Creationism

In the Beginning…

The text used for the title starts “The Creation” from the Book of Genesis within the King James Version of the Bible. As the rest of the story goes, God created Earth and all of it’s inhabitants within 6-days. This belief if the foundation of the Creationist theory, which in recent history has been proposed to contradict Darwin’s theory of evolution and the concept of natural selection. Darwin’s theory of evolution, which is taught in every high school biology course, is a “scientific theory initially put forth by 19th century British naturalist Charles Darwin. His theory proposes that all modern life forms have gradually developed over the course of thousands or millions of years.” (“Update: Evolution and Creationism” 3) This theory is widely accepted by the scientific community and educators and has been included in science curriculums to explain the evolution of all life including human beings. Recently, a third belief of creation has come fourth to make it’s way into pubic debate, school curriculums, and court steps which is called intelligent design. The primary supporters of intelligent design share the same roots with supporters of creationism, and the “fundamental premise is that certain features of living organisms are too complex to have evolved without the direct intervention of an intelligent designer.” (Biever 1) The “designer” remains anonymous, yet corresponds closely with God.

Now that we have the introduction of the various topics discussed, let’s look closely at the controversy at hand. As stated above, the theory of evolution is a scientific tested theory used as a foundation in our nation’s schools as part of the science curriculum. Intelligent design is a belief that recently, has been given enough support through it’s proponents and political supporters that they insist that this belief should either replace the theory of evolution or taught alongside the theory of evolution as an alternate concept to explain creation in the science curriculum. Not only does intelligent design lack credibility from the scientific community, but through the very fabric of it’s foundation and shared vision of creationism, this topic has no place in school districts science curriculum. Either replacing the theory of evolution with intelligent design or teaching intelligent design, as an alternative to evolution is a violation of our First Amendment rights to freedom of religion. If intelligent design is to be inserted in our school’s curriculum, it should be separated completely from science.

Proponents of the intelligent design principal state, that by placing this belief within a science curriculum, and offering alongside Darwin’s theory of evolution would allow for a greater understanding of not only the existing controversy, but provide an additional viewpoint on the topic of creativity and evolution. Isn’t that what our nation’s school system is to do, offer various concepts and theories to allow students the opportunity to discuss and debate different sides of a topic? President Bush had this to say when asked if intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution, “both sides ought to be properly taught….so people can understand what the debate is about.” (Baker 1) While many involved in the debate contend that intelligent design requires academic study, some opponents state that the belief isn’t fit for the science class. An article posted in the New Scientist magazine describes a major flaw with the insertion of intelligent design and it’s place in the science curriculum, “scientific ideas that have become sufficiently mainstream to be taught in high school have survived a gauntlet of stringent tests. The first takes place when proposals are published in peer-reviewed journals, often resulting in severe criticisms that must be addressed.” (Krauss 2) The article continues to state, “After publication, the proposals must be compelling enough to prompt exploration by other researchers. If they survive perhaps 20 years of testing against evidence, they may make it into high school texts.” Intelligent design has yet to undergo this scrutiny and therefore lacks the credibility to be taught along with or even replace evolution.

A second argument for the teaching of intelligent design is that this is a belief, which originates with Christianity itself, and therefore indicative of the people’s wishes as majority of the population is Christian. The Discovery Institute, the primary supporter of intelligent design publishes the following mantra as an organizational goal, “one of the governing goals of the Discovery Institute, ID’s spiritual home, is to spread the word вЂ?that nature and human beings are created by GodвЂ™Ð²Ð‚Ñœ. (“No Contest” 2) As part of the organizations fulfillment purposes is to offer only explain creation through the eyes of the populations overwhelming faith. To fortify their positions, supporters state the overwhelming population within the United States believes strongly in creationism, Gallup polls conducted in November 1997 found that 43% of all Americans believe that God created human beings. ("Evolution and Creationism" 5) There is an obvious divide among US citizens as to their beliefs in the origination of life. Supporters of intelligent design also state that the responsibilities of educators and leaders are to provide students with varying perspectives in the form of creation and evolution. While the population numbers can definitely be viewed as an overwhelming call of support from the majority of the population, we must examine the religious demographics the entire country. When reviewing the country’s religious populations, our nations top five religious affiliations are Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism (“Largest Religious Groups” 4). Surely, if the nation accepts the belief of intelligent design in our curriculum, which we affiliate with Christianity, we must also adopt religious teachings on creation from various denominations to incorporate the beliefs, which represent the diversity of our population. Wayne Carley, executive director of the National Association of Biology Teachers articulated the point, “there are dozens of creation stories, so why do you pick this one Christian Bible version as the only one that must be taught? If you are going to teach creationism fairly, you must teach all