I was sitting at my parents’ dining room table the afternoon I first read “Of Pandas and People.” A home-schooled evangelical high schooler in Texas, I relished textbooks that demolished the secular worldview I was being taught to despise. “Of Pandas and People” laid out a gripping case against Darwin’s theory of evolution, with damning charts and anecdotes about the intentionally skewed experiments of mainstream scientists. I had never read Darwin and had no sense of the contours of modern science. But this book convinced me I probably needn’t bother, and that people like Stephen Jay Gould, one of the most celebrated biologists of my lifetime, were dishonest atheists. All of science, the book implied, was a conspiracy to conceal the fact that unbiased inquiry always pointed to an intelligent creator behind the universe.
Years later, long after I had realized that “intelligent design” was little more than the Book of Genesis dressed up in pseudoscientific language, I thought of looking up “Of Pandas and People.” Sure enough, I discovered that it was published by an evangelical Christian ministry located not far from my hometown, whose president is neither a scientist nor an educator. The book was full of discredited, distorted and outdated ideas, such as the claim that “missing links” — or supposed gaps in the fossil record — pose a significant challenge to the theory of evolution. Incredulous scientific reviewers had called it, among other things, “a wholesale distortion of modern biology.” The book had sparked controversy every time Christian activists tried to sneak it into public schools, and it led to several high-profile education lawsuits.
“Of Pandas and People” appeared nearly two decades ago, but evangelical Christians still have a troubled relationship with science. Republican presidential candidates have dragged it into the news by questioning the scientific consensus on climate change and evolution, keeping company with fringe academics and entertaining bizarre medical notions. Michele Bachmann, for example, infamously suggested that HPV vaccines can cause mental retardation; Rick Perry, meanwhile, claimed that scientists are “almost daily” coming forward to question the consensus on climate change. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the most influential posts in conservative evangelicalism, routinely pontificates on the need to keep “secular” scientific knowledge from clouding Christians’ understanding of the Bible. Leading creationist popularizer Ken Ham attacks Christian scientists who believe in evolution as “wolves in sheep’s clothing.”
There are signs that this could be changing. What critics call “science denialism” is finally being challenged from within the evangelical movement. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, is an evangelical Christian and has written a book explaining why evolution and faith need not be seen as antagonists. Karl Giberson, a Christian physicist, has challenged evangelicals’ commitment to pseudoscientific ideas about the Earth’s origins and outlined ways to integrate knowledge and belief. Warren Throckmorton, a Christian psychology professor, has exposed the specious research behind “reparative therapy,” a movement of evangelical psychologists and ministers who claimed they could “cure” homosexuality.
Conservative evangelicals should see this as a welcome development. In a recent survey by the Barna Group on why young Christians leave the church, nearly a fourth of the respondents said they felt their church was “anti-science.” People like me who grew up immersed in pseudoscience often experience a deep sense of betrayal when they realize the extent to which they were shielded from more accurate information about the world. As a friend of mine put it, “If you teach Creationism to a child with an IQ over 90, you’re just begging to turn him into an atheist.”
It’s not clear how much evangelicals are listening to their internal critics. The predominant orientation of evangelical institutions continues to be toward scientific hucksters and others who lack relevant expertise. All of the academics I mentioned above have been assailed by various figures of evangelical influence, accused of capitulating to their desire for worldly acclaim. It can be difficult for evangelicals to understand the extent of their own self-deception, thanks to institutions and media that present pseudoscientific views as normative. Adding to the problem are evangelicals with scholarly training like Percival Davis and Dean H. Kenyon, the authors of “Of Pandas and People,” who make careers reinforcing believers’ suspicion of their academic colleagues.
The persistence of evangelicals’ “alternative” science ultimately weakens the church, not the “secular humanists” whose work it purports to counter. Numerous books hit shelves every year warning evangelicals that their children are likely to abandon the faith and advising them on how to avoid that catastrophe. But those books usually miss what is under the nose of people like my mother and father, who have seen one of their kids undergo a radical shift in perspective, one that often leaves parents and children on opposite sides of a cultural divide.
