If It's Supernatural It Isn't Science
by Edward J. Larson
Edward J. Larson teaches the history of science and law at the University of Georgia and is the author of "Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory" (Random House, 2004).

November 24, 2004

National media attention focused on suburban Cobb County, Ga., last week as a federal court heard constitutional challenges to a school district policy requiring that a biology textbook carry this disclaimer: "Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered." Plaintiffs complain that the disclaimer, which is similar to others popping up in school districts from Alabama to Wisconsin, violates the separation of church and state. But scientists themselves call evolution a theory. Why can't a school district?

…The norms of science call upon scientists to account for physical phenomena in terms of natural — repeatable, observable, testable — causes. Even if God specifically created the first humans in his image in a one-time event, that could not be a naturalistic explanation for our existence. It might be true, but it cannot be science. It's supernatural, not natural.

Mixing scientific and religious explanations for origins in a classroom is a bit like mixing apples and oranges in a bowl. It can be done, but they're still different fruits. Consider recent trends in medical education to incorporate some discussion of the healing power of prayer into the curriculum. In most cases, this involves alerting medical students to evidence that prayer can give patients psychological strength to battle disease, not teaching them how to invoke God's help to heal patients miraculously — or undermining theories of natural causation in medicine. As far as I know, neither God's judgment nor demon possession is presented as sources of illness in licensed medical schools. We expect our physicians to learn the germ theory of disease, not faith healing.

Similarly, the educational effect of teaching evolution as a theory depends on how it's done. If students learn to understand a theory as scientists do, then they may better appreciate the nature, power and limits of evolutionary science as a developing tool for understanding life. But if they are allowed to conclude that the theory of evolution is little more than Darwin's best guess on the origin of species, then science education is gravely undermined.