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Problem Concepts in Evolution: Cause, Purpose, Design, and Chance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2017

Eugenie C. Scott
Eugenie C. Scott*
Affiliation:
National Center for Science Education, Inc., P.O. Box 9477, Berkeley, CA 94709-0477
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Abstract

The American student population is largely religious and a significant minority rejects evolution. Evolution and other scientific theories are restricted to explaining through natural cause (methodological materialism), but because evolution has existential connotations, many students confuse the ability to explain through natural cause with a conclusion that therefore God does not exist (philosophical materialism). To some, if God does not exist, life has no purpose or meaning, and acceptance of evolution brings on an existential crisis. Differing understandings of four concepts (cause, purpose, design, and chance) commonly used in the teaching of evolution may exacerbate antievolutionism if students conflate their own existential meanings of these terms with the definitions within science. Cause, purpose, and design to many students include the notion of supernatural cause, purpose, and design, whereas chance is often thought to mean “purposeless” or “random” (in the sense of unpredictable.) Professors should teach evolution in a religiously-neutral fashion, thus allowing religious students to find compatibility between their religious views and science.

Type
Philosophical and Biblical Perspectives
Information
The Paleontological Society Papers , Volume 5: The Evolution-Creation Controversy II: Perspectives on Science, Religion, and Geological Education , October 1999 , pp. 169 - 181
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by The Paleontological Society 

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