
           A PROPOSED APPROACH TO TEACHING ORIGINS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
            AN EFFORT TO RESOLVE THE CREATION-EVOLUTION CONTROVERSY
                           By David N. Menton, Ph.D.

       (C) copyright 1991 Missouri Association for Creation, Inc.


BACKGROUND:

    The creation evolution controversy in public education has grown in
    intensity since the famous Scopes Trial of 1925. At that time the
    American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawyer, Clarence Darrow, argued
    for the inclusion of evolutionary theory in the science curriculum.
    Today the ACLU and others insist that creationism should be excluded
    from the science class room and that only evolutionism should be taught
    as a scientifically acceptable theory of origins. Recent legislation in
    Arkansas and Louisiana requiring that "equal time" be given to the
    scientific evidence for both creation and evolution in the science
    curriculum has been successfully challenged by the ACLU.

THE PROBLEM:

    Surveys have consistently shown that a substantial majority of
    Americans believe that man and the cosmos were created by a process
    involving supernatural intervention. A Gallup Poll in July of 1982, for
    example, showed the following breakdown of beliefs among 1,518 people
    sampled from 300 areas across the nation:

    "God created man pretty much in his present form at one time within the
    last 10,000 years" ------- 44% agreed.

    "Man has developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of
    life, but God guided this process including man's creation" --------
    38% agreed.

    "Man has developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of
    life, God had no part in this process" -------- 9% agreed.

    "Other, or don't know" -------- 9%

    We may conclude that nearly half of the students in our public schools
    might find disturbing inconsistencies between their religious beliefs
    and the evolutionary ideas encountered in books, films and discussions.
    Scientific truth is not established by popular vote, and scientific
    facts must not be ignored or modified to accommodate the religious
    beliefs of our students, still, we should be quite sure of our facts on
    the matter of origins lest we unnecessarily burden our student's
    conscience. How we view our origin has profound religious and
    philosophical implications. The introduction of explicitly religious
    material in the science curriculum, on the other hand, is likely to be
    successfully challenged in the courts. Can we then teach and discuss
    the best scientific evidence for origins in a way that is sensitive to
    the cherished beliefs of our students and their parents, while
    adhering to the required separation of Church and State? I am convinced
    that it not only can be done, but should be done.

A PROPOSED SOLUTION:

    First I propose that Biblical creation not be taught in our public
    schools. There are two reasons for this, 1) Biblical creation
    necessarily involves supernatural intervention, a subject outside the
    scope of the scientific method, and 2) evolution is the only
    explanation for origins currently being seriously considered within the
    "mainstream" of science. This is not to suggest that creation is
    implausible or even that evolution is more plausible, but simply that,
    for better or worse, evolutionary ideas are the "Zeitgeist" of
    scientific attempts to explain the origin of the cosmos and it is these
    ideas which now appear in our instructional materials and are the
    subject of concern to many students and their parents.

    A persistent criticism of science instruction is that evolution is
    often taught as "dogma" or as a "just so story." Mere scenarios of
    major evolutionary transformations are often presented as though they
    were "historical" observations, when neither the events nor their
    mechanism is actually known or perhaps even knowable. While some
    teachers do emphasize the theoretical nature of evolution, rarely is a
    critical view taken of this highly speculative field of science. As a
    result, the student and even the teacher are often led to conclude that
    there is no substantive criticism of evolutionary ideas among
    professional scientists, but such is hardly the case as we shall see.

    The proposed solution to the problem is simply to: TEACH EVOLUTION IN
    THE CRITICAL MANNER THAT WOULD BE APPROPRIATE FOR ANY FIELD OF
    EMPIRICAL SCIENCE. Thus we would present evidence that seems to support
    evolutionary theory as well as evidence that seems incompatible with
    this interpretation of origins. Unfortunately, the biological training
    of most teachers has not included a critical evaluation of the
    evolutionary paradigm; this gap would need to be filled with inservice
    education. Naturally, it is hoped that the education of our future
    science teachers would include a critical review of the evidence both
    for and against evolution. There is presently a substantial body of
    literature in respected scientific journals which documents numerous
    specific criticisms of evolution by scientists from many fields
    including evolutionists themselves. While some of this literature may
    be too technical or even inaccessible for many teachers, attempts
    should be made by qualified science educators to summarize the
    principle lines of criticism for study and evaluation by the class room
    teacher.


