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Rick Potts director of the Smithsonians Human Origins Program and curator of the traveling exhibition interacts with some local teachers about human origins. Reverend Jim Miller left and Connie Bertka right are leading a community conversation with the traveling exhibition Exploring Human Origins What Does It Mean to Be Human Images above courtesy Jennifer Clark I have had a long-term scholarly and pragmatic interest in the relationships between science and religion and their influence on the publics understanding of science. This interest eventually led to a degree in theology and several years directing the AAAS Program of Dialogue on Science Ethics and Religion. Whereas the first 10-plus years of my career were spent as a research scientist studying Mars at Carnegies Geophysical Laboratory I spent the next 15 years tackling a significant challenge to the U.S. publics acceptance and understanding of what science is learning about the origin and evolution of our planet and lifenamely the difficulty relating these discoveries to their religious beliefs. The scientific community may be best prepared to address problems of science literacy by advocating for more and better science instruction and robust science standards but unfortunately research in science education has revealed that many teachers avoid teaching evolution and students avoid learning it if they feel it conflicts with their religious beliefs. Could acknowledging their cultural concerns make a difference in their willingness to explore the science for themselves The spectrum of beliefs about nature creation and the degree to which they conflict with science is variable. Avoiding conflict between science and religion by advocating a stance of non-overlapping magisteriathat religion and science are simply different areas of inquiry with separate domains of authorityis a common response. This approach helps explain why science not religion is taught in a science classroom but it has proven less successful in encouraging many reluctant students or their teachers to embrace the teaching of evolution in their high school biology classes. There is no simple answer to this dilemma but I think the time has come to try a new approach. I have come to believe that an important step toward more and better science instruction and robust science standards may be to create opportunities for high school students and future science teachers to explore the evidence for evolution in an environment that does not ignore cultural concerns about learning evolution but rather acknowledges that these concerns exist. The goal is to help students come to appreciate how the scientific community understands evolution while respecting that their decision to accept or not accept this scientific understanding is their own. Regardless of their personal beliefs future teachers should recognize this goal. We should not expect scientists or science teachers to become experts in religion or theology or to resolve students religious concerns. However a more informed understanding of the history and variety of relationships between science and religion might help give them the confidence to create a less threatening environment for exploring evolution both in the classroom and outside of it. Simply acknowledging concerns but not resolving them or teaching the controversy may do more to encourage reluctant individuals to learn about science then the dismissive alternative. Quantitative data to support this idea are limited but encouraging. I hope future science education research will address this need. I did not expect my discussion with the family of young Earth creationists to result in their acceptance of evolution. I do hope our discussion encouraged them to continue exploring not only the evidence for human evolution but also the variety of ways people relate scientific discoveries about human origins to their personal understanding of the world. Like scientific exploration and discovery the latter will be a long and continuing process. The goal is to help students come to appreciate how the scientific community understands evolution while respecting that their decision to accept or not accept this scientific understanding is their own. Part of the origins traveling exhibition included a panel where visitors were encouraged to define what they think it means to be human. Connie Bertka is on the right.