On Wednesday, August 11, 1999, the Kansas Board of Education
adopted new science standards for statewide testing of students
that no longer require knowledge of evolution as a way to describe
the emergence of new species-for instance the evolution of primates
into Homo sapiens (macro-evolution) -- while requiring knowledge
of "micro-evolution," changes that occur within a single
species. The decision gives a mild snub to the theory of evolution
credited to Charles Darwin. Apparently the Board decided that
140 years of research involving thousands of scientists spending
millions of dollars had failed to produce sufficient evidence
to confirm the theory.
Scientists, professionals, and academics appealed to the Board
on behalf of modern science that removing an important concept
like evolution from life sciences and biology would intellectually
cripple students. Nothing in biology, it was claimed, makes sense
except in light of evolution. On the other side were mostly parents
who were concerned with what their children were being taught.
As soon as the decision was cast, the propaganda war began. Darwinists
have discovered that the best way to silence those who question
evolution is to marginalize them through ridicule and character
assassination. They characterized those who supported the new
guidelines, including parents, as bible-thumping fundamentalists,
dangerous pseudo-scientists, flat earthers, etc. Unfortunately,
much of the stereotyping was done by journalists who did not stop
for an instant to find out what the issues were, who the parties
were or what they believed. The Chicago Tribune chanted, "intellectual
chicanery." The Boston Globe saw "evolving creationist"
fundamentalists. The Washington Post decried "literal belief
in biblical creation stories."
The issues discussed at Kansas, however, go beyond disagreements
with church doctrines to concern for the safety of children. After
the Littleton massacre, parents testifying before a congressional
subcommittee on the matter claimed that removal from the classroom
of prayer, the Ten Commandments, and other biblical teachings
on human behavior created a climate favorable for murderous behavior.
That may be true, but I believe it is not the whole story. The
congressional testimony did not adequately explore the thought
systems that have replaced the abolished biblical doctrines.
Science, real science - the work that ferrets out empirical fact
about the nature that surrounds us - has been co-opted by an ancient
philosophical/religious doctrine the origins of which can be traced
back to at least 400-700 years before Christ. Known today variously
as scientism, evolutionism, metaphysical naturalism, and Darwinism,
this doctrine has been so effectively interlaced with science
that it is often difficult for the scientist, much less the layperson,
to separate the two.
Though secular in perspective (Darwinists claim the natural world
is all there is), Darwinism nevertheless functions much like a
religion. Darwinists have their own creation story (macro-evolution),
their own creed (the Humanist Manifesto), their own "messiah
figures" (those who come claiming, "Come, follow us.
We know the ways of life."), their own clergy (those whose
task it is to preach the "truth" as revealed by the
high priests), and their own priesthood (those who pass down to
the masses their latest ruminations in naturalistic thought).
One of the "high priests" of evolution is Harvard professor
of zoology, Stephen Jay Gould. Like other leaders of the Darwinian
faith, Gould has taken special pains to assure the masses that
evolution is only about science, that science and religion function
in two separate domains, and that there should be no conflict
between the two - as long as religion stays within its proper
realm. Problems arise only when Christian fundamentalists, who
don't understand science, try to make science fit their personal
theologies. Writing in the August 21 issue of Time magazine,
Gould reasserted this doctrine: "No scientific theory, including
evolution, can pose any threat to religion--for these two great
tools of human understanding operate in complementary (not contrary)
fashion in their totally separate realms: science as an inquiry
about the factual state of the natural world, religion as a search
for spiritual meaning and ethical values."
Many religious leaders have bought the ruse. However, as is
so often the case, those with the most the lose are usually the
ones who take the effort to become the best informed. Conservative
Christians have discovered that while science may be neutral on
religious issues, Darwinism is not. The real conflict is between
two equally religious belief systems. Darwinists, however, with
assistance from misguided media, have been astonishingly successful
at painting the issue as one of a small group of ignorant fundamentalists
pitting their outdated biblical myths against the studied results
of empirical science. Thus, by making it appear to be nonreligious,
Darwinism can appear to be no threat to religion and by making
it appear to most churchgoers that there exists no conflict between
Christianity and evolution, Darwinists have effectively mollified
the opposition and have been free to rob the store.
Though the date of the Kansas Board of Education's rather insignificant
decision still rings loudly through the propaganda mills of the
media, another date, June 25, 1999, will eventually ring louder,
I believe. Writing an editorial in the magazine, Science,
the frontpiece of the prestigious National Association for the
Advancement of Science, Stephen Jay Gould launched a direct attack
on religion thereby exposing the true religious nature of Darwinism.
