How Evolution Should Be Taught
In Our Public Schools
For since the creation of the
world God's invisible qualities
--his eternal power and divine
nature--have been clearly seen,
being understood from what has
been made,
so that men are without excuse.
Romans 1:20 NIV
I believe with the Apostle Paul that
the appearance of design in nature is best explained by the
hypothesis of intelligent design. However, I think that attempts
to introduce Intelligent Design into public school biology
curriculums are misguided. We should all be able to agree on the
following:
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Evolution is the dominant origins
paradigm in our time and no student should be considered
well-educated in science who is not familiar with its ideas and
vocabulary. |
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Good science education develops
critical thinking skills--rather than being a program of mere
indoctrination. |
By all means, let's present our students with the best evidence
available that life as we know it is the result of unguided
evolution. Then, since scientific theories are to be valued for
their explanatory power, let's ask them to consider if this
evidence satisfactorily explains the two primary puzzles evolution
purports to solve: How did living cells arise from nonliving
chemicals? And how was the new genetic information added to
transform one animal or plant phylum into another? Consider:
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The spontaneous generation of a
living cell has never been observed in nature or in the various
(intelligently designed!) attempts to produce something like it
in the laboratory. |
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Natural selection acts on existing
genetic information. Mutations have been observed to destroy or
rearrange existing genetic information--they do not create new
information. No scientist has ever observed information (of the
kind found in DNA) arising from any source other than a mind.
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Evolution, then, may be defined as a mechanistic process that
explains life as we know it, but which has no known mechanism for
getting started and no known mechanism for continuing! I would be
perfectly satisfied for our schools to leave it at that.
Pastor Charlie Scott
c. 2007
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