Evolution shouldn't be taught in schools if creationism isn't allowed
Ken Schalfley, Midland Daily News
06/04/2006
There have been several recent letters to the editor concerning the teaching of evolution and creationism in the public school curriculum. Proponents of evolution say it is based upon scientific evidence and creationism is not, therefore, creationism should not be taught. I would ask those who favor only evolution to consider the following questions derived from the Discovery Institute in Seattle concerning recognized icons of evolution.
Why do textbooks claim that the 1953 Miller-Urey experiment shows how life's building blocks may have formed on Earth, when conditions on the early Earth were probably nothing like those used in the experiment, and the origin of life remains a mystery?
Why don't textbooks discuss the Cambrian explosion, in which all major animal groups appear together in the fossil record fully formed instead of branching from a common ancestor, thus contradicting the evolutionary tree of life?
Why do textbooks use drawings of similarities in vertebrate embryos as evidence for common ancestry, even though biologists have known for over a century that vertebrate embryos are not most similar in their early stages, and that the drawings are faked?
Why do textbooks portray the archaeopteryx as the missing link between dinosaurs and modern birds even though modern birds are probably not descended from it, and its supposed ancestors do not appear until millions of years after it?
Why do textbooks use pictures of peppered moths camouflaged on tree trunks as evidence for natural selection, when biologists have known since the 1980s that the moths don't normally rest on tree trunks, and that all the pictures have been staged?
Why do the textbooks claim that beak changes in Galapagos finches during a severe drought can explain the origin of species by natural selection, even though the changes were reversed after the drought ended and no net evolution occurred?
Why do textbooks use fruit flies with an extra pair of wings as evidence the DNA mutations can supply raw materials for evolution even though the extra wings have no muscles and these disabled mutants cannot survive outside the laboratory?
Why are artists' drawings of apelike humans used to justify claims that we are just animals --when fossil experts cannot even agree on who our supposed ancestors were or what they looked like?
Perhaps the most important question to be asked is why are students told that Darwin's theory of evolution is a scientific fact, even though many of its claims are based upon misrepresentations of the facts?
I have always been under the impression that Darwin's theory of evolution is just that -- a theory. Darwin himself, in his work, Origin of Species, said, "For I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in the volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I arrived."
Reflecting on his work near the end of his life, Darwin stated, "I was a young man with unformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything; and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them." I find it interesting that Darwin compares his work as a religion to those who reveled his work. Based upon what he said, if other concepts such as creationism should not be allowed in the public schools, neither should the theory of evolution.
Is Darwin's theory of evolution worthy of discussion and investigation? Of course. Should it be given scientific law status? More conclusive evidence needs to come forth before that can ever happen, which appears unlikely, since some of the critical "evidence" for evolution has had to be altered. For more indepth information, get a copy of "Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth?," authored by Jonathan Wells.
Since education is to be a quest for learning, it is proper to investigate any queries to creation. Our Forefathers would approve, why can't we?
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