A Faithful Man Takes on Faith-Based Teaching

AiG was impressed recently in the way a high-level administrator at a secular college in America’s Midwest took AiG’s advice and tried to make a difference in the way biology is being taught in his local public high school.

He contacted his son’s science teacher in a firm yet respectful way about the evolution teaching his son was receiving. He also sent solid, scientifically sound information—including AiG’s Refuting Evolution—with his letter.

The letter is below, and is just slightly edited. Ken (who’s full name and city/state of residence are being withheld) and his recent action might prompt other AiG supporters to come up with their own ideas of what they could do to express similar concerns about the dogmatic teaching of evolution by their children’s science teachers.

Dear [high school science teacher’s name withheld],

I am the father of [name withheld], and I would like to respectfully express to you my concern over your approach to teaching evolution in the classroom and materials used.

First, I do not have a problem with teaching evolution, as long as the scientific problems are also discussed, but this does not appear to be the case in your classroom. In discussions with your principal, I know he would fully support teaching both sides of this issue.

Your textbook only serves to confuse the subject. For example, it uses “bait and switch” definitions by suggesting that evolution simply means change over time, while we all know that the traditional definition of evolution involves particles to people, fish to philosophers, goo to you and all by random chance (Darwinism).

As you may know, it is natural selection (change within the created kinds) through mutations (a loss of genetic information) that causes change over time and in a downward progression (from complex to simple, due to a loss of genetic information) not an upward progression (simple to complex), which would involve an increase in genetic information (which has not been documented by science). Science has never shown that life or the information of life (DNA) has emerged from non-living matter (spontaneous generation). This, I argue, is a scientific absurdity.

Evolution is, in fact, a religious belief system with a multitude of faith-based beliefs and assumptions (axioms). Nothing has ever created something, yet this persists as a foundational belief of evolution. In fact, belief in evolution (i.e. particles-to-people) requires a prior commitment to naturalism or materialism, which is a nice way of saying atheism or agnosticism.

To put it plainly, the teaching of evolution as a scientific fact is misleading, and the materials used in your class undermine the beliefs and values of my family and my child. Fortunately, my son is able to recognize this, but many children are not so well informed.

I am not raising my child to be an atheist or agnostic. And please do not suggest that God used evolution to bring about His creation. It would be horrible to suggest that a loving God would use hundreds of millions of years of disease, suffering and death (which is what evolution is all about) to bring about His creation. “Theistic evolution” is the worst possible position on the origin of life.

Anytime a study of the past is undertaken, particularly prior to recorded history (about 5,000 years ago), you are largely stepping outside the scientific method (i.e. operational science), which requires the observable and repeatable. By teaching evolution dogmatically and introducing materials that do the same, you are advocating your religious beliefs, the religion of Secular Humanism, with evolution as its “apologetic,” and the assumption of uniformitarianism [see Unlocking the Geologic Record] as the central faith-based doctrine.

Ultimately, the creation vs evolution debate is not about science vs religion, but about religion (Secular Humanism) vs. religion (Biblical Christianity). The science is all the same. The difference is the axioms and faith-based assumptions about the past and how one then interprets the evidence we all possess and can examine here in the present.

Mrs. [name withheld], I urge you to research this topic more fully to understand the full implications of this debate. There are many new materials in print (and on the Internet) which are increasingly exposing this deceptive belief system. Please bring a more balanced discussion to your classroom in the name of academic freedom and integrity, which I trust you value.

Enclosed is a book [Refuting Evolution] to help you better understand the issues involved with teaching this highly biased belief system and I hope you will consider the material presented.

Evolution has little to do with real science. I sincerely hope you will consider a more balanced approach to teaching this topic. I also ask that you be more conscious of the religious aspects of evolution that are being “disguised as science.”

Sincerely,
Ken [father’s last name withheld]
Senior Administrator and Faculty Member at a Midwestern college, USA