Pro-science group targets young evangelicals to spread its message

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) boldly declared in a recent announcement on its website that the majority of evangelicals see no conflict between science and religion, according to a large, national survey.

Such a statement could be interpreted to mean true scientific discoveries will always affirm truths found in Scripture. But several presenters at a recent AAAS conference expressed hope it means younger evangelicals will be less allied with theology than their parents, according to a report by Charles Clough, an advisory board member for The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation.

The survey, a three-year project conducted by Rice University, provided a springboard for discussions at the AAAS conference organized by the Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion (DoSER). About 200 scientists, clergy, environmentalists, public health specialists, journalists, and people of faith participated.

The goal of the conference, according to AAAS, was to discuss ways to improve conversation between religious and scientific communities. Organizers hoped to dispel stereotypes and find areas, such as global health and environmental stewardship, where the two communities could work together on shared goals.

But Clough did not see the objective as quite so benign.

“This conference is a warning to us about a concerted, well-funded campaign to mislead evangelicals by a variety of methods to give up a scripturally based worldview and passively accept the harmful government-imposed climate change policies being sold to the world,” Clough said.

The presenters voiced surprise that many evangelicals who took the survey acknowledged science has accomplished much good, Clough told me.

“There seemed to be an overall feeling that evangelicals just don’t understand science,” he said. “There was no recognition of the many fields of science in which evangelicals are very active.” The broad scope of science was boiled down to just Darwinian evolution and man-made climate change and “either you agree with science across the board or there is something defective with your view,” Clough said.

The survey intentionally focused on evangelicals because of their political influence.

“Because evangelicals make up 25 to 30 percent of the U.S. population and wield considerable influence on the public’s support for science, they have been a particular focus of the project,” said Jennifer Wiseman, DoSER director.

Hope that evangelicals could be used to influence public opinion was apparent in quotes from several presenters.

“The scientific community has often failed to generate traction for any action about the environmental problems they identify,” physicist William Phillips said. “But the religious community, which represents a strong majority of the nation’s population, can make all the difference.”

The survey, conducted over a period of three years, included 2,149 people who defined themselves as evangelical. But not even half of the self-proclaimed evangelicals said they were very religious or that they attended religious services or read the Bible once a week.

Nearly half of those identified as evangelical said they believe the relationship between religion and science is collaborative. Nearly 30 percent see the two in conflict and identify themselves as being on the side of religion, while 21 percent believe science and religion are independent from each other. Only a little over 1 percent believe the two are in conflict and align themselves with science.

The conference agenda did not appear to be about legitimate discourse between science and religion, Clough said. Rather, it was assumed the outcome of cordial dialogue would be the acceptance of evolution, human-caused climate change, and whatever other conclusions science has drawn.

DoSER has secured funds and plans to establish courses at 10 seminaries to help future clergy “better understand science,” Clough said.

Seminaries targeted for American Association for the Advancement of Science courses