DATE: Thursday, April 24, 1997              TAG: 9704240377

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY NANCY YOUNG, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:  179 lines

CREATIONISM DEBATE ALMOST AS COMPLEX AS LIFE WITHIN EACH CAMP, OPINIONS VARY WIDELY ABOUT THE COMPETING THEORIES.

The debate over the origin of life is not new.

Neither is the venom that characterizes much of the debate, often turning it into a shouting match about who is the most enlightened or the most ignorant.

Reasonable people, in Hampton Roads and elsewhere, are still looking for ways to have the conversation about basic beliefs.

No one's saying it will be easy.

Consider the North Carolina clergyman who described evolutionists in 1926 this way:

``They are not 100 percent Americans, but an insane set of ignorant educated fools, who insist on lowering their own organic life to that of a monkey or an animal,'' the clergyman was quoted as saying.

Sixty years later, a political cartoon depicted five brains of different sizes. The smallest, the size of a pin head, was identified as ``the brain of the creationist.'' The caption read: ``Proof of Evolution.''

Now the debate has surfaced again, in Chesapeake, as the school district tries to figure out ways to make intelligent-design - or creation science theory - materials available to students without violating laws against mandating that teachers teach the subject.

But how people actually feel about the issue may be more complex than the characterizations of ideological opponents.

Several of the more than 1,800 responses to a Virginian-Pilot survey following an article in Tuesday's paper supported teaching what creation science theory is, on the basis that it is only fair to show children ``both sides'' of the issue.

Problem is, there are more than two sides.

Take evolution. There's more than one way to look at it without turning to creation science theory.

``It's a debate on process, not evolution,'' said Paul Resslar, a biology professor at Virginia Wesleyan College. ``It's not on whether evolution occurred; it's how.''

Resslar, who teaches a course on evolution, said the current debate in the scientific community primarily is between those who believe in the Darwinian theory that organisms gradually evolve over a long time and those who believe in a theory of ``punctuated equilibrium,'' which says that organisms go for a long time without evolving much at all, and then evolve in short bursts.

``The end result is still the same,'' said Resslar, who then posed yet a third alternative. ``Personally, I think both of them occur.''

To Resslar, creation science and evolutionary science are not scientifically equivalent. Because of that, he said, the issue of teaching both in public schools is more than an issue of fairness and getting students to hear ``both sides.''

``(Creation science) is bad science because in science, you take observations and make explanations from those observations,'' Resslar said. ``That's what evolutionary theory does. . . . In creation science, you're starting with your explanation. It's backwards.''

Resslar said high school teachers should concentrate more on teaching the process of science. If they did that, he said, it might even be a good idea to have students test out intelligent-design theory.

``If it was fairly and honestly done, it would be a good thing because it would show immediately that it doesn't follow method,'' said Resslar.

William B. Jones, a philosophy professor at Old Dominion University who specializes in philosophy of science, agrees that simply to teach the theories side by side in a science class would ``mislead people'' because the scientific evidence strongly favors evolution.

But, Jones said, scientists lose credibility when they present evidence as infallible.

``There are post-modernists who think you can discount science completely, and there are those who think science has the answer to everything without really being able to answer why science is worth doing in the first place,'' said Jones.

Jones said too many of his students come into class sure of ``facts'' they can't back up other than to say, ``I was just taught this as a fact.''

``We need to present science more in its fallibility,'' Jones said. ``We can be wrong in ways we haven't imagined.''

Then why not go ahead and present creation science theory - or any other theory on the origin of life - and let students decide for themselves? Wouldn't it just help them become more-critical thinkers?

``That's an interesting idea, but it raises enormous philosophical complications,'' said Jones. The complications he mentioned chiefly revolve around the separation of church and state.

``We think we've resolved that, but we haven't,'' said Jones.

But there's no reason to bring up religion when discussing creation science theory in a science class, said John Munday, a professor of government and associate dean for academic affairs at the Robertson School of Government at Regent University.

``It's possible to have that discussion,'' said Munday, who specializes in issues where faith, science and government intersect. ``It's possible to talk about intelligent design without talking about God. . . . There are evolutionists who are atheists, and agnostics who are against teaching creation science on the basis that it's a camel's-nose-in-the-tent way of getting God in the classroom. I think that's too strong a reaction.''

Munday said creation science theory is often over-simplified and - as with evolutionary theory - there is room for disagreement within the theory itself.

For example, he said, some creation scientists believe that the world is thousands of years old and that layers of fossil evidence point to a sudden worldwide flood. Others look at the same evidence and come to the conclusion that the Earth is billions of years old - as would be consistent with evolutionary theory.

``I think it's a more complicated issue than can be described in terms of a dichotomy,'' said Munday. ``People rather simply characterize us as falling into two neat categories: In evolution, we're dealing with science. In creation science, we're dealing with religion. . . . There are some intermediate positions that are very interesting.''

Instead, Munday said, evolutionists need to be more honest about admitting that there are issues of faith involved in evolutionary theory, just as there are issues of science in creation science theory.

``They have both religious and scientific dimensions,'' said Munday. ``In offering an evolutionary theory, one is treading into an area that has a religious aspect. To act as if it's not religious in some dimension is not fair. It's just not true.''

But Resslar said that religion and science need to be kept separate. It's when the two enter into each other's territories that there are problems.

``Science tries to explain what happens in nature. Religion tries to do something entirely different. It gives an ethical basis for how we live,'' said Resslar. ``You can have good science and good religion, but you cannot mix the two.''

Resslar also said the connection that some make between atheism and evolution does not come from the scientific community.

``A scientist would never attempt to determine whether there's a God or not, because there's no way to test that,'' he said.

Munday said that more open conversations are needed.

``We need to talk more intelligently with one another,'' he said. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

STEVE EARLEY/The Virginian-Pilot

Paul Resslar, a professor of biology at Virginia Wesleyan College,

says there is lively debate even among evolution's supporters.

BIG BANG

``Evolution theory''

Basic tenets:

Natural processes transformed primeval energy/matter into life,

including human life.

The development of life took place over billions of years.

Organisms transform over time, sometimes creating new species.

Best supporting evidence:

The fossil record includes abundant transitional forms.

Carbon dating shows that the universe is billions of years old.

Natural selection can be demonstrated with numerous examples,

both existing and extinct.

Arguments against evolution:

Complexity doesn't arise out of randomness.

Intermediate steps between species are not always apparent from

the fossil record.

No one has ever seen one species arise from another.

Underlying values:

There's a rational and scientific explanation for everything in

nature.

Science and religion are concerned with totally different spheres

of human activity, and though there need not be a conflict between

them, they should not be mixed, either.

``Creation theory''

Basic tenets:

Life began as the result of a plan.

Plants and animals were created complete and in essentially their

present forms.

Variations, such as those caused by ``natural selection'' are

limited to within the same species. Life began a relatively short

time ago.

Best supporting evidence:

The Bible is the ultimate authority of truth and it must be

believed.

The design and purpose demonstrated in nature requires

intelligence. The abrupt appearance of fully formed plants and

animals in the fossil record.

Arguments against creation science:

Carbon dating and other evidence shows that the universe is

billions of years old and that life has existed much longer than the

biblical explanation of creation can account for.

The fossil records are wholly consistent with evolution theory.

Creationism is teleological: It begins with an untestable

assumption and acknowledges as valid only those data that support

that assumption.

Underlying values:

Mankind is special, different from animals, and human beings were

put here for a purpose.

A force greater than mankind is in control.

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