In commenting on my last blog, Lyaeus 10 pointed out how serious the problem has become with the introduction of supernatural ideas into the classroom: "I live in a state that just passed laws to 'teach the controversy' in regards to controversial sciences which is rather obviously a way to get special creation and flood geology and other such hypotheses of no relevant intellectual value into the classrooms."What is the best way to deal with such intrusions into science education?The conventional approach has been to circle the wagons around mid-19th and mid-20th century ideas (Darwinism and neo-Darwinism). This approach has not been successful. One reason Darwinism has failed to convince skeptics may be that it ignores over 60 years of molecular science.Thirty years ago, I was at a conference in Cambridge, England, to celebrate the centennial of Darwin's death. There, Richard Dawkins began his lecture by saying, "I will not only explain that Darwin had the right answer, but I will show that he had the only possible right answer."Hearing this (and knowing that alternative explanations inevitably arise in science), I said to myself that the Creationists have a point. They are dealing with a form of religious belief on the "evolution" side. Dawkins' transformation into an aggressive proselytizer for his undoubting and absolutist version of atheism confirms this conclusion.One of the Creationists' main tools is the argument that evolutionists are simply militant atheists in drag, who care more about dissing religion than about understanding evolution. Dawkins' ill-considered crusade just bolsters their position.Rather than accept that evolution science is always a tentative work in progress, conventional evolutionists make absolutist statements like "all the facts are on my side." Making obviously inflated and unrealistic assertions is hardly likely to convince anyone who has serious questions.
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