EXAMPLES OF SCIENTIFICALLY VALID CRITICISMS OF EVOLUTION:

    Evolution is necessarily speculative:

    A growing number of scientists are becoming highly critical of various
    aspects of the neodarwinian theory of evolution and it seems certain
    that currently accepted beliefs regarding the mechanism, rate and
    sequence of evolution will change substantially in the next few years.
    It is not clear to what extent, if any, empirical (experimental)
    evidence can replace mere speculation and scenario. In his foreword to
    the Dutton centennial edition of Darwin's Origin of Species, the
    distinguished biologist W.R. Thompson concluded:

    "A long-enduring and regrettable effect of the success of the Origin of
    Species was the addiction of biologists to unverifiable speculation."1

    In a sobering introduction to a published symposium dealing with the
    evolution of the cell, Roger Stanier warned:

    "Evolutionary speculation constitutes a kind of metascience, which has
    the same intellectual fascination for some biologists that metaphysical
    speculation possessed for medieval scholastics. It can be considered a
    relatively harmless habit, like eating peanuts, unless it assumes the
    form of an obsession."2

    It behooves the teacher to fairly distinguish fact from speculation in
    any discussion of evolution as this will not always be obvious to the
    student. Even the term "theory" ought to be strictly limited to those
    hypotheses which are subject to the scientific method and thus are
    capable of being disproven by a critical experiment.

    The improbability of origin by chance:

    Most people intuitively sense that the origin of life by means of
    chance and the intrinsic properties of matter and energy is extremely
    unlikely. It is quite easy, using elementary mathematics, to calculate
    the probability for the chance assembly of a SINGLE copy of any
    particular biologically useful protein, yet even this trivial but
    necessary step in the evolution of life is an extremely unlikely event.
    Such calculations show that there is simply not enough time and matter
    in the known universe to reasonably expect to achieve the ordered
    assembly of any ONE particular protein of average size by chance alone!
    The origin of man by chance and natural selection is incalculable and
    totally outside the realm of empirical science, but this comment by
    Dr. Murry Eden, Professor of Engineering at MIT, gives us a sense of
    magnitude of the problem:

    "The chance of emergence of man is like the probability of typing at
    random a meaningful library of one thousand volumes using the following
    procedure: Begin with a meaningful phrase, retype it with a few
    mistakes, make it longer by adding (random) letters; then examine the
    result to see if the new phrase is meaningful. Repeat this process
    until the library is complete."3

    It would be an instructive class room exercise to calculate the
    probability of the chance assembly of a short sentence using the 26
    letters of the alphabet plus a space. Is the probability problem
    overcome by invoking tens of billions of years and billions of
    earth-like planets? What happens to complex machines if we attempt to
    improve them by randomly changing their parts?

    Evolution cannot be observed:

    A basic requirement of empirical science is that the object or
    phenomenon to be studied must be observable and repeatable, yet no one
    has actually witnessed the evolution of a fundamentally new organism of
    a higher taxonomic group . There may be considerable variation among
    the individuals of a species, such as the nearly 150 varieties of dogs,
    but this simply is the result of selection among the alleles in the
    existing gene pool of the species. This process is strictly limited and
    has no known relation to "macroevolution". Mutations, on the other
    hand, may cause a new arrangement in a gene but this is vastly more
    likely to harm an organism than improve it. Dr. H.J. Muller, who won
    the Nobel Prize for his work on mutations puts it this way:

    "It is entirely in line with the accidental nature of mutations that
    extensive tests have agreed in showing the vast majority of them
    detrimental to the organism in its job of surviving and reproducing ---
    good ones are so rare we can consider them all bad."4

    Most current science and biology text books mention "industrial
    melanism" in the peppered moth as an example of "visible evolution" by
    means of natural selection. This example provides an ideal opportunity
    to discuss the genetic basis of variation and to explore its putative
    relationship to "macroevolution." There are many interesting subjects
    that might be discussed in the class room on the known effects of
    mutations on living organisms. Interestingly, virtually every living
    organism known has a highly complex mutation repair system that
    actually cuts mutations out of the gene and patches them with a correct
    sequence of DNA! It seems obvious that life as we know it would be
    impossible without such a gene repair mechanism. An example of what
    happens when this repair system fails to work may be seen in the fatal
    human disease xeroderma pigmentosum. We know that mutations can cause
    cancer but can they produce a healthier and better adapted organism?

    Evolution seems incompatible with the second law of thermodynamics:

    Perhaps the reason that there is so little compelling scientific
    evidence in support of evolution is that it appears to contradict one
    of the most fundamental laws of nature - the second law of
    thermodynamics. This law says what is intuitively obvious to most
    people, that all real processes tend toward a condition of greater
    probability and disorder. Thus a house is more likely to spontaneously
    disassemble over a period of a thousand years than it is to assemble
    itself into an even more complex and more highly organized structure.
    Order can be achieved out of disorder, but it requires information,
    programs, energy and machines. Energy from the sun can help to
    transform an acorn into an oak tree but it requires the indescribably
    complex biological machinery and information in the living cells of the
    acorn to do it. Dead oak trees are destroyed by the same energy from
    the sun. Speaking of evolution, Julian Huxley said:

    "Nowhere in all its vast extent is there any trace of purpose, or even a
    prospective significance. It is impelled from behind by blind physical
    forces, a gigantic and chaotic jazz dance of particles and radiations,
    in which the only over-all tendency we have so far been able to detect
    is that summarized by the second law of thermodynamics -- the tendency
    to run down."5

    Lord Kelvin, the discoverer of the second law of thermodynamics, was
    quite aware of the incompatibility of Darwinian evolution and the
    second law:

    "The only contribution of dynamics to theoretical biology is absolute
    negation of automatic commencement or automatic maintenance of life."6

    A class discussion of what is required to produce order and complexity,
    in an informational sense, out of disorder could be stimulating and
    useful. Is energy and an "open system" all that is necessary to produce
    order out of chaos as evolutionist suggest? What about snow flakes and
    crystals? Is the second law compatible with evolution? - defend your
    answer.

    Fossil evidence for evolution:

    The fossil record provides the only unambiguous evidence of prehistoric
    life on earth and thus is the only evidence that could show if one
    organism gradually transformed into another through a sequence of
    intermediate forms. Darwin was well aware that the fossil record did
    not, in fact, show the intermediate forms his theory required but he
    attributed this to the incompleteness of the fossil evidence at his
    time and earnestly hoped that it would in time support his theory.
    Paleontologist Dr. David Raup of the Field Museum of Natural History in
    Chicago points out that Darwin's hopes have not been fulfilled:

    "Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the
    fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a
    million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much ... We
    have fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's
    time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of darwinian change
    in the fossil record such as the evolution of the horse in North
    America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more
    detailed information."7

    Evolutionists are becoming increasingly blunt about the failure of the
    fossil record to document evolutionary transformation:

    "The known fossil record fails to document a single example of phyletic
    evolution accomplishing a major morphologic transition..."8

    Not only are the higher taxonomic groups separated by vast unbridged
    gaps, but gaps are also the rule at the level of the species:

    "The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists
    as the trade secret of paleontology.... In any local area, a species
    does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors;
    it appears all at once and fully formed."9

    The popular Harvard author and evolutionist Steven J. Gould raises the
    provocative question of just what good partially developed organs
    might do for a hypothetical transitional organism:

