My review of Eugenie Scott’s lecture at the University of Kentucky

On Sept. 14, I heard Eugenie Scott give a lecture on “Evolution and Creationism in Kentucky” at the University of Kentucky.  Eugenie Scott is the longtime former executive director of the National Center for Science Education, an organization which self-reportedly aims to “defend the integrity of science education against ideological interference”.

The lecture was held at UK’s Jacobs Science Building, a dazzling new addition to campus featuring classrooms and lecture halls designed for active learning.  I’m not sure how the lecture hall usually performs for classes, but a bewildering array of technical problems unfortunately occurred before, during, and after the lecture.  Prior to the talk, something wasn’t working with Scott’s PowerPoint presentation; this was finally fixed after five people and four computers were brought to bear on the problem.  More problematic were the random flashes of an abnormally bright light emanating from a mysterious source near the podium every five minutes or so during the entire duration of the lecture (the speaker handled these in stride).  They never did get the lighting right, so her face was in shadow for most of the talk.  Finally, during the Q&A session following the talk, the two microphones that were being passed around the room both conked out.  Apparently, audio-visual and computer technology have not yet reached their zenith of evolutionary development.

Scott’s lecture was delivered in her usual friendly, conversational, and constructive manner.  I had heard her speak a few times before, and I think this was my favorite.  The talk focused on three strategies that creationists have employed over the years in their fight with evolutionary science: (1) banning evolution (roughly Scopes to 1980), (2) balancing evolution by advocating the teaching of “creation science” and “intelligent design” alongside evolution in the public schools, and (3) belittling evolution by calling attention to its supposed flaws (the “theory in crisis” approach).

The talk gave a unique Kentucky perspective to this historical survey.  Did you know that John T. Scopes was a Kentucky boy who was raised in Paducah and minored in geology at the University of Kentucky?  The growing concern of his geology professors at UK to the rising cultural phenomenon of creationism was probably one of the influences on his decision to challenge Tennessee’s Butler Act in 1925.

I also learned some things about Eugenie Scott that I did not previously know.  Her rise to prominence as a standard-bearer in battles over creationism in public schools was preceded by a stint at the University of Kentucky as a physical anthropology professor.  Her activist stance against creationism began in the early 1980’s when she learned of efforts to introduce creationism within Lexington’s public school system.  She helped organize a broad coalition involving diverse segments of the community, including ministers from some of the city’s mainline Protestant churches who were calling out young-earth creationism not only as bad science, but as bad theology.

This leads to one of the themes of her talk: that science (and evolution in particular) need not be incompatible with religion: while science tells us the “how” of the natural world, it does not tell us the “Who” that may be behind it all.  This respectful view of the science-religion relationship, coming from someone with no religious faith of her own, is a welcome contrast to the views of atheist scientists like Richard Dawkins who believe that science is fundamentally incompatible with religion (incidentally, Scott won the Richard Dawkins Award in 2012).  However, while Scott consistently used the term “evangelical” in a neutral manner throughout her talk (as in “plenty of evangelicals see no problem with evolution”), she did use the term “conservative Christians” (as opposed to “mainline” Christians and Catholics) once in a negative way as somehow necessarily equating with conflict over evolution.  I took some offense at this, since I and many others like me consider ourselves conservative Christians, but we find no necessary conflict with biological evolution.  The problem, I guess, is that labels such as “evangelical”, “conservative”, and “liberal” are not well constrained and probably mean different things to different people.  I would hope that Scott would not use the term “conservative” in this way in the future; perhaps “fundamentalist” or “ultra-conservative” would be more accurate choices.

Towards the end of her talk, Scott focused some attention on Answers in Genesis, the young-earth creationist organization that is behind the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter theme park in northern Kentucky.  Not much was said about the content of those attractions (if you are interested, go here and here for that), but some interesting details concerning the Ark Encounter’s strange and shifting business structure and its tax liabilities were discussed.

Related to AiG, Scott was asked what she thought of the Ken Ham vs. Bill Nye debate of 2014.  She responded that she thought Bill Nye shouldn’t have agreed to this (but the NCSE still helped prep him for the event).  Unless you are a skilled debater, taking on young earth creationists in the setting of a public debate is a recipe for disaster…not because creationists have the stronger scientific arguments to support their case, but because of the spectacle of the format itself—one that rewards a competition between entertaining orators, rather than a more thoughtful and careful review of the scientific evidence.  This post echoes Scott’s concerns that one of the biggest winners of this media circus was the free publicity for AiG, timed perfectly to raise money for his Ark Encounter theme park.

Overall, it was an informative talk that I think constructively aided the science-faith dialogue.  The take-home message for me was that some level of civic engagement (call it “activism”) is no doubt necessary in the face of ideologically-driven bad science and its proponents in the political arena.

On a deeper level, however, it is always sobering for me as a Christian to listen to critiques, however warranted, of fellow believers who have done harm in the name of our common faith.  St. Augustine said it best when he wrote the following:

“Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for a (nonbeliever) to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking non-sense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?” (St Augustine, Commentary on the Book of Genesis).

There are two deeper issues that I found myself mulling over following this talk. I agree with Eugenie Scott that science works well when done on an ideologically neutral playing field, but I wonder how receptive she and other members of the NCSE are to rooting out atheistic ideology when it masquerades as science in the public square. When popularizers of science like Richard Dawkins, Edward O. Wilson, and Steven Weinberg misrepresent science as fundamentally hostile to religion, where are the ideology police then?  Has the NCSE taken a public position against this sort of ideological interference?

This leads to my second, more fundamental question.  Does the secularism of Eugenie Scott go deeper than I am willing to go?  Despite her conciliatory and respectful view of religion expressed in her talk, would she support a full-fledged interaction between religion and pluralistic modern society?  Does she recognize the intellectual and cultural heritage that religion provides for society?  Does she recognize that it is impossible to escape ideology since everyone is “religious” in the sense that they have a worldview or belief system, beyond the reach of science, that allows him or her to make sense of the world?  Or does she and secularists like her really want religion kept at bay, reduced in importance as a cultural force, and banished from the public square (education, politics, morality, etc.)?  These are tough questions which, of course, didn’t surface during the lecture, so I am left to wonder as to her deeper motivations.