Jerry Bergman, in his booklet advocating equal time for creationism , correctly notes: "Establishing teacher credibility requires presenting material in non-dogmatic ways according to the merits of the facts.
The "merits of the facts" happen to favor evolution. But the two-model approach implies that informed scientific opinion is equally divided on the issue of origins. To teach that this is the case when it is not, and when the evidence for evolution is clearly demonstrable, is to dishonestly mislead students.
Such an act is unethical and the betrayal of a public trust. Furthermore, it is an irony when one considers that creationists profess to do this in the interest of increasing morality in society.
Evolution supposedly promotes amorality. If we take Bergman at his word, and go by the "merits of the facts," then we will operate on a merit system in science and give every theory its just due and no more. This means creationism would indeed have a place in the science classroom - as a discredited theory on a par with Lamarkianism, or as a minority fringe theory on a par with Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision.
That would be honest. And while we are on the subject of honesty, it would be wise to appraise creationist textbooks and audio-visual aids on how they live u, p to that virtue. Richard M. Today it is only laughable. The world's libraries are full of books that give overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Any use of these books in any school will cripple the students' understanding of science. The Institute for Creation Research in their audio-visual aid, Creation and Evolution: A Comparison of Two Scientific Models , make a number of statements that scientists in general would regard as false or misleading.
Here are just a few: "As a matter of fact, however, neither creation nor evolution is a valid scientific theory Creationists maintain that the Second Law of Thermodynamics thus directly contradicts evolution. Evolutionists believe, however, that there must be a way out of this apparent dilemma. So, if creationists wish to talk about "fairness," something should be said about the fairness of having creationists author the two-model materials without consultation from evolutionists.
And shouldn't Hari Krishnas be allowed to author some two-model textbooks, and Day-Age theorists as well? Clearly, it is dishonest to falsely imply that 1 scientific opinion is equally divided on creation and evolution, 2 the case is equally good for both models, 3 there are only two models possible, 4 the evidence supports creationism, and 5 evolutionists believe absurdities.
Yet most creationist school materials make these implications. Therefore, one can only conclude that the two-model approach, as now advocated, is not suitable for the public schools. Besides honesty and quality of education, there is such a thing as courtesy. Nell Segraves of the Creation-Science Research Center said in an interview, "Most of the creation science is anti-evolution, showing the flaws in the evolutionary thinking.
Such has been a common criticism leveled against creationist textbooks, particularly Biology: A Search for Order in Complexity. Marvin Moore, a creationist writing in Liberty magazine , had this to say about the book: "The three factors that raise a question about its appropriateness as a textbook in a public school classroom are its defense of Biblical creationism, sometimes with religious language; its attempt throughout to discredit the evolutionary theory; and its occasional belittling of scientists who believe in evolution.
Conrad Bonifazi, Professor of the Philosophy of Religion at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California said, "The art of teaching itself is brought into disrepute by the introduction into it of denunciatory elements.
Since evolution is not taught in that way, why should creationism be? There are, however, non-creationists who would enjoy having the two model approach in the public schools. Many of them are atheists and freethinkers who see such two-model teaching as an opportunity to "debunk religion.
They enjoy a good fight, and wish for another Darrow to battle another Bryan in a rousing fracas. They feel such opportunities in the public schools will bring about a reduction in the effects of religion on society. And there is a basis of validity in this. After all, since the Bible is at bottom the basic source of creationist beliefs and the ultimate authority appealed to in every jam, then the Bible cannot help but be part of the creation model.
Therefore, where the Bible makes testable claims, it would be fair in any two-model course to test them. Where those claims don't stand up to the test, religion based on them would be effectively "debunked. A concern over such possible debate in the public schools led Herbert Stern of the University of California at San Diego to declare:.