    "Can we invent a reasonable sequence of intermediate forms, that is,
    viable, functioning organisms, between ancestors and descendents? Of
    what possible use are the imperfect incipient stages of useful
    structures? What good is half a jaw or half a wing?"10

    The lack of transitional forms in the fossil record has led many
    evolutionists to virtually abandon fossils as evidence for evolutionary
    change. Still others invoke an ad hoc hypothesis (punctuated
    equilibrium) which attempts to account for the missing evidence by
    arguing that the animals which appear as fossils represent highly
    stable organisms which remained unchanged for vast periods of time,
    while the evolutionary transformations occurred so quickly that no
    fossil record was preserved! In an effort to deal with the fossil
    record, many taxonomists are now adopting a "cladistic" approach to the
    classification of animals and plants which entirely ignores presumed
    evolutionary relationships. Some very distinguished evolutionists are
    denying that there is ANY evidence for common ancestry at all! In a
    recent address at the American Museum of Natural History in New York
    City, Dr. Colin Patterson, paleontologist at the British Museum and
    author of the book Evolution, told a distinguished gathering of
    evolutionists:

    "The explanatory value of the hypothesis of common ancestry is nil...I
    feel that the effects of the hypotheses of common ancestry in
    systematics has not been merely boring, not just a lack of knowledge, I
    think it has been positively anti-knowledge...Well, we're back to the
    question I've been putting to people, 'Is there one thing you can tell
    me about evolution?,' The absence of answers seems to suggest that it
    is true, evolution does not convey any knowledge or if so, I haven't
    yet heard it."11

    Even the much touted sequence of lower to higher organisms in the
    geological column is far less convincing than the geology and biology
    text books would have us believe. In nearly every mountainous region on
    earth there are numerous examples of "old" strata (bearing fossils of
    more primitive organisms) resting on top of "young" strata (bearing
    fossils of higher organisms). This is typically explained away by over
    thrusting of strata but often, the only geological evidence for this is
    "out of order" fossils according to the evolutionary interpretation of
    origins. The circular reasoning implicit in our interpretation and
    dating of the geological column has not gone unnoticed by geologists
    and evolutionists:

    "I regard the failure to find a clear 'vector of progress' in life's
    history as the most puzzling fact of the fossil record...we have sought
    to impose a pattern that we hoped to find on a world that does not
    really display it."12

    "A circular argument arises: Interpret the fossil record in the terms
    of a particular theory of evolution, inspect the interpretation, and
    note that it confirms the theory. Well it would, wouldn't it?"13

    It would be an excellent class room exercise to critically evaluate
    what we might expect the fossil record to look like if life evolved by
    random changes and natural selection and then to determine if it does
    indeed look that way? Are there transitional forms in the fossil
    record, for example, showing the unambiguous evolution of invertebrates
    into vertebrates (the process is said to have taken over one hundred
    million years)? Are fossils being produced today? What conditions are
    necessary for the production of fossils and how long does it take? Can
    we give ANY example of a known transitional form - what is our
    evidence?

    The recapitulation myth:

    At one time the development of the embryo was thought to provide an
    abbreviated view of the evolutionary history of the organism. This
    idea, first proposed by Ernst Haeckel and supported with obviously
    falsified data, has remained a persistent "law" of evolution despite
    having been shown to be false for over 100 years! It is this so called
    "biogenetic law" that is the basis of the oft repeated text book
    example of "gill slits" in mammalian embryos which presumably are
    supposed to tell us something about our aquatic ancestors. It is a well
    known fact that there are NO gills or slits in the pharyngeal region of
    ANY mammalian embryo yet this myth still continues to appear in science
    text books and films. Even a recent museum guide from the American
    Museum of Natural History in New York still considers embryological
    recapitulation "evidence" for evolution. This is strange indeed as
    evolutionists seem to be quite aware of this false interpretation of
    embryology:

    "This interpretation of embryological sequences will not stand close
    examination. It's shortcomings have been almost universally pointed
    out by modern authors, but the idea still has a prominent place in
    biological mythology."14

    Out of 15 high school text books being considered for adoption by the
    Indiana State Board of Education in 1980, 9 offered embryological
    recapitulation as evidence for evolution and 2 specifically mentioned
    "gill slits." It would be an interesting class room exercise to discuss
    why recapitulation continues to be presented as evidence for evolution
    when it has been known to be untrue for over 100 years.

