The God of Monkey Science: People of Faith in a Modern Scientific World (Janet Kellogg Ray) - A Review
THE GOD OF MONKEY SCIENCE: People of Faith in a Modern Scientific World. By Janet Kellogg Ray. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2023. X + 238 pages.
Back during my teen years, I
encountered Creation Science. It was presented to us in my Christian circles as
a kind of science that fit with a literal reading of the Bible, especially
Genesis. I read books by Duane Gish and Henry Morris. Here were real scientists
who believed in the Bible and demonstrated how this kind of science made the
most sense of both science and the Bible. If the books weren’t enough, during
my college years I attended a debate between a scientist from the local public university
and Duane Gish. Gish seemed to have all the right answers, running circles
around this university professor. I later learned that most science professors
aren't proficient debaters while Gish and others in his group were well trained
in the art of rhetoric. I would eventually let go of my devotion to
"creation science," but I remember how attractive it was. Evolution
seemed to contradict my theological presuppositions. Eventually, I discovered
other ways (better ways) of reading the Bible. Now, I should have known better,
even during my college days, since none of my professors were young earth
creationists. I just didn't connect the dots early on. My first step away from
this view involved reading a book by a Calvin College geology professor named Davis
A. Young, who demonstrated how geology revealed an old earth, and that this
reality need not undermine my belief that God is the creator.
I share this background because
Janet Kellog Ray's book The God of Monkey Science tells a similar story
and takes on the “creation science” folk. In this book, Ray shows how the
denigration of evolution by young earthers and purveyors of intelligent design has
led, especially in the hands of people like Ken Ham of “Answers in Genesis,” to
a distrust of science. Here’s the thing it's not just evolution that is at
stake. It's everything related to science from climate science to medical
science (including dealing with diseases such as COVID-19), stem cell research,
and more. For her part, Ray identifies as an evangelical Christian, whose
background is Churches of Christ (non-instrumental). She is also a biologist
and a science educator who teaches at a state university in Texas. With these
two identities in play, Ray brings together an evangelical faith with the
recognition that evolution is the foundation for much of modern science,
including modern medicine. So, it has some rather practical implications.
Being a science educator, Ray's
goal here is to help people of faith recognize that they needn't reject modern
science to believe in God. In fact, many good evangelicals are also scientists.
They include Francis Collins, the former head of the National Institute of
Health, which brought you a COVID-19 vaccine. Ray uses this book to address and
overcome the science denialism that is sweeping through evangelicalism, as well
as taking note of the attendant implications of this denialism. Thus, science
denialism is not just the rejection of scientific facts, it also involves the
misuse and misrepresentation of the facts (as we've seen with both climate
change debates and the misrepresentation of the COVID-19 virus and vaccines).
This might be the insidious part of this effort among evangelicals. While she
starts with the “Scopes Monkey Trial,” her focus is on the present situation.
After setting the stage for the
conversation about the implications of science denialism in Chapter 1, where
she rehearses the movement from Scopes to the present, she introduces us in
Chapter 2 to the relationship that has existed between science and evangelicalism
since the early twentieth century. To do this she must first define
evangelicalism, both doctrinally and socially. She also defines for us “creationism,”
which is not the same thing as a belief in God as the creator. She focuses on
Young Earth Creationists, those who embrace a literal seven-day creation event
that took place no more than seven to ten thousand years ago (the date is
thanks to Bishop Ussher who was active in the early seventeenth century). A
subset of this view is known as Intelligent Design. Although not all
Intelligent Design people are young earthers they have similar goals. After
describing the players in Chapter 2, Ray asks an important question in Chapter
3: "Who Do You Trust?" Here the question revolves around whether we trust
expertise, especially scientific expertise. It’s becoming clear that not
everyone trusts experts. Instead, many have chosen to do their own research
usually by googling the topic at hand. They do this whether they know how to
sift through sources or not. One of the ways creationists have attacked scientific
expertise is to "teach the controversy." The playbook involves asking
that teachers, especially high school teachers, teach "both sides,"
as if the "two sides" are equally valid or even plausible. The goal of
“teaching the controversy” is not to inform but to confuse. In many cases, science
teachers just avoid the debate by not teaching evolution. It's not worth the
headaches, especially with parental complaints (parents always know best) and
students pushing the envelope. The result is we become less informed about
science.
As we turn to Chapter 4, we find
Janet Ray raising the question of "Scientific Literacy in a Time of
COVID." She begins with the antivaccine efforts of Andrew Wakefield that began
long before COVID. Wakefield was known for suggesting that vaccines led to
autism. He even got a paper published in a leading scientific journal. While he
was ultimately revealed to be a fraud and lost his medical license, the cat was
out of the bag. Anti-vax activism and belief have been on the rise ever since.
