The line must be drawn here

I grew up in the Roman Catholic faith. Among the many things I would learn about the Church was its treatment of Galileo and how it would not hesitate to denounce scientific explanations which did not correspond to its theology.

For all of its other faults, I must at least acknowledge that by Darwin’s time, the Roman Catholic Church had learned its lesson concerning science and would not oppose the teaching of evolution so long as it was recognised as a valid field of scientific study and research.

By evolution, I mean the accumulation of changes at the genetic level in a population of a given species which, over time, can result in the emergence of a new species. And as human beings are part of the natural world, a prior species would have had to gradually change over hundreds of thousands of years to eventually produce human beings.

I eventually threw off the shackles of religion, but I’m glad I was able to learn about evolution, including human evolution, early in my life. This seemed so natural to me that I was understandably appalled that many people the world over, but especially in Canada and the U.S., would actually oppose the teaching of evolution in public schools on religious grounds. The story of Adam and Eve, which I had come to see as more or less allegorical, is apparently nothing less than actual fact to many, and they see evolution as a threat to their faith.

Yet, evolution is a fact. It has happened. We know that. Anyone who approaches the subject and the evidence with an open mind must come to that realisation.

BUT… how does evolution work? That is the stuff of theory, where we hear about natural selection, mutations, heredity, genetic drift, plate tectonics, etc.

So, if you say, “I don’t believe in the theory of evolution,” that’s fair enough. We may have the mechanics wrong. Feel free to poke holes in the theory and, if you can, supply a counter-theory. It’s like saying, “I know the sky is blue on a sunny, cloudless day, but I’m convinced it’s blue for a totally different reason than the one generally given.” Great! Let’s hear your theory.

But if you say, “I don’t believe in evolution,” then there’s a problem. That’s like saying, “The sky is NOT blue on a sunny, cloudless day.” Imagine if this were followed by, “How dare you teach my children that the sky could ever be blue!” As tolerant as we try to be as a society, we probably wouldn’t give much credence to this tirade. Yet, we do try to be accommodating of those who oppose the very fact of evolution.

At some point, a line has to be drawn.