Teaching the Evidence

October and November "Fact of the Month" section will feature columns written by, Dave Snyder, a pastor from Beverly, Ohio. He was recently engaged in the battle to remove censorship from science education in Ohio. Both columns first appeared on the Creation Digest web site in 2003; (http://www.creationequation.com). Here is the first column titled; "Teaching the Evidence".

I am not a vindictive person. I do not really mean to lump all non-creationist, pro-evolutionary scientists and educators into a single category of -- Frauds. But it is time each of them - whatever may be their individual expertise and level of indoctrination - wake up and see in which camp they can intellectually and honestly live. It is also time for Public Education and textbook companies to own up to today's realities.

Either they continue in the Darwinian heritage camp along with Gould and Dawkins and all the others, despite the facts - or another camp that says scientists, teachers, and students of science are free to follow modern scientific methods and evidence without an a priori filter or the default censorship of methodological naturalism.

I don't know what name to call the second camp. For decades it's been called Creationist. Now it is emerging as the Intelligent Design camp. But within the ID camp are those who can live with some major portions of Darwinian evolution as long as the theistic factor is not abandoned totally...Others of us find the scientific evidence to be so devastating to fundamental naturalistic evolutionary claims as to show it to be an utterly unsuccessful hypothesis that has been falsified and overhauled so many times as to be embarrassing. The issue of theism aside for a moment, the science of Evolutionism is DOA.

The on-going revision of the theory is claimed to be the necessary painstaking process of the scientific method evaluating the facts and making reflective predictive and postdictive arguments and ---occasional adjustments---as science always does. But we all know in reality, it's a dead end. It is on artificial life support and under continual protection by its supporters. They are trying to sustain some life in a corpse. Sadly it will not see a decent burial by those who have invested their lives and careers with it. So we must find a way for it to be recognized as dead by the public at large if the professional establishment will not do it.

The Creationist Camp of which I am a part, and which has been routinely marginalized, censored, and sent packing by the evolutionary science establishment, will always be anathema to most secularists and nominal religionists. What can be done (or should be done), is to create an awareness that Darwinian evolution as currently dominating the scene is now proven to be unworthy of its monopoly. Just as "WorldCom", and "Enron" are unacceptable monikers in the public domain, so also must be "Darwinian Evolution".

Evolutionists claim what we Creationists and ID folks want to do is to negate them (atheists, agnostics, naturalists) on purely philosophical grounds and altogether replace them and their scientific endeavors with a strict religious paradigm that will stifle true science activity and banish scientific concepts back to pre-18th century thinking.

We DO want to demolish false naturalistic philosophical presumptions, but not coercively or with a fascist bent--- only comparatively and competitively by allowing the enterprise of origins science to once again be freely criticized, compared analytically, discussed openly, evaluated, and debated according to the latest methods and evidences without restraint from the current naturalistic censoring regime. This calls for differentiating with some renewed integrity what are fact, proof, conjecture, faith, supposition and hypothesis. In other words: rescue and liberate the scientific method and analysis process from naturalists alone. Let it be freely OPEN, controversial and uncensored. And may the best science win the day with the scientific establishment, the media, and the public. Of course the scientific establishment responds that they indeed have a free market approach and would be compelled to abandon Neo-Darwinism if a scientifically credible naturalistic alternative (a breakthrough) were presented and peer reviewed and found superior to Darwinism. But as they insist, none is forth-coming and any model that invokes a Creator is disallowed even a cursory hearing. But in fact, modern origins science DOES have a controversy, but one side is steeped in denial and resists nearly all non-Darwinian material presented. Thankfully, there are some breaches in their wall developing with Gentry's Polonium Halo research, Austin's Grand Canyon, Flood research, ICR's R.A.T.E. research, and books like Denton's, Spetner's, and Behe's, and several others. But the wall is high and thick and built on a huge foundation of years of uncritical acceptance of nothing but Darwinism.

Ironically, it may be wondered when the modern media will ever get hold of the concepts of "free inquiry" or "following the evidence where it leads despite who may get hurt" as it relates to the origins debate. For most of the past 40 years they have been outrageously self-deluded and have grossly miss-informed the public. And what about the textbook publishers? Is it asking too much for such a reform, especially regarding textbooks? What would science textbooks contain? They would contain EVIDENTIARY EMPIRICAL SCIENCE DATA critiqued by both origins views, not summarized and evaluated by evolutionary interpretive dogma alone. The scientific evidences we now have would be established across the board. The IMPLICATIONS drawn from this data would be evaluated and summarized with claims from both basic viewpoints along with supporting scientific references.

Jonathan Wells and Steve Meyer call it "Teaching the Controversy." But people tend to shy from controversy. I prefer to call it "Teaching the EVIDENCE without ENCUMBRANCE." That is, teach the EVIDENCE and EMPIRICAL DATA nearly all agree on and present corollary general info on the essential spectrum of interpretations, evolutionary and design/creation. But it will not come easy or on a silver platter from a Court decision or two, nor will it come from Congress, nor will it come from the States' educational elites. It must come like a tidal wave from the citizenry demanding the truth. It must come from large numbers of outspoken professionals in every discipline, linking up with a grass roots citizen's movement in every school district across the country.

Students would get the latest EVIDENTIARY DATA and the textbook writers would simply outline typical interpretive views and let students decide case-by-case plausibility or implausibility. WHAT? Let mere students or laymen decide what scientists should conclude? Yes and no. Obviously science can and does tell us a lot. But it has limits. The limits of science in the field of cosmic, chemical and biological origins should be clearly established and the implications of the science touching those disciplines should not be routinely extrapolated only by the naturalistic paradigm to the exclusion of the Design paradigm. Yes, science should tell us what we know, yet should refrain (or be restrained) from presenting dogmatically as fact what they cannot know, and indeed do not know.

For decades we Christians have been engaged in chiefly apologetics, defending and articulating our faith and trying to stem the tide of naturalism and humanism with a defensive posture. But the Scripture is also replete with a polemic approach that charitably but forcefully refutes error, shines the light of truth, and destroys the lie, in addition to defending truth.

It is long overdue for us to gather some smooth stones ---- Goliath is waiting.

For Christ and Creation, Dave Snyder,