Evolution and Creation: Is Discussion Impossible?

It seems everyone these days wants to put religion at odds with Science, particularly in the Evolution/Creation argument. One side slams the other, frequently with more name-calling than actual debate. Can only a select few sit down and rationally discuss the origin of the world? Where does the average individual start to dialogue with someone on the other side?

Perhaps the best place to initiate a conversation is to put emotion aside and objectively look at Science. According to www.dictionary.com, Science is "a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws; systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation." * I remember from my high school Science days that good Science must be both observable and reproducible. This point is also made by Margaret Hagen, Ph.D., psychologist and lecturer at Boston University, when she says, "The findings discovered through observation in one laboratory must be replicable in another laboratory. Data measured and gathered by one instrument must be the same as data gathered by another similar instrument. And thus the objectivity comes not from an individual practitioner but from a system that demands consistent and repeatable results." **

It appears, then, that good, reliable Science treats only those things which fall within the observable and repeatable guidelines as fact and everything else as hypothesis or theory. Where does that leave us in the discussion on the inception of planet Earth? I think we can agree that no one was here when the world began and no one since has witnessed a world beginning. Doesn't that firmly place arguments on both the Evolution side and the Creation side into the realm of theory or hypothesis?

Perhaps this is a good second step: admitting that whichever side we subscribe to is not fact, but instead is a belief based on what we've learned. This places one dangerously close to religion, however, which I know many people wish to avoid at all costs; the word religion conjures up all kinds of thoughts and emotions depending upon one's experiences. Yet one definition of religion is "something one believes in and follows devotedly." * This seems to accurately describe supporters of both Evolution and Creation.

Instead of blindly following the latest conjecture on one side or the other, the average person should consider the example put forth by an upstanding judge in an honorable trial. A presiding justice is never a witness of the circumstances leading to the court action but instead must look closely at each piece of evidence and decide at least three things: 1) is this evidence reliable, 2) does the information seem reasonably complete and conclusive, and 3) if reliable and reasonably conclusive, which side does this proof support.

In following these three steps, along with closely guarding our mouths and tempers, perhaps a good conversation about Evolution and Creation will finally be possible.

* Dictionary.com. Copyright © 2006, Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. http://www.dictionary.com
** "What is Science?" Fight for Kids, Help Dispel the Lies. © 2002-2004 Citizens Commission on Human Rights® International