Is there a dead angel in the garage?

This past Sunday, May 14, "The Simpsons" aired an episode called "The Monkey Suit." Flanders and Rev. Lovejoy go to war on teaching evolution in public school science classes. Lisa expresses her outrage to her mother and Marge replies, "well, I think both views should be respected and get equal time." And Lisa says "You have to chose between science and faith," or something like that. This characterization, which is not unique to the writers of Simpsons' episodes, is patently false. The fact is that science and religion are dealing with two completely different types of truth, and to say that one can disprove the other is nonsense.

Science is the effort to understand natural laws through evidence that can be gathered by sensory perception. In other words, things that can be understood by seeing, smelling, hearing, tasting, and/or touching them (in some cases with the help of tools). Evolution is science as not only can the fossil record be experienced this way, but evolution can actually be observed as it is happening in certain bacteria. Scientific fact must stand up to the same test of proof repeatedly, and it can be manipulated in manner x with predictable result y. This is why evolution is scientific fact, and should be taught in science classrooms.

Religion and mythology are means of understanding the world for which no scientific evidence can be gathered. This is to address the unanswerable question. Science tells us how, religion seeks to tell us why. Evolution can explain how we emerged from a single living cell into the vast range of lifeforms we have. But Genesis has a story for why we live, why have souls, why there is suffering in the world. Of course there are other mythologies than the Biblical one with different stories, but their purpose is the same: to gain an understanding of what it means to be human.

I am not suggesting that you have to accept the religious explanations you have been given. Where science can only have one reigning truth at any given time ("facts" may eventually be disproven with better evidence), religion can have infinite truths, as each individual tries to understand their place in the world. And your religious truth may be that there is no God, we are here as a result of cataclysmic coincidence, and all life is random. But, science can't prove that to be true anymore than it can prove it to be untrue.

So, I suppose I agree with Judge Snider's ruling in "Lisa the Skeptic": "As for the case of science vs. religion, I am issuing a restraining order. [Religion] must stay 500 feet away from [science] at all times." I switched the two, as I feel that many of the ongoing battles have more to do with religion trying to insinuate itself into the science classrom than science trying to insinuate itself into houses of worship. Everyone is free to hold the beliefs that are dearest to them, but you have to accept that creationism is not science, and that intelligent design is not good science. And that's okay. Because the whole point of faith is that you don't need hard evidence. It's true to your spiritual being, and that's good enough.