THE EVOLVING DOGMA OF DOGMATIC EVOLUTION
By Frederick Meekins
April 16, 2001

It has been noted that what a culture does not write down as part of its civic discourse can be just as important as what it does contribute to the record of history since often what fails to be committed to paper constitutes those aspects of the conceptual framework considered to be beyond question.

The standards promulgated by the Kansas Board of Education in 1999 removing evolution as a mandatory component of the science curriculum sparked a considerable degree of media hoopla. It was feared a new Dark Age was pending where dogma would trump reason, with young minds being plunged into interminable ignorance.

As a result of the ensuing controversy, the offending standards were rescinded and replaced by a yet another set of curricular guidelines, this time emphasizing evolution as the cornerstone of contemporary biology. However, the significance of this story may lie in those aspects of it neglected by the mainstream press.

The May 2001 edition of Citizen Magazine, the current events and public policy journal of Focus on the Family, points out that the latest set of standards enshrine evolution as "beyond question and inquiry" and allows educators to censor and suppress evidence and analysis contradicting the established theory.

Where is the hue and cry from the champions of enlightenment and true learning now being that what these canons of knowledge enshrine for veneration does not constitute true science either?

I Timothy 6:20 says, "...keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called..."

When it comes to creationism, it is often laboriously protested that this theory does not meet the rigors of true science since it is held as an article of faith that cannot be subjected to experimental verification or falsification.

The scientific method operates by postulating a hypothesis which is then tested experimentally through the gathering of evidence and the investigation of claims. If evolution is to be held above such scrutiny, it must instead be classified as a religious doctrine. The works of Charles Darwin and Stephen Jay Gould thus have as much place in the classrooms of the radically open-minded as the works of Holy Scripture.

The only reason proponents of evolution don't want their pet proposition poked and prodded is because as, Michael Behe and Phillip Johnson point out, it is a bankrupt bill of goods bereft of possible provability. For if evolution was the holy grail of biology some claim it to be, wouldn't it be able to withstand the doubting curiosity of today's public high school student?

One Kansas Board of Education member was quoted by the Washington Post as saying, "If the scientific community thinks they can sit back and say, 'Phew, we got that done,' that would be very presumptuous of them. Kids are not stupid. They're going to realize that what they've learned at home [about their origins] is not what their science teacher is trying to push on them. This issue is not going to go away."

So in the end, this entire battle boils down once again to the public schools trying to control what the students believe irrespective of the parents' preferences regarding these issues of ultimate philosophical importance.

The best thing for parents is to cognitively evolve to the realization that they need to rescue their children from these academic Neanderthals and place them in some kind of private academic setting. In such enhanced educational surroundings, students will learn enough of the fashionable parlance to pull the wool over the eyes of the pedagogical troglodytes while being taught the shortcomings of the accepted system and to marvel at the handiwork of the skilled Creator.

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