    Another example of a known interpretational error that keeps coming up
    in science text books is the "vestigial" organ. According to this
    concept, certain organs of our body are remnants of our primitive
    ancestors and are no longer useful. What about the oft mentioned
    "vestigial" organs of our body such as the appendix and "tail bone,"
    are these really left over and largely useless organs of our primitive
    ancestors? At one time virtually all of the endocrine and lymphoid
    organs (like the appendix) were thought to be useless vestiges from our
    ancestors. How could we tell an organ is vestigial assuming they exist?
    Are the male mammary glands vestigial? Does it make any difference what
    your surgeon thinks about vestigial organs?

    Is the similarity of biological structures evidence of common
    ancestry?:

    For years, evolutionists have argued that the similarities of various
    body parts between organisms of different classes is evidence for
    common evolutionary descent. The forelimbs and fingers of bats and
    birds are clearly homologous though distinctly different in detail.
    While this observation is certainly consistent with evolution it hardly
    proves it. Our left hand is obviously homologous to our right hand but
    does this tell us something about its evolution? There is evidence that
    homologous organs and structures are often completely unrelated
    genetically:

    "It is now clear that the pride with which it was assumed that the
    inheritance of homologous structures from a common ancestor explained
    homology was misplaced."13

    Since fossils are now falling out of favor as evidence for common
    ancestry, a new field of "molecular evolution" is emerging which
    compares the molecular similarity of homologous proteins in various
    species. In this way it is assumed that not only ancestry but even the
    time of divergence can be numerically assessed. But problems are
    emerging here as well. It is indeed true that organisms that live in
    similar ecological niches and eat similar diets do share considerable
    common chemistry, but does this tell us something about evolution or
    required chemistry? Even more important is the fact that molecular
    homologies are often in total disagreement with evolutionary sequences
    based on the fossil record. On the basis of the protein insulin, for
    example, humans and pigs are very closely "related" but on the basis of
    the protein calcitonin, man is distantly related to the pig but closely
    related to the salmon! No wonder the microbiologist Michael Denton
    said in his recent book, Evolution: a Theory in Crisis:

    "The really significant finding that comes to light from comparing the
    proteins' amino acid sequences is that it is impossible to arrange
    them in any sort of an evolutionary series."16

    As for determining the relative date that two organisms diverged on the
    phylogenetic tree by molecular difference or "distance", the situation
    appears to be no better. James Farris, who was a principle developer of
    this technology, has concluded that the use of molecular distance data
    in phylogenetic analysis is very questionable:

    "It seems that the only general conclusion one can draw is that nothing
    about present techniques for analyzing molecular distance data is
    satisfactory...None of the known measures of genetic distance seems
    able to provide a logically defensible method..."17


CRITICISMS OF THE CRITICAL APPROACH TO EVOLUTION:

    One of the most disturbing criticisms of the proposed approach to
    teaching evolution has come from teachers who claim that students
    don't want to critically examine anything, they just want to know the
    "facts" for the exam. The critical approach, some say, will only
    confuse and frustrate the student and perhaps even lead him to conclude
    that the evidence for the evolution of man from an expanding cloud of
    hydrogen gas is really not all that good. If any of this is true, then
    it only serves to emphasize that a critical and investigative approach
    to learning is long overdue. In fact, teachers who have used this
    approach in the class room find that it makes the potentially dull
    subject of evolution much more exciting and interesting. As for the
    possibility of students loosing their faith in evolution, it may
    comfort some to know that most scientists still accept the evolutionary
    explanation of our origins despite the lack of empirical evidence.
    There are often reasons for believing what we believe which transcend
    the empirical evidence as is evident in this comment:

    "Evolution is a theory universally accepted not because it can be
    proved to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation,
    is clearly incredible."18

    Whether we are philosophically biased toward evolution or creation, we
    must not compromise the facts of science or the scientific method, to
    accommodate the beliefs of any individual.

