|
Should Schools Teach Creationism Alongside Evolution?
I shall begin my examination of this subject by assuming the intelligence and honesty (or common sense and fairness) of my audience, without which no debate, court-case or scientific investigation stands much chance of credible outcome. Hopefully, in that environment, logic will speak as we examine the evidence, and truth will emerge.
Most of the heat generated by this question results from a misunderstanding of the real issue. If the "no" side is trying to keep religion out of the science class we have no argument. However, a look at the facts will reveal a shocking surprise.
It is commonly assumed because of their associations, that evolution is scientific, and creationism is merely religious, and that they should therefore be relegated to mutually exclusive disciplines.
It is further assumed that theories, findings or "facts" that qualify as scientific, have been justly accorded that status as a result of successfully weathering the rigorous scrutiny of unbiased, critical examination, by accurate, expert analysis and testing of the processes involved. In other words, these "facts" enjoy the reputation of possessing concrete proof which establishes their invincibility. Conversely, in the popular mind, ideas, beliefs and conclusions about less tangible realities that do not readily lend themselves to physical analysis or measurement, are considered to be metaphysical, ethereal or religious. That is to say, because they lie outside the confines of laboratory methods and tools, they are not capable of physical proof and the prestigious endorsement of science, and must depend on the questionable exercise of faith to defend them.
To many western minds that means religious "truths" are seen to lie in an inferior position when confronted by the unassailable bastions of scientific proof. Faith is often condescendingly smiled upon as the pathetic fortress of the weak and less enlightened classes.
What I propose to demonstrate is that evolutionists have not, do not and can not meet the criteria for claiming to be logical, transparent or scientific. I further intend to show that what is labelled as the "religion" of creationism is, in very fact, an empirical and research-based science. It is far superior to evolution, offering a much more credible explanation of origins and providing a more intellectually satisfying mechanism for speciation and complexity, as seen in the light of the overwhelming evidence now available from DNA research and molecular biology.
Science, coming from "scio", to know, should be an honest search for the truth using the scientific method with an unbiased willingness to go wherever the evidence takes us. Good science looks at a problem or a challenge and suggests every conceivable solution, without arbitrarily excluding any, and then begins to test for the best explanation or the solution that works. But over the last 150 years a crippling limitation has been imposed on the thinking of the science community. Ever since the mechanism of natural selection was promoted by Darwin in stark contrast to the thinking of earlier great philosophers and scientists, evolutionists have gravitated to this explanation of origins. As the appeal of this world view took hold and began to dominate the thinking of many scientists and schools, the convention of adopting methodological naturalism became almost universal. This paradigm, which arbitrarily excludes the admissibility of intelligence as a possible factor in the design or development of the incredibly complex structures we find in the world of living things, has held the vast majority of scientists in a vice grip ever since.
The effect it has on research and truth seeking is like forbidding the homicide detectives from considering or questioning any suspect who was, at the time of the crime, in the building where the body was found, but demanding that they find the killer elsewhere. Why exclude the most likely perpetrators before the examination even begins? That is blatant prejudice and unmitigated bias and practically precludes any chance of finding truth.
This means that science has moved from an experimental and research based model to a more prejudiced and doctrinaire approach opening itself up to a charge of being religious in nature rather than empirical.
Let's look at only a few of the great number of examples we could cite. Biochemical engineer Dr Dean Kenyon, a leading evolutionary chemist, co-authored Biochemical Predestination with Gary Steinman in 1969 in which they tried to explain how life could have evolved from the mutual attractions of amino acids causing them to self-assemble into the long, complex chains needed to form proteins. However, by the late seventies Dr. Kenyon realized that this could not take place without detailed information to guide the process, and the function of sophisticated structures in which the complicated sequencing and assembly of the parts could be accomplished.
With the deciphering of the intricate "language of life" codes composed of chemicals labelled A,C,T and G, meticulously sequenced in the double helical structure of DNA, the structural specifications for all proteins were discovered. The billions of possible combinations in this densely packed data base far surpasses anything even used in modern computers and bears the obvious earmarks of intelligent origin. It stores the sequencing patterns for the building of 30,000 proteins from just 20 amino acids.
