A Reality Check from Oz
By Gary Butner, Th.D.
The following is a response to an August 30, 1999 article by syndicated
columnist Kathleen Parker berating the Kansas State School Board for its
ruling delegating the decision whether to teach evolution to local
school boards.
Since I am from Kansas, I read with interest Kathleen
Parker’s August 30th editorial regarding the recent evolution ruling by the
Kansas State Board of Education. I must admit I have always enjoyed her
pro-family views in the past, however, this time she missed the mark. I can
appreciate her confusion on this issue since most Christians, Jews, Muslims,
Deists, and even many ministers across the country, do not grasp the issues
involved. In her first paragraph she states: "These days Oz would offer us
a reality check." I hope that reality check will wake Americans to
something far more sinister than what appears on the surface. Let me state for
the record that I am a conservative Christian with a doctorate in theology, and
that my best friend, Rev. Dr. Greg Neal, who's name you will also find endorsing
this letter, is a liberal Christian minister from Texas with a doctorate in
Systematic Theology. While we disagree on many issues of both theology and
public policy, he and I both oppose the teaching of religion in the classroom,
which it appears she and others do not.
Firstly, let me clear up a point the national media is
still missing. The Kansas Board of Education did not ban the teaching of
evolution; rather, wisely delegated that decision to the local school board to
keep religion out of the classroom.
Secondly, Rev. Neal subscribes to theistic evolution,
whereas I believe in Creationism. Theistic evolution subscribes to the idea God
used the process of evolution in creating the cosmos, including animals and man.
It appears from Ms. Parker’s article that she agrees with Rev. Neal.
In 1995, the official Position Statement of the
American National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) accurately states the
general understanding of major science organizations and educators:
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.
Or in the words of the famous evolutionist, George
Gaylord Simpson, "Man is the result of a purposeless, and natural process
that did not have him in mind."
How do they know the process was unsupervised?
How do they know the process was mindless?
How do they know the process was purposeless?
Their statements are problematic in that they are
unscientific. It cannot be proven that evolutionary processes are
"purposeless" or that humans were "not in mind." Science
cannot demonstrate these assumptions either way ... and that's the problem with
their position. They become proponents of a religion of atheism; I say religion
because their conclusion is NOT science, it is faith ... just as much as OUR
conclusion is faith. Clearly, their definition is diametrically opposed to any
concept of a personal creator being involved in the evolutionary process.
To be fair, as was reported by Brendan Sweetman, Ph.D.
in a letter to The Kansas City Star August 21, NABT removed the language after it was
pointed out by the philosopher, Alvin Plantinga, and the theologian Huston
Smith, that their guideline was really an implied atheism and went beyond what
the scientific evidence for the theory could show. However, the concept of
natural selection (absent a creator) remains the central tenant of evolution as
taught in the classrooms. The definition of natural selection includes
unsupervised, mindless and purposeless. Clearly, in defining evolution they have
left the world of science and entered the world of philosophy and theology, and
established atheism (a religion) in our classrooms.
A 1991 Gallup Poll found that 87% of the public
believes in God. According to the poll, of the 87% who believe in God, 44% accept the
Creation model, and 43% the theistic evolution model. This implies
that only one in ten Americans accepts NABT’s purposeless, mindless atheism,
which is being taught in our classrooms. Teaching intelligent design differs
from literal Biblical creationism in that it is silent regarding who the
designer might be, when the designing took place, how it was done or for what
purpose. It simply purposes that life was designed.
We can only speculate as to why two young men at
Columbine High School gave up all hope and went on a rampage. Do you think that
maybe they were taught their world is mindless, purposeless and unsupervised?
Gary Butner, Th.D.
Merriam, KS
Greg Neal, Ph.D.
Wichita Falls, TX
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