The author is a retired law enforcement official brings strong, personal convictions to the table of ideas.  Commencing with this edition, Creation Digest plans to publish his columns under the title, "Digest This".

Could we be witnessing a new dawn in American education? 

Perhaps it's premature to be speaking of a new dawn but there does appear to be a glimmer of light on the horizon in some places such as Ohio and Georgia.  Some Americans are waking up to find that while they were dozing their public education system has drifted off course – others might say it has been hijacked.  However you might view it, it's safe to say that the public education system and the American public are not necessarily going in the same direction.       

In recent decades, the American public education system has been largely under the influence of naturalistic-materialistic philosophy and, of course, Darwinism, which is the only model of origins compatible with this philosophical predisposition.  This prevalence of materialism and Darwinism in academia is not mirrored in the general population.  Polls taken over the same time period continually reveal that the majority of Americans not only believe in a "real" God but they believe that God was involved in the origin of life.  In spite of an almost exclusive evolution-only indoctrination in the public education system, the general public continues to believe in a real God who is involved at some level in creation.

This doesn't mean that the majority of Americans are biblical creationists but it does mean that they believe that God or a god or designer had some role in origins – life is more than the product of random chance and the properties of matter and energy.  Regardless of whether they identify with a particular model of origins, the average American does not accept purely naturalistic evolution (Darwinism) as an adequate explanation for our universe and life within it. 

While materialistic philosophy and Darwinism remain deeply entrenched in the Ivy League universities and the public education curriculum, leading Darwinists and educators look at these polls and wonder where they went wrong.  How could an education system designed to only produce Darwinists keep pumping out so many non-believers? 

Polls notwithstanding, the campaign of Darwinism-only instruction in public education has not been entirely without success.  Surveys indicate that the longer a student remains in the grips of the Darwinian influenced educational establishment, the more likely they are to become a believer in naturalistic evolutionism.  Students exiting academia at the college and university level are much more likely to be Darwinists than those who exit the education system after high school.  This trend is further supported by statistics that indicate that many students exiting colleges and universities no longer believe in a "real" god and no longer attend church.

While Darwinists like to claim that this trend indicates that individuals with higher academic degrees have been educated out of belief in fables, the reality is that they have been indoctrinated into an alternative belief system. 

It's not so much that liberal American academia is overtly anti-God, it's just that their default settings of naturalistic-materialistic philosophy and Darwinism render God obsolete and superfluous. Once a student is convinced (through materialistic philosophy and "science" filtered through materialistic philosophy) that their existence is entirely explainable by random chance and the unguided inherent properties of matter and energy, belief in God becomes a bit redundant.  As they come to realize that they would be here contemplating their existence whether God exists or not they tend to drop the unnecessary and impotent God in favor of postmodern agnosticism or embark on a New Age relationship with Mother Nature.  Whether Mother Nature is the personification of the purposelessness of Darwinism or the banner of radical environmentalism, she is at least a politically correct surrogate for God in modern academia. 

Academia today is almost invariably more liberal politically, religiously and morally than mainstream America.  Higher education should be an environment where students are exposed to diverse subjects and a variety of perspectives, but to a large extent it has become nothing more than a refuge for liberals and repository of liberal thought.  Rather than representing academic diversity, our colleges and universities are in danger of deteriorating into liberal clone factories whose main product is artificial intelligence.

Materialistic philosophy and Darwinism have enjoyed ruling authority within the American academic environment for many decades.  From this platform many faithful and committed Darwinists have been cloned and considerable influence has been wielded on the lower echelons of public education.  The trickle-down influence of academia has also had its effect on public policy and especially the popular media. 

All of this has given Darwinism a level of power or cultural authority that is out of proportion to the numerical strength of Darwinists "believers."  The ivory towers of higher education tend to be both isolated and insulated from mainstream America and within this artificial atmosphere many students fall prey to materialistic philosophy in the name of science and sink into the hopeless intellectual abyss of postmodern (post logical) thinking.  In the process, God, and moral absolutes are lost and Darwinism becomes the default model of origins because it is the only model consistent with the doctrinal constraints of naturalistic-materialistic philosophy.  

When confronted with polls indicating that the majority of Americans still believe in creation rather than evolution, many leading Darwinists and educators have expressed the need to increase the emphasis on Darwinism in the lower echelons of public education.  Hoping to replicate the successes achieved in the controlled environment of higher academia, they seek to influence students (i.e., make converts) at an earlier age.  There appears to be an increased emphasis on teaching Darwinism at the elementary and high school levels in the public education system along with an increased tendency to resist or censor any teaching that contradicts or threatens the supremacy of Darwinism.

Consistent with this trend, Darwinists have become more organized and have formed organizations such as the National Center for Science Education in order to promote Darwinism and to censor the teaching of creation or design or anything that weakens or contradicts the evolution-only default setting they wish to establish in the public education system.  The National Academy of Science has published a pamphlet for public school teachers titled, "Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science." 

Rather than presenting a scientifically compelling case for evolution or addressing the scientific case for design, the pamphlet presents naturalistic evolutionism as the "organizing principle that biologists use to understand the world" and attempts to interpret all of nature through the evolutionary paradigm.  The pamphlet equates evolution with science while portraying creation or design as being outside of science and equated with religious belief.  Darwinist spinmeisters are using the public school classroom as their exclusive pulpit from which to impose their materialistic philosophy and Darwinism on America's children. 

Meanwhile, many Americans are beginning to awaken and take notice.  They see an education system that is running roughshod over their views and attempting to impose a minority view.  It is becoming increasingly obvious to many that a system that teaches Darwinism exclusively and acts as if there is no valid scientific evidence for creation or design and no right to teach it even if it did exist, is an indoctrination system rather than an education system.

