. And, so, there is no end in sight to this sometimes circus-like debate, no matter how "smart" people get, or probably how truly pious and pacific religion becomes.
Update - January 17, 2009:
In some ways, the essay above has a conclusion that needs re-stating in a somewhat different way. My stance is that both religion and science have failed in their humanism to some degree. While it seems to me that science is completely correct regarding the facts of evolution and the weakness of the creation by design argument, some scientists are using this truth as a campaign against theism and even religion as a whole. This atheism has been a little heavy-handed, suggesting that religious believers are ignoramuses, and ignoring the historical development and evolution of religious belief and practice to suggest the hyper-revolutionary idea that several millennia of human religious behavior should and can be obliterated. This angry atheism ignores religion as a critical, if not necessary, part of human history and society. It is very hard to anticipate a future in which religion -- which is, after all, a human way of dealing with matters of love, brother/sisterhood, redemption, and many other qualities necessary to living life well -- will not exist in some form or other and even thrive.
For its part, religion has become unpleasantly defiant and angry in its own right. Most of the tenets of religion -- piety, forgiveness, love, acceptance -- have been utterly lost in the battle over evolution and its fall-out. More than that, advocates of creationism make preposterous arguments -- arguments that only demean human intelligence and human promise. They belittle hundreds of years of science and the accumulation of knowledge, casting aside human historical developments as readily as the most radical atheists.
In short, both sides remove themselves from the civilization, culture, society, and standards of humanity that they should nuture in order to posit arguments of pure truth. Both sides need to exercise a little more humility.
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