Science and Faith: It's Not A Debate

By Michael A. Rios

Why have so many books and discussions on science and faith framed their arguments as science versus faith? By what authority was it decided that one side is completely right and the other wrong? In Science and Faith: It’s Not a Debate, Michael Rios addresses the need to understand what’s happening on each side, the fears, history, methodology, compatibility, and limitations. Without a true understanding of the nature of both sides, diatribes and debates are pointless! Science and Faith: It’s Not a Debate explores the development of scientific thought and examines the biblical interpretations put forth by Christians to provide the readers with an appropriate context of each side.

The traditional “main event” whenever science and faith are discussed, evolution and creation is described with respect to accepted scientific theory and hermeneutics, the study of the general principles of biblical interpretation. How can anyone assume to make an informed decision without understanding the scientific and biblical explanations of our origins and how each discipline works? Is reconciliation possible? If both sides are devoted to knowing the truth, there is hope for a convergence of knowledge and understanding. Science and Faith: It’s Not a Debate explains how society has been influenced by philosophical intolerance and misinformation and the dangerous effect it can have on our future generations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9781662409325

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Science and Faith

It's Not A Debate

Michael A. Rios

Copyright © 2020 Michael A. Rios

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2020

ISBN 978-1-6624-0931-8 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-6624-0932-5 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

FEAR ON BOTH SIDES

SCIENCE (DOUBT) AND FAITH (BELIEF)

LIMITATIONS OF SCIENCE AND FAITH

INCOMPATABILITY OF SCIENCE AND FAITH

CREATION AND EVOLUTION

DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES

EDUCATIONAL ISSUES

CONCLUSION

This book is dedicated to secularists and faith believers alike who are open to receiving truth and understanding.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I give thanks to our Heavenly Father, my family, and dear friends for their inspiration and support to make my dream a reality.

INTRODUCTION

In starting this project, I am already well-acquainted with the never-ending debate between scientists and creationists over the contradiction between scientific discoveries and the scriptural account of creation, but as I researched both sides of the issue, I discovered a surprising array of opinions, interpretations, philosophies, and accommodation strategies. They run the gambit from young and old-earth creationists to scientific atheists and accommodationists. And, of course, I can’t leave out the group that claims they’re not religious but believes that life on earth is best explained scientifically as the design of a creator, the intelligent design movement.

Well, if you’re like me, you’re probably tired of these I’m right, you’re wrong debates. They’re like political debates. Both sides are equally passionate about their claims that resonate mostly to their followers but rarely provide new ideas or evidence. In the end, each side predictably declares victory, and opinion remains just as divided as before. Instead of debating who’s right by attacking the other side, we need clarity. Scientists attacking theologians and vice versa is wasted time and energy. Experts need to stick to what they know. I’m not saying that science should be closed to challenges or new ideas, but such claims must be based in science, not faith. Likewise, scientific evidence shouldn’t be used to discredit scripture because its authority is not based on such evidence. It’s based on the faith of the believer. If you really are seeking the truth, you need to clearly understand what each side knows about their area of expertise as well as how they arrived at their conclusions and how those conclusions are viewed by their community of practitioners. You must understand the nature of science and the mystery of faith.

Science and faith use different ways of knowing the truth and are valid within the boundaries of their domains. Science is not a belief system. Valid scientific ideas require evidence and testing. These ideas are not only potentially fallible, open to modification or rejection, but they also carry different levels of certainty. For example, a hypothesis, the least certain idea in the hierarchy, may exist before being tested or having any evidence to support it. Whereas a theory, commonly and incorrectly thought of as just a guess by laypeople, exists as the best scientific explanation based on all available evidence. It is the best and broadest synthesis of evidence to date. Believing in it isn’t going to make it true if it isn’t. There were a lot of disappointed believers in an Earth-centered solar system after Copernicus proved that we actually go around the sun. You might think scientific laws are the big ideas in science, but they’re small in comparison to theories because they tend to describe a very specific phenomenon, often with an equation, with the highest level of certainty. For example, a simple gas law in chemistry like Boyle’s law describes the relationship between pressure and volume of a gas at a constant temperature. It doesn’t bring together the same breadth of study and evidence like the Darwinian theory of natural selection or any other scientific theory for that matter. Just remember, all scientific ideas are potentially flawed and uncertain. Nothing in science is sacred. On the other hand, to have faith, all you need is to believe. Scriptural evidence (i.e., the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies and holy artifacts such as the Shroud of Turin can strengthen one’s belief, but alone they aren’t definitive proof of God’s truth. Regardless of how close that evidence gets one to the proof of God’s truth, you still need to take that last leap of faith to be a believer. That is the nature of faith.