The teaching of divine creation as a scientific theory demeans religion and I therefore oppose it. For most people in this society religion is the highest form of spiritual expression which carries with it perceptions of truth that are unknown to the empirical searches of science. To treat a religious vision of [origins] on the same footing as a scientific one is to drag religion into a spiritual gutter and to stimulate a fake conflict in the youngster between a system of thinking which has over the centuries sought to cultivate the loftiest of motivations and a system which has sought to bring meaningful order into the immediacies of human experience.
Any educational program which seeks to make these utterly different human concerns into a single and conflicting search for meaning is one which has declared bankruptcy in its own confidence. A scientist who must prove the wisdom of evolution by arguing the absurdity of special creation is as unwelcome to me as the minister who must prove the wisdom of religion by citing the absurdities of science. Zoologist Richard D. Alexander warned: "When creation theorists strive to introduce creation into the classroom as an alternative biological theory to evolution they must recognize that they are required to give creation the status of a falsifiable idea — that is, an idea that loses any special exemption from scrutiny, that is accepted as conceivably being false, and that must be continually tested until the question is settled.
A science classroom is not the place for an idea that is revered as holy. Creationists, however, argue they will only be teaching the "scientific" creation model, not the religious one. What many fail to remember is that most believers in creationism tie their whole religious value system to that very "science.
If this were not so, if creation "science" were not so important to creation religion, the creationists would not be making such vigorous moves in the direction of getting more religious schools to teach it, in addition to the public schools. And Dr. Unless the Lord returns first, however, we believe the case for scientific creationism is so sound that, by His grace, we may yet see a real nationwide reintroduction of creationism as a viable alternative into our schools and colleges.
The ultimate results, in terms of a revival of Biblical Christianity in our national life and in individual lives, are exciting to contemplate. Some freethinkers find it exciting to contemplate too, as an opportunity to create a rise in atheism. Morris and other creationists are confident that the efforts to Christianize America will win out over the opposition. Is this confidence well-placed? Yes, because equal-time teaching of creationism doesn't end with just two model textbooks.
The next step is to demand that at least half the science teachers be creationists in a sort of "affirmative action" program for fundamentalism. The Creation-Science Report , put out by the Creation Science Research Center, notes that efforts in this direction are already in progress. This would force a change in teacher training. If creationism is to be taught in science classrooms, then teachers must be trained to teach it — not in a general or Christian sense, but in a manner acceptable to a small, fundamentalist minority.
It is not simply the textbooks that creationists strive to control, but teacher training as well. You see, the end result is the thing the creationists are concerned about, not just the process. Morris has indicated in debate and in writing that an atheist or liberal Christian teacher would probably not do justice to the teaching of creationism or the two-model approach. His opponents agree, in a way. Biologist Richard Haas of Fresno State College put it plainly: "Whatever the merits of creationist points of view such arguments clearly do not belong within the public schools except in courses devoted to theological subjects taught by persons specifically trained in these areas.
In other words, if creationists demand special teachers for creationism, let them be religious teachers, because science teachers aren't qualified to deal with this issue. Richard Bliss of ICR, however, feels he has research to show that the two-model approach is ideal for science teaching. He thinks teachers trained to use it will be better teachers and their students will be better learners. He summarized his research in Impact No.
Let's look at the data presented there. Using the "Pre-test, Post-test, Control Group" design on high school biology students in Racine, Wisconsin, randomly divided into classes by computer, and using teachers all trained in two-model instruction who were equally divided in their preference for either creation or evolution, Bliss began his experiment.
Normal "traditional" material in Biology: Living Systems , by Oram, Hummer, and Smoot, was taught to the control group. The pre-test prior to the course showed no significant difference between the control and experimental groups.
Thus both started at basically the same level. After the instruction, the post-test results showed a significant gain at the. They did better in learning both the evolutionary data and arguments, and those for creationism. They had more positive attitudes toward the subject of biology in general. Furthermore, "those students in the experimental group in the middle and high IQ range showed a significant increase in preference toward the creation model after they had examined all the data.
