"VITAL ARTICLES ON SCIENCE/CREATION"

June 1983,No. 120 

EVOLUTIONARY INDOCTRINATION AND

DECISION-MAKING IN SCHOOLS

By Richard B. Bliss, Ed.D.

In recent years, the efforts of anti-creationists to distort the

motives and goals of scientific creationists have dominated the

educational literature, influenced the courts and polarized the

media. As an educator who has been in all phases of science

education development and who has been involved in this debate

from its early years, this writer feels an answer to these critics

is in order.

The nature and methodology of science and science education

should require an open and inquiry-oriented approach to the

creation/evolution question. As with any other question in

science, this question should be looked upon as an opportunity to

stimulate thought through the education process, rather than

becoming an obstacle to it. The study of origins

has proven to be one of the most exciting questions that has confronted

education in recent times. It has all the ingredients for promoting both

good science and good education. In fact, the question of origins en-

hances critical thinking through a decision-making framework. Sadly,

students today are being taught that the only way science can view the

origin of life is through an evolution model that is "random, mechanistic

and naturalistic." Certainly there is nothing wrong with using evolution

as one model or framework within which scientific information can be

correlated and integrated, but when evolutionists say that it is the only

model and that the creation model could not also be used to correlate

and integrate scientific information as well, they are no longer speaking

in the context of scientific truth. Evolution fails to answer more questions

than it purports to answer and the creation model certainly has much

to offer as an alternative.

Anti-creation groups are distorting the potential value of both models

when they call evolution the only idea available to science. Either they do

not know what the data actually reveal, or else they are deliberately

attempting to deceive the world's educators. Educators should

know that some of the most open attacks on evolutionary dogma come

from evolutionary scientists themselves, and it is from these men

that creationists take note of the religious nature of the

evolutionary paradigm. Strangely, testimony from these scientists

is distinctly absent from the anti creationists writings. Examples

of some of these,, writings by evolutionary scientists are given below:

Paul Ehrlich and L.C. Birch, biologists at Stanford and the

University of Sydney, respectively, summarized the problem in Nature

Magazine:

Our theory of evolution has become . . . one which cannot

be refuted by any possible observations. Every conceivable

observation can be fitted into it. It is thus 'outside of

empirical science' but not necessarily false. No one

can think of ways in which to test it. Ideas, either with-

out basis or based on a few laboratory experiments carried

out in extremely simplified systems have attained currency

far beyond their validity. They have become part of an

evolutionary dogma accepted by most of us as part Of our

training.

L. Harrison Matthews, writer of the introduction to the 1971 edition of

Darwin's ORIGIN OF SPECIES has this to say:

The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology and biology is thus in

the peculiar position of being a science founded upon an unproved

theory is it then a science or a faith? Belief in the theory of evolution

is exactly parallel to belief in special creation both are concepts

which believers know to be true, but neither, up to the present, has

been capable of proof.

Derek V. Ager writes in "The Nature of the Fossil Record":

It must be significant that nearly all the evolutionary stories I learned

as a student, from Tureman's Ostrea/Gryphaea to Carruthers Zaphrentis-

delanovei, have now been 'debunked'.

These men and others are helping us to gain a more accurate perspective-

on the subject of origins. Certainly in the light of these statements,

evolution cannot be considered to be a proven fact. Even its status as a

scientific theory can be challenged. Dr. Colin Patterson, senior paleontologist

for the British) Museum of Natural History, in a public lecture

before the American Museum of Natural History New York City,

November 5, 1981, said that he posed this question to the geology staff

of the Field Museum of Natural History: "Can you tell me anything you

know about evolution, any one thing that is true?" He also posed this

same question to the pretigious body of evolutionists at the Evolutionary

Morphology Seminar at the University of Chicago. The answer he re-

ceived from both groups was silence, until one member of the morphol-

ogy group spoke up and said: "I do know one thing it ought not to be

taught in high school." Scientific creationists disagree. They think that

evolution should be taught, but only when the strengths and weaknesses

are discussed in comparison with the scientific merits of

creation. Perhaps it is about time that we all learned that it

is wrong to suppress evidence and teach only one view of origins

as the evolutionists are demanding now.