It’s unfortunate that the people who get most of the media attention are the extremists. These are individuals who must prove their side is right, biblical creationists who attack Darwinian evolution with thinly vailed pseudoscientific claims intended to prove the existence of a divine creator and so-called scientific purists determined to debunk scripture for its lack of supporting evidence in nature. These individuals may know their area of expertise but have neglected to acknowledge how differently science and faith work as well as the boundaries of each domain. Less well-known are the individuals and groups who seek harmony between these fields, organizations like BioLogos, Reason to Believe, and the Templeton Foundation. These organizations embrace both science and faith with their own unique strategies.

More often than not, when science is compared to religion in the United States, all of science is reduced to the topic of evolution, and all religions must take a back seat to fundamental Christianity. Evolution is considered by scientists today as the unifying theme within the biological sciences, but its connection to the physical and earth sciences should not be overlooked. That said, I accept evolution as a suitable representative of science because it exists today as the product of scientific investigation with its own strengths, weaknesses, and uncertainties. Religions on the other hand can’t escape association with their respective institutions and denominations which, of course, operate with many different rules and core beliefs. To avoid religious misrepresentations and for the sake of simplicity, I prefer to focus my thoughts on faith, not religion. I also want to make it clear that this discussion will be limited to my understanding of faith related to the Word of God from the Bible since this is what I believe. Hopefully, my understanding of Christian faith will be more universal than I know and speak to people of all faiths.

As a public high school biology and chemistry educator for thirty-five years in California, recently retired, I’ve watched the battle between science and faith progress in and out of the classroom. Challenges arise from students, parents, and even fellow science teachers. Guest speakers at church invite debate on the scientific validity of evolution and use the Bible as their evidence against it. Science experts, authors, and nature television programming bury you in a landslide of evidence and information in support of evolution. Again the presentations usually rally the followers but rarely win over new supporters.

When opinion turns into action, the stakes suddenly go up. Not since the Scopes Trial of 1925 has there been such a serious challenge to the teaching of evolution in public school as the creationist movement of the 1990s. As an example, biblical creationists challenged the Kansas State School Board of Education with the argument that their view of creation was just as valid a scientific theory as Darwinian evolution and should be taught alongside the conventional scientific model. After public hearings and expert testimonies, that claim was eventually discredited as the teaching of religion disguised as science. It was a public education battle that science won over creationists unfamiliar with the nature of science.

In my teaching, career students have come to class with wild misconceptions of science, particularly evolution, based on what they’ve heard at home and church. That’s to be expected, and it’s the teacher’s job to correct their scientific understanding, not to challenge or endorse their religious beliefs. It was my honor to serve as chairperson of the California Science Framework Committee from 1998 to 2000, and that’s what we attempted to do. Unbelievably, it was the first time in the history of public education in California that K–12 grade level science content standards were adopted by the State Board of Education with a science framework written the committee to describe what students were expected to know and be able to do. Consistent with the California Board of Education policy on the teaching of life sciences, these content standards were based on established scientific knowledge, not religious beliefs.

This period in my career is something that I am very proud about because in writing the California Science Framework with the other committee members, we were addressing two great concerns of mine, the standardized science education of all public school students and a policy declaration that teachers were required to teach these standards regardless of their own religious beliefs or scientific bias. At last we would be teaching the same science at each grade level with the same amount of emphasis in proportion to the adopted state curriculum. No more dinosaurs or volcanoes taught for the fourth time in twelve years. Over emphasis in one area