In other words, they became more creationistic in their point of view and less evolutionary. It seems, then, that the student virtues inculcated by the Bliss two-model method are higher motivation, better grasp of the data, more ability and inclination to think critically, and more open mindedness, making students "willing to change their views when new data arrive. Jerry Bergman praised this study, adding that "the strongest pedagogical argument for teaching both theories is that it permits comparisons and contrasts.
Teaching by contrasts helps the student to integrate new knowledge within the total framework of the subject. To the average person, or school board member, this sounds highly desirable, and may even make it seem "unconscionable from a pedagogical and scientific point of view, to teach only evolution to students in the public high schools. But is the teaching of evolution alone really that backward? Let's use some of the critical thinking Bliss praises and take a closer look at his study.
Bliss had two advantages which make his experiment unfair. First, he designed the supposedly fair and balanced two-model teaching. Second, his own two-model textbook was involved. Apparently no evolutionists took part in either the training of the teachers in two-model instruction, or in the writing of the two-model textbook.
All this was done by Bliss, a creationist at Christian Heritage College. Previously, I explained how creationist two-model instructional materials are unfair, imbalanced, and inaccurately portray evolution. This is particularly true of Bliss' two-model textbook used in his experiment.
It is no wonder, then, that more students became creationists after such a course of study! Creationist two-model teacher training is probably no less inferior. Lemmon's previously mentioned review of the teacher's handbooks in the Science and Creation Series published by the Creation-Science Research Center, seems to clearly show this.
But there is another challenge possible. Normal "traditional" material in biology, like that used by the control group, generally doesn't put as much emphasis on origins as does creationist material. This means a student getting a "traditional" biology education will know less about origins than one getting a two-model education. We are thus forced to ask, is education in origins as all-important as the creationists make it out to be?
And, if it is, what would be the results of more concentration on origins in the "traditional" curriculum? Surely, in this latter case, the control group would do much better than it did in Bliss' experiment. All the above points indicate that a new study may be necessary. But this does not clear the air. There is still the thought that a new experiment, of a fairer design, will still show a significant benefit for those learning under the two-model system.
Would any criticism then be possible? Bergman is quite correct in his advocacy of teaching by "comparisons and contrasts. Students get more involved when teachers inspire them to think for themselves rather than just memorize by rote. But since when is it necessary to teach pseudo-science side-by-side with legitimate science in order to stimulate thinking?
Since when is it necessary to give students the option of believing fallacies and misrepresentations of facts in order to get them to think? There are enough real and genuine controversies in science today without dragging in controversies from the 19th century, such as creationism.
Though students would certainly benefit from learning why creationism was rejected, there is no point in deceiving them into thinking it is a live scientific controversy today. It is indeed a live social and religious controversy today, which is why it belongs in comparative sociology or religion classes. Creationists are constantly citing scientists who challenge various aspects of evolutionary theory in the scientific journals.
Where these challenges are not outdated, they could be useful instructional tools for aiding students in the better understanding of evolution in particular and biology in general. This material would supply the valuable "comparisons and contrasts. Controversy is part of science, and a necessary ingredient of its self-correcting operation. Students should be made aware of this so they will learn to appreciate the primary virtue of science that creationists seek to obscure: namely, that science is not dogmatic and not a creed laid down in advance of the data.
Students should also work with the sorts of evidence and reasonings scientists use. This will allow them to learn not only the facts, but the method of science. Then, and only then, will they be ideally suited to forge new scientific revolutions in the future.
But to confuse students with generally rejected pseudo-science would not only be a waste of time, it could have harmful effects. Students trust their teachers to deal in facts. When teachers do not, or combine fact with fallacy in a mixed presentation, students can easily fall for the fallacy. Obviously, if creationism is legitimate science, students should have a fair chance to learn its evidence. But if it is as nonsensical as Von Daniken's "ancient astronauts" which is not included in history studies that give alternate viewpoints , it should be left out.
Still, creationists believe truth is on their side. That is their right. And they can therefore teach creationism as much as they please in the Christian schools. But here is where we can test their sincerity. Do creationists really believe two-model education is superior from a pedagogical standpoint? Do they really value the teaching of critical thinking?
