Raise Your Hand if You Don’t Believe in Evolution, in a Subtle/Nuanced/Well-Reasoned Way

Today’s NYT features and op-ed piece by Sam Brownback (Republican Senator from KS and presidential candidate) titled “What I Think About Evolution.” It addresses the moment at the last Republican debate when the moderator asked John McCain if he believed in evolution. McCain answered simply, “Yes.” Then the moderator asked the candidates who did not believe in evolution to raise their hands: Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee, and Tom Tancredo all raised their hands. Yikes.

Brownback begins his op-ed by noting, “In our sound-bite political culture, it is unrealistic to expect that every complicated issue will be addressed with the nuance or subtlety it deserves.” That’s certainly true, and the evolution/creationism/intelligent design debate is complex, particularly for people who both believe in God and refuse to discount science.

But another truth about our society is that our politicians are often less than 100% honest; they are skilled at seeming to answer questions while actually dodging them and at using rhetoric that disguises their true beliefs and intentions. Which is exactly what this essay does.

“The premise behind the question seems to be that if one does not unhesitatingly assert belief in evolution, then one must necessarily believe that God created the world and everything in it in six 24-hour days. But limiting this question to a stark choice between evolution and creationism does a disservice to the complexity of the interaction between science, faith and reason.”

This sounds like Brownback is saying that the one form that evolution denial can take is believing that God created the entire world in six 24-hours days. That’s simply not the case. Creationists can believe that each of those days was some sort of god-day, which could measure out to several thousand years, and still not believe in evolution. There are any number of ways to tweak this – the point is that evolution doesn’t just mean that the Earth and biosphere came into existence in more than a calendar week. It does mean that, but it also means many other things, which Brownback either really doesn’t understand or cleverly omits from his essay. I’m guessing the latter.

“The question of evolution goes to the heart of this issue. If belief in evolution means simply assenting to microevolution, small changes over time within a species, I am happy to say, as I have in the past, that I believe it to be true. If, on the other hand, it means assenting to an exclusively materialistic, deterministic vision of the world that holds no place for a guiding intelligence, then I reject it.”

It’s kind of hilarious when people do exactly what they accuse someone else of having done to them. Brownback is accusing the moderator of setting up a false dichotomy in the debate, and then 3 short paragraphs later he offers one of his own. “If belief in evolution means simply assenting to microevolution, small changes over time within a species…” Well, uhm, it doesn’t. Small changes within a species over time is not what evolution means. Evolution means changes over time that eventually mean that a single species can – wait for it – evolve into several other species. It means DNA mutation, natural selection, speciation, vestigial organs. And it means that we share a common ancestor with chimpanzees. Sorry.

Brownback continues to skirt the issue. I’d really like to know how long he thinks it took God to create the world. But no, no, he would rather discuss the relationship between faith and reason. He doesn’t want anyone to “drive a wedge” between faith and reason. He writes, “I believe wholeheartedly that there cannot be any contradiction between the two.” Here is the problem. There is a wedge between faith and reason. Nobody has to drive it there. Jesus rose from the dead? Ok fine. That’s faith. Human beings stay dead when they die? Ok fine. That’s reason. You don’t have to choose one over the other 100% of the time, but you do have to identify which one you are using to answer what questions. You cannot “use them to inform one another” or have religion “bring something to the table in scientific discussion.” Sorry again, but NO.

When I was studying at a certain pinko commie liberal atheist elite institution, I took a class called Thinking About Thinking, with Stephen J. Gould, Alan Dershowitz, and Harvey Cox. Gould was a brilliant evolutionary biologist, and Cox is an excellent theologian. One of the topics they debated, and we discussed, in the class was the debate about evolution. And there I learned the best (and to me, only) way to think about evolution. Gould has a way of thinking about evolution that both acknowledges science and does not disrespect religion. And he gave it an acronym! The principle is NOMA, or nonoverlapping magisteria, and it means this: some questions can be answered with religion/faith; other questions can be answered with science/reason.

Let’s practice:

What happens to me when I die? (faith/religion)
What happens when I mix hydrochloric acid with water? (reason/science)
What are the moral implications of the way I treat other people? (oooo – both!)
Is there a god? (faith/religion)
Is there global warming? (reason/science)

Brownback goes on,
“The unique and special place of each and every person in creation is a fundamental truth that must be safeguarded. I am wary of any theory that seeks to undermine man’s essential dignity and unique and intended place in the cosmos.”

Here’s the thing. Evolutionary biologists don’t disrespect people. They don’t “seek to undermine man’s essential dignity.” If you get your essential dignity from the origins of your distant distant ancestors’ DNA, then you have a f*ed up concept of dignity.

Brownback’s essay demonstrates something even scarier than his excellent political posturing/question avoidance/deflection skills (which, seriously, are mad awesome): a deep fundamentalism but a reluctance to fully own that fundamentalism. You want to take the Bible literally? Fine. But if you’re running for president, lay your cards on the table and say “I take the Bible literally.” That’s important. Particularly when the Bible says some stuff about end times and wars with Israel and her enemies and the end of days shall come when the etc etc. I don’t need my president to convert to the Church of Secular Humanism, but I do need him/her to believe that the Earth is not going to end in the next 50-100 years. That makes for poor long-term planning.