Science is not advanced by the imposition of materialist philosophical constraints any more than by the imposition of any other religious or philosophical constraints.  Science is the search for knowledge and understanding wherever it can be found; it belongs to everybody, not just those who wish to advance naturalistic-materialistic philosophy.  Science advances when it is approached objectively with logical and critical thinking and when alternative theories can be evaluated in the context of the evidence.  Censoring alternative explanations and viewpoints does not advance Science.    

Increasingly, parents, educators and scientists who reject the materialistic basis of Darwinism or who recognize that there is a valid case for design in origins-science, are speaking out and demanding balance in the public school science curriculum.  These confrontations are usually taking place at the local or state school board level.  While the confrontations are local, the heat and smoke generated has been attracting national and even international attention.

Creation and design advocates are typically well-educated and well-informed individuals who are seeking nothing more than a bit of balance in the public school science curriculum.  Nobody is proposing the teaching of religion or biblical creationism in the public education system.  The model proposed for public schools is based on the concept of intelligent design.  It uses science rather than religious arguments to establish design and makes no effort to identify the designer. 

In order to bring balance to origins science, the immediate objective is the de-emphasis of Darwinism in the curriculum.  This would be accomplished by separating naturalistic-materialistic philosophy from the scientific theory of evolution so that all of the facts can be presented and discussed independent of the doctrinal constraints and baggage that comes with materialistic philosophy.  Encourage the teaching of the scientific theory of evolution but detach it from the philosophical constraints of Darwinism.

The long-range objective would be to develop a dual-model of origins science in which the scientific case for both evolution and design would be presented.  Students should learn to identify assumptions, consider alternative explanations and use critical and logical thinking as they examine the physics and fossils within in the context of the two models.  Rather than being told what to think, they should be presented all of the evidence and allowed to decide for themselves.

Darwinists are horrified at the prospect of loosing an exclusive hold on the public education system.  The idea of a "balanced" science curriculum in which design and evolution are both considered to be potentially viable conclusions derived from the scientific evidence is not acceptable to them.  Accordingly, whenever the concept of design or creation arises as a school board issue, Darwinists have rallied their forces, called on their allies in the popular media, invoked or implied all possible threats, unleashed their attorneys and deployed every straw dragon they have in their inventory.

Once students connect scientific fact to a designer or creator they will never fall for the Darwinist line that evolution is science and creation is religion.  Further, once a designer or creator is acknowledged the materialistic philosophical bases on which Darwinism depends will crumble.  Just as a single candle will put an end to utter darkness, a little bit of design or creation destroys utterly the philosophies of naturalism and materialism. 

In 1999, nation-wide and even international attention drawn to the Kansas Board of Education when it decided to de-emphasize evolution in its science testing standards.  In spite of the fact that the popular media to this days repeats the falsehood that evolution was banned and the creationism was added to the science curriculum, the truth is that the new science testing standards added increased space to the subject of evolution and required students to have a more in depth knowledge of the subject.  The difference was that the new standards presented evolution as a theory rather than a fact and it was no longer presented as one of the "unifying concepts of science." 

The heat, smoke and misinformation propagated out of the Kansas controversy ultimately resulted in the replacement of certain board members and a re-emphasis of Darwinism in the curriculum.  With the help of misinformation and outright lies, the Darwinists won the latest round in Kansas.  On the positive side, the controversy informed and motivated many to become involved and even more organized for future efforts.  I suspect the "fat lady" has yet to sing in Kansas.

In September 2002, the Cobb County Georgia school board, amid much controversy and a lawsuit filed by the ACLU, voted to "teach the controversy" about origins.  Rather than teaching evolution as undisputed fact, the school board wants a balanced approach that acknowledges the origins controversy. 

The stated purpose, in the words of the adopted policy, was to, "...foster critical thinking among students (and), allow academic freedom."  The approved policy goes on to state, "It is the intent of the Cobb County Board of Education that this policy not be interpreted to restrict the teaching of evolution; to promote or require the teaching of creationism; or to discriminate for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, religion in general, or non-religion."   

The controversy also rages in Ohio where in October of 2002 the Ohio Department of Education adopted a science standard that allowed students to "investigate and critically analyze" Darwinism.  The Ohio Board of Education vote to "teach the controversy" is good news for the majority of Americans who believe that the scientific evidences for and against both evolution and intelligent design should be presented in the public education system.  This may be one small step for Ohio but it is a giant leap for objective science education. 

The steps taken in Ohio and Georgia are "baby steps" but they represent progress against a well-funded and well-positioned paradigm.  More Americans are becoming informed and better organized.  It is becoming increasingly difficult for Darwinists to portray advocates of intelligent design and creation as agenda driven ignorant religious fanatics.  Many scientists have joined ranks with parents and educators who want a balanced science education curriculum in the public school system.  When Americans realize that Darwinists have their own agenda and philosophical predispositions they usually agree that it is better to stick to the physics and fossils and "teach the controversy" about origins than to grant either side of the debate exclusive access to the "pulpit" of the public school classroom.          

Hats off to Kansas, Cobb County Georgia, Ohio and other communities that have demonstrated the courage to challenge Darwinism and to "teach the controversy."  Ideally they represent first light in the dawn of a new day in which Americans launch the process of repossessing their education system.  The light from this new dawn can pierce the walls of our academic mushroom factories bringing needed change and balance.

*Chuck Nelson, Christian creationist and former FBI agent and retired law enforcement officer, contributes regularly to Creation Digest.

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