If so, then we would expect them to use only the two-model approach in the Christian schools. We would expect them to set an example of "fairness" and "balance" so at least their students would have the opportunity to have their minds stimulated by this superior teaching method. And, of course, Christian Heritage College, a division of which is the Institute for Creation Research, ought to be leading the way in this. In our introductory course Biology , concepts and examples of "skin in" and "skin out" biology are presented as reflections of God's power as Creator, Sustainer, Judge, and Redeemer; and students are challenged to live as responsible stewards and ministers of God's reconciliation Pathological processes disease, aging, and death are presented in terms of the Fall and our mandate — following Christ's example — to bring healing and restoration wherever possible.
In Biosystematics, we contrast the evolutionary concept of species origin with the concept of variation within created kinds, and we try to give students the background and interest to proceed, should the Lord so lead them, with the development of a taxonomic system that will be true both to God's Word and to God's world, the twin criteria for true progress in science.
In other words, Dr. Parker teaches creationism, loading in the religious doctrine of the college, and brings up evolution only to knock it down. But maybe this is because these college students have been "brainwashed" by evolution in the public schools before they get to the Christian college. We need, then, to carefully examine the Creationist attitude toward Christian primary and secondary schools. Scientific Creationism , edited by Henry Morris, is frequently sold to Christian secondary schools.
This is a book that gives only the Creation side of the question. Christian schools are encouraged to use it as a central science text, supplemented only by general science material, not by books giving the opposite viewpoint.
Morris criticized the progressive education of John Dewey because it caused "the concept of education from kindergarten to graduate school" to be "reoriented from the teaching of a fixed body of knowledge to the teaching of methods of inquiry to be applied to the continually changing facts of existence. This meant, of course, that there were absolutes to be discovered, in both science and Scripture, and that man's duty was to find and teach the truth in both.
The result of all this was a rise in drug addiction and sexual promiscuity, not to mention the confusion and despair of existentialism. Therefore: "Today, the ideal of a wistful search for truth by a community of scholars operating in academic freedom has an air of unreality, to put it mildly, or futility, to put it bluntly.
Bring back the Biblical-based education of the past. After all, in its proper and primary role, "education is concerned not with discovery of truth, but the transmission of truth already discovered. True education is conservative We can't forget, however, that some non-fundamentalist educators challenge aspects of progressive education too.
Creationism will remain forever unchanged as a theory. It will engender no debate among scientists about fundamental mechanisms of the universe. It generates no empirical predictions which can test the theory. It is taken to be irrefutable. No evidence will ever be accepted which would falsify it. The history of science, however, clearly shows that scientific theories do not remain forever unchanged.
The history of science is not the history of one absolute truth being built upon other absolute truths. Rather, it is the history of theorizing, testing, arguing, refining, rejecting, replacing, more theorizing, more testing, etc. It is the history of theories working well for a time, anomalies occurring i. Of course, it is possible for scientists to act unscientifically, to be dogmatic and dishonest.
But the fact that one finds an occasional oddball or charlatan in the history of science or a person of integrity and genius among pseudoscientists does not imply that there really is no difference between science and pseudoscience. Because of the public and empirical nature of scientific debate, the charlatans will be found out, errors will be corrected and the honest pursuit of the truth is likely to prevail in the end. This will not be the case with pseudosciences, where there is often no method of detecting errors much less of correcting them.
Some theories are so broad or vague that they predict just about anything. Perusal of the scientific literature reveals lively and ongoing scientific debates in evolutionary science. Quoted in Newell This was suggested as a possibility in Dembski Dembski, himself, makes this clear in a number of writings.
See for example Dembski We present in this paper a view of the nature and practice of science that, while commonly held by practicing scientists, is certainly not the only view. For introductions to the philosophy of science and discussions of various views of science, see Laudan , Mayo , Ladyman , Godfrey-Smith , DeWitt R , French See for example Creation-wiki entry, Evolution's materialism or naturalism denies a role for God. See also Baumgardner Wells For a detailed rebuttal to Wells, Gishlick Iowa State University News Service; There are many examples of this argument, from ID proponents and creationists.
