An ongoing debate rages in the courts, schools, and the media about a question that baffles me – evolution vs. creationism vs. intelligent design.  It is not so much that the question itself baffles me as that both sides (but especially the "religious" side) act as if there is only one answer, ignoring the obvious – that more than one answer may exist, that these answers may be compatible, or that the ultimate answer is unknowable within the limitations of human experience and ability.

To begin with, the participants don't seem to understand what they're arguing about.  Both the creationists and the proponents of intelligent design assert that the theory of evolution contradicts their belief that a higher power created life on Earth.  However the theory of evolution is not about the origin of life but about its development.  Supporters of evolutionary theory add to the confusion by suggesting that this theory refutes the role of a higher power in the creation of life, when in fact it does not.

Both sides miss the mark.  Scientists remain as baffled about the origin of life as they have always been.  They have postulated from observable evidence and experimentation the conditions that are necessary for life as we know it to exist, but neither science in general nor the theory of evolution in particular pretends to know how those conditions originated.

The people who have engaged in this debate all seem to presume that it is about the origin of life, whereas that is not where they disagree.  The real conflict is between the description of the development of life as it is presented in the biblical account on one hand and the theory of evolution on the other.  Darwin's theory does deny that the species we know as homo sapiens came into existence in literally seven days and seven nights, but it does not preclude the existence of a higher power or even deny that some power that surpasses understanding has had a role in this process.  The disagreement is quite simply about whether or not we can take the biblical account literally.

Is there a conflict?  Yes, but let's be clear about what the conflict is.  It is not between science and religion but between those who think science has all the answers and those who think that fundamentalist religion does.  It is between two relatively small groups of people who believe that there is only one true way to understand the universe and our experience of it.  It is between those who think that this understanding is achieved exclusively by observation and analysis and those who think that it is achieved exclusively through faith and scripture.  Those of us who feel that both play important roles in our attempts to understand ourselves and our universe (which is to say, most of us) shouldn't even bother to participate.

An essay by Eric Cornell*, a scientist, puts the matter in perspective.  Cornell says that something called Rayleigh scattering offers a scientific explanation for why the sky is blue.  Before science understood Rayleigh scattering, no explanation existed for the blueness of the sky other than that "God wanted it that way."  Cornell goes on to point out that the scientific explanation does not rule out the older, nonscientific one.  "The religious explanation," he writes, "has been supplemented – but not supplanted – by advances in scientific knowledge.  We may now, if we care to, think of Rayleigh scattering as the method God has chosen to implement his color scheme." (Italics are mine.) 

In other words, a scientific explanation for the blueness of the sky should not bother any religious people unless their scripture states that God made it blue with a giant paintbrush.  And such an explanation doesn't even come close to threatening one's belief in God – unless, of course, one's belief is precarious already.

As Cornell points out, science does not even debate whether God wanted it that way.  "Science," he says, "isn't about knowing the mind of God; it's about understanding nature and the reasons for things."  Science draws a box around certain facts obtained by observation and experimentation and says:  "These things we know."  Outside that box is a huge area that science says consists of things it doesn't know.  It admits that its ignorance exceeds its knowledge, and the business of science is to explore that vast area of ignorance, to discover what it can, to put a few more facts in the box.  It cannot do that, Cornell says, if we say that everything outside the box of known fact can be explained "only by invoking God's will."  If we do this, we shall stop altogether learning any more about "nature and the reasons for things."

By exploring the unexplained, science does not threaten religious faith (though some people with fixed religious beliefs may feel threatened by it), but if science does not explore the unexplained, knowledge stops with what we already know.  In essence, science, along with all the benefits we accrue from it such as medicine and advanced technology, ceases to exist – unless, of course, we completely redefine the word science, as some folks in Kansas are now trying to do.

Beyond the box of known facts and beyond the vast area that science explores outside the box is an immense area that science declares unknowable, at least in terms of scientific knowledge.  It is not, by its very nature, of any concern to science.  This is the area that encompasses ethics, morals, values, and, if you will, religion.  This is not to say that scientists are not concerned with ethics, morals, values, and religion.  They are and they should be, but science itself is not.  These matters are the concern of other disciplines such as religion and philosophy – disciplines in which scientists may participate as human beings but which are not their concern as scientists.

There is not, therefore, any inherent conflict between science and religion, as those of the fundamentalist persuasion would have us believe.  Science on the one hand and religion on the other attempt to explain two quite distinct parts of the human experience.  Science leaves plenty of room for faith.  No matter how much data science manages to put into the box of known facts, much that is unknown – and probably even more that is unknowable by scientific method – will remain outside the box.

Why then should people with a certain faith feel threatened by a scientific theory?  Why do they feel compelled to defensively attack science and scientists?  Is it because their faith is, in fact, too fragile to coexist with fact?  Or is it that their minds are incapable of grasping that the blueness of the sky may be explained in terms of both Rayleigh scattering and God's desire to have it that way.  Or are they – as seems to be the case with the creationists and intelligent design advocates – just spoiling for a fight so that they can impose their agenda and their own hypotheses about the unknowable upon everyone else?

Neither science nor religion is the enemy of truth in the broader sense.  Both seek understanding of the human experience and the human condition.  We may, for example, explain the experience of love between two humans in terms of biology (and biological attraction) – i.e., scientifically.  We may also explain this emotion in psychological terms – i.e., to include factors that have little to do with pure biology.  Yet, even when we have explored all of these explanations, most of us would agree that the experience of love includes elements that we cannot, and may never be able to, fully understand.  This part of love remains a mystery, and its mysteriousness is part of its enchantment.  Biological and psychological explanations do not preclude the existence of elements beyond the reach of these explanations.  Nor does the existence of mysterious elements invalidate the biological and psychological explanations.

So it is, or should be, with all of life itself.  Some of it is understandable in terms of pure science, some in terms of other disciplines such as psychology.  As we seek more knowledge about ourselves and our universe, more details fall within the realm of scientific understanding.  But, given the variety and complexity of life, much remains unknown and possibly unknowable.  We need to be broad-minded, open-minded, and humble enough to admit that we have far more unanswered questions than we have answers.  The origin of life, the exact nature of the uncaused first cause, is one of these unanswered questions.  It is folly and arrogance to presume, as both the creationists and intelligent designers do, that theirs is the one and only answer.

*"What Was God Thinking? Science Can't Tell."  Time. 14 Nov., 2005.