The Creation of a Controversy

Dr. Barry Starr Post on Dec 24, 2007 by
Topics: Uncategorized

Is acceptance of evolution a prerequisite for being a biologist?

Darrow and Bryan at the Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925.A biologist who works on zebrafish was recently fired from Wood's Hole in Massachusetts. His lawsuit claims that he was fired because he told his bosses that he believes in Creationism.

As a new member of the faculty at Fallwell's Liberty University, he may just be making some noise to put evolution back into the news. But he does raise a bigger question. Can a biologist do meaningful research in the absence of evolution?

Certainly not if he or she is working on anything to do with the origin of life or some other aspect of evolutionary biology. This is because Creationism isn't really a science and so can't be studied scientifically. Basically God made the Earth. What's the experiment? Looking for His signature somewhere?

But does every aspect of biology need to keep evolution in mind? Is there no research that can be done otherwise?

Imagine a scenario where someone thinks that the world was created 7000 years ago. God created all life using the same universal code. God also made it so that all the different living organisms look interrelated at the DNA level. In other words it only looks like genes have changed over time in a way consistent with the evolution of fish into amphibians into reptiles, etc.

To be even the least bit reasonable, that someone would need to say that in those 7000 years, changes to DNA have happened that led to antibiotic resistant bacteria, moths of different colors, etc. Maybe changes caused some of us to get lighter skin or become able to drink milk. Maybe even a new species or two evolved.

I want to be clear here that this scenario seems a bit far fetched, Rube Goldberg-ish, and untestable to me. It ignores all of the fossil evidence and lots of other evidence I won't go into. But if someone were to approach biology with this as the backdrop, it certainly seems that he or she could still do biology research.

For example, the biologist could study how a specific gene works in people. He or she could even compare it to how it works in frogs or chickens. Just at the end there would be no discussion about how the gene evolved.

The biologist would point out the differences and investigate the mechanisms of these differences. From this research we could learn under what conditions the gene works and what proteins regulate its activity. We might learn why messing it up causes a disease and learn how to treat the disease. Another scientist could even then look at the research and comment on how it looks through an evolutionary lens.

Is there no benefit to be gained from such research? Is science losing smart, careful scientists who could truly contribute to biology?

I don't know the answers to these questions. My gut tells me that if a person can arbitrarily ignore science that they don't agree with, they can't really be a good scientist. They may decide to ignore other data they don't agree with or that might impact on a different belief system. What do you think?

Dr. Barry Starr is a Geneticist-in-Residence at The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, CA.

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  • Jason

    Hey. I like the post. It's refreshing to see someone on your side of the issue inviting conversation in a meaningful way. I'm pretty used to seeing closed-minded belligerence from all sides.

    You may be onto something with the 'arbitrary ignoring' of science but I do know plenty of creationists who accept much longer timelines ('scientific' ones even) and argue that a random assimilation of rudimentary amino acids into functional proteins or self replicating RNA is just too improbably to happen by chance alone. (And as a geneticist you would probably agree that the development of the intricate relationship between nucleotides and proteins would be quite an unlikely process of coincidence).

    I think that people in each camp are looking at something on the scale of miraculous and since the cause of the miracle just can't be proven (chance or intelligence) as near as I can tell, I find it interesting the fervor that this gets debated with. I think a biologically minded creationist can be just as interested in the 'how' as any evolutionist. The danger I see is when either camp is unwilling to listen to the intelligent points and discoveries being made on each side of the coin. History has shown many 'scientifically minded' individuals defend some pretty ridiculous claims for the sense of pride and personal stake. It's pretty human to ignore data that's disagreeable. A creationist sometimes has the advantage of naming their bias outright.

    Well, I hope that some of that made sense. I hope my tone is seen as conversational and not judgemental or oppositional. I've spent a lot of time thinking and enjoy debate. Feel free to let me know how this all sits with you.

  • http://www.thetech.org/genetics/index.php Barry

    I’m used to the same thing. On the scientist side we actually have people trying to disprove God using science. I can’t think of anything more pointless. By definition, God is beyond human understanding. In fact, since faith is such a big factor in Christianity, why would God show that He exists by making it obvious the world was created? Where is the faith in that? How much more faith is required in a world where life evolved due to natural laws?

    Anyway, I digress. You are right that no one knows how that first "life" happened. There are some interesting thoughts on the matter (see http://www.thetech.org/genetics/news.php?id=123 for example) but obviously nothing proven. The question, though, is whether a scientist can invoke a miracle or if they have to think that life came about through natural processes. By definition, a scientist looks for scientific or natural explanations for what he or she sees. So if there is life on Earth, a scientist would conclude that it must have come about in some natural process.

    A slightly different question is whether this person is not qualified to be a scientist even if he or she believes that the first life (maybe a single celled organism) was created by a supernatural force around 3.5 billion years ago but has evolved since then into all the life we see around us. The key here is that this person accepts the facts that are uncovered by science but believes that the first life was created. With this set of skills, they would be able to study almost any aspect of biology except the very small part of the field that deals with the origin of life.

    Just some things to think about…I am still wrestling with them myself!