The Believing Brain - Michael Shermer [20]
What happened next has become a matter of some curiosity among creationists and intelligent design proponents looking to bolster their belief that learning about the theory of evolution threatens religious faith.1 There were a number of factors involved in my deconversion—in my becoming unborn, again—going back to my conversion experience. Shortly after I accepted Christ into my heart, I eagerly announced to another deeply religious high school friend of mine named Frank that I had become a Christian. Expecting an enthusiastic embrace of acceptance into the club he had long cajoled me to join, Frank instead was disappointed that I had gone to a Presbyterian church—and joined no less!—which he explained was a big mistake because that was the “wrong” religion. Frank was a Jehovah’s Witness. After high school (but before Pepperdine) I attended Glendale College where my faith was tested by a number of secular professors, most notably Richard Hardison, whose philosophy course forced me to check my premises, along with my facts, which were not always sound or correct. But the Christian mantra was that when your belief is tested it is an opportunity for your faith in the Lord to grow. And grow it did, since there were some fairly serious challenges to my faith.
After Pepperdine, I began my graduate studies in experimental psychology at California State University–Fullerton. I was still a Christian, although the foundations of my faith were already cracking under the weight of other factors. Out of curiosity, I registered for an undergraduate course in evolutionary biology, which was taught by an irrepressible professor named Bayard Brattstrom, a herpetologist (one who studies reptiles) and showman extraordinaire. The class met on Tuesday nights from 7 to 10 p.m. I discovered that the evidence for evolution is undeniable and rich, and the arguments for creationism that I had been reading were duplicitous and hollow. After Brattstrom exhausted himself with a three-hour display of erudition and entertainment, the class adjourned to the 301 Club in downtown Fullerton, a nightclub where students hung out to discuss the Big Questions, aided by adult beverages. Although I had already been exposed to all sides in the great debates in my various courses and readings at Pepperdine, what was strikingly different in this context was the heterogeneity of my fellow students’ beliefs. Since I was no longer exclusively surrounded by Christians, there were no social penalties for being skeptical—about anything. Except for the 301 Club discussions that went on into the wee hours of the morning, however, religion almost never came up in the classroom or lab. We were there to do science, and that is almost all we did. Religion was simply not part of the environment. So it was not the fact that I learned about evolutionary theory that rent asunder my Christian faith; it was that it was okay to challenge any and all beliefs without fear of psychological loss or social reprisal. There were other factors as well.
The Difference in Worldviews (and the Difference It Makes)
Over in the psychology department, where I was officially studying for a master’s degree in experimental psychology, my adviser and mentor was Douglas Navarick, an old-school Skinnerian who preached the gospel of rigorous scientific methodology and who brooked no superstition or sloppy thinking in his students. As he reminded me in a recent letter in response to my query about his beliefs back then (memories do fade after three decades), “Within a scientific framework, I take a conventional, empiricist, cause-and-effect approach (i.e., independent and dependent variables). But outside that framework I try to keep an ‘open mind’ so I won’t miss anything, such as the possibility that a coincidence could mean something more than a chance event, so I’ll be alert for additional indications of some meaning, i.e., patterns of events, but recognizing that it’s sheer speculation.”
Indeed,