I was taught in Texas public schools about the THEORY of evolution. The teaching of it included some alternate viewpoints from scientists (not religious viewpoints) that pointed out its weaknesses. For example, there is that annoying absence in the fossil record documenting the supposed evolution of one species to another. Oh, and also the fact that Darwin himself, in his introduction to Origin of Species, concluded this:

“I am well aware that there is scarcely a single point discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced (proven, or explained), often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result could be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts on both sides of each question, and this cannot possibly be done here.

The point is I remember I was taught that this is what scientists currently believe could be the way life began, but since no one alive today was there, and since the fossil record is so incomplete, there is not a definite answer on the origins of life. Evolution is one theory.  Another theory is what some scientists are calling “Intelligent Design.”  They didn’t use that word way back in the stone ages when I was in public schools.  My teachers taught evolution as a theory just as they taught Einstein’s theory of relativity as a theory.

The insidious enemy seeks to destroy truth in the name of humanism, cloaked as “real science.” The Texas State Board of Education will receive a recommendation from “top” scientists on state science standards. Textbooks in Texas are printed based on those standards. The new recommendations REMOVE language which would have required students to analyze the “strengths and weaknesses” of scientific theories. Students and teachers would not be able to fully state and balance the facts on the different viewpoints of evolution…as Charles Darwin himself states is only fair. The elite scientists who know everything want to block our kids from learning about the real weaknesses of scientific theories.

My beef with that is — if they are so confident about the origin of life as presented by Darwin, what are they afraid of?  Are they afraid that students will learn that:

• The more we learn about DNA and RNA and genes, the more we learn of their specialization and complexity.  This makes it extremely unlikely that the billions of protein combinations were made by chance, which opens the door to some other mechanism at  work.
• The Cambrian explosion produced a multitude of different species in a very short period of time, contrary to Darwin’s theory that the organisms slowly evolved through the process of natural selection.
• The fossil record is incomplete.  This makes it very difficult to extrapolate what species looked like over time and over vast geographic areas.  The fossils that have been recovered do not show any species transforming into different ones.
• Read more in-depth articles about weaknesses in evolutionary theory here and here.

The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram’s article reports,

But with the “weaknesses” requirement removed and a new definition for science, the new plan makes it clear that supernatural explanations like creationism and intelligent design have no place in public classrooms, said Dan Quinn with the Texas Freedom Network, an Austin-based nonprofit group that opposes religious influence on public education.

Why do these groups that oppose “religious influence on public education” automatically assume that any criticism of evolution is a vote for creationism?

A recent Google search brought up scores of people who cry foul at anyone who dares to poke holes in evolutionary theory.  Yet this is (supposedly) a free country with free thinkers. We want to encourage our students to challenge and question and think critically, don’t we? Of course…as long as their conclusions add up to Darwin’s. You know, it wasn’t too long ago that people were banished from the scientific establishment for saying that adding lead to gasoline would be harmful. And then look what happened. It wasn’t too long ago that the government ordered that the last of the DoDo birds be killed and stuffed — because people were killing them off, and they wanted to “save” them. It wasn’t too long ago that sailors thought the earth was flat and that ship-eating monsters prowled the open seas waiting and watching for human flesh.

This blog is titled Do You “Believe In” Evolution because everyone “believes in” something.  If I bought into the Darwinistic principles hook, line and sinker, I’d be buying into things that I don’t clearly understand.  I’d have to have “faith” in the fact that scientists will eventually discover what’s behind the Cambrian explosion and make it fit into Darwin’s natural selection somehow.

In our house, we have faith in the Living God.  The point I try to teach my daughter is that we do not have all the answers…because we are not God. We did not create the heavens and the earth. The study of science is a means for us to discover and wonder at the extreme complexity and beauty of creation. While we may try to create life ourselves in the lab, we do not have the breath of the Living God.

There is a public hearing in Austin about the proposed science standards on January 21st. I will not attend. Instead, my daughter and I will be discovering principles of magnetism. You see, she has challenged the ideas of magnetism and wants to discover if there is a way to harness the natural magnetism of the earth…

If your kids go to public school, you might want to keep a close eye on what the State Board of Education decides to do with these recommendations. Any school board that prohibits students from questioning and testing scientific theories is more interested in indoctrinating than in educating.

If you homeschool, count your blessings, and be glad that you get to teach science without worrying about state-issued standards.