When Darwin Went Down to Georgia

The battle over evolution is on again in Cobb County, Georgia. While it’s not quite Scopes II, the encounter is showing that even with its near educational monopoly, evolutionists have not been able to make their case to the American people. The five-member elected school board has required that public school biology textbooks, which teach evolution as an incontrovertible fact, be required to carry the following sticker: “This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered.” Sounds reasonable to me.

As you can imagine, the evolutionary community is outraged. Who would dare to question the sacrosanct science of evolution? Everybody knows that evolution is true. So, like they do so often when they can’t get their way, the evolutionary dogmatists turn to the courts. One judge will determine the merits of the case. I hope he rules in favor of the evolutionists. It will be one more reason why parents should pull their children out of the government schools and put them in schools where there is true academic freedom.

The arguments for evolution are old and deceptive. We’re told that evolution is the basis of modern biology. To question the theory in any way would set science back a thousand years. Here’s how Robert L. DeHaan, senior science advisor at Emory University’s division of educational studies, tries to demonstrate that without evolution, biology could not advance: “Evolutionary theory explains the appearance of new infectious diseases, the development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, and the amazing fact that proteins that make up viruses, worms, insects and humans are all similar.”

Of course, as anyone who is familiar with the foundation of evolutionary theory knows, none of what Dr. DeHaan describes is evolution in action. Bacteria remain bacteria, viruses remain viruses, and proteins remain proteins, and never the twain shall meet. If evolution were an established fact, we should expect to see evidence of bacteria evolving into viruses. But we don’t. Change within species is not evolution.

Then there is the overarching problem of where all of this “stuff” came from. Evolutionists have theories as to how life appeared in the universe, but they have not demonstrated how it happened. In fact, they have not been able to apply the theory of non-life to life in the laboratory. It’s one thing to equate the theory of gravity with the theory of evolution and claim that, in principle they are the same, but it’s another thing to see evolution in process. Dropping a ball from a tower validates the well-established theory of gravity. A comparable demonstration of evolution is not available. Claiming that changes take place within an organism is not proof of evolution.

Then there is the complexity factor. As Michael Behe establishes in Darwin’s Black Box, at the microscopic level, even the most basic cells are intricately complex. Again, evolutionists put forth theories on how the complexity came to be, but the explanations are unsatisfactory without laboratory demonstration.

All that the parents of Cobb County want is a fair discussion of the unproven assumptions of evolution. Is this too much to ask? For those who have something to hide, it is.