This past fall I taught a course that I had previously done once before and at that I had co-taught it. This course – Science, Religion, and Reality – is a tricky course to teach because it involves a bit of understanding scientific concepts but also bringing to the classroom peoples religious beliefs.
The tricky part has to do with discussing the religion aspect. What do I mean by this? Well, science in general is setup to welcome criticism to allow for better and improved theories and understanding of nature, so to speak. While religion is a bit different because people tend to hold a much more closer and personal relationship to their particular belief with very limited cultural encouragement to revisit and criticize various aspects of it in light of new information. (Strangely enough people are okay with this but would think someone were crazy if they held onto an old scientific claim that has long been discarded for a better theory – think spontaneous generation or blood letting to cure the seriously ill)
A strategy that I employed which I picked up from the colleague, a professor of philosophy, I had previously co-taught the course with is to view scientific/religious aspects in one of several models of interaction: Conflict, Independence, Dialogue, and Integration (or various permutations from Alister McGrath and Ian Barber). I found this a great tool to allow people of any religious background (the gnostic theist all the way to the other extreme of the gnostic atheist) to look at various aspects of science and religion on given historical and current topics. Independent of personal belief as long as students viewed the topics through one of these models (once they understand the model) they were able to present ideas and material pertinent the course. I would imagine that for some it provided a role-playing like scenario to explore new perspectives where they would otherwise not consider them. I loved this part of the course.
Because this is officially a science course one thing I think that needs to be worked on is for people to apply or understand certain aspects of science. I did one exercise where I had broken the students into two groups. Each group was responsible for describing either Evolution or Creationism (i.e. Intelligent Design), the scientific evidence, and the utility of the given “theory.” Both groups found material in all areas. What was unfortunately was that the material the creationism group listed was really scientific – evidence or utility. The group itself was made up of students from various backgrounds and science preparation so it didn’t seem like an apparent issue of this group was extraordinarily biased. This suggests a possible weakness in knowing what constitutes scientific evidence and utility. People would often mix scientific theories together (evolution and the origin of life – two separate areas) as well.
I am not too sure how to remedy this. This does bring up the issue, in general, that people need to discuss and be exposed to more science daily. For whatever reason people tend to shy away from tackling and understanding science or scientific issues.
I did find that I probably could have spent over half the course just talking about evolution and the religious pushback which is a huge point of discussion in the US. It was nice from a faculty perspective that there is so much material to read, watch, and discuss in class. It is a little frustrating from a scientist perspective there is so little interest in actually understanding evolution.
Note that I did not say believing in evolution. Belief is a personal decision that people make based on cultural aspects and various other reasons. People can and should be able to choose to believe whatever they learn in school or elsewhere. All that ask or want is that people first development a mature understanding of subjects or topics before forming a belief. I digress.
Back to the course. When I teach this course again I may add a little more focus on understanding a scientific theory. I may have them build theories – both good and bad. And then have them use them. We’ll see how that goes.
Yuma Scientist 