A nationwide moratorium on the teaching of evolution in schools

To Mike Pence, Vice-President of the United States of America:

We the undersigned note that, when you were a member of the U.S House of Representatives, you spoke out on the subject of science education and for presenting students with all available information. Recently, we have seen the passage of academic freedom bills in Louisiana and Tennessee which have allowed for critical evaluation in the classroom and improved educational standards. However, whilst an important development, they were only enacted owing to the need to protect students from indoctrination. We object to the teaching of the very controversial theory of evolution as part of the K-12 science curriculum which we regard to be unnecessary and unhelpful.

It is obvious to us that Evolutionism-Darwinism is an anti-Christian atheistic dogma masquerading as science. According to renown philosopher of science, Professor Michael Ruse, himself an ardent evolutionist, there is no doubt that the theory of evolution represents a philosophical worldview: “Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion—a full-fledged alternative to Christianity.”1

Evolutionists, indeed, themselves speak about their “theory” with an unmistakably religious fervour. This was so apparent with the discovery of the “Ida” fossil, hailed as a direct human ancestor, as Dr. Jorn Hurum stated: "This specimen is like finding the Lost Ark.....it is the scientific equivalent of the Holy Grail. This fossil will probably be the one that will be pictured in all textbooks for the next 100 years."2 It later turned out, however, that the lemur-like Ida, “Darwinius masillae”, cannot be regarded as ancestral to the human lineage as claimed. Likewise, “Ramapithecus” was taught in the school textbooks for nearly five decades as a direct ancestor of humans when this was never the case – it may instead be related to orang-utans. Although it is stated that science is self-correcting, which it is, it is also evident that the theory of evolution, almost exclusively among theories, is massively tarnished by both fraud and mistakes. It isn't wise to present students with confusing information that is quite likely inaccurate or is liable to be so readily overturned by further research.

Another example of the non-scientific agenda propounded by adherents of the theory of evolution can be found in the statement on the subject released by the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT): “The diversity of life on Earth is the outcome of evolution: an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is affected by natural selection, chance, historical contingencies and changing environments.”3 The NABT, in response to criticism, has since deleted the words “impersonal” and “unsupervised”. However, the original statement clearly shows that this organization is adamant about denying the work of a divine creator in the natural order even though they have no scientific evidence to support such a sweeping theological contention. It can be argued, therefore, that the teaching of evolution in public schools does amount to the introduction of religion, or non-religion, in the classroom which puts it into conflict with the establishment clause of the First Amendment. By insisting that it must be taught in the school classroom, anti-Christian groups like the NABT, the NCSE, the NAS and the ACLU, seek to make America a less devout society and much more pliant to their radical politics and diabolical objectives.

Nonetheless, die-hard supporters of teaching the theory of evolution maintain that, even if Darwinism has become a secular religion for a post-Christian era, it is true and factual in essence, and so should be taught as science in public schools. But the basic reality is that the Neo-Darwinian paradigm is on the verge of collapse and a growing number of scientists are now seeking a new theory of origins to address the multiple failings that currently exist. These are summarised below:

1. The demise of the genetic blueprint: The majority of high school textbooks, along with the popular media, refer to DNA as a “blueprint” for building a living organism. This is taught because the Neo-Darwinian paradigm insists that the diversity of form in the biosphere is due to variations in DNA among species. However, this assumption has been shown in recent years to be essentially false, and that there is no blueprint in the genome governing the shape and complexity of the organism. Two researchers, Monteiro and Podlaha, admit that,“the genetic origin of new and complex traits is probably still one of the most pertinent and fundamental unanswered questions in evolution today.”4 Harvard professor, Peter Park, goes even further to proclaim that,“it's become very clear that DNA sequences are just a building block. They don’t explain higher-order complexity.”5 Obviously, if organisms are more than just the epiphenomena of their genes, then the gene-centric Neo-Darwinian paradigm cannot at all explain the diversity of form and so fails utterly.

2. The demise of cumulative selectionism: The core premise of Darwin's theory of evolution is that biological features have been produced by the cumulative selection of innumerable slight successive modifications. But as renown biologist Dr. Michael Denton has noted, the theory of evolution has been in crisis for the past 30 years because of the abject failure to show that there is a functional continuum in biology that allows for a gradual change leading to complex new features. In his view,“Darwinian theory of evolution is no more nor less than the great cosmogenic myth.”6

3. The demise of the LUCA: The Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) is the hypothetical organism, that lived 4 billion years ago, for which there is no actual physical evidence of at all. It is only inferred because all life shares essentially the same genetic code. Recent scientific research indicates there is no reason to believe that it ever existed. As Professor Ford Doolittle states, “We do doubt that there ever was a single universal common ancestor.”7 Indeed, the idea that all living organisms are descended from a single ancestor is as preposterous as the discredited hypothesis that all human languages are descended from a prototypical tongue.

Darwinist extremists often claim that their theory represents the “cornerstone” of biology and that the theory of evolution is as central to biology as atomic theory is to chemistry or the theory of gravity is to physics. They claim that evolutionary theory is the “central unifying principle” of the life sciences, and, quoting Theodosius Dobzhansky, that “nothing makes sense in biology except in the light of evolution.” 8 However, it simply isn't necessary to refer to evolutionary theory when studying anatomy or sexual reproduction or metabolism or photosynthesis or just about any major topic within biology. Conversely, it would be impossible to teach chemistry without reference to atoms. As has been noted by Adam Wilkins , “most biologists can conduct their work quite happily without particular reference to evolutionary ideas.” 9 GH Harper also rightly remarks that, “if all references to Darwinism suddenly disappeared, biology would remain substantially unchanged.” 10

Of course, it is absolutely necessary to teach observable limited biological change, generally termed “microevolution” or “adaptation”, such as the acquisition of antibiotic resistance in bacteria through loss-of-function mutations. However, this can be effectively taught as part of a course on ecology without reference to the wider theory and the distraction of its flawed historical narrative of origins which includes telling students that humans are walking sarcopterygian fish! Likewise, mechanisms of change in DNA, notably mutation and recombination, can be taught as part of a course on genetics with reference to their significant role in disease rather than any evolutionary development.

We therefore urge you to persuade President Trump to issue an executive order imposing a nationwide indefinite moratorium on the teaching of evolution in public schools. For it to be effective, this order should clearly state that it supersedes the decisions of state and district boards of education regarding the science curriculum. Those schools that don't comply with it should be completely denied federal funding and aid by the Department of Education, just as it is proposed that cities that provide sanctuary to illegal aliens ought to be denied assistance. We hope that you will act upon this very urgent matter and uphold truth and the American way of life we hold so dear.

Citations

1. http://www.jodkowski.pl/ek/MRuse002.html

2. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/missing-link...

3. https://ncse.com/library-resource/science-religion...

4. http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10...

5. https://www.wired.com/2010/12/genomic-dark-matter/

6. http://www.arn.org/quotes/critics.html

7. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC28730...

8. http://abt.ucpress.edu/content/35/3/125

9. https://philpapers.org/rec/WILEPA-4