Month: April 2008

I have been a Fellow of the Geological Society of London for 23 years, and so I just had to let you all read this recent statement.

A Statement by the Geological Society of London

Approved by Council 10 April, and published 11 April, 2008

“Young Earth Creationism”, “Creation Science and “Intelligent Design”

This Society upholds the right of freedom of belief for all. The freedom scientists enjoy to investigate the nature and history of the Earth is the same freedom that allows individuals to believe – or not – in a deity.

Science’s business is to investigate the constitution of the universe, and cannot pronounce on any concept that lies “beyond” nature. This is the meaning of "agnostic", the word coined by former GSL President Thomas Henry Huxley, to describe a scientist's position of being "unable to know". This Society has therefore long operated according to the view that religion and science only become incompatible with each other when one attempts to trespass upon the domain of the other.

The idea that the Earth was divinely created in the geologically recent past (“Young Earth Creationism”); attempts by Young Earth Creationists to gain acceptance for what they misrepresent in public as corroborative empirical evidence for this view (“Creation science”); and the allied belief that features of the universe and of living things are better explained as the direct result of action by an intelligent cause than by natural processes (“Intelligent Design”), represent such a trespass upon the domain of science.

The Geological Society of London is the oldest national learned society for the Earth sciences in the world, and embodies the collective knowledge of nearly 10,000 Earth scientists worldwide. On their behalf it wishes, during the United Nations International Year of Planet Earth, to place on record the following facts as being long established beyond doubt.

• Planet Earth, along with the other planets in the Solar System, was formed approximately 4560 million years ago.
• Life has existed on Earth for thousands of millions of years. It has evolved into its current form by a combination of genetic variation and natural selection – and is likely to go on doing so for as long as it continues to exist.
• Close study of the structure and organisation of living animals and plants clearly indicates their common ancestry, and the succession of forms through the fossil record, as well as the genetic record contained in every living organism, provides powerful evidence of the reality of evolution.

Further information

• For a statement on this subject by the Royal Society, the UK national academy of science, go to http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/news.asp?year=&id=4298
• For a recently updated (2008) version of the US National Academy of Sciences booklet Science, Evolution and Creationism, go to: www.nap.edu/sec. This document will tell you what is and is not science, summarises the scientific evidence for evolution by natural selection, and highlights repeatedly how leading religious figures have spoken out in favour of evolution as being consistent with their world-view.
• For a statement on Intelligent Design issued by the International Society for Science and Religion, the main academic international society dedicated to the relationship between science and religion, see www.issr.org.uk/id-statement.asp.
• For an account of evolutionary knowledge, see vertebrate palaeontologist Prof. Kevin Padian’s evidence, given in trial (Kitzmiller v Dover): http://tinyurl.com/2nlgar. This destroys the bases of young-Earth creationists’ assertions regarding critical gaps in the fossil record.
• For a clear account of evolution given by one of the world's leading geneticists, showing how it is compatible with religious belief, see The Language of God by Francis Collins (Free Press, 2006). Francis Collins is Head of the Human Genome Project.
• Alexander, D. & White, R. S. (2004). Beyond Belief: Science, Faith and Ethical Challenges, Lion, Oxford, 219pp. Gives an accessible account of science and its interaction with religious views, including sections on evolution (with a critique of intelligent design), the age of the Earth and global environmental issues.
• Gould, Stephen J. 1999. Non-overlapping magisteria. A succinct and entertaining exposition of the lack of conflict between science and non-literalist religious thought. Published in: Leonardo’s Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms. Jonathan Cape, pp269-283.
• Pope Pius XII 1950, Papal Encyclical Humani GenerisENDS

So many students get interested in natural history through the Science Channel, Discovery Channel or National Geographic Channel. I like to use clips from these films to illustrate aspects of earth science that can be on the “dry” side without good visuals. There are always the thorny questions of how well these films represent established scientific opinion, and (not least), are they even right on the basic facts. I have listened to too many earth science films tell me that the Earth’s mantle is molten (it is not) to believe in the facts without further proof. I advise you all to take what you hear/see in these films with a proverbial pinch of salt! Nevertheless the BBC have a better than average reputation for getting their facts in order, and with some small exceptions, such as the early appearance of gymnosperms, the series we watched, “Walking with Beasts” is one of the best examples of its kind. Beyond “fact-checking” it is also important to analyze critically what is based on solid fact, and what is reasonable deduction. Beyond this we enter the cloudy realms of supposition and speculation. Viewer beware! This film is full of examples of clear and cloudy reasoning, and your task was to determine which of the many claims fall in which category.