14 DAY TRIAL // So far, scientists haven't found a way to talk to the faithful about science: is the goal to teach science or to discredit religion? Can the two worldviews ever enrich each other? Is there a middle-ground between the two?
Lawrence M. Krauss is a physicist, an Ambrose Swasey Professor and director of the Center for Education and Research in Cosmology and Astrophysics at Case Western Reserve University. He argues in favor of teaching Darwin's evolutionary theory in school science curricula and keeping pseudoscientific variants of creationism out of them. There are still some schools that chose to adopt the creationist model instead of the evolutionary one.
Can the two be taught to students at the same time without canceling each other out? In 2005, Krauss wrote an open letter to Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, urging the pontiff not to build new walls between science and faith.
The Pope's response was rather surprising, since the Vatican reaffirmed the Catholic Church's acceptance of natural selection as a valid scientific theory. Some people still have trouble accepting scientific evidence, even if they are clearly explained and justified, but mostly when some of the pieces of the puzzle are missing.
They feel that unless you understand everything, you understand nothing. So for them, the fact that a small detail is not completely explained by science, must necessarily mean that there is some supernatural force at work, that could explain what science is not able to.
For now, science hasn't got all the answers. Science has shown there is no time and space before the Big Bang, yet it does not know what caused it. Darwin's Theory of Evolution appears to do away with God, but there is enormous controversy among Darwin scientists as to how evolution works.
This controversy has entered the schools, religious teachings and politics, but for now, neither side is winning. The creationists can't explain some discrepancies in their theories and scientists can't explain all the fact in theirs.
So, it seems that for now, there's a stand off, each side waiting for a breakthrough, a secret weapon that would tilt the scales in their favor. But what if there is no such thing? Then I guess that the only thing the general public can do is to try to take a side, based on the arguments they consider to be the most relevant.
Unfortunately, ignorance is often the problem, and it works both ways. Ignorance toward science may lead to blind faith that is not always good, and ignorance toward the spirit may lead to a blind faith in science, and neither one seems to have all the answers. For now.