The Scientist 14[8]:6, Apr. 17, 2000

    COMMENTARY

    Do Adam and Eve Really Matter?

    By Paul Poskozim

    Somewhere, sometime, a long time ago, creatures came into being on this planet with enough intelligence to be called human. They could have evolved from existing life forms or could have been created in a single moment by a divine creator. A scientist who believes in a god-creator can accept either scenario. A scientist-atheist can accept the former.

    All theist-scientists are then creationists. The only question is when the creation of human beings occurred, 18 billion or five billion or 4,000 years ago. Start your faith clock when you choose. There should be no reason for religion and science to be at odds here. Believe what you want. In common parlance, science is actually natural science. Religion, more properly theology, is supernatural science. Natural science studies nature and its laws; theology studies supernature and its tenets. Strictly speaking, creation is supernatural, breaking natural laws. Evolution, whatever its source, follows natural laws. Theology and science are parallel, nonconflicting studies. The Bible puts it very well: Give unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and to God the things which are God's.

    Both theists and atheists should accept valid natural scientific facts or laws. Atheists would probably choose to ignore that which is supernatural. But this is woefully overly simplistic. We all know that the boundaries between science and theology are often blurred. Biologists can become moralistically, theologically judgmental in interpreting when a fetus becomes a human being. And only theologists can instruct us on the exact moment when an immortal soul enters a fetus. Theology defines Adam and Eve as the first human beings on Earth. People had to receive their souls at the same time they achieved the prerequisite level of
intelligence to be human. In this context, evolution would need to make an invisible quantum jump when life becomes human. Natural science has not decided who Adam and Eve were.

    For a theist-scientist, a much more fascinating question would address the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligent life. Many earthlings believe that a supernatural being, a god, took human form and lived on this planet 2,000 years ago to perform supernatural cleansing of human souls. Natural scientists, astronomers, tell us that statistics and probabilities point to the near certain existence of life (and wouldn't all life naturally evolve intelligence?) elsewhere in the universe. Would these intelligent aliens also possess souls, have evolved or been formed in a single stroke of god-action, failed an early existential trial, and would they need the redeeming remedial action of a son of a god taking their form and living with them? A heaven copopulated with lots of Star Wars species such as those found on planet Tatooine in the cantina of Mos Eisley could be quite an interesting place.

    Getting back down to Earth, theists might equate all human parenting with Adam and Eve. But when would divine intervention place a soul in a cloned fertilized egg in a test tube? Would this occur at the exact moment when life begins therein?

    We human beings force further confrontation between theology and science when we pursue the manufacture of humanoid robots. Some day they will have high IQs, possess a modicum of human emotion, and be able to walk and talk and breathe. We have seen them in movies and on TV science fiction series. Are they alive, in any limited sense? Would theology grant the human replicas the possibility of soul status? Is there, can there be something supernatural about all natural life?

    Let's push out onto thinner ice. Must natural science concede the existence of the supernatural when things like miracles happen? Are there evidence-rich, repeatable events that annihilate natural laws? Can there always be a natural explanation for everything that occurs? The argument against miracles, here defined as supernatural events, is that given enough time and investigation, every miracle could be proved to be a natural occurrence. We might even have to wait until new natural laws are discovered to downgrade the miracle. Is this fair?

    Are we able to absolutely prove Newton's laws? We believe in these natural laws until they are disproved. Miracles seemingly must play to different critics with different standards. It must be restated that if miracles are real, natural science must accept supernatural science, theology in these matters. But should it really matter to natural science if miracles did exist? The eminent physicist Freeman Dyson, a self-proclaimed religious agnostic and recent winner of the prestigious Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, has been quoted as saying "Science and religion are two windows that people look through, trying to understand the big universe outside .... Both views are one sided; neither is complete."

    Are scientists, strict interpreters of nature, allowed to believe in Adam and Eve? Are scientist-teachers allowed to mention them in classes? Are they fictitious or real? Does it really matter?

    Paul Poskozim is a professor of chemistry and chair of the department of chemistry, earth science and physics at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago.
    He welcomes E-mail responses at P-Poskozim@neiu.edu or faxes at (773) 794-2632. A letter (P. Poskozim, "Science and religion: two views," The Scientist, 14[24]:18, Dec. 6, 1999) in response to an article (S. Bunk, "Is science religious?" The Scientist, 13[22]: 10-11, Nov. 8, 1999) preceded this commentary.

    The Scientist 14[8]:6, Apr. 17, 2000

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