See for example Brown See also Prothero , Shubin , and Coyne A science kit about science. The Parent Company; Accessed March 18, The nature of science and instructional practice: making the unnatural natural. Sci Educ. Google Scholar. Aguillard D. Evolution education in Louisiana public schools: a decade following Edwards v.
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Dealing with the backlash against intelligent design. In: Dembski WEA, editor. DeWitt R. Worldviews: an introduction to the history and philosophy of science. Oxford: Wiley; Discovery Institute.
Accessed December 4, How to teach the controversy legally video. Discovery Institute; b. Assessed November 11, The theory of intelligent design: a briefing packet for educators. Discovery Institute; Guillermo Gonzalez and academic persecution. Discovery Institute Accessed December 7, Discovery Institute honors Charles Darwin with academic freedom day.
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Johnson PE. Evolution as dogma: the establishment of naturalism, Foundation for Thought and Ethics; , p. Accessed July 16, Darwin on trial. Access Research Network Accessed December 8, Darwinism and Theism Chapter 4. In: Buell, J. Hearn, editors. For instance, in the model called allopatry, developed by Ernst Mayr of Harvard University, if a population of organisms were isolated from the rest of its species by geographical boundaries, it might be subjected to different selective pressures.
Changes would accumulate in the isolated population. If those changes became so significant that the splinter group could not or routinely would not breed with the original stock, then the splinter group would be reproductively isolated and on its way toward becoming a new species.
Nautilus shell has become a symbol of evolution and biological change. As the creature that occupies the shell outgrows one chamber, it builds another, larger chamber next to it, creating a growing spiral pattern. Natural selection is the best studied of the evolutionary mechanisms, but biologists are open to other possibilities as well. Biologists are constantly assessing the potential of unusual genetic mechanisms for causing speciation or for producing complex features in organisms.
Lynn Margulis of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and others have persuasively argued that some cellular organelles, such as the energy-generating mitochondria, evolved through the symbiotic merger of ancient organisms. Thus, science welcomes the possibility of evolution resulting from forces beyond natural selection. Yet those forces must be natural; they cannot be attributed to the actions of mysterious creative intelligences whose existence, in scientific terms, is unproved.
Speciation is probably fairly rare and in many cases might take centuries. Furthermore, recognizing a new species during a formative stage can be difficult because biologists sometimes disagree about how best to define a species. The most widely used definition, Mayr's Biological Species Concept, recognizes a species as a distinct community of reproductively isolated populations—sets of organisms that normally do not or cannot breed outside their community.
In practice, this standard can be difficult to apply to organisms isolated by distance or terrain or to plants and, of course, fossils do not breed. Biologists therefore usually use organisms' physical and behavioral traits as clues to their species membership. Nevertheless, the scientific literature does contain reports of apparent speciation events in plants, insects and worms. In most of these experiments, researchers subjected organisms to various types of selection—for anatomical differences, mating behaviors, habitat preferences and other traits—and found that they had created populations of organisms that did not breed with outsiders.
For example, William R. Salt of the University of California, Davis, demonstrated that if they sorted a group of fruit flies by their preference for certain environments and bred those flies separately over 35 generations, the resulting flies would refuse to breed with those from a very different environment.
Evolutionists cannot point to any transitional fossils—creatures that are half reptile and half bird, for instance. Actually, paleontologists know of many detailed examples of fossils intermediate in form between various taxonomic groups.
One of the most famous fossils of all time is Archaeopteryx , which combines feathers and skeletal structures peculiar to birds with features of dinosaurs. A flock's worth of other feathered fossil species, some more avian and some less, has also been found. A sequence of fossils spans the evolution of modern horses from the tiny Eohippus.
