EVOLUTION AND OUR SCHOOLS

The evolutionists are trying to take over our schools. Here is some information you will find helpful. This is science vs. evolution—a Creation-Evolution Encyclopedia, brought to you by Creation Science Facts.

In the list below, full caps at the beginning of a hyperlink show it begins a new page.

CONTENTS: Evolution and Our Schools

Taking over Education: The atheists are taking over our schools.
Does Religion Hurt People?: There is abundant evidence that it only helps them.
Control of Scientific Education: The evolutionists have gained control of the educational associations and publishing houses.
Objections to the Teaching of Evolution in the Schools: Evolutionary theory narrows and warps the thinking processes.
Power of the Schools: Evolutionists know they have to control the schools, in order to gain control of the populace as a whole.
Power of the Textbooks: School texts powerfully affect common beliefs.
Evolutionists State their Position: They must gain control of every avenue of education.

Related Articles

EVOLUTION and the Polls:What do teachers, parents, and students want taught in schools?

COURT CASES: The Teaching of Creation in the Schools: Major court decisions regarding the teaching of Creation in public schools

Page numbers without book references refer to the book, EVOLUTION AND OUR SCHOOLS, from which these facts are summarized. An asterisk ( * ) by a name indicates that person is not known to be a creationist. Of over 4,000 quotations in the set of books this Encyclopedia is based on
, only 164 statements are by creationists.

TAKING OVER EDUCATION

In Western civilization today we have a repeat of the educational suppression and persecution of scientific facts which existed in the Dark Ages.

"There existed a powerful body of men whose hostility to Galileo never abated: the Aristotleians at the universities. The inertia of the human mind and its resistance to innovation are most clearly demonstrated not, as one might expect, by the ignorant mass—which is easily swayed once its imagination is caught—but by professionals with a vested interest in tradition and the monopoly of learning. Innovation is a twofold threat to academic mediocrities: It endangers their oracular authority, and it evokes a deeper fear that their whole laboriously constructed intellectual edifice might collapse."—*Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers.

The men controlling the modern scientific world are humanists, and humanists are atheists.

"Humanism is a philosophical, religious, and moral point of view as old as human civilization itself. It has its roots in classical China, Greece, and Rome."—Paul Kurtz, Preface to Republication of American Humanist Association: Humanist Manifestos I (1933) and II (1973).

DOES RELIGION HURT PEOPLE?

Is it dangerous for people to learn about religious topics? In any given Western society, we find it is the religious people who are primarily engaged in lifesaving activities, such as orphanages, antiabortion efforts, city missions, and all the rest.

The story of Edwards and Jukes is worth repeating:

Jonathan Edwards was a well-known preacher in the early American Colonies. Out of 729 of his descendants, 300 were preachers, 65 were college professors, 13 were university presidents, 16 were authors, 3 were U.S. congressmen, and one was vice president of the United States.

Max Jukes lived at about the same time as Edwards. Out of 1,020 descendants, 300 died prematurely, 100 entered penitentiaries for an average sentence of 13 years each, 190 were prostitutes, and 100 were drunkards. They cost the state an estimated $1,200,000 at a time when the dollar was worth far less than it is now.

"When America was founded it was recognized that Christianity represented the highest morality, and it was natural that Christians would be expected to teach the youth in the schools of the land. The first school in America was in Jamestown Colony, and was taught by a pastor and ship chaplain. The nation's first colleges were all founded by Christians, and were originally based on Christian principles: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown, Pennsylvania, and others.

"But gradually changes occurred that were to reap disastrous results later on. Ultimately, in our own century, outright atheists gained control of a majority of the colleges in America.

"Gradually, however, deism and unitarianism infiltrated the colonies, especially in New England, undermining the supernatural aspects of Christianity, even though there was still a commitment to the concept of a personal transcendent God who had created all things in the beginning. Pre-Darwinian evolution also made its impact, especially the idea of `long ages.' This belief of the ancient pagan religions was reintroduced into England by *Hutton, *Playfair, and *Lyell, and was soon promoted in this country, even by such creationist geologists as Agassiz, Silliman, and Dana. Also, the famous `nebular hypothesis' for the evolutionary origin of the solar system, introduced in continental Europe by *Kant and *LaPlace, made numerous American converts, including the leading Christian biologist, *Asa Gray, who would soon become *Darwin's main propagandist in the United States."—H.M. Morris, Long War Against God (1989), pp. 45-46.

