Science, religion not at odds, MVC professor says

Mark Mills, associate biology professor at Missouri Valley College, tells an audience Monday that science does not contradict Christianity because the two realms cover different areas. [Click to enlarge]

In the 1600s, Galileo Galilei was found guilty of heresy for publishing the idea that the Earth was not the center of the universe. Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species," published in 1859, was considered by many to contradict Christian beliefs.

But does science have to be at odds with Christianity? That was the subject of a lecture given Monday evening by Mark Mills, associate professor of biology at Missouri Valley College.

"I have struggled with the apparent conflict for most of my life," said Mills, who was raised as a Methodist and now attends a Nazarene church. He said the late evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould helped him assuage his concerns by suggesting the areas of science and religion are independent in his article "Nonoverlapping Magisteria," published in "Natural History" in March 1997.

Mills said science oversees the laws of nature using the scientific method. Science examines measurable, detectable processes by first observing, then forming a hypothesis, testing that hypothesis and drawing conclusions. After the hypothesis has been tested and upheld repeatedly, it becomes a theory.

But what many non-scientists have trouble understanding is that science has no absolute truths, Mills said. The law of gravity and the principles of motion are well-held beliefs, but are not concrete facts. One day, they could be found to be inaccurate, in need of tweaking or bending.

Religion, on the other hand, oversees the laws of God. It includes morals and ethics and offers guidelines for living and absolute truths to believers. Mills said Christians believe the Bible is the inspired word of God, Jesus is the son of God and the Ten Commandments are the laws of God.

"Science is always re-evaluating and changing," he said. "God is constant and never ending."

Mills said the reason for the perceived conflicts in the two separate realms can be summed up in one word: evolution.

But Mills said Pope John Paul II accepted evolution as a theory, and believed man's soul separates him from nature. Man was separated from his primate ancestor when God put his soul in, Mills said.

He warned MVC students and staff and community members crowded into the formal lounge of the Ferguson Center to be wary of pseudoscience such as the intelligent design theory and scientific creationism.

Mills said the intelligent design theory claims that because humans are complicated they must have been made by an intelligent designer. But he said, although the argument sounds like science, it cannot be tested. "And that's why it's pseudoscience," Mills said. "It's not testable." But just because it's not testable, doesn't mean it's not true, he added.

Among those who attended the lecture was Valley sophomore Saundra Vereyken. "I agree with what he is saying, that science and religion should remain separate," she said. But Vereyken, an elementary education major who received extra credit for attending, added that scientists still have ethics.

MVC biology professor Michele Reinke said she has struggled with the question of whether science and religion conflict.

Retired biology professor Reed Kepner, who taught at MVC for over 30 years, said he has explained to students the difference between what they know and what they believe. He has told students they don't need to believe evolution, but they do have to understand it in order to pass his class.

Mills' presentation was the second in a three-part series on religion and science. MVC physics professor John Gault will give the final lecture at 7 p.m. Monday, April 12, in the same location.

Contact Jenny Bryers at

marshallag@socket.net