The categories of conflict, independence, dialogue, and integration have been used to organize the wealth of opinion on the relationship of science and religion (Barbour, 1997). This approach is especially useful in college or high school science courses, or special seminars, because it allows the instructor to locate his or her own opinion, and challenge students to determine their own beliefs. This effectively lays most opinions “on the table” for display in a free market of ideas. Using this approach, students can examine the strengths and shortcomings of major opinions, and it has the advantage of preserving the dignity of all religious views that reside in the science classroom, without compromising any science. The wealth and depth of new ideas that have been forthcoming from both science and theology offer the exciting promise of future wisdom that can serve both religion and science.

After two centuries of scientific endeavor, scientists have concluded that the age of the Earth is 4.54 billion years. This value, which is based on the relationships between lead isotopes in meteorites and in the Earth, has an uncertainty of less than 1 percent and is consistent with numerous radiometric age measurements on ancient rocks found on the Earth and Moon as well as on meteorites. In addition, the antiquity of the Earth is consistent with evidence indicating that the Milky Way Galaxy and the universe are of the order of 14-16 billion years (abbreviated Ga) in age.

Determination of the time sequence in the geologic record is a logical process that involves little “guesswork.” The geologic time scale is real, not a circular argument developed to show evolution. By applying Occam's Razor and assuming continuity, it is clear that biotic succession in apparent lineages demonstrates that species are capable of giving rise to others through modification with descent and have done so through geologic time. Although the fossil record is incomplete, biotic succession on a large scale provides a clear and unambiguous outline of the history of the change in life over time.

Science seeks explanations for observations and facts that begin as hypotheses. When hypotheses successfully survive rigorous testing, they mature into accepted theories. Evolution is the theory accepted as the explanation for the facts of biotic succession. The operational processes invoked in the theory of evolution (such as mutation, natural selection, isolation, and genetic drift) have been successfully tested many times. The general pattern of biotic succession follows the path expected or predicted for the course of the evolutionary development of the biosphere.

The biotic succession is the preserved result of the operation of the processes of organic evolution. Contributions from molecular biology and cladistics make it clear that the branching processes in evolution, operating over time, have produced all the diversity preserved in the fossil record. The current diversity of life is simply the product of its three and a half billion year history.

The record of the history of life, as preserved in the fossil record, is not complete for reasons related to erosion and deposition, preservation and sampling bias, and approaches to analysis of the information provided by fossils. Incomplete knowledge is not unique to paleontology; the record of extant humans is no better for many questions of human genealogy. The problem is not that there are no or few transitional fossils; it is rather that, given the incompleteness of the fossil record, it is unreasonable to expect to find transitions of forms rather than transitions of features. The use of cladistic analysis largely overcomes this problem methodologically, but does not itself improve the fossil record. However, when the characters of fossil and living taxa are analyzed cladistically, they can tell us not only the sequence of origination of clades, but also how functional, adaptational, physiological, and behavioral transitions took place. In this way, hypotheses about the origins of major groups and major adaptations can be tested by standard scientific methods. In contrast, notions of the ontology of these groups as explained by “Intelligent Design” are vacuous and untestable.

The publication in 1859 of Charles Darwin's epoch-making book On the Origin of Species touched off a national debate that continues to divide American society. Scarcely a week passes without some evolution-related story appearing in the news: religious leaders declaring the scientific legitimacy of biological evolution, politicians expressing their belief in divine creation, local school boards wrangling over the teaching of origins, professors being ordered to refrain from questioning evolution in the classroom, state legislatures debating whether to fire teachers who present evolution as a fact, biology textbooks carrying disclaimers denying the factual basis of evolution, scientists claiming that they have discovered evidence of Intelligent Design in the natural world, and public-opinion polls showing that nearly half of all Americans believe in the recent special creation of the first humans.

“Creation Science” is a philosophical hydra that seems to strike at a wide range of ideas and data accepted by nearly all professional biologists, paleontologists, geologists, and astronomers. “Creation Science” (here, simply, Creationism) holds views of natural processes that are so diametrically opposed to those of orthodox science, one would assume both views could not coexist in a rational world. And yet, overwhelming numbers of Americans accept much of the Creationist position, and unknown numbers accept at least some of its tenets (such as the uniqueness of humans, as distinct from “animals”).

Mainstream scientists, including Woodward, Buckland, Prestwich, Suess, and Ryan and Pitman, have proposed a variety of theories to explain the biblical deluge. The extent of the flood in these theories has decreased as empirical knowledge of global geology has increased. In contrast, contemporary flood geology attempts to explain most of the geologic record in terms of a single, year-long, global catastrophe. Flood geology exists in the context of an alternate scientific universe with its own institutions, organizations, journals, and meetings. The views of Leonard Brand, Steven Austin, and Walt Brown, representative of flood geology, are discussed.

Coal is the most abundant fossil fuel resource, acting as a terrestrial carbon sink since the evolution of forests in the Late Devonian. Debate concerning its accumulation began centuries ago when naturalists ascribed its formation to catastrophism associated with the Genesis Flood. With empirical data derived from both modern peat accumulations and ancient coal deposits in the mid-to-late 19th Century, the general scientific community developed a set of criteria upon which to demonstrate the autochthonous (in situ) nature of most peat accumulations. At the same time, adherents to the teachings of Ellen G. White, the Seventh Day Adventist leader, and George McCready Price continued to propagate the idea that our global coal (and oil) reserves were the result of the Noachian Flood. In Price's model, adapted and changed by recent creationists, all continents were denuded by strong tidal activity inherent in the Flood waters. Rafts of floating vegetation were transported to ocean basins where they sank en masse, forming coal deposits, with subsequent burial by siliciclastics and limestones derived from the erosion of alternative source areas. The alternation of vegetation mats derived from one source area and sediments derived from another throughout the year of the Flood accounted for the stratigraphic sequence in coal-bearing strata.

