Fundamentalism, intolerance and science

This is not the kind of story you think it will be from the headline.

Anglican priest Michael Reiss is a leading British bioethicist and science educator. Until late last year, he ran the Royal Society's science education division. Why was he driven out? Because he gave an interview in which he said that science educators ought to treat creationist students with respect. He didn't say treat creation-ism with respect, in that it ought to be taught, or treated as scientific. Rather, he said that science teachers ought to deal with creationist students with respect and sensitivity. The prospect that an officer of the Royal Society might in any way suggest that creationists are to be regarded with human respect was too much for a loud and bumptious minority of British scientists, who blackballed poor Reiss.

It was a shocking act of intolerance and injustice toward Reiss, who was plainly not guilty of what they accused him of. And it showed what intolerant bullies scientific fundamentalists can be. I heard a talk by Rev. Dr. Reiss in Cambridge last month, and he struck all of us as a consummate gentleman. He gave me an interview after his speech, which you can see here. Excerpt:

You were raised as an atheist, trained as a scientist, came to Christianity as an adult and eventually became an Anglican priest. How do you reconcile your Christianity with the theory of evolution?

It's quite important for me to say that I was indeed a scientist first, so I never went through a period where I wondered whether the early chapters of Genesis, for example, should be read literally. I was always pretty confident that the scientific understanding of the age of the world and the evolution of the species must be correct. I was then very relieved when I eventually found that, among academic theologians, even before Darwin's time, that actually was always the consensus view and that fundamentalists' literal reading of the early chapters of Genesis only really got going in the last 100, 150 years.

St. Augustine, one of the most profound theologians in the Western church, counseled against fundamentalism on the question of Genesis, right?

You're absolutely right. He wrote a rather impressive book called The Literal Interpretation of Genesis, which, despite its title, actually attacked Christians who read the first few chapters as being factual history. Augustine - a major theologian, who lived about the time of the fourth century common era - honestly did not think that was the way to read them.

I'm somebody who has a very conventional Christian faith. I have a quite literal acceptance of the Resurrection. I personally tend to think the virgin birth is probably to be understood literally; to me, it all seems to make sense. But I don't think we have to read those early chapters of Genesis as telling us about history.

What does your unpleasant experience with the Royal Society tell us about the cultural moment we're in? What broader lesson should we draw from it?

I think it does suggest - and this is true in the States as well as Europe - that we are at quite an interesting time because normal people feel themselves beleaguered. We don't any longer have, in most of our societies, a shared common set of values.

In my country, England, religious values are less important on average than they are in the States, and therefore, quite often, it's religious faiths that are more likely to be attacked. But in some parts of America, I understand, it's quite difficult if you're a firm atheist. I want to live in societies where we can have a diversity of people, even if they disagree with one another, respecting one another.

It seems to me that what happened to you - and we have similar things that happen in the U.S. on both sides of the question - puts us in a position where we cannot have the sort of necessary conversations that we must have over science and other controversial issues because people are afraid to teach controversy. It's easier just to stand back and not talk about it. But I think we're all impoverished.

And I think if that were to be the case, if people decided not to deal with controversial issues, you're right, we would indeed be impoverished. I'm actually pretty confident, pretty comfortable. In my experience, the occasional furor in the press, such as surrounded me when I was at the Royal Society, actually often makes it easier for teachers to deal with controversial issues in the classroom. And there's a fantastic tradition in the States as well as in Europe of dealing with issues of controversy.

In Texas, creationism and evolution is a very hot issue in public schools and our state Legislature. If you were going to give general advice to politicians as well as educators about how to handle this issue, what would you say?

I feel very hesitant, as someone who is manifestly English, dreaming of giving advice to people in Texas, but I would urge that we ought to have young people understanding the theory of evolution. That's not the same as trying to persuade them they've got to accept it. And a good science teacher should be able to introduce the theory of evolution and assure young people that this is, scientifically, a pretty strong consensus, without in any way giving the impression that if you don't accept this, in some way you're less intelligent. Teachers must respect the communities from which their children come.

And for myself as a teacher, I like having a diversity of pupils. You can sometimes get some really good discussions.

Here's more from Reiss, laying out his position. It makes perfect sense to me. Excerpt:

My interest has always been what to do if a pupil brings up creationism as a reason for not accepting evolution or the cosmological account of the origins of the Universe. If a science teacher doesn't want to discuss it, they shouldn't have to, and that's fine. But supposing a teacher does feel comfortable allowing other children to discuss it. Providing it's a scientific discussion, about evidence, then I think its a great opportunity to get pupils to understand how scientific knowledge builds up. Too many 14 and 15-year-olds find school science uninteresting. So if anyone asks a genuine question, we should use that question as a vehicle for teaching good science.

In the same way that PE teachers spend time thinking about how to deal with children who are too embarrassed to do sports, or who think they can't catch, or can't swim, biology educators have to deal with pupils whose beliefs contradict the scientific viewpoint. That's what teaching is all about. Anyone can teach the one child in 20 who loves science--the real challenge is to help the other pupils to understand it and perhaps come to love it.

Presumably the Dawkinses of the world think the best way to teach science is to humiliate children in class who disagree. I am not a creationist, but I would rather have my child taught science by Michael Reiss than the intolerant dogmatist Richard Dawkins.