Don’t take God out of the Classroom
On Valentine’s Day, 2001, the Kansas Board of Education voted to change the state’s science teaching standards to emphasize evolution and the Big Bang theory in the teaching of how life began on earth. The current board members have overturned a 1999 set of science standards that were passed by a more conservative board.
The conservative board, in an effort to open up Darwinian Evolution to scientific challenge, rejected the idea that random chance or evolution is the single unifying theory of how life began. The board did not forbid the teaching of evolution, but it permitted local school districts more leeway in how they would teach the subject.
In a spasm of horror, news reporters and humanistic educators expressed shock that the conservative Kansas Board of Education would actually permit the theory of evolution to be challenged by opposing viewpoints.
In theory, science is supposed to be open to criticism and change. But the theory of evolution seems to be shielded from any scrutiny.
The truth is that the theory of evolution has come under increasing attack from molecular scientists, astronomers, biologists, and philosophers who are pointing out the reality of intelligent design in the universe.
These new Intelligent Design (ID) theorists include such notables as Dr. Phillip Johnson, a Berkeley law professor who has written extensively on this topic. His book, “Darwin on Trial,” should be required reading by high school and college science teachers.
Educators should also read Dr. Jonathan Wells’ book, “Icons of Evolution,” which describes–and debunks–10 major arguments evolutionists use to attempt to prove their case. Wells is a molecular biologist and a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture. Science teachers should also read Darwin’s “Black Box” by Michael Behe, a professor of Biochemistry at Lehigh University. All of these gentlemen provide convincing arguments to refute the notion that life came into being from naturalistic causes or blind chance.
As Michael Behe has observed, “A man from a primitive culture who sees an automobile might guess that it was powered by the wind or by an antelope hidden under the car, but when he opens up the hood and sees the engine he immediately realizes that it was designed. “In the same way biochemistry has opened up the cell to examine what makes it run and we see that it, too, was designed.”
From a study of molecular biology and chemistry, more and more scientists are coming to an inescapable conclusion: Life was designed by a cosmic designer. It is my prayer that students in Kansas will have the opportunity to learn that we are not simply trousered apes, but were created in the image of God.