Proteins have been proven to be as capable of self-construction without DNA as a text book is of self-printing by an explosion in a type setting room without a type-setter. But where did the highly structured, specific information in DNA come from? Without DNA there is no self-replication. Without self-replication natural selection cannot occur. How then does one use it to account for complex evolving structures?
In the examination of single cell structure and function, bio-chemist Dr. Michael Behe and others have discovered a whole world of highly specialized processes and
"machines" that direct amino acid replication, sequencing and precise folding to construct highly specialized proteins. Their structure and function are as complex as those of a modern car assembly plant.
Consider also the bacterial flagellum, comprised of 40 distinct and highly engineered parts. This tiny "motor" like a miniature outboard, cannot work unless it has all its parts in good condition, assembled in the correct order. By definition, natural selection can produce new structures or varieties only by means of minute, incremental, changes, generation after generation. But such mutations or changes are retained and passed on only if they provide a functional advantage. Those that do not are dropped. Suppose a bacterium were to experience the lucky development of one of these 40 parts. It would be of no use by itself and would be discarded. How then could the bacterium ever hope to obtain a flagellum? How could it develop and store one of each of the 40 parts, all different, one per generation, until it had the whole set ready to assemble? But assuming that it could do that, how would it know what to do with them and get equipped to assemble them in sequence so that they would function as a miniature outboard motor? The suggestion of co-option as a source of parts won't help either because other organisms have only a quarter of the parts needed.
Natural selection supposedly could "recognize" the convenient propulsion benefit of this tail and choose to preserve this functional advantage but it has no means of obtaining it in the first place. It cannot account for the occurrence of such irreducibly complex structures. Darwin himself admitted that if such a structure were to be encountered, it would destroy his whole theory. Well, that is what happened. How could he have known of the intricate marvels molecular biologists would be able to see in our day, when he thought of a cell as a mere, simple blob of jelly? Today we know that each cell is more complicated than a computer and its functions are controlled by highly sophisticated information codes, equal to 100's of pages of print, stored in its DNA.
So there is the crunch. Natural selection has no explanation or mechanism for the appearance of such complex structures which depend on information and design to replicate. Without the instructions in the DNA, not even the "simple" bacterium could exist! What was the source of the information? Will the real science please stand up?
Everywhere else, in human experience, we recognize that complex structures do not result from the effects of accident, the passage of time or self-invention. Rather they are planned and built by some intelligent agent of a higher order. Intelligence orders or modifies available material or directs the assembly of components to meet a specific purpose. This is true whether we are discussing a bird building a nest or a man inventing a tractor. Every design has a designer. One implies the other.
Furthermore, we don't usually go out of our way to construct fantastic and elaborate theories of origin for something we find, when a more likely and reasonable explanation is obvious to the most casual observer. This practice of intuiting the most probable explanation has been found to be reliable in countless other situations. It is called inference to the best explanation. We don't arbitrarily exclude the possibility of bird involvement in the construction of the nest and postulate that it could have resulted from a tornado or a flood arranging the materials in so precise a manner. Neither do intelligent people try to construct fables about possible volcanic activity or meteorite impact as being the likely agents responsible for the existence and development of a tractor that actually runs and still has paint on it. We say some person made it. We recognise the earmarks of design which requires intelligence. Who is hiding something?
Mathematician William Dembski's book on Design Inference illustrates how it is the universal practice of man in all other settings where we encounter an improbable object or event, coupled with a recognizable objective pattern, we attribute it to intelligent origin. For example whenever any person encounters the faces on Mount Rushmore which are different in design to the features of all other mountains (improbable), but, at the same time, are similar to human faces (recognisable, objective pattern), the automatic response is always an inference to the best explanation, that being recognition of the evidence of intelligent design on the mountain, not suspicion of the possibility of natural forces being the cause of that particular pattern. Of course we know that the faces of those four presidents are, in fact, the work of Borglund who sculpted them there.
Fortunately, it is hard to hide all the truth from all the people all the time. A great number of highly respected scientists who were raised on a solid diet of evolutionary thought which was taught exclusively as established fact, have begun to see the deficiencies of that theory. They are discovering that it is incapable of explaining what they are learning to be true in many fields and that it rests on a number of problematic and unproven assumptions which are rarely mentioned to students. The lights come on.