"The schools in those days were almost all private schools; in fact, most of them were Christian schools. However, the strongly Biblical orientation of the colonial churches, and especially the colleges which they had formed (Harvard, Yale, and others) had already become strongly diluted by deism and unitarianism, and it would not be long before these entrenched heresies would be yielding to two even more deadly British imports—the uniformitarianism of *Charles Lyell and then later the evolution of *Charles Darwin. In the meantime, the Unitarian, *Horace Mann, would lead in getting American education shifted to a system of public schools. The latter would still have a normal commitment to creationism and Christianity for awhile, but would eventually be subverted to a full-blown evolutionary humanism through the baleful influence of *John Dewey and his disciples."—Henry Morris, History of Modern Creationism (1984), p. 31.

Shortly after the American Colonies were established, Massachusetts took the lead in education. Centering at Harvard University, it also took the lead in introducing evolution into American schools and colleges. Horace Mann, of that state, led out in promoting `normal schools' for the training of teachers. By 1860, state teachers' training had a strong control over what was taught to teachers. But it was not until the 20th century that state legislatures and teachers' associations gained control over the textbooks. Prior to our century, most American schools were rural with locally chosen school boards and textbooks. The well-known McGuffey Readers, with their solid content were generally used.

The national Education Association was formed in 1857. When the teacher strikes began in 1857, the NEA quickly became the most powerful labor union in America. But, unlike other unions, the membership of the NEA includes not only the teachers, but also the school, county administration staff, and book publishers as well!

*John Dewey was born in 1859, the year that *Darwin's Origin of the Species was published. John Dewey was the American founder and leading promoter of "progressive education."

"An absolute faith in science became the driving force behind the progressives . . the most important idea that would influence the educators was that of evolution—the notion that man, through a process of natural selection, had evolved to his present state from a common animal ancestry."—Samuel L. Blumenfeld, NEA: Trojan Horse in American Education (1984), p. 43.

"The underlying assumption of progressive education was that the child is simply an evolved animal and must be trained as such—not as an individual created in God's image with tremendous potential as an individual. A child was considered but one member in a group and therefore must be trained collectively to fit into his or her appropriate place in society. Dewey studied Russia's educational system extensively and was a socialist himself, as well as a materialistic pantheist."—Henry Morris, Long War Against God (1989), p. 48.

*John Dewey, along with fellow educators who viewed matters as he did, founded the American Humanist Association in 1933. *Dewey became its first president. The basic statement of beliefs of the AHA was published that year under the title, Humanist Manifesto, and later became the unofficial framework of teaching in most school textbooks.

CONTROL OF SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION

Humanism is atheism and, to a great degree, it controls modern dedication. Atheistic sentiments are presented in the form of evolutionist terminology, so as to be less objectionable. These concepts permeate both the humanities and the sciences.

Scientific articles continually pour forth from the presses of thousands of scientific journals; so much so that few have even a partial conception of what is taking place in the scientific world. Because of the "mystery" of science as well as its technological benefits, spokesmen for science have an aura of infallibility when they speak about science, health, medicine, or even ancient history.

"The Library of Congress receives 55,000 scientific periodicals, and it estimates that there are at least 15,000 more. Each year there are over one million different science articles published worldwide. One must read an article every three seconds, nonstop, to keep up!"—Don DeYoung, Creation Research Society Quarterly, September 1989, p. 41.

But the editors who release those scientific articles frequently must adhere to evolutionary standards or they will be in trouble.

If a Darwinist is an editor of some kind, be it that of a scientific journal or that of a publishing house, the Darwinist can be expected to do his best to make sure that only Darwinist ideas successfully see the light of day. As R.L. Wysong says, " `It is next to impossible to publish material that is . . anti-evolution through the well-known publishing houses, even though these same houses copiously publish evolutionary material. Has freedom of the press become freedom to be sure all of the propaganda is on one side and a free land a place where you can say what you think [only] if the majority thinks the same way?"—Lester J. McCann, Blowing the Whistle on Dawinism (1986), p. 99 [quotation from Randy Wysong, The Creation-Evolution Controversy (1976), pp. 28-29].

OBJECTIONS TO THE TEACHING OF EVOLUTION

Throughout this set of books, we have observed a multitude of reasons why evolutionary theory is a pack of unsubstantiated hypotheses without any scientific basis.

"The theories of evolution, with which our studious youth have been deceived, constitute actually a dogma that all the world continues to teach: But each, in his specialty, the zoologist or the botanist, ascertains that none of the explanation furnished is adequate . . It results from this summary, that the theory of evolution is impossible."—*P. Lemoine, "Introduction: De L' Evolution?" Encyclopedie Francaise, Vol. 5 (1937), p. 6.

