Is There Any Justification For Teaching Evolution In School?

Part 2

second, there must be an ability to reproduce the effect of

whatever is observed. Creation can not meet either of these

requirements. Dr. Morris comments that,

Creation is not taking place now, so far as can be

observed. Therefore, it was accomplished sometime in

the past, if at all, and thus is inaccessible to the

scientific method. It is impossible to devise a

scientific experiment to describe the creation process,

or even to ascertain whether such a process can take

place (Creationism 5).

Thus, to call creation scientific would be a abuse of the word.

Likewise, in keeping with this definition of science, it is

interesting to note that the idea of evolution being scientific

has no better argument than does creation. Again, Dr. Morris

states,

If evolution is taking place today, it operates too

slowly to be measurable, and therefore, is outside the

realm of empirical science....The small variations in

organisms which are observed to take place today are

irrelevant to this question, since there is no way to

prove that these changes within present kinds [a term

used to denote the originally created entity] eventually

change the kinds into different, higher kinds. Since

small variations (including mutations) are as much to be

expected in the creation model as in the evolution

model, they are of no value in discrimination between

the two models (Creationism 5).

Furthermore, even advocates of the evolution model agree at this

point. A leading British evolutionary biologist, Professor L.

Matthews, recognizes that the evolution model is no different to

the creation model on the scientific level. In his introduction

to the book, "On Origin of the Species", he makes the following

comments:

The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and

biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a

science founded on and unproved theory-is it then a

science or a faith? Belief in the theory of evolution

is thus 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

(x).

The truth is that neither creation nor evolution is science.

Both are religious philosophies based upon individuals' particular

bias. Webster defines religion as "any specific system of

belief." The question of whether creation should be taught in

school is not an issue of "science versus religion, but religion

versus religion (the science of one religion versus the science

of another religion)" (Ham 16).

Even though neither model can be proved, it is still possible

to establish the probability of one model above the other. To do

this, it has been proposed that the two models be used as systems

for predicting data (Morris, Creationism 12). Consider for

a moment that there is no data to support either model. Only two