The American student population is largely religious and a significant minority rejects evolution. Evolution and other scientific theories are restricted to explaining through natural cause (methodological materialism), but because evolution has existential connotations, many students confuse the ability to explain through natural cause with a conclusion that therefore God does not exist (philosophical materialism). To some, if God does not exist, life has no purpose or meaning, and acceptance of evolution brings on an existential crisis. Differing understandings of four concepts (cause, purpose, design, and chance) commonly used in the teaching of evolution may exacerbate antievolutionism if students conflate their own existential meanings of these terms with the definitions within science. Cause, purpose, and design to many students include the notion of supernatural cause, purpose, and design, whereas chance is often thought to mean “purposeless” or “random” (in the sense of unpredictable.) Professors should teach evolution in a religiously-neutral fashion, thus allowing religious students to find compatibility between their religious views and science.

Evolution is the great synthesizing principle of biology and cosmology that our students deserve to know in order to understand their world most fully. Yet evolution has social Darwinism as its dark side. An evolutionism or a scientism that teaches in the name of science that there is no God, there is no soul, there is no ultimate purpose in life, and there is no such thing as free will is not the friend of society. Creationists reject evolution not in ignorance of modern science but because of the anxieties it brings. While 90% of Americans profess to believe in God, less than half the population believes in some form of evolution. Science discounts human experience, while religion is about human experience. When forced to choose between a religion that enriches human experience and an evolutionary science that ignores human experience and minimizes humans as a species, people will unhesitatingly choose the religion that gives meaning to their daily struggles. That choice is not a necessary one, but so long as the most visible public spokespersons for evolution pursue their metaphysical agenda, people will continue to choose religion.

The history of controversy over evolution and the bible is a history of confusion between biblical and scientific approaches to origins. Taking some cues from John Calvin who, in the 16th century, addressed the emerging controversies over cosmology, the paper examines a variety of differences between biblical and scientific types of literature as they deal with cosmogony. Biblical uses of phenomenal observation, analogical reasoning, numerology, and theological critique are distinguished from the approaches to origins used in modern scientific and historical investigations. Their respective models of origins are not in conflict unless they are mistakenly seen as mapping in the same way and for the same purposes.

Evolution seems most convincingly presented as a final unit in a comprehensive paleontology course, because the students by then will have learned about the procedures and data necessary to understand the relevant evidence. Transitional fossils, their logical implications, and the mechanisms of evolution should be particularly emphasized. Questions may still remain in some students' minds after presentation of the evidence, and devoting a full day to student questions helps them resolve many issues.

One of the most stimulating and enjoyable experiences of my teaching career has been an honors course on evolution and creationism, which I developed while a faculty member at the University of Mississippi. At many institutions, honors courses provide the freedom to tackle controversial subjects, employ an interdisciplinary approach, and allow professors and students to take more risks (pedagogically and conceptually) than in non-honors courses. Honors classes tend to be smaller, encourage active learning and critical thinking on the part of students, and emphasize open discussion rather than passive note taking as the faculty member lectures. Such a format is an ideal context for a course on evolution and creationism.

The scientific concepts of origin of life (biopoesis) and organic change through time (organic evolution) are often difficult to motivate students to learn, much less accept, because non-scientific viewpoints and emotions developed previously can overshadow scientific viewpoints, thus closing minds to learning. This leads to the formation of “entrenched camps” and introduces an adversarial atmosphere inherently antagonistic and counterproductive to learning. This is particularly true in the “Bible-belt” south, and in Tennessee where the evolution controversy has been especially visible in the political and legislative arenas. Inaccuracies and political solutions to teaching evolution at the K-12 levels have created an understanding of evolution fraught with misconceptions, incorrect definitions, and incomplete explanations. I have found that the real challenge to learning at this point is creating a non-threatening atmosphere of receptiveness.

In early 1981, the 73rd General Assembly of the State of Arkansas in regular session passed Senate Bill 482 without debate. Governor Frank White, immediately signed the bill, admitting that he hadn't read it, and it became state law as Act 590, the “Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act.” A suit on behalf of 23 plaintiffs was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on May 27, 1981, and a trial before Federal Judge William Overton was scheduled for October and then postponed until December, 1981. The trial began on December 7, 1981, and it received national attention. The ACLU called well-known expert witnesses in both religion (Bruce Vawter, George Marsden, and Langdon Gilkey) and science (Francisco Ayala, G. Brent Dalrymple, Stephen Jay Gould, and Carl Sagan). The state's witnesses were creationists associated with the Geoscience Research Institute, Loma Linda University, California (Harold Coffin, Ariel Roth), and the Creation Research Society, Ann Arbor, Michigan (Wayne Friar, Margaret Helder, Donald Chittick, Robert Gentry). Its “star” witness, at least in the eyes of the press, was Chandra Wickramasinghe, University College of Wales. The trial did not involve any of the high profile creationists, such as Henry Morris or Duane Gish, from the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) in San Diego, even though it was disclosed that Wendall R. Bird, an attorney associated with (ICR), had written the act. Both sides called local educators. Judge Overton issued his ruling and an injunction permanently prohibiting enforcement of Act 590 on January 5, 1982. The state did not appeal his ruling.