A basic cause for concern is that we are teaching something as "science" in our schools—for which there is no real evidence!

"For some time, it has seemed to me that our current methods of teaching Dawinism are suspiciously similar to indoctrination . .

"The Darwinist can always make a plausible reconstruction of what took place during the supposed evolution of a species. Any difficulties in reconciling a given kind of natural selection with a particular phase of evolution can be removed by judicious choice of a correlated character . .

"Looking at it in this way, the teacher of Darwin's theory corresponds with the latter, since he undoubtedly is concerned to put across the conclusion that natural selection causes evolution while he cannot be concerned to any great extent with real evidence because there isn't any."—*G.W. Harper, "Darwinism and indoctrination," School Science Review, December 1977, pp. 258, 265.

"There is no doubt about it, that the doctrine of evolution is the greatest curse in our educational system."—Brig. General F.D. Frost, The Fundamentalist, January 1950, p. 21.

POWER OF THE SCHOOLS

Yet evolutionists know that they cannot possibly convert the world to atheism unless they control what is taught in the schools. Even revolutionary evolutionists, such as Mussolini, recognized this fact. He tried to systematize the inculcation of fascist theories to the children of Italy:

"One will say that geography and mathematics are by nature nonpolitical. Such may be the case, but also the contrary. Their teachings can do harm. From the elevation of his chair, certain words, an intonation, an allusion, a judgment, a bit of statistics, coming from the professor, suffice to produce a political role and should be a fascist."—*Benito Mussolini, "Scuola Fascista," Le Temps (August 31, 1932).

THE POWER OF TEXTBOOKS

Not only are school authorities and teachers powerful, but textbooks are also.

"Textbooks are more potent forces in what and how teachers teach and what and how children learn than we are ready to admit. Textbooks select for study a content, an emphasis, a method of instruction and learning, and a level of difficulty. This power is held jealously by the government and dominant party of nondemocratic countries. No totalitarian country would chance the consequences of freedom in textbook development and selection. Even the choice of initial story in the first reading text must pass the approval of political and educational committees."—*J. Chall, "Middle and Secondary School Textbooks," The Textbooks in the American Society (1981), p. 26.

Because of the power of textbooks on youthful minds, the atheists have especially sought to dictate as to the nature of their contents.

"It is significant that practically all the literature studied in high school and college classrooms today is humanistic in tone. For example, the supposedly exemplary literary collection is known as `The Great Books of the Western World.' The listing contains almost none of the great Christian classics nor any of the great volumes of Biblical exposition or Christian apologetics, but is replete with all the great classics of humanistic thought and purpose. The books that touch on religion at all tend to promote either paganism or deism or, at best, unitarianism and Christian liberalism. Many, of course, are overtly evolutionist."—H.M. Morris, Long War Against God (1989), p. 41.

Special efforts are made to weave evolutionist sentiments into every aspect of the curricular content. The publishers of one set of biology books explain how that was a central concern in the preparation of their text series:

"Because of its pervasive and comprehensive character, evolution is treated in three ways in the BSCS materials. There are specific chapters on evolution as the history of living things. There are specific chapters on evolution as a process. And third, evolution either as history or as process is interwoven in all other chapters where it has a place: in the treatment of cell chemistry, ecology, taxonomy, and so on."—*E. Klinckmann, Biology Teacher's Handbook (1970), p. 16.

Yet that one biology text series soon became the standard to be followed by the other biology text publishers. The word has spread: Get on the bandwagon or else.

"In the late 1970's and early 1980's, `fifty percent of American school children currently used BSCS books directly, and the curriculum is incorporated indirectly in virtually all biology texts.' "—W.R. Bird, The Origin of Species Revisited (1954), p. 395.

*Hyde describes the power of textbooks in changing the moral tone of the youth.

"Critical powers may be emotionally oriented against religious beliefs while the assertions of popular humanism, with its mechanical explanation of life and its rejection of the spiritual, is uncritically accepted. Thus a prejudice against religion becomes firmly established while religious ideas remain confused and inadequate."—*K. Hyde, Religious Learning in Adolescence (1965), p. 92.

It is only through ignorance that evolution survives.

