UTC Community,

Galileo was tried and convicted of the non-Biblical teaching that the earth
moved around the sun in 1633. As Galileo, and others before him who were
killed for teaching science, learned, it takes time for people to accept new
scientific discoveries.

Now, several centuries later, all the creationists I know do not dispute the
"heresy" that the earth revolves around the sun, and Pope John Paul II has
even declared, for 1.1 billion Catholics worldwide, that evolution is a
fact.

Other "believers" will need more proof from science before they accept
evolution--I count some among them as my friends--but I suspect they will
gradually change also. Human evolution has grown in acceptance over the last
150 years to about 50% in the U.S., which actually lags behind other
developed nations which have about 75-80% acceptance.

A factor here is educational level. In the U.S. acceptance of human
evolution is about 70-80% among those with advanced degrees, in contrast to
40% or less among those with high school or less education, or who live in
the South. Tennessee is not known as the "Education State," and while we
continue to fall behind Georgia and North Carolina in educational level,
economic development, and jobs, we can always have some more Scopes Monkey
Trials, or legislation purporting to advocate academic freedom, but actually
restricting it, if we want.

Regarding evolution, besides radiocarbon testing, we have several other
lines of evidence. Life is based on a genetic code of four base
pairs-individual creation would not require this, but it is consistent with
life forms evolving from earlier forms. Great apes share 99% of our genetic
code: human chromosome 2 is two ape chromosomes end on end.

Why would the second most intelligent life forms on earth share so much of
our DNA, blood types, behaviors, and culture? Their DNA could be based on 6
base codes, entirely different codes-or no codes at all, if we were all
separately created. Vestigial organs in the human body replicate our
evolutionary path from earlier life forms-would a creator put them there to
make it "look like" evolution? The human fossils we find in different layers
of the earth make sense-the older ones found in deeper layers look more
primitive and apelike-if things were just randomly tossed about by one Flood
they would not be distributed that way.

I do not tell my students what to believe; I respect all religious beliefs
that do not violate human rights, and I applaud our diversity on this
campus. But, I require my students to understand what evidence
anthropologists have uncovered about human evolution, and how we reason
about that evidence.

When well-meaning people complain or suggest that "both sides" be presented
in our anthropology and biology classes, a serious point is missed:
evolution and creationism are two different ways of knowing. Although
science is based on assumptions that the world is knowable, ordered, and has
some consistent processes over the millennia, evolution is based on
empirical evidence about how the world works, including atomic processes for
dating materials; similarities in DNA, culture, anatomy, and behavior with
great apes; fossil evidence, etc. When new evidence is discovered, as it was
recently with bipedal apes from Spain 13 million years ago, and a new
species of humans, 3 ft tall, from Indonesia 12 thousand years ago, science
changes its perspective, and accommodates to the evidence in new
evolutionary scenarios.

Creationism is based on the received knowledge of religious
interpretations-the problem is whose version and interpretation of the Bible
from which of several thousand fragments, translations, and Books? Whose
creation myth shall we use? Those from fundamentalist Christians, Hindus or
Muslims, or my own Native American Abenaki creation myth of Ozeehozo?

Nearly each year, a bill is entered into the Tennessee legislature that
would require teaching creationism, or possibly send professors to jail much
as we did John Scopes in Dayton, TN in the 1920's. So far these bills have
been defeated, as I hope the present one seeking to actually limit "academic
freedom" will be as well.

As the professor on campus who teaches human evolution every semester, I
would be honored to stand with Mr. Scopes, or with Galileo, for the right to
use human reason to understand the world and avoid the tyranny of any
religious group, not just fundamentalists. Just remember to bring to me in
prison, great Italian food and good Tuscan wine. Galileo, "prende qualcosa
da bere" (would you like to have a drink)? Salute!

Galileo was forced to recant in 1633 (see below), but under his breath he
said "and yet it does move" referring to the earth revolving around the sun,
and the Church's insistence that it didn't. Well, people, . . it does.

Galileo's words:

"I, Galileo Galilei, son of the late Vincenzio Galilei of Florence, aged 70
years, tried personally by this court, and kneeling before You, the most
Eminent and Reverend Lord Cardinals, Inquisitors-General throughout the
Christian Republic against heretical depravity, having before my eyes the
Most Holy Gospels, and laying on them my own hands; I swear that I have
always believed, I believe now, and with God's help I will in future believe
all which the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church doth hold, preach, and
teach...

I abjure with sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I curse and detest the said
errors and heresies, and generally all and every error and sect contrary to
the Holy Catholic Church. And I swear that for the future I will neither say
nor assert in speaking or writing such things as may bring upon me similar
suspicion; and if I know any heretic, or one suspected of heresy, I will
denounce him to this Holy Office, or to the Inquisitor and Ordinary of the
place in which I may be...

In Rome, at the Convent della Minerva, this 22nd day of June, 1633"



H. Lyn Miles, Ph.D.
UC Foundation Professor of Anthropology
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
615 McCallie Avenue
Chattanooga, TN 37403 USA
423-425-4440 Email: [log in to unmask]