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Creationist arguments about evolution are scientifically flimsy, to say the least. But they are based on a sincere, though often appallingly distorted and overstated, conviction that evolutionary doctrine, as it has come to affect modern society, deprives man of a sense of individual and moral responsibility for his own acts. Says Georgia Judge Braswell Been: "This monkey mythology of Darwin is the cause of permissiveness, promiscuity, pills, prophylactics, perversions, pregnancies, abortions, pornotherapy, pollution, poisoning and proliferation of crimes of all types." Behind the rhetoric lies a basic question that touches the ultimate reaches of science and the most ancient source of faith. Creationists tend to put it as follows: The existence of a clock implies a clockmaker; the existence of creation implies a creator. The infinite complexity and design of the universe, they claim, could not simply have evolved through blind trial and error.
Put in that way, however, the question is one of theology, not science. Though the growth of scientific knowledge has unquestionably undercut faith, creationists tend to ignore the fact that the awe-inspiring complexity of the universe, its grand design, has been made known to man mainly through the free inquiry of science. The true study of evolution, moreover, is a humbling experience that gives man only a tiny niche in the vast scheme of the universe. "Never lose a holy curiosity," Einstein once wrote. Says Astrophysicist Robert Jastrow: "Astronomers have proven that the creation of the universe is the result of forces beyond the reach of scientific inquiry, but the rest of the story, leading from the creation to man, is explained very well by the scientific evidence in the fossil record."
At least half a dozen top scientific organizations have issued statements warning that scientific creationism is not scientific. Should school boards and legislatures yield to the creationists' innocuous-sounding request for equal time? The answer seems to be no—not if they want pupils to learn biology, as the subject is understood today. The relation of science and morality is an important matter. Creationism may belong in social studies or the history of religion, but it should not be pushed into biology classes or textbooks, especially not by legislative fiat. As celebrated Geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky put it: "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution."
Some scientists and science educators are beginning to blame themselves for the present popularity of pseudo science —including astrology and medical quackery, as well as the "science" of creationism. Says Wayne Moyer, executive director of the National Association of Biology Teachers: "We have done a botched job of teaching evolutionary theory, and we had better accept the creationist challenge to clean up our act." Adds Chemist Russell Doolittle: "At first I couldn't understand the gullibility of people. It took me a while to understand that the average American is not equipped to combat this sort of thing. The tragedy of it all is the state of science education in the country—it's simply, sadly, awful."
—By Kenneth M. Pierce. Reported by D.L. Coutu/Los Angeles and J. Madeleine Nash/Chicago