After quoting Psalm 8 "Thou has made him a little lower than
the angels...thou madest him to have dominion...thou has put all
things under his feet." Gould went on to state, "Darwin
removed this keystone of false comfort more than a century ago,
but many people still believe that they cannot navigate this vale
of tears without such a crutch." Ending the article, Gould
admonished his readers, "Let us praise this evolutionary
nexus, a far more stately mansion for the human soul than any
pretty or parochial comfort ever conjured by our swollen neurology
to obscure the source of our physical being, or to deny the natural
substrate for our separate and complementary spiritual quest."
Here Gould has gone much farther than the occasional witty jabs
of fellow high priest, Richard Dawkins ("Evolution has made
it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist") or
the late Carl Sagan, who, writing in the introduction of Stephen
Hawkings book, A Brief History of Time, claimed naturalistic
evolution leaves "nothing for a creator to do." Gould
has proposed to substitute for Christianity and other religions,
"a far more stately mansion for the human soul...."
The question that confronts us and is the focus of the remainder
of this essay is: Why did Professor Gould choose this hour to
break with Darwinism's tenuous accommodation with religion? Why
did Gould abandon a successful strategy that has allowed Darwinists
to co-opt America's educational institutions while good people
slept? Gould is a master tactician and surely the timing and wording
of his editorial were not accidental. Furthermore, from letters
to the editor of Science, the immediate reaction of scientists
to his epiphany was outrage. What does Gould hope to gain by what
amounts to an open admission of the religious foundation of Darwinism,
a betrayal of a secret that has been well-kept for decades?
One reason why Gould may have departed from the ruse of accommodation
with religion is Darwinist's perceived loss of control of the
scientific and educational world. Three events have come together
lately to make this possible. First, deep from within the biological
sciences there has arisen a group of scientists who are promoting
intelligent design (ID), the concept that a intelligent agency
was involved in some stages of life's origin and dispersal. Drawing
from recent advances in molecular biology and information theory,
the ID theorists have come to recognize that purely naturalistic
evolution cannot possibly explain every step in the emergence
of living organisms. The discovery of minimum irreducible complexity
in biomolecular structures utterly falsifies the foundational
premise of Darwin's theory, namely that biological organisms arise
through gradual accumulation of small mutational changes. Furthermore,
there is no known source of information apart from intelligent
design. Darwinists have been unable to imagine how the immense
information content of the highly specified DNA genetic code might
have arisen by chance, let alone design a scientific experiment
and collect data to explain it.
So far, the ID scientists have resisted attempts by Darwinists
to silence them. Vilification has not worked. Marginalization
has not worked because many of the ID'ers are biological scientists
who actually do the research. Attempts to stereotype them as fundamentalists
seeking to promote biblical creation stories, which may play well
with the media and others predisposed to Darwinism, have served
to radicalize the ID scientists.
Second, with the breakup of the iron curtain and the parting of
the bamboo curtain, the biological sciences are enjoying a global
renaissance of sorts. Biological scientists in Asia, particularly
China, do not hold blind allegiance to Darwin as do their colleagues
in the West. They seem disposed to requiring the theory to fit
the data rather than making the data fit the theory. Hostilities
with American Darwinists during a recent biological conference
held in China prompted one Chinese scientist to remark, "In
China we can question Darwin but we can't question the government;
in America, you can question the government but you can't question
Darwin."
Third, though they nearly completely control educational institutions
from kindergarten through graduate school and virtually monopolize
all forms of the media, Darwinists have discovered through recent
polls that fewer than ten percent of Americans believe in the
totally random, unsupervised, impersonal, godless origin-of-life
story promoted by the Darwinists. Many more Americans believe
in some form of evolution directed by a supernatural agency. Fully
half of Americans don't believe in macro-evolution at all. Seven
of ten Americans think evolution should be taught along with the
scientific evidence that does not support evolution. Obviously
attempts to indoctrinate American school children into a Darwinistic
view of life have not been as successful as was hoped.
Another reason why professor Gould may have departed from the
Darwinist ruse of accommodation with religion is a growing suspicion
of the underlying source of violence in our schools and our society.
The lure of Darwinism is in its promise of unfettered licentiousness
but its curse is purposelessness. Darwinists claim there is no
God (therefore there is no accountability for our actions) and
we are an accidental coming together of molecules on an insignificant
planet near a minor star in just another galaxy (life has no purpose).
