Wednesday, May 13, 1998
Freedom of biology
SCIENCE: Ideas evolve
as religious beliefs, scientific theory collide
in the classroom
By Michelle Navarro
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Almost 140 years after Charles Darwin’s "The Origin of Species"
made its debut, sending shock waves around the world, there still
exists that conflict between science and religion. However, now
it’s on a smaller, more personal scale.
After the completion of her Life Sciences 1 course, Dijanna
Smotherman wrote a two-page evaluation of her professor, mostly
explaining how she felt about being taught evolution.
"I really felt uncomfortable," said Smotherman, a second-year
marine biology student, "and I wanted to do something about it. So
when evaluation time came, I wrote an essay about how she should
change her teaching style."
From Life Sciences 1 to Biology 121, an entire course devoted to
evolution, a religious student taking the science route in UCLA
cannot avoid learning about the theory.
As it is taught, evolution by natural selection essentially says
that over time, and due to heredity and variations in reproductive
success and allele frequency, organisms change to adapt to their
environment.
It is an explanation for why organisms have the means to survive
that they do today. So, it means humans always didn’t look they way
they do now, that they evolved.
People argue that this, among other things, contradicts most
creationistic views. So it alone may yield discomfort for someone
who practices such religions based on Christianity and other
Abrahamic faiths.
But the conflict that roams the minds of students today doesn’t
involve so much the fact that the theory is taught as it does with
the way it’s taught.
From snide remarks in lecture to teaching evolution by natural
selection as more of a fact than theory, it’s making some religious
Bruins uneasy.
Perhaps it just slips out, or the opportunity just cannot be
overlooked, but a joke here and there about the pope or the Bible
occasionally manages to surface when some professors discuss
evolution.
"The people I know and talk with in the department try to be
sympathetic about religion," said Henry Hespenheide, associate
professor in the department of biology. "You try to be respectful
but sometimes someone is down and determined to be offended."
In just looking at the number of religious groups on campus,
there may be a sizable amount of students who embrace the
creationist theory. But is it going too far to ask for more
sensitivity toward religious students in science courses?
"It’s pretty hard these days not to offend anyone," Hespenheide
said. "You can’t give offense unless someone else is willing to
take it."
According to the professor, people should be able to make jokes
or to have a sense of humor about the topics they believe deeply
in. If that is not possible, that person should look at why.
However, Hespenheide paused and added a little side note.
"My parents probably don’t appreciate jokes about their
religion," he said, explaining that he was raised in a
fundamentalist home.
But if the sensitivity is granted to the religious, the
religious should return it back. One Seventh-Day Adventist student
saw the relationship.
"I’ve had a couple (professors) who have mocked creationism,"
said Haeli Kim, a third-year biology student. "That upsets me. But,
I guess that’s how my view of evolution is too."
Most students were first exposed to evolution in high school.
Eva Mayoral, a Santa Monica High School science teacher, said she
has never encountered any problems from teaching the theory. But,
she still uses caution when beginning the lesson.
"I tell them it’s not my intent to offend anyone, nor to
undermine anyone’s religious beliefs," Mayoral said.
From that point on, however, is where a problem both Smotherman
and Kim mentioned, develops – the manner in which evolution is
taught.
"It bothers me because they teach evolution as a fact, not as a
theory," Kim said.
Technically, it is a theory. And that’s what science is all
about – that which can be tested. Yet, some students say professors
tend to treat evolution as the only true and acceptable explanation
for life as it exists today.
If someone believes the world came about by a mechanism other
than evolution, for example God, that can be difficult to hear.
"It made me feel like I had to change my beliefs," Smotherman
said.
Thus, conflicts with the theory made popular by Darwin’s book
continue, enough to inspire a student to write a two-page
evaluation about it.
So then what are the professors to do? It’s an question even
Smotherman couldn’t answer when her professor called her up to talk
about the lengthy evaluation.
"I thought about it and I couldn’t think of anything,"
Smotherman said. "Maybe I just have to deal with it."
The same sentiment was expressed by Kim, who said that in such a
"secular environment" like UCLA, she learned to deal with it as
simply the material taught in class, but that she didn’t have to
believe it.
Interestingly enough, people are still considering teaching
creationism as an alternate explanation for evolution. Hespenheide
said one high school system in Florida is even trying to teach the
Bible as history.
As to be expected, both educators nixed the idea of bringing
religion into the classroom.
"As a person of science I must focus on the testable," Mayoral
said. "Regardless of what I believe, I cannot prove or disprove the
existence of God. Therefore, the topic of God has no place in the
science classroom."
It appears that for the most part, the two worlds are like water
and oil – they’ll never mix. However, some groups have taken steps
to allow for the possibility of working the two together. Even the
pope acknowledged the theory of evolution.
Is the integration possible? Hespenheide said science is good to
explain some things about the universe, while religion is good for
other, nonbiological aspects of it. On whether or not evolution
could fit in with creationism, he said it depends on how literal
and how in detail one reads the Bible.
"The idea (in Genesis) was to establish a relationship that we
obey something else," Hespenheide explained, "whether you want to
call it God or evolution."
He said if people start getting into the particulars of the
Bible and trying to explain them, they will have to make a
choice.
Mayoral said she tries to give her students the scientific part
of the story, so they can be fully equipped to make that
choice.
"I don’t see my role as that of a brain-washer. I see my role as
a facilitator," she said. "It’s much more powerful if students
begin to make connections and interpretations themselves. I want
them to think and interpret data and various phenomenon for
themselves. Isn’t that what scientific literacy is all about? How
can we bash religion for doing this and turn around and do the same
thing?"
After taking several courses that taught evolution, Kim made her
choice.
"Looking at the stuff I’m learning, it just reaffirms my faith
that there is a God," Kim said.
Religious students will always be present in the science rooms
and perhaps some discomfort will result. However, the choice is
still there’s to make. No one can deny them that.
"Students don’t have to believe in evolution, they just have to
understand it," Hespenheide said. "Evolution is happening, we can
demonstrate that. The question is, is evolution responsible for the
way things are? All the evidence we have supports that. They can
believe anything they want."