"I personally hold the evolutionary position, but yet lament the fact that the majority of our Ph.D. graduates are frightfully ignorant of many of the serious problems of the evolution theory. These problems will not be solved unless we bring them to the attention of students. Most students assume evolution is proved, the missing link is found, and all we have left is a few rough edges to smooth out. Actually the contrary is true; and many recent discoveries . . have forced us to re-evaluate our basic assumptions."—*Director of a large graduate program in biology, quoted in Creation: The Cutting edge (1982), p. 26.

EVOLUTIONISTS STATE THEIR POSITION

A fierce war is being waged to shut out from the schools that which is moralistic or creationist.

"I would turn the argument the other way around and hold that it is essential for evolution to become the central core of any educational system, because it is evolution, in the broad sense, that links inorganic nature with life, and the stars with earth, and matter with mind, and animals with man. Human history is a continuation of biological evolution in a different form."—*Julian Huxley, "At Random," Evolution after Darwin (1960), p. 65.

This problem extends beyond the schools to the later place of employment:

"Were biologists, geologists, or paleontologists to endorse publicly a pseudoscience such as creationism, their chances of achieving or retaining prestigious academic positions would be greatly undermined, as would their chances for high office in professional societies. Only in Bible colleges, seminaries, and creationist ministries can the latter succeed as outspoken creationists."—*C. Patterson, "An Engineer Looks at the Creationist Movement," Proceedings from the Iowa Academy of Sciences (1982), p. 57.

A university professor explains how he goes about eliminating those students which do not accept evolutionist doctrines.

"I would not fail a student outright simply on the basis of the above answers but would certainly consider it necessary to check further into his / her command of the subject. The best way to do this, in my view, would be to request that they detail their scientific arguments and reasons for their answers. If those arguments turned out to be scientifically counterfeit or badly fallacious, as are those of the present day creation scientists, or their reasons were contradictory to scientific facts or contradictory to certain other theories of science (e.g., thermodynamics), then I would consider these persons to either be imposters or seemingly hopeless incompetents (probably due to their being misled by evangelists from the creationist movement). Moreover, I would keep their answers on file as powerful evidence of their incompetence and then proceed to submit a failing grade . . even if their success on the memorization parts of the quizzes, etc., were enough to carry them into the passing range (on paper). In other words, I would use my professional judgment in a case like this; and, if I thought the new findings superseded the overall averages on exams (which are always incomplete barometers of competence anyway and should only be used as guidelines when more definitive information is lacking), then I would over-rule those scores on the basis of the answers I got from the special investigation.

"Another case is worth noting here. Suppose the student gives the correct scientific answers in his or her science course and suppose he / she also knows and gives the correct scientific arguments and reasons for the follow-up questions, but still insists on rejecting all this for reasons of incompatibility with his / her religious beliefs? In this case, I would prefer to pass the student strictly according to the usual scoring criteria but with the proviso that his religious reasons be noted on his transcript of grades."—*John W. Patterson [of Iowa State University], letter to Kevin Worth (February 7, 1984).

Here is the official word from the humanists: Only evolution is to be permitted in the schools.

"There is no alternative to the principle of evolution, with its `tree of life' pattern, that any competent biologist of today takes seriously . . Evolution is therefore the only view that should be expounded in public-school courses on science."—*Committee of the American Humanist Association, "A Statement Affirming Evolution as a Principle of Science," The Humanist, January-February 1977, Vol. 37, p. 4.

Here is their demand in writing, which they sent to every school authority in the land:

"A sponsoring committee headed by *Bette Chambers has secured the signatures of 179 scientists, educators, and religious figures to a statement which they say is being sent to all major school districts in the United States. The statement, along with several articles attacking the concept of creation, was published in the January / February 1977 issue of The Humanist, published for the American Humanist Association and the American Ethical Union.

"The statement reads:

" `We, the undersigned, call upon all local school boards, manufacturers of textbooks and teaching materials, elementary and secondary teachers of biological science, concerned citizens, and educational agencies to do the following:

" `—Resist and oppose measures currently before several state legislatures that would require creationist views of origins be given equal treatment and emphasis in public-school biology classes and test materials.

" `—Reject the concept, currently being put forth by certain religious and creationist pressure groups, that alleges that evolution is itself a tenet of a religion of `secular humanism,' and as such is unsuitable for inclusion in the public-school science curriculum.

" `—Give vigorous support and aid to those classroom teachers who present the subject matter of evolution fairly and who often encounter community opposition.' "—*Humanist statement, The Humanist, January-February, 1977.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Forward to Part 2 of this article on Evolution and Education: EVOLUTION AND THE POLLS.