Every year I attend a conference or two on "evolutionary computation." This is where researchers write computer programs based on the principles of Darwinian evolution, and use them to solve really hard mathematical and engineering problems. The thing is, you can have a problem with lots and lots of variables, all interacting with one another, all nonlinear and hard to figure out, and you want to find some optimal combination of them, so you feed your data set to the computer program and it evolves the solution. This is mostly done using methods based on random mutation and sexual recombination, plus "selection," which is like "natural selection" except it's not natural in a computer program -- it's survival of the fittest.

One thing you come away with is an appreciation for the raw power of these simple processes. The problems these guys solve are analogous to the adaptations that organisms make to their environment, like the development of eyes, and camouflaged coloring, and preference for particular foods. Following a few simple steps in a computer program, these computer scientists can find solutions to problems that are way beyond what ordinary mathematical methods can do.

This has given me a special appreciation for evolution itself. It is one thing to look at the complexity of the world and say, this could not have happened by chance, but it is another when you understand the simple elegance and raw power of the evolutionary process itself. Life is constantly changing, organisms adapt over generations, and the complexity of the biological world is, indeed, within the scope of evolution. Randomness and all.

Across the US, there are today religious groups who oppose the teaching of evolution. They believe it is a challenge to their beliefs, and promote the teaching of some alternative "creationist" belief system instead of the scientifically supported one. These groups have had a lot of success around the country, getting school systems to present their fictional theories as if they were actual scientific contenders. Since most people are not evolutionary biologists and cannot expertly evaluate the literature, they take at face value the information that is given them. And when that information comes from religious proselytizers disguised as scientists, it is extremely difficult for the lay person to know what to think.

A website called unscrewing the inscrutable (motto: "I'm not angry, I just don't agree with you") has been posting a very interesting series of biographies of individuals who promote these creationist and "intelligent design" perspectives. The series is called "Know Your Intelligent Design Creationists."

Today's posting is a little different. They call it "Know Your (Honest) Intelligent Design Creationists," and it is about a real scientist who really believes in God, and who also agrees with biologists that life evolves according to Darwinian principles. This evangelical Christian, Glenn Morton, is a petroleum geophysicist with a belief system he calls theistic evolution.

This is the faith based position that the universe, the solar system, the earth, and the history of life up to and including the evolution of anatomically modern humans from earlier primates, were created by God using processes created by same which humans can understand and explain to some degree through careful scientific investigation. In this view there is no contradiction possible even in principle between believing in a Creator and any valid facts gleaned from studying that Creation. Technically this could be considered a form of Creationism as it assumes a Creator Deity which produced the universe and everything in it. But if so, Theistic Evolution is the only form of creationism which is 100% fully consistent with modern science.

Over the centuries there have been numerous collisions between religion and science. Copernicus, Galileo, and their contemporaries were labeled heretics for their findings, but over time the persuasiveness of scientific research overwhelmed the church, and we are now comfortable understanding that the earth moves around the sun, for instance. Darwin brought a shock to the modern world, proposing out loud that humans are simply another species in the animal kingdom, evolved as apes, subject to the laws of nature that affect all species.

Indirectly, Darwin's challenge underlies the controversy over the Montgomery County sex education curriculum. Is it better to think of human beings as physical organisms, with natural emotions they don't understand and can barely control, or to think of us as spiritual beings, created by God with a special blessing to win the struggle against the temptation of the flesh? It is a hard question, and of course your answer will determine not only how you feel about this specific curriculum, but how you manage your own life.

More directly, we should expect a religious challenge to our county's biology curriculum. My daughter tells me her biology teacher already says "some people believe" in front of any statement about evolution; in fact, it would be accurate enough to say "all biologists believe" in the validity of evolutionary theory.

The example of Glenn Morton shows us that it is possible to hold deep religious convictions and accept the findings of modern science. The two are not opposed, really. Because America is a country where religion is very important, it would be foolish to cast this debate as a war between religion and science. A "win" by the religious side leads us directly back to the Dark Ages. The more enlightened outcome is the development of Christian beliefs that are not challenged by evolution and by the observation that humans are part of nature. People need their faith, but it cannot, in the long run, be a faith that is contradicted by fact.