by Eric Lannak

Created on: March 18, 2008   Last Updated: April 19, 2012

Creationism should be taught in schools because it is a hotly contested social and philosophical issue. Students will undoubtedly run into the creationism-vs.-evolution issue sometime in their lives, and should be educated on the subject.

But it should not be taught alongside evolution in a science curriculum. Creationism is not a science. It should be taught in Social Studies along with abortion issues and human rights.

For many religions and cultures, it is believed that some divine agent created the world, in more-or-less its current form. The history of creationism runs back to the earliest known writings and and beliefs, and is the foundation of most religious faiths.

But science is a rigorous discipline. Facts are analyzed, debated, defined, and verified. It is a method of inquiry, not a justification of faith.

The scientific approach

Science is the attempt to understand our world by organizing what we know, verifying what we think we know, and eliminating the stuff that can be disproved.

The scientific community is certainly guilty of marginalizing thoughts that lack sufficient proof, but it doesn't disallow those lines of thought. Indeed, some of the greatest scientific discoveries have come from exploring the unexplained or unverified. It was just such explorations that led Einstein, Newton, and Copernicus to their earthshaking conclusions.

But the scientific method starts with a hypothesis, an idea put together from available information. It then tests that hypothesis, hoping to prove or disprove it regardless of the outcome. Then the results are reported and other researchers test those results and build on them.

The creationist approach

The aim of creationism is to explain the world in terms of religious doctrine. This is a case of putting the cart before the horse... explaining the conclusion after you've made it. It is not investigation, it's justification. This is not the scientific method.

A more sophisticated version of creationism is "intelligent design", which aims to use statistical techniques to disprove current theories. Their aim is to poke holes in current thought on the creation of the universe and man.

You can read more about this on the Discovery Institute Center for Science and Culture at http://www.intelligentdesign.org/ . This is a leading intelligent design organization, and they make some persuasive arguments... but they offer no testing or proof. Their work is useful in that it brings up questions for researchers to address.

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