Our own genomes carry the story of evolution, written in DNA, the language of molecular genetics, and the narrative is unmistakable.
We don't regard any scientific theory as the absolute truth.
'Intelligent Design,' the relabeled, repackaged form of American creationism, has always had a problem. It just can't seem to produce any evidence.
The scientific argument advanced for intelligent design at the Dover trial, those arguments collapsed, scientifically and intellectually.
Any suggestion that science and religion are incompatible flies in the face of history, logic, and common sense.
Once upon a time, growing up male gave little boys a sense of certainty about the natural order of things. We had short hair, wore pants, and played baseball. Girls had long hair, wore skirts, and, no matter how hard they tried, always threw a baseball just like a girl.
We believe the ice sheet was not around all the time. It was only around during cool snaps of the climate.
I am always struck by the fact that human awareness of our place in nature, like so much of modern science, began with the Industrial Revolution.
Evolution isn't just a story about where we came from. It's an epic at the center of life itself. Far from robbing our lives of meaning, it instills an appreciation for the beautiful, enduring, and ultimately triumphant fabric of life that covers our planet. Understanding that doesn't demean human life - it enhances it.
There is no controversy within science over the core proposition of evolutionary theory.
We humans have a tendency to see ourselves as completely different from other animals, and the way in which large segments of the public continue to reject the theory of evolution is just one symptom of that malaise.
As you know, the fossil record includes not only the ancestors of crocodiles and whales, but also the ancestors of human beings. And this, of course, is why evolution remains controversial.
For much of history it was possible to believe that the great diversity of life on Earth was a fixed creation, that the living world had never changed. But when the first stirrings of industry demanded that fuel be dug from the earth and hillsides be leveled for roads and railways, the Earth's true past was dug up in abundance.
From Roger Bacon, the 13th century Franciscan who pioneered the scientific method, to George Lemaitre, the 20th century Belgian priest who first developed a mathematical foundation for the 'Big Bang,' people of faith have played a key role in advancing scientific understanding.
Although each egg cell produced by a woman carries a single X chromosome, the sperm cells produced by a man carry either an X or a Y. This means, in very simple terms, that the sperm cell determines a baby's sex.
Being a Christian, I'm eager to introduce people to Jesus. I just don't think I should do it in the science classroom.
The argument for intelligent design basically depends on saying, 'You haven't answered every question with evolution,'... Well, guess what? Science can't answer every question.
The new strategy is to teach intelligent design without calling it intelligent design.
Modern science developed in the context of western religious thought, was nurtured in universities first established for religious reasons, and owes some of its greatest discoveries and advances to scientists who themselves were deeply religious.
All too often, the word 'religion' has become identified with those promoting a frankly anti-scientific view of nature and of our place in the natural world.