Of course, we saw this up close with the COVID-19 vaccines, which quickly
became a political hot potato (see Ron DeSantis of Florida as a prime example).
The most resistant persons to the COVID-19 vaccines have been white
evangelicals. That is, people who have been influenced by creation science. Of
course, leading the charge against vaccines have been people like Ken Ham. So,
in this chapter, Ray gives us a brief reminder of how the scientific method
works, something people like Ham fail to either understand or communicate. That
includes the importance of double-blind testing (something Wakefield did not do
when it came to his anti-vax efforts, which continue to this day).
Chapter 5 speaks of the claim to
have “Faith over Fear,” in which she addresses the pseudo-science of certainty.
That includes the certainty that faith would be able to protect against COVID. The
faith that Ray invokes as an alternative is one that is God-honoring and especially
neighbor-loving. Interestingly, with COVID, white evangelicals who rejected
vaccines, social distancing, and masking, were immune to suggestions that using
these forms of protection was neighbor-loving. Instead, these evangelicals were
concerned only for themselves and their right to do as they pleased something
that seems at odds with following Jesus. From there we move to Chapter 6, “Life
in the Bubble,” and the emergence of Christian anti-intellectualism, which has long
been a problem (see Mark Noll’s The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind),
that contributed to the problem, with possibly catastrophic implications. Then
in chapter 7 Ray connects the anti-science efforts with the ongoing culture
wars. Thus, the anti-science efforts are just part of a larger effort that uses
arguments against evolution not only to deal with scientific advances but as a
cause of cultural decay including violence, atheism, and more. With the culture
wars driving the conversation about science we learn in Chapter 8 how
Christians have learned to embrace our "Constitutional Rights." This includes
such things as demanding "equal time" when it comes to evolution and
more. So, if you teach evolution, it is our “constitutional right” as citizens
to have creationism taught as well. After all, this is my right. Then there's
COVID. Christians declare that it is our right to have church in person even if
it's a superspreader. Of course, it’s my right to do so without masks. We then
add in the rejection of vaccine mandates, even if we work in health care. All
of this is wrapped up in the evangelical embrace of politics (especially
Trumpism).
That conversation is continued in
Chapter 9, where Ray reveals how Anthony Fauci, the face of the fight against
COVID, was smeared by right-wing culture warriors who went as far as suggesting
that Fauci hates puppies. While Fauci focused on medicine and science he was
attacked politically, and his reputation has been damaged, often by Christian
operatives who made use of lies and innuendo (hardly a Christian effort). After
dealing with how COVID science was undertaken, in Chapter 10, we move to
attempts to show that climate science is also a hoax. Again, evangelicals have
been at the ground level of climate denialism. Chapter 11, titled “Hello Dolly”
after the famed cloned sheep, is interesting because as you might expect, it
deals with cloning and genetic engineering. This chapter includes an important conversation
about stem cells and their value to medical science. All of this of course has
roots in the “debate” over evolution. Here is where Ray wants Christians to
recognize that people of faith have something to offer to science and that is
ethics (if we're willing to be ethical, something that we should not take for
granted. Remember that the largest group of Trump-backers are white
evangelicals). Science can do a lot of things, not all of which are wise.
People of faith can speak to this, but we can't be anti-science and do so.
The final chapter in The God of Monkey Science invites us to take our place in the scientific conversation
by respecting its expertise and offering our own ethical contributions to that
conversation. But, to do so we must abandon science denialism, an effort that
is damaging so much of our society. Not only that but it’s important from a
Christian perspective that is concerned about the growing rejection of
Christianity among teens and young adults. One of the biggest contributors to
this rejection is the dismissal of science by many Christians. She writes that
"The culture warriors tell us that evolution is causing atheism. Quite the
opposite—the denial of evolution and other aspects of science is shipwrecking
faith" (p. 176). If for no other reason than this, evangelicals might want
to rethink their science denialism lest they lose the next generation.
Janet Kellogg Ray does a great
service with her book The God of Monkey Science by revealing the dangers
of science denialism to the future of our planet and to the Christian faith
itself. The anti-science and anti-intellectual dimensions embraced by portions
of the Christian community (not the entire community) have caused great harm.
It’s time to resist and offer alternative voices, voices like that of Janet
Kellogg Ray an evangelical scientist who is concerned about our planet, the
inhabitants of this planet, and the Christian message. Hopefully, her book will
get a wide readership, especially among evangelicals, but really the larger Christian world, so we can turn the tide. It's a God and neighbor thing to do. The good news is that the book
is very accessible. It deals with science and theology, but in a way that
invites the reader into the conversation, whether they are fully trained in
science (I’m not) or theology (that’s more my area). So, take it up and read it
closely.
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