It\u2019s in Northern Kentucky, just south of Cincinnati. For only $75 you can get a \u201ccombo\u201d ticket \u2013 one adult, good for the Creation Museum and a tour of a life sized replica of Noah\u2019s Ark. You can even catch a glimpse of the boat from I-75 as you speed toward Lexington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Creation Museum calls out to you: \u201cPrepare to Believe!!\u201d It is the most visible national sign of \u201ccreation science,\u201d the re-branding of the Biblical book of Genesis as a \u201cscientific\u201d view. The Museum even accounts for fossils, found in the silt and sand. They say they were buried during the Deluge. Before the Flood, according to \u201ccreation science,\u201d man and dinosaur coexisted on earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s nothing wrong with the Creation Museum, or the life sized Ark. They are built with the same intent as Medieval Cathedrals, as monuments to religious devotion and belief. To the believers, they are places to remind them of the wonders of their faith. To the non-believers, those same places remind them of the religious dedication of their fellow men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We learned the definition in school: science is the study of the world based on developing a hypothesis, or theory, then using provable facts to support, modify, or dismiss it. Religion is a belief system based on faith. These are not opposites; they can both exist in the same space. What cannot happen: provable facts cannot be confused with faith-based beliefs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So the facts of science, stacked into provable concepts, always subject to verification by new facts, are tangible. You can look at evidence, physically touch the fossils, and understand the concepts of Carbon Dating and time. Millions of years cannot be condensed into the Biblical generations adding up to 6000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I first started teaching school in the late 1970\u2019s, public education in Ohio had reached a balance between facts and faith. In science class, evolution was taught, and the facts were laid out. Students were required to know and understand those facts, but they were not required to \u201cbelieve\u201d them if their faith taught them differently. They could have \u201cfaith\u201d in what they wanted, but had to know the facts to pass the tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was a distinction between Biblical creation and evolution. Good teachers made it clear that many of the scientists who worked in evolution, including Charles Darwin, believed they were describing \u201cthe plan\u201d used by the Deity. But \u201cthe facts\u201d of evolution were delineated from the \u201cfaith,\u201d whatever that was, of the scientists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there was a backlash that took hold later in the 1980\u2019s. It started with \u201ccreation science,\u201d a skillfully manipulated \u201cterm of art\u201d that cloaked faith in the language of science. Since it sounded like science, the proponents demanded that it be given the same standing in science class. In 1987 the US Supreme Court ruled that it was in fact faith, not science. Teaching \u201ccreation science\u201d in public schools, the Court ruled, was the government taking \u201ca side\u201d in religion, in violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution (Edwards v Aguillard 438 US 578, 1987). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then it was rebranded, this time as the \u201cscientific theory of intelligent design.\u201d Intelligent design hypothesizes that the complexity of life on earth are too great to have been \u201crandom chance\u201d over millions of years, and therefore required some unseen force directing its design \u2013 in other words, a Deity. The proponents did an even better job of cloaking their religious views in scientific terms, and demanded that \u201cintelligent design\u201d get equal time with evolution in science class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Federal District Judges have ruled that intelligent design does not meet the non-religious criteria set in Edwards to be taught in public schools (Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School Dist., 400 F. Supp. 2d 707, M.D. Pa. 2005). But the pressure on teachers, administrators, and local school boards from religious groups has been intense. Many science teachers in public schools today avoid teaching about evolution. Instead, they teach \u201cthe facts\u201d of science, but leave the terms, evolution in particular, out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the battle may have been won in the Courts, it still plays out in Board of Education meetings every year. And while the Courts may be on \u201csecular\u201d teacher\u2019s side, that doesn’t help much when three out of five school board members were elected to back \u201cintelligent design\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our political discourse today is rampant with differing \u201csets of facts\u201d. We look at, for example, the testimony in the House Intelligence Committee hearings, and hear absolutely opposite things. For one side, there is clear evidence that the President of the United States attempted to bribe another nation for help with his campaign. For the other side, it\u2019s clear that the President did nothing wrong (or at least that\u2019s what they say). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even in the Vietnam War crisis of the 1960\u2019s, it seemed that there was a single set of facts that could be discussed. And when the most trusted source of those facts, CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite, questioned the war, it impacted the view of the entire nation. Today there is no person with that kind of influence. We don\u2019t just disagree, we don\u2019t believe in the same set evidence and facts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When did that happen? Is our national factual dispute just the creation of Roger Ailes and Fox News? Here\u2019s a \u201cfact\u201d to think about: the \u201cfacts\u201d first disputed were in the classrooms of public schools. Students were allowed to conflate facts and faith, and encouraged to \u201ccreate\u201d their own facts. If that worked for evolution, why not for other uncomfortable \u201cfacts\u201d in society: for poverty, immigration, and climate change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Teachers aren\u2019t the only ones teaching students. Perhaps our national \u201caccommodations\u201d for creationism in the past forty years created a national willingness to accept only the facts that fit our existing views. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEveryone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s not what we\u2019re teaching.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"