Consequently, in 1993 a meeting of leading scientists from multiple disciplines was convened in Pajaro Dunes Ca. to wrestle with these questions that had been troubling them increasingly as discoveries in chemistry, molecular biology, genetics and other fields had identified problems that were insoluble within methodological naturalism. As they compared notes, these eminent and esteemed researchers were forced to admit that natural selection was incapable of explaining the source of information or the processes present in the living cells they were studying. Out of their discussions a more logical, adequate and satisfying theory began to emerge. They were forced to abandon their efforts to use natural selection as a mechanism to explain cellular function, and began to discuss an explanation that could account for the information found in cells. In the past, a theory had only to contend with matter and energy, but now it had to recognize information as the third essential. The only possible source and explanation for information is intelligence. Hence they emerged with a new paradigm that has come to be known as Intelligent Design. At last, some common sense!
How many millions of hours, thousands of lives and billions of dollars have been wasted searching for ways to make evolution work, rather than to looking at the logical alternative? Who can tally the decades spent fruitlessly seeking missing links and devising fantastic explanations to bolster a system that was blind by choice. Prejudice, tunnel vision, and an unwillingness to be open-minded by considering all the options, perpetuated a system of self-deception. The scientists who met at Pajaro Dunes managed to escape from the tyranny of methodological naturalism when they admitted its inability to offer a credible explanation for information rich systems and sought for a more plausible answer. It was there all the time.
The theory of evolution is totally inadequate to explain the origin of matter and energy, the organization of the solar system, the existence of organic material, the marvellous complexity and order in life forms (in the face of the universally observed laws of entropy), the absence of transitional forms in the fossil record, why evolution stopped, why embryos don't propagate, the sterility of hybrids, how regression limits variation in offspring to the confines of type, and a host of other problems.
How can such an arbitrary, myopic and arrogant system be respected , tolerated or foisted on our kids? Yet Evolution has high-jacked the science agenda for over a century and we have allowed our educational hierarchy to feed it to millions of students as science and TRUTH. Along with its cousins, atheism and humanism, it has succeeded in eroding the foundations of our civilization by supplying an alternate and false explanation of origin that removed the need for God. It has undermined our morals and social order by teaching our youth that they were only products of blind chance, descended from simpler life forms by natural processes and accountable to no God. It has robbed them of the awareness that they were distinct, moral agents, created on a higher plane than mere animals. Right and wrong became subjective and relative rather than objective and binding in the choices they made. It was only a matter of time until the wholesome influence of prayer and Bible reading were removed from school and replaced progressively by indecency, social diseases, violence, gangs and shootings.
We have seen that Intelligent Design is a product of honest inquiry, solid research, sound reasoning and good science. In the opposite corner, wearing a red face, we have the incumbent contender who masquerades as a science candidate.
Intelligent Design may well have religious implications, but it certainly does not depend on religious precepts. It stands independently, as good science based on self-evident facts. Until recently, science occupied itself with studying two entities: matter and energy. Now it is forced to concede the presence of a third essential factor: information, such as that in DNA. Information cannot exist except by intelligent input. Evolutionists may choose too scoff at and reject these realities but they will not be able to call their position scientific.
Should schools be allowed to teach creationism as part of their science curriculum? I guess that depends on our purpose. Is it to teach good science or to engage in social engineering and the brain-washing of the young by pushing a false science and a Godless philosophy. I believe it is totally appropriate to include creationism in the science curriculum if empirical truth and a moral society are important to us.
What is most inappropriate, though, is to continue including the demeaning myth of evolution in the science class. It is a religion of atheism, blindness and effrontery to God. It might belong in the study of heathen religion, anthropology or the psychological and psychiatric analysis of mass delusions. It is a thinly disguised attempt to create an escape from the obvious fingerprints of an intelligent designer, or a Creator God and the moral implications implicit in that consideration.
If our scientific search for knowledge and truth leads us to discover and recognize the God Who made all things as it solves other problems, then we get double benefit for our effort. We ought to consider the origin, purpose and destiny of life. We get only one run at it. Let's put true science back in the classroom!
`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`
By Art Willock, current Director of Expanding Youth Ministries,
Art is an educator, speaker, and retired farmer. He taught both in
elementary and high school, and has been a school principal too.
His wife, Rosella was a missionary in Japan for 20 years.
`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`=`
|
hdr.gif)
.gif)