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to recognize the volatility
of the mixture. Combining licentiousness with purposelessness
for the disturbed mind is like touching an open flame to gasoline.
In his Science editorial, Pastor Gould wrote, "Evolution
liberates the human spirit." With no accountability for our
actions, evolution liberates the totalitarian, the despot, the
"dog-eat-dog" capitalist, the child molester, and others
who find their liberties in exploiting the weak.
Officials charged with explaining the "why" of the recent
high school mass killings have been troubled by the "where"
the killings took place. The "Law of the Old West" tends
to reign in the black communities and ghettos of the inner cities
where students arm themselves for protection, but these murders
occurred in the sanitized education factories of prosperous white
suburbs.
The perpetrators were troubled, yes, but bright - that is, bright
enough to make the connect. If there is no purpose, if there is
no accountability, if there is no way out of the pain and emptiness
of life, then why not maximize the license and exit in a towering
ball of flame. The Littleton killers committed suicide. A Gallop
poll of teenagers who had considered or tried to commit suicide
found that almost half (41 percent) cited depression or feeling
worthless as the reason.
After having smeared our television screens with his heinous murders,
Atlanta's Mark Barton allowed police to corner him and then committed
his "coup de grace." Barton left behind letters describing
the unbearable pain in his life and his utter hopelessness. Memories
of Milwaukee serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, who not only killed
but ate his victims, are now fading. However, in a Dateline NBC
program that aired in 1994, Dahmer's father had this to say. "If
you don't - if a person doesn't think that there is a God to be
accountable to, then - then what's - what's the point of - of
trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges?
That's how I thought anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution
as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we - when
we died, you know, that was it, there is nothing....." Men
hunt and kill animals for food. If the younger Dahmer had followed
his father's footsteps and had convinced himself that man is just
another animal then what's wrong with hunting and killing men
for food?
Stephen Gould claims Darwinism would "liberate the human
spirit." Historically, the survival of the fittest message
of Darwinism has provided rationale for some of the most outrageously
uncivilized actions by "liberated believers." One notorious
practitioner of Darwinism wrote, "He who would live must
fight; he who does not wish to fight in this world where permanent
struggle is the law of life, has not the right to exist."
His book was Mein Kampf; his name was Adolf Hitler. Both
Lenin and Stalin praised Darwin for liberating them from encumbering
theology. Karl Marx wished to dedicate his book to Darwin. Darwinian
philosophy has been foundational for moving abortion from crime
to respectability. It is estimated that in this century somewhere
between 100 million and 150 million human beings have met with
untimely death at the hands of those who appealed to Darwin in
some manner to justify their actions.
Darwinists of the first half century openly taught that blacks
were being selected out of the human race. In that view, the infamous
Tuskegee Experiment made sense. Darwinists taught that women were
inferior to men since men were competing with animals and each
other while women were staying home with children. The killers
and bigots of the first half century have been replaced by the
killers and bigots of the last half century. The players are different
but the script is the same.
There may be other reasons for Stephen Gould's apparently reckless
attack on religion in his Science editorial. A contributing
factor could be a growing conservatism among an aging population.
Perhaps the prospect of a Republican president serving with a
Republican congress could embolden constitutional challenges with
efforts to require Darwinists to produce their evidence in a forum
subject to cross examination.
This brings us back to the Kansas Board of Education decision.
According to a knowledgeable source, the chairwoman of the Board
requested evidence in support of macro-evolution. What she basically
got in reply was, "We're the experts, and that will have
to do."
After the media propaganda guns have silenced and we have opportunity
to reflect on the issues, we may discover that the Kansas folks
have much to teach us. There is little reason to teach as revealed
truth an ideology for which vast amounts of supporting evidence
are claimed but seldom produced, especially when that ideology
is at the root of much destructive behavior.
Regarding macro-evolution, Darwinists have little to show for
140 years of research by thousands of scientists spending millions
of dollars of research money. If macro-evolution eventually is
proven as the mechanism for the origin and dispersal of life,
the Kansas Board of Education and similar educational institutions
will have to face the realities. Until the supporting evidence
is in, educators have the right to defer accepting the theory-and
teaching it, unless evolution is taught along with scientific
data that refutes it. The message from the agricultural heartland
is, "We don't buy the milk before the cows come home."
9 September 1999