Policy makers and educators should realize that both models of

origins arc,, paradigms. Creation is neither less scientific nor

more religious than evolution. Teachers must be allowed to

realize this without being demeaned by a vocal minority of

self-styled experts in the wisdom of science. Both teachers and

students must have this freedom if today's schools are going to

develop the decision-makers that we, need. Open inquiry can

solve this problem of teaching origins if proper skills of sci

entific inquiry are taught and utilized.

Creationists have been accused of teaching pseudo science

when they state that the planet upon which we live is probably a

young planet rather than an old one; or that the second law of

thermodynamics (systems tend to go from complex to simple,

rather than going from simple to complex, naturally) applied to

the living as well as the, inanimate world. These comments and

many others are carelessly given out by the anti creationists as

evidence against the creationists' credibility; yet, the crea

tionist has shown his willingness to consider all evidences

relating to geologic ages, whether old and young. On the other

hand, the fact that there are many data that seem to limit the

age of the earth and universe to younger ages is never stated or

even considered by evolutionists. Oil well fluid pressures; the

helium inventory in the atmosphere; polonium halos in our oldest

rocks, dust on the moon; the earth's magnetic decay;

short-term comets, and many others give young ages for the earth and

the cosmos. Creationists believe that much more research has to be

done and that true scientists should not have a closed mind on this

topic; the question must remain open. Evolutionists deny this and reject,

out of hand, any information that gives anything but old ages. This is bad

science and does not lead to objective decision making. What creation

ists are asking for is open and objective science that will leave room for

progress and discovery. No scientific creationist is proposing the use of

the Bible as a science text book in the public schools. However, scien-

tific creationists believe that scientists should adhere to the principles of

science as they operate in the real world of science, and young people

should be taught the process skills of science and scientific inquiry by

exposing them to all data, regardless of which side they seem to fall

upon.

"If you let creation in, you will be teaching a literal interpretation

of the Bible and all of science will collapse," the anti-creationist insists

Statements such as these are evidently meant to scare the public and

educators alike, but they are totally false. The question of evolution

and creation is easily resolved when professional teachers rise above their

personal biases and confine themselves to teaching the 'process skills' of

science and scientific inquiry. From this point on, the "decision-maker,"

the "critical thinker," is the student. Unfortunately, most teachers refuse

to let him be a decision maker on this issue and literally force

him to think in terms of evolution only.

It is often said that the content for the science curriculum

must be selected data that explain the natural world

scientifically, and that it has the ability to unify, illuminate,

and integrate other facts. Does the evolution model do this

any better than the creation model? Not at all. Hubert P.

Yockey, writing for the Journal of Systematic Biology, has this

to say about the whole question of origins:

Since science has not the vaguest idea of how life

originated on earth, whether life existed anywhere else, or

whether little greet) men I)pullulate,Ate iii our galaxy, it

would be honest to admit this to our students, the agencies

funding research, and the public. . . . It is new knowledge,

riot another clever scenario, that is needed to achieve an

understanding of the origin of life.

Scientific creationists and others are proposing a two

model approach to the origin of life that will not only

stimulate scientific thought among students, but iii fact,

capitalize on their motivation toward this subject.

Creationists cannot legitimately be accused of bias or

mind-programming when they merely offer their model as

an alternative to evolution. If evolution is so certain, then

what is there to be afraid of in this matter?

Some evolutionists seem to be saying, by their passionate resistance to

the creation model, that they are afraid that their model won't stand up.

They say that arguing with a Creator is a no-win situation. By the same

token, can't the creationist say that arguing with a model that can be

i-node to fit any data is also a no-win situation? Why hot let the students

decide in this matter?

This writer submits, then, that every teacher, every student and every

parent should have the opportunity to explore both models as a frame-

work within which they can correlate scientific information without fear

of retribution of any kind.

That the search for knowledge and understanding of the physical universe

and of the living things that inhabit it should be conducted under

conditions of intellectual freedom, without religious, political or -

llogical restrictions. . . That freedom of inquiry and dissemination of

ideas require that those so engaged be free to search where their

inquiry leads . . . without political censorship and without fear of

retribution in consequence of unpopularity of their conclusions. Those who

challenge existing theories must be protected from retaliatory reactions-

(National Academy of Sciences Resolution of April, 1976: 'An Af-

firmation of Freedom of Inquiry and Expression').

Clarence Darrow, in the Scopes trial of 1925, had this to say:

. . . let the children have their minds kept open . . . close no doors to

their knowledge . . . shut no door to them . . . let them have both

evolution and creation . . . the truth will win out in the end.