Church-State Controversy

Church-State Controversy

There are many social issues present today that affect out lives in more than one way. Social issues range from family-related, church related and politics to abortion and state affairs. The specific social issue I'm going to concentrate on in this report is Church-State related. It is mainly focused on the teaching of Evolution and Creationism in public schools, and why there is so much conflict.

For many years there has been conflict in this category that has caused issues for schools and families. Many people believe that evolution should be the only subject taught in public schools because it is science related, while others believe that Creation should also be able to be taught as a secondary belief to our existence, although it is based on the religion, Christianity.

NCSE, "National Center for Science Education", is one of the many organizations defending the teaching of evolution in public schools. One of their overall goals is to also completely remove the teaching of Creationism from the classroom. They believe that Creationism, also known as "Intelligent Design", is wrong for the classroom and should remain church-related. This creates huge conflict between the Church and the State.

Another organization known as "Worldview Education" is completely controversial to NCSE's opinion. They are trying to provide the rights and materials for education about religion in school, regardless of the Church-State conflict that is caused by the decision. Worldview Education exclaims that they provide resources for understanding the controversial issues over the social movement to include "Intelligent Design" or "Creationism" in the curriculum for public school science classes. To many, the issue resides over to competing scientific concepts, or even worse, two competing beliefs. Worldview Education claims that isn't the issue; however, if that isn't the issue, that what is?

The constant argument between organizations as to what is appropriate to teach in public schools, and what is to be viewed as a religion or simple belief, has caused much confusion. This competition presupposes that that each and every theory is "Just another guess at the truth". It is therefore left up to the individual which one to believe or base their knowledge on. It is said by some people to just teach both sides to be fair and make it clear that it is their choice as to what to believe and to avoid forcing the concept down their throats due to personal belief. To the average parent, the conflict seems to be between one science theory and its competing theory. This, as defined by the Worldview Education organization, is clearly not the case.

There are many reasons why scientists believe evolution should be the primary, if not the only theory being taught in public schools today. One reason, provided by a scientist himself is as follows:

- "The Theory of Evolution (through natural selection) is a scientific theory. It is bedrock science--used throughout the world by biologists, medical researchers, pharmaceutical developers, anthropologists, chemists, biochemists, geologists, and a multitude of different types of scientists you may not have ever heard of."

This simply applies to the fact that evolution is based on scientific discovery and research and should be kept separate from religion. By definition, the word "Theory" is a well-developed scientific idea that has stood the test of experimentation and observation and is accepted as the best explanation for a given set of observable phenomena. This information provides that the theory of evolution is no more valid than other theories such as "Gravitation" (Newton), or the theory of "Relativity"