An amazing fossil creature from million years ago named Tiktaalik embodies the predicted and long-sought transition of certain fishes to life on land. Whales had four-legged ancestors that walked on land, and creatures known as Ambulocetus and Rodhocetus helped to make that transition. Fossil seashells trace the evolution of various mollusks through millions of years. Perhaps 20 or more hominins not all of them our ancestors fill the gap between Lucy the australopithecine and modern humans.
Creationists, though, dismiss these fossil studies. They argue that Archaeopteryx is not a missing link between reptiles and birds—it is just an extinct bird with reptilian features. They want evolutionists to produce a weird, chimeric monster that cannot be classified as belonging to any known group. Even if a creationist does accept a fossil as transitional between two species, he or she may then insist on seeing other fossils intermediate between it and the first two.
These frustrating requests can proceed ad infinitum and place an unreasonable burden on the always incomplete fossil record. Nevertheless, evolutionists can cite further supportive evidence from molecular biology.
All organisms share most of the same genes, but as evolution predicts, the structures of these genes and their products diverge among species, in keeping with their evolutionary relationships. These molecular data also show how various organisms are transitional within evolution. Living things have fantastically intricate features—at the anatomical, cellular and molecular levels—that could not function if they were any less complex or sophisticated. The only prudent conclusion is that they are the products of intelligent design, not evolution.
In theologian William Paley wrote that if one finds a pocket watch in a field, the most reasonable conclusion is that someone dropped it, not that natural forces created it there. By analogy, Paley argued, the complex structures of living things must be the handiwork of direct, divine invention. Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species as an answer to Paley: he explained how natural forces of selection, acting on inherited features, could gradually shape the evolution of ornate organic structures.
Generations of creationists have tried to counter Darwin by citing the example of the eye as a structure that could not have evolved. The eye's ability to provide vision depends on the perfect arrangement of its parts, these critics say.
Natural selection could thus never favor the transitional forms needed during the eye's evolution—what good is half an eye? Biology has vindicated Darwin: researchers have identified primitive eyes and light-sensing organs throughout the animal kingdom and have even tracked the evolutionary history of eyes through comparative genetics.
It now appears that in various families of organisms, eyes have evolved independently. Today's intelligent-design advocates are more sophisticated than their predecessors, but their arguments and goals are not fundamentally different. They criticize evolution by trying to demonstrate that it could not account for life as we know it and then insist that the only tenable alternative is that life was designed by an unidentified intelligence. Recent discoveries prove that even at the microscopic level, life has a quality of complexity that could not have come about through evolution.
As a household example of irreducible complexity, Behe chooses the mousetrap—a machine that could not function if any of its pieces were missing and whose pieces have no value except as parts of the whole. What is true of the mousetrap, he says, is even truer of the bacterial flagellum, a whiplike cellular organelle used for propulsion that operates like an outboard motor.
The proteins that make up a flagellum are uncannily arranged into motor components, a universal joint and other structures like those that a human engineer might specify. The possibility that this intricate array could have arisen through evolutionary modification is virtually nil, Behe argues, and that bespeaks intelligent design.
He makes similar points about the blood's clotting mechanism and other molecular systems. Yet evolutionary biologists have answers to these objections. First, there exist flagellae with forms simpler than the one that Behe cites, so it is not necessary for all those components to be present for a flagellum to work. The sophisticated components of this flagellum all have precedents elsewhere in nature, as described by Kenneth R. Miller of Brown University and others.
In fact, the entire flagellum assembly is extremely similar to an organelle that Yersinia pestis , the bubonic plague bacterium, uses to inject toxins into cells. The key is that the flagellum's component structures, which Behe suggests have no value apart from their role in propulsion, can serve multiple functions that would have helped favor their evolution. The final evolution of the flagellum might then have involved only the novel recombination of sophisticated parts that initially evolved for other purposes.
Similarly, the blood-clotting system seems to involve the modification and elaboration of proteins that were originally used in digestion, according to studies by Russell F. Doolittle of the University of California, San Diego.
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