c. 2006 Religion News Service

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. _ Some conservative Christians call evolution “just a theory.” But to Gregory Forbes, it is a scientific principle under attack.

He considers it his mission to defend it in Michigan and across the country.

“In science, there has never been a more well-founded theory than evolutionary theory,” Forbes says in a rapid-fire delivery, surrounded by animal skulls and turtle shells in his Grand Rapids Community College office. “It’s as good as science gets.”

By contrast, intelligent design, which proposes an unspecified higher intelligence behind creation, is not science at all but a dishonest attempt to inject religion into science classes, Forbes argues.

As the evolution specialist for Michigan science teachers, Forbes pushes back against lawmakers who are pushing to have public-school students taught intelligent design alongside evolution.

In lectures around Michigan and other states, the GRCC biology instructor explains the workings of evolution, the difference between science and religion and what he calls the dangers of a misguided movement to mingle the two.

“My passion is to make sure this society is educated in modern science,” Forbes declares with the conviction of a crusader.

He takes that passion to churches as well as to educators. Forbes recently did a three-week series on evolution at All Souls Community Church in Grand Rapids, a Unitarian congregation. One talk was titled “Science, Pseudoscience and Just Plain Nonsense.”

The Rev. Brent Smith of All Souls says churches need to discuss evolution, which he sees as related to other fruits of the Enlightenment, such as liberty and democracy.

“Churches have to address this ambivalence in our culture when it comes to science,” Smith says. “Science is under attack by doctrinal Christianity, and it always has been.”

Forbes was recently recognized for his efforts when the American Civil Liberties Union’s Western Michigan branch gave him its Libertarian of the Year Award. In accepting the award, Forbes gave a talk titled “Evolution: What’s All the Fuss About 4 Billion Years After the Fact?”

The fuss as he sees it is a growing threat to evolution teaching from a faith-based belief masquerading as science.

He refers to nationwide efforts to promote intelligent design, often called ID, as an alternative to evolution.

Those efforts were dealt a harsh blow in December when a U.S. district judge struck down a Dover, Pa., school district policy requiring teachers to tell students ID is a possible “explanation of the origin of life.” Judge John Jones III blasted it as a pretext to “promote religion in the public school classroom.”

On another front, the Kansas State Board of Education in November approved science standards critics say open classroom doors to supernatural explanations of creation.

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Closer to Forbes, two bills have been introduced in the Michigan House of Representatives that could affect how evolution is taught. They require students to assess the validity of certain scientific theories and form arguments for and against them.

Sponsors insist they are not trying to foist ID on students but merely give them a chance to critically evaluate evolution and other theories.

“It just gives a good opportunity for these kids to apply real educational knowledge and form arguments either for or against that theory,” says Rep. Michael Sak, a Democrat from Grand Rapids.

Sak co-sponsored a bill that requires students to critically evaluate evolution and global warming. He insists it is not an attempt to inject religion but says intelligent design should be addressed somewhere in school curriculums.

Sak, a former teacher and principal, contends that evolution “hasn’t been proven to be true. It’s not factual, it’s a theory.”

Such legislation, Forbes says, is a threat to sound science teaching.

The bills are an attempt to “teach the controversy,” when, in fact, none exists about evolution in the science community, Forbes says. The controversy is manufactured by those trying to push ID, which he considers biblical creationism dressed up in scientific language.

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Intelligent design has its place, Forbes says _ in a theology or philosophy course.

“It has not earned its place in a science classroom because it is not science,” asserts Forbes, a science educator for nearly 25 years. “If there was a scientific alternative to evolution, would we be teaching it? Absolutely.”

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However, many science teachers are not even teaching evolution, or at least not well, Forbes says.

He contends that part of the problem is they were not taught it well when they were students.

“Many teachers aren’t doing it because they don’t understand it,” says Forbes, who has conducted workshops on evolution for thousands of teachers.

Many also fear “social backlash” from students and parents who don’t accept evolution because of religious convictions, he says. Teachers worry they won’t know how to answer their objections.

Concern about poor evolution teaching prompted Forbes and fellow Grand Rapids Community College science faculty member Robert Long to launch the Michigan Evolution Education Initiative, a statewide effort to help K-12 science instructors teach evolution effectively.

After that four-year project concluded, he and Long expanded it nationwide. As director of the Evolution Education Institute, Forbes takes his “evolution primer” to educators in other states.

A green sea turtle shell behind Forbes’ office door and an impressive collection of skulls attest to his passion for the natural world. He pours that passion into evolution education, a field he sees under attack from people who are either misinformed or have a religious agenda.

Forbes says concepts, such as a creator God or life after death, are “not testable” by scientific methods.

Nor, in his view, is intelligent design. He rejects assertions ID qualifies as science, saying its proponents can provide no testable hypotheses or scientifically acceptable methods to substantiate their claims.

Further, ID advocates’ argument that the complexity of creation cannot have occurred without design is a thinly veiled allusion to a designing God, Forbes asserts.

Like all scientific theories, evolution always should be subject to scientific challenge, he says. But ID is theology, he says, and it is dishonest to pose it as a scientific alternative.

“The analogy would be to ask our students to choose between … astronomy or astrology,” Forbes wrote in the Michigan Science Teachers Association Journal.

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(Charles Honey writes for the Grand Rapids Press in Grand Rapids, Mich.)

Editors: To obtain a photo of Gregory Forbes and an illustration depicting the clash between religion and science, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.