What's The Fuss About Evolution?

I can't help but wonder what it is that fuels the vitriol when someone challenges the "theory of evolution."

Decibel levels go up and intellectual pursuit goes down. The clamor to drown out debate of the evolution portion of Florida's new science standards is typical of political campaigns, not rational discussions of curriculum guidelines.

For taking a stand on this, news programs and blogs have called me everything from an imbecile to a conspiratorial plotter. Sen. Ronda Storms has been called even worse. The "crime" we're being accused of seems to be trying to infiltrate Florida's classrooms with information designed to corrupt students' minds - or worse.

First, it's important to understand what it is that brought a coalition of over 20 pro-family organizations together to seek changes in the science standards. Perhaps the single most important factor is the lack of definition of the term "evolution."

To quote Dr. Francis Grubbs, Ph.D., education consultant to Gibbs Law Firm, from the memorandum he wrote to the FDOE: "There is no attempt to differentiate between what is a validated theory and what is still a hypothesis. However, there seems to be a deliberate attempt to introduce the term and formulate a concept within the developing minds of students so they will never consider the differences between the verifiable concepts of 'microevolution' and the unverified understandings of 'macroevolution.'"

In grades three and five, one standard is titled "Diversity and Evolution of Living Organisms." Grubbs notes, "The Benchmarks under this Big Idea deal with the classification of animals and plants into major groups, and how they respond to changing seasons. There is nothing in these benchmarks that addresses the kind of change pertaining to 'evolution' and it would be much more precise to simply entitle this Big Idea: 'Diversity and Classification of Living Organisms'."

Similarly, one sixth-grade standard begins with, "The scientific theory of the evolution of Earth states ..." Evolution of Earth? Where was Darwin on this? I thought evolution had to do changes in living things!

To ensure I don't wallow in the same undefined morass as the Darwinists, "microevolution" would be the proven part of evolutionary theory that includes things like a bacterium becoming resistant to antibiotics and cows being bred to have more meat. "Macroevolution" is Darwin's original theory that all life stems from a common single-celled ancestor.

Macroevolution is entirely unproven. It hypothesizes that our original "ancestor" went through a series of gradual changes that led to it becoming a new type of organism. It further hypothesizes that through thousands of iterations of this process, you and I are here today. There is no fossil evidence of this happening nor has it ever been replicated in the laboratory.

The sole purpose of the Academic Freedom Act that Storms introduced is to protect teachers and students from persecution if their investigation of evolution leads them to conclusions that differ with the "party line" as it's stated in the standards.

Yet, those who are using the authority of the Florida Department of Education to impose the religion of evolution are railing against Storms and claiming she is using her position to introduce religious teaching into the classroom when that's exactly what they are doing!

"Projecting" is the name a psychologist would use for this dissembling by the Darwinists.