The Year of Darwin

We are have just entered what many are calling “the year of Darwin.” During 2009, much of the world will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his book On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (most people do not know the full, racist title).

In 1959, when the world celebrated the 100th anniversary of the publication of Origin of Species, evolutionists lamented that students in America’s schools were not being adequately indoctrinated in evolution. They complained that evolution was often left to the last chapter of biology textbooks and that many teachers, either intentionally or unintentionally, never got around to covering it. But evolutionists soon followed the battle cry of geneticist H. J. Muller, who angrily proclaimed: “one hundred years without Darwin are enough.”1

The basic strategy of evolutionists over the last 50 years has been to ensure that evolution is the central theme of nearly every chapter of biology textbooks. Toward this end, the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) was established in 1959 through a federally funded grant from the National Science Foundation. The BSCS continues to produce several versions of evolution-laced high school biology textbooks, published by textbook publishers throughout the world.

The principal goal of BSCS is clearly stated in the first edition of their Biology Teachers’ Handbook: “It is no longer possible to give a complete or even a coherent account of living things without the story of evolution.”2 By 1975, nearly half of America’s high schools used BSCS textbooks, and most other biology textbooks and curricula in America were deeply influenced by BSCS. That happened overseas as well: in 1975, AiG founder Ken Ham was required to teach from a BSCS biology textbook as a public school teacher in Australia.

A disturbing trend throughout the past 50 years has been the growing stridency and unabashed dogmatism of evolutionists. In 1973 evolutionist Theodosius Dobzhansky declared that “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”3—a dictum repeated in nearly every school or textbook controversy where Darwinian dogma is called into question. If this claim was to be taken seriously (as indeed many academics do), Bible-believing Christians (along with all others who dare to doubt Darwin) could be excluded from learning, teaching, or doing anything related to life science.

But is a knowledge or belief in evolution really essential for a proper understanding of biology or even of science itself?

America’s most distinguished body of scientists, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), in their widely distributed book, Science, Evolution and Creationism,4 carries things a step further by declaring that those Americans who doubt evolution have “turned away from science itself.” The NAS even goes so far as to suggest that this threatens our very survival as a nation.

But is a knowledge or belief in evolution really essential for a proper understanding of biology or even of science itself?

Some evolutionists have frankly conceded that most scientists pursue their research with little regard for evolutionary dogma. Evolutionist Adam Wilkins, for example, has noted that “most can conduct their work quite happily without particular reference to evolutionary ideas. ‘Evolution’ would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superfluous one.”5

Dr. Marc Kirchner, a member of the NAS and chairman of the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School, declared: “In fact, over the last 100 years, almost all of biology has proceeded independent of evolution, except evolutionary biology itself. Molecular biology, biochemistry and physiology, have not taken evolution into account at all.”6

As we embark on the next 50 years, we can sadly expect to see a greater fervor in evolution teaching, beginning in the earliest grades of our public schools. Evolutionists are clearly frustrated by the lack of belief in evolutionism among Americans, and will doubtless seek a new goal for the 250th birthday of Darwin in 2059: to see a thorough indoctrination of our young people in Darwinism. This goal may well include the requirement of professed belief in Darwinism as a condition of certification and employment in all science-related fields.

Are you and your family prepared for this battle? Have you read, for example, Evolution Exposed: Biology or plan to attend one of our “Answers for Darwin” conferences in February? You need to be equipped with answers from the Bible and science to defend your faith throughout “Darwin’s year.”