Hopkins students and faculty balance science and religion

By: Lena Denis

Posted: 5/1/08

Hopkins is one of the only major private institutions in the country without any historical religious affiliation. Yet, some Hopkins professors struggle to reconcile evolution, a theory accepted by the scientific communitiy, with religious beliefs found at Hopkins.

Investigation into the teaching of various Hopkins courses reveals a variety of approaches to teaching of evolution, as some professors seek to distance evolution (a scientific theory) from intelligent design theory (which they believe has less of a scientific basis), while other address both theories in their classrooms.

"The University is simultaneously a place where people come together - for many aspects of their lives - and a place that [scholarly] activity is put in a particular place of respect and honor," said Adam Falk, dean of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.

"Students interact with all sorts of issues both through the scholarly lens and through the personal kind of lens, and those go far beyond creationism and evolution," he said.

Falk is also a physics professor who teaches quantum mechanics. As someone who focuses on observation and rigorous proof to validate hypotheses, Falk worries that creationists are trying to insert their beliefs into educational curricula and "manipulate the scientific method."

"My view is that a lot of the conflict around issues like creationism comes from a confusion about what science is - people have a desire to cast arguments as scientific because in our culture that's a way of praising them," Falk said.

According to Falk, students have every right to believe what they believe, but they must follow the mandates of the discipline in which they are currently working, whether it is in a scientific context or another controversial study like history or politics.

"People from all cultures and religions embrace the scientific attribute of the University that should continue," Gregory Ball, professor from Psychological and Brain Sciences department, said.

Ball pointed out that the speaker at the founding of Hopkins was T.H. Huxley, prominent scientist known as "Darwin's bulldog" because of his support of evolutionary theory.

Ball expects his students to keep with the scientific tradition, especially since he discusses evolution in his classes.

"Creationism in terms of a theory that can explain biological phenomena isn't really viable right now, so there aren't real serious attempts to test creationist ideas, and there are attempts to question current ideas about evolution. These will continue, as they should in any healthy science," Ball said.

But scientists must see the limitations of their studies, Falk said. Science can answer many questions, but not all of them.

"Science does not pretend to answer the question why are we here. Faith is, almost by definition, that set of beliefs one has about the world for reasons that are other than one's observation of it," he said.

"I think in a lot of ways, science can talk about the how, and religion and God can talk about the why," Hopkins Fellowship of Christian Athletes President Matt Benchener said.

For him, it was important to seek solutions for more abstract ontological questions in addition to scientific ones, which led him to becoming a Christian several years ago in hopes of answering, "Where did it come from?"

He recalled being an evolution enthusiast in high school and later tempering his ideas after becoming a Christian.

Benchener believes that microevolution is valid because it is observable, but thinks that the theory of macroevolution needs to be further questioned.

According to Benchener, certain tenets such as analogous structures in animals did not seem valid.

He cited that Darwin himself admitted that his theory could never be proven unless the entire fossil record was found, which is not close to happening.

Peter Achinstein, professor of philosophy of science, taught an experimental course on the controversy several years ago entitled Special Topics in Philosophy of Science: Evolution vs. Intelligent Design.

But the course was not deemed a success and he has not taught it since.

"My purpose in the course was to look at some material from scientists who talk about God," said Peter Achinstein, referring to the cases of René Descartes and Isaac Newton, two scientists who proved the existence of God.

"They [Descartes and Newton] gave rational arguments for the existence of God," Achinstein explained, saying that Newton's reasons were empirical and Descartes's reasons were a priori.

Newton believed that the arrangement of the planets was too orderly to be an accident explained by science; therefore a higher power had to be the answer.

Similarly, Descartes's idea of how God created the universe led him to develop cornerstones of physics, including the law of conservation of mass.

In class, students have to grapple with these and more contemporary arguments for intelligent design.

"The first thing that jumps out as the most surprising was that aside from the two graduate students in this 400-level philosophy course, nobody openly embraced evolutionary theory," Victor Difate, a philosophy graduate student and teaching assistant to Achinstein, said.

Difate thinks that the number of Hopkins students who reject the validity of Darwin's theories is larger than most would expect.

He was not sure if there were any more than two supporters of evolutionary theory in his small class.

He did notice that other students tried to reconcile science with religion and made "vague" arguments in class.

Many others never spoke.

Two students in particular were firm creationists.

"Both of them seemed to want to believe that species evolved, but also at the same time wanted to believe that it was perfectly consistent that God had a hand in it," Difate explained.

According to Difate, these students ventured that God was responsible for mutations in species and that this idea was consistent with Darwin's theories.

"In Catholicism, there's always this kind of mystery - you can't answer everything with science, at least not yet," junior International Studies major Jackie Sofia said.

Sofia is the president of Catholic Community, the University's Catholic student organization.

She has never had problems with evolution in classes, but has studied other materials that come in conflict with her beliefs, such as works by Freud that negate the validity of religion as anything more than a social illusion to create order.

While she does not agree with Freud, she understands that what she is assigned is a part of historical and philosophical thought of which she should be informed, Sofia said.

"People on both sides, whether it's Christians or non-Christians, or Christians who believe in evolution or whatever - because there's a whole gamut - just need to really examine both truths," Benchener said.

"I know a lot of Christians unfortunately who will kind of blindly reject evolution without really studying it and say, well, that's not true. And I don't think that's right. We have a responsibility to really find out what the truth is."

"In terms of science, generally I don't have a problem. In fact, it sort of supports my faith and proves it to myself that it is real.

I don't think evolution necessarily implies that God doesn't exist or that God didn't create man," junior physics major Shekeab Jauhari said.

Jauhari is Muslim, and like Benchener, she does not agree with the fundamentalist voices in his religious community.

"Our knowledge as human beings is limited. There is only so much that we do know that we can conceive of," Jauhari said.

"Up to this point science has never conflicted with the teachings of my religion," she said.

Biology professor Kyle Cunningham teaches genetics and often discusses the evolution of molecules in his classes.

"I try to make it clear to students that DNA is evolving and has been evolving and a lot of it can be traced back to earlier ancestors, and even the ancestral DNA sequence can be inferred," Cunningham said.

He added that this evolution can be "proven beyond the shadow of a doubt."

He said that his students allow for ambiguities and make allowances like multiplying Biblical ages by 10 to get an accurate set of dates for the age of the Earth.

"I think students tend to figure out some way of melding their religious beliefs with the scientific evidence that has been collected," he said.

Cunningham called Biblical stories "amazing parables" by which everybody could live their lives, but is cautious to maintain that they should not be relied on for scientific fact.

"I think the creation story in the book of Genesis is actually consistent in a rudimentary sense with the evolution of life forms on the planet," Cunningham said.

He cited that the order given in Genesis of the creation of species is actually more or less aligned with evolutionary theory.

But the Sun does not revolve around the Earth, nor is the Earth flat, so scientific fact should be sought elsewhere.

Cunningham also cited a book by Dean Hamer called The God Gene, in which the author ventures that spirituality is not connected to religious fervor for many people and may be conclusive evidence that God exists.

When he considered this hypothesis, Cunningham drew a conclusion that made him chuckle.

"Evolution may be the proof that God exists. Wouldn't that be funny?"