by Tara Allan Stewart

Created on: February 19, 2009

CREATIONISM AND THE SCIENTIFIC MIND

Robert Frost wrote, "Two roads diverged and I/ I took the one less traveled by/ and that has made all the difference."

I knew a man who was a genius in the field of Proteomics, the study of proteins, and he held a PhD and post-doctoral degree. His wife was a chemist in his laboratory, gleaning as much as she could during his life to aid her in her own work. He was an amazing scientist. Imagine my amazement when he got out an atlas from his home in Romania and showed me where he believed the actual Garden of Eden once existed.

Both my husband and I would listen to him and watch how excited he became when discussing either topic - Science or Proteomics. He insisted there was no problem with believing in both. Yet this man was born in a country that remained Communist through the majority of his short life (he died before he reached 40). In Romania, it was against the law to practice Christianity until he was well into his adulthood. They were considered subversive, or would have been, had their beliefs been made known.

Never, though, did my friends try to convert anyone to believe as they did. Whereas I was raised a Christian before I could make up my mind, as was my father and his father, these people were delighted to be free to believe in and discuss openly such things as creationism. We also discussed evolution, and the fact, given us originally by Einstein, that energy never dies - it just changes form.

I do have a point here. This was the exception to the rule, and at no time did they believe their son should be taught creationism in the school. School is for science, mathematics, language, history. He learned a bit by overhearing conversations at home, but the boy was free to be who he wanted to be, to believe as he chose to believe. You see, they understood something very precious that we have lost track of - freedom.

Schools teach science, Darwin's theories, Stephen Hawking's theories, ideas that grow as we learn more and more. Schools are for learning, and we have the freedom to learn all we can if we take advantage of our good fortune when it comes to education. Those who have lost their way have learned to take that precious freedom for granted. They have lost sight of the difference between believing, which one learns from life, and knowing, which comes from education.

Believe what you want to, but when it comes to our schools, teach the children to multiply, divide, spell, use grammar, and use the scientific process to find the true answers to the big questions. If they can't find them, they will have been given the tools to look and think and learn for themselves, not repeat what has been drilled into them beyond the skills needed to learn.

Schools have a specific role. Teach a certain important set of skills to children so they can become adults who contribute, write books, teach others, get higher education, there is nothing open to anyone except an entire world, starting with a small protein and perhaps, someday, reaching the Garden of Eden. Teach them to read and they may go home and read the bible. We all make our own choices. My friend made both work for him. In school he learned to think. He chose to explore everything he could.

Do not blur the lines. There is a set of specific tools in curriculum. There is a set of tools learned outside of school. Sometimes they intersect, but in the case of religion, school is not the place to teach a possibility of creationism when we live with the reality of evolution every day.

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