I’m not sure where I would have ended up had I gotten my early scientific knowledge from people like Collins and Giberson instead of Davis and Kenyon. But it’s possible I wouldn’t have become one of the leavers, and it’s certain I would have been spared a great deal of confusion.
David Sessions writes about religion and politics for The Daily Beast. He is the founding editor of patrolmag.com and is a graduate student at New York University.
Years later, long after I had realized that “intelligent design” was little more than the Book of Genesis dressed up in pseudoscientific language, I thought of looking up “Of Pandas and People.” Sure enough, I discovered that it was published by an evangelical Christian ministry located not far from my hometown, whose president is neither a scientist nor an educator. The book was full of discredited, distorted and outdated ideas, such as the claim that “missing links” — or supposed gaps in the fossil record — pose a significant challenge to the theory of evolution. Incredulous scientific reviewers had called it, among other things, “a wholesale distortion of modern biology.” The book had sparked controversy every time Christian activists tried to sneak it into public schools, and it led to several high-profile education lawsuits.
“Of Pandas and People” appeared nearly two decades ago, but evangelical Christians still have a troubled relationship with science. Republican presidential candidates have dragged it into the news by questioning the scientific consensus on climate change and evolution, keeping company with fringe academics and entertaining bizarre medical notions. Michele Bachmann, for example, infamously suggested that HPV vaccines can cause mental retardation; Rick Perry, meanwhile, claimed that scientists are “almost daily” coming forward to question the consensus on climate change. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the most influential posts in conservative evangelicalism, routinely pontificates on the need to keep “secular” scientific knowledge from clouding Christians’ understanding of the Bible. Leading creationist popularizer Ken Ham attacks Christian scientists who believe in evolution as “wolves in sheep’s clothing.”
There are signs that this could be changing. What critics call “science denialism” is finally being challenged from within the evangelical movement. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, is an evangelical Christian and has written a book explaining why evolution and faith need not be seen as antagonists. Karl Giberson, a Christian physicist, has challenged evangelicals’ commitment to pseudoscientific ideas about the Earth’s origins and outlined ways to integrate knowledge and belief. Warren Throckmorton, a Christian psychology professor, has exposed the specious research behind “reparative therapy,” a movement of evangelical psychologists and ministers who claimed they could “cure” homosexuality.
Conservative evangelicals should see this as a welcome development. In a recent survey by the Barna Group on why young Christians leave the church, nearly a fourth of the respondents said they felt their church was “anti-science.” People like me who grew up immersed in pseudoscience often experience a deep sense of betrayal when they realize the extent to which they were shielded from more accurate information about the world. As a friend of mine put it, “If you teach Creationism to a child with an IQ over 90, you’re just begging to turn him into an atheist.”
It’s not clear how much evangelicals are listening to their internal critics. The predominant orientation of evangelical institutions continues to be toward scientific hucksters and others who lack relevant expertise. All of the academics I mentioned above have been assailed by various figures of evangelical influence, accused of capitulating to their desire for worldly acclaim. It can be difficult for evangelicals to understand the extent of their own self-deception, thanks to institutions and media that present pseudoscientific views as normative. Adding to the problem are evangelicals with scholarly training like Percival Davis and Dean H. Kenyon, the authors of “Of Pandas and People,” who make careers reinforcing believers’ suspicion of their academic colleagues.
The persistence of evangelicals’ “alternative” science ultimately weakens the church, not the “secular humanists” whose work it purports to counter. Numerous books hit shelves every year warning evangelicals that their children are likely to abandon the faith and advising them on how to avoid that catastrophe. But those books usually miss what is under the nose of people like my mother and father, who have seen one of their kids undergo a radical shift in perspective, one that often leaves parents and children on opposite sides of a cultural divide.
I’m not sure where I would have ended up had I gotten my early scientific knowledge from people like Collins and Giberson instead of Davis and Kenyon. But it’s possible I wouldn’t have become one of the leavers, and it’s certain I would have been spared a great deal of confusion.
David Sessions writes about religion and politics for The Daily Beast. He is the founding editor of patrolmag.com and is a graduate student at New York University.