    Some have expressed fear that it may be illegal to even criticize
    evolution in scientific terms. As outrageous as this sounds, there may
    be some basis for this fear. It is conceivable that the ACLU, and
    perhaps others, might challenge the scientific criticism of evolution
    in the science class room should they choose to perceive religious
    motives behind such criticism. No court, however, has thus far
    prohibited voluntary instruction concerning purely scientific evidence
    merely because it "happens to coincide or harmonize with the tenets of
    some or all religions." (McGowan, 366 U.S. at 442, 81 S.Ct. at 113;
    Crowley, 636 F.2d at 742)

    Finally, some have argued that if we were to critically examine the
    evidence for every thing we teach in science, we would never get
    through the text book. Given the "information explosion" in science
    this is no doubt true, none the less, at least one instance of critical
    inquiry seems a highly desirable educational experience. Perhaps we
    teach too much codified information and have failed to teach students
    how to think on their own and critically evaluate evidence. If we were
    to pick one topic to critically examine, we could do no better than the
    subject of evolution for all of the reasons sighted above, but most of
    all, this subject has more profound implications than anything else we
    teach in school. How we view our origins affects our entire world view;
    where we came from, why we are here, where we are going, and the
    purpose of life. If we can't take the time and effort to deal with the
    subject of our origin in a critical way, perhaps it would be best not
    to deal with it at all.


                                BIBLIOGRAPHY

1.   Thompson, W.R.  Foreword to The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
     (Dutton, N.Y.) 1965.

2.   Stanier, Roger Y.  Symposium of the Society for General Microbiology
     20:1-38, 1970.

3.   Moorhead & Kaplan, eds.  Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian
     Interpretaion of Evolution (Wistar Institute Press, Philadelphia) 1965

4.   Muller, H.J.  Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 11:331, 1946.

5.   Huxley, Julien.  Evolution in Action (New American Library, N.Y.) p.
     11-12, 1953.

6.   Kelvin.  "On the sun's heat"  In popular lectures and Addresses
     (Macmillian, London) p. 415, 1889.

7.   Raup, David M.  "Conflicts between Darwin and Paleontology"  Field Museum
     of Natural History Bulletin. 50:22-29 January 1979.

8.   Raup, David M.  "Probabilistic Models in Evolutionary Biology" American
     Scientist 166:57 January/February 1977.

9.   Gould, Stephen J.  "Evolutions erratic pace" Natural History 86:12-16 May
     1977.

10.  Gould, S.J.

11.  Patterson, Colin, from transcript of speach at the American Museum of
     Natural History, New York City on November 5, 1981.

12.  Gould, Stephen J.  "The ediacaran experiment" Natural History 93:23,
     February 1984.

13.  Kemp, Tom.  "A fresh look at the fossil record," New Scientist 108:66,
     December 5, 1985.

14.  Ehrlich, Paul and R. Holm.  The Process of Evolution p.66, 1963.

15.  de Beer, Sir Gavin.  Homology, an Unsolved Problem (Oxford University
     Press, London) p. 15, 1971.

16.  Denton, Michael. Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (Burnett Books, London) p.
     289, 1985.

17.  Farris, James S..  "Distance data in phylogenetic analysis" in Advances in
     Cladistics Funk & Brooks eds. (The N.Y. Botanical Gardens) p. 3-23, 1981

18.  Watson, D.M.S. Nature 123:233, 1929.
                                              
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