Is Evolution a Theory or Not?

Now, Religion in the News, a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media. This week’s item is from The Associated Press, January 4, 2005, with the headline, “Judge Bans ‘Theory’ Label on School Books—A federal judge in Atlanta yesterday ordered a suburban Atlanta school system to remove stickers from its biology textbooks that call evolution a theory, not a fact, saying the disclaimers are an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. ‘By denigrating evolution, the school board appears to be endorsing the alternative theory, creationism, or variations,’ Judge Clarence Cooper said.”

Tom: Dave, let me read exactly what is on those stickers. They say, “This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.”

Now, Dave, you know, maybe it’s me, but I don’t see anything about creationism, here; I don’t see any denigration of evolution, you know. What am I missing here?

Dave: Well, the judge is simply wrong. Those stickers were not endorsing creationism. They were not denigrating evolution. What they said was factually true. Even the evolutionists call it the theory of evolution. There is no factual basis for evolution. But when something becomes a fact, I mean, there are people who say, “Oh, we’ve got a lot of evidence for it.”

Well, yeah, but you haven’t yet made it an ironclad fact. There are so many arguments against evolution. In fact, there really isn’t any evidence for it.

The judge—it sounds to me as though he’s prejudiced. He believes in evolution. And he’s afraid to have it examined. That’s all the sticker says. It says, “The material should be approached with an open mind….” Well, that’s open mind—I mean, what more could you ask?

Tom: You’re asking people to be thoughtful here.

Dave: Yes. Study it carefully, and critically consider it. You’re supposed to learn how to think critically in school. School is supposed to teach you how to think. Well, one way you could think would be to consider whether this theory is true or not. And why it is either true or false, and you could consider some alternatives. Tom, you don’t even have to get into religion to consider whether this theory is factual. I mean, a little common sense—and we’ve talked about it—I don’t want to get into it, but I mean, Tom, it’s foolishness. It’s nonsense.

I’ll just quote again Richard Dawkins—we’ve quoted him before on this program: “The nucleus”—he’s one of the world’s leading evolutionists—he says, “The nucleus of every cell”—not the whole cell…just the nucleus, “contains a digitally organized database.” Darwin never heard of that. And, they’re following Darwinian theory. They’re going back to a man 150 years ago who came up with a theory.

Tom: Mm-hmm. And didn’t have an electron microscope, by the way, Dave.

Dave: No, he didn’t have anything. All he saw was the outer form of things. Well, they’ve got wings…this has got wings…that’s got wings…and these have legs…and that’s got legs…they’ve got heads and eyes...

Tom: Beaks.

Dave: …and, yeah, beaks and so forth…well, they must be related. When you get down to the molecular level of life, it is complex beyond anything Darwin could have imagined. So, anyway, Richard Dawkins says, “The nucleus of every cell contains a digitally organized database with information content larger than the 30-volume set of Encyclopedia Britannica.” Okay? Now, by chance, you’re going to get all of these letters lined up in the proper order to make meaningful words and sentences and paragraphs and thoughts and conclusions, and, if one letter is out of order, the whole thing doesn’t work. And you’re going to do that by chance over a process of billions of years. Tom, it is absolute foolishness!

I remember when I was in university, the teachers telling us…the eye—“How did the eye begin? Well, a little irritation on the skin, you know, and then over a period of time it developed…and so and so....”

I just raised my hand and I’d say, “Professor, um, I thought we were studying natural selection—survival of the fittest? An eye isn’t going to help you survive—it won’t do you a bit of good until it works! Now, how through a process of natural selection are we going to get all of these intermediary stages—thousands of rods and cones and nerve connections—I mean, incredible! And the brain to interpret it. All of this some how is going to be put together, but it doesn’t help survive until it works?”

That’s too much for me to swallow.

Tom: Well, it’s irrational. It’s speculation; it’s…I mean, it’s foolishness, as you said, Dave.

Dave: It is. It’s irrational speculation. I mean, when you consider DNA. DNA is written in language. These are words. There’s grammatical rules; syntax…it’s…and these are the manufacturing and operating instructions for trillions of cells in the body, and they’re all contained on the DNA, and the original single cell that we all start out in life as, about the size of a period at the end of a sentence—and you’re going to tell me that all of that got put in there by chance? Einstein himself said matter cannot arrange itself into information. You’ve got information, and when you see information written out in words—Tom, you must come to the conclusion that an intelligence put it there, and evolution will not allow that. Okay? So, I see no problem…I think the judge is wrong…I think they ought to take this to a higher court.

Tom: Dave, simply, the request here it to have a sticker in a textbook—a science textbook...

Dave: Right.

Tom: …and all the sticker is asking is: Students, teachers, don’t buy into something that being promoted as a fact, when, in fact, it’s just a theory—and a theory that needs to be proven. That’s where the students have been sold evolution as a fact, when it’s clearly not.

Dave: Right.