The war in Iraq is not the only place where battles have been occurring. The Spring 2003 issue of the National Science Teachers Association recommends an anti-creation book, authored by three evolutionists, entitled, The Creation Controversy & the Science Classroom. Talk about saber-rattling! In the single paragraph that extols this surprisingly brief (64-page) book, confrontational words such as opposition, debate, ammunition, forceful, arms and strategies are found. Ironically, a quote from an elementary school teacher in Cabot, Pennsylvania, on the same page says the book is written in "neutral terms."

 

It would seem that the secular community's right hand doesn't know what the left is doing. On one hand, books such as the above are written to formally condemn creation science in public school classrooms, while at the same time evolutionists proclaim it's "unconstitutional" to teach creation science in public school classrooms. Thankfully, one of America's foremost censors of creation science admitted,

The Supreme Court decision says only that the Louisiana law violates the constitutional separation of church and state; it does not say that no-one [sic] can teach scientific creationism — and unfortunately many individual teachers do.¹

 

The origins issue will continue to be a battlefield because evolutionism is not just a theory of biological origins, but the basic foundation of the secular worldview.

. . . there are no living sciences, human attitudes, or institutional powers that remain unaffected by the ideas . . . released by Darwin's work.²

 

Secularists understand how important this battle of the worldviews is — much more so than most church members. The late S.J. Gould said, "Modern creationism, alas, has provoked a real battle"³ and "This battle must be won . . ."⁴ But battle objectives are confused by atheists such as Niles Eldredge who recently said "[Creationists] are motivated primarily to see that evolution is not taught in the public schools of the United States."⁵ This is an erroneous premise, of course. ICR does not advocate removing evolutionary teaching in public schools. We would, however, like the many scientific problems regarding evolutionism clearly addressed in the free marketplace of ideas. We would attempt to present to young people in our tax-supported public schools a non-Biblical origins model alongside the questionable science of evolutionism. Advocates of critical thinking skills could only agree to such a suggestion, and students on both sides of the issue would benefit.

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1. Scott, E., Correspondence in Nature, 329 (Sept. 24, 1987): 282.
2. Collins, J., a philosopher quoted by Miller & Levine, Biology, 1995, p. 313.
3. Gould, S.J., Rocks of Ages, New York: Ballantine Publishing Group, 1999, p. 125.
4. Alters & Alters, Defending Evolution, Jones & Bartlett Publishers, 2001, p. 4.
5. Eldredge, N., The Triumph of Evolution, W.H. Freeman & Co., 2000, p. 11.