Download Vishaal Chhabria

Vishaal Chhabria
Moravian Academy
Position paper for Creation Science vs. Evolution in a classroom setting
Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pension
It is imperative to put down problems of what to teach in our school’s curriculum. Education is
very important. However, some people feel that we must only teach things that go along with
their views. Roman Catholics, one of the most populous religions in the world, and a few others,
believe in creationism. However, Charles Darwin thought up natural selection and wrote a book
On the Origin of Species, while traveling to the Galapagos Islands which implied evolution was
the origin of life. The creation stories and Darwin’s theory contradict each other. The origin of
the creation stories lies in Babylon, when the Hebrew people were captive there; they came up
with two creation stories, outlined in Genesis, 1. that the world was created by God and made in
7 days, in which God on the first day created the earth, then he created plants, followed by
animals, followed by some other things and finally on the 6th day he created humans, and the 7th
he declared as a day of rest, also known as the Sabbath. 2. They came up with the well known
story of Adam and Eve, which is more widely known and the reason for the Christian belief in
the sacrament of Baptism. The story of Adam and Eve outlines god creating Adam on the first
day, followed by what Adam wanted, first Adam wanted a woman, Eve, next he wanted food, so
god created the Garden of Eden (I believe this is the chronology) followed by Adam wanting
animals, so god created animals and so on and so forth. God said to Adam only one condition
applies, that is not to eat the fruit off of the best tree. Only problem was, a snake, the devil,
instigated Eve into eating from that tree, who in turn convinced Adam to eat the same fruit. In
turn, this compelled God’s wrath upon them. Thus causing man to exit the Garden of Eden and
have original sin, which lead to the sacrament of Baptism to absolve original sin.
However, In the light of a common biology class which teaches evolution, creation
science does not make logical sense. Natural selection states that more individuals are present
than live to survive, therefore variation exists in the population, because variation exists in the
population, some individuals are better suited for the area than others, and because some are
better suited than others, the individuals which are better suited to survive than others will
reproduce more so leaving their traits which make them better suited on the future population
and cause those traits to be characteristic of their progeny which become the dominant group in
the population, thus causing evolution, or change. The problem arises when this theory holds true
in many cases and there is actually proof behind it. The theory is based on our fossil record,
knowledge of embryology, comparative anatomy, vestigial/non-functioning structures, and nonperfect adaptations such as the appearance of a 6th digiti on each paw, which is actually an extra
wrist bone. The theory also has been observed in Darwin’s finches (13 different species), the
Marine and Land iguanas in the Galapagos Islands. Both examples show how they have changed
for their environment. In laboratories, Scientists and doctors have seen evolution in bacteria, with
regard to various tests of resistance. Scientists have tested various different situations on the
bacteria by changing temperature of various situations such as temperature, or else Ph levels of a
solution they are in, or amounts of antibiotic levels. Doctors have seen this in patients where if a
patient is taking antibiotics and they stop their dose early and their illness comes back, they will
have to take a lot more antibiotics in order to start to feel better because now these are the
progeny of the stronger, most resistant bacteria that have survived the antibiotics for the time
they were taken. Therefore, evolution in species or change has been proven.
Another theory, intelligent design proposes that evolution has been watched over by a
God. There are a few different ideas, one being the watchmaker theory where life is considered
as intricate as a watch and God is the watchmaker but he plays his hand in where it is necessary
to change a part. Another, my favorite, is the spoof on the controversy, the flying spaghetti
monster theory. It states that a flying spaghetti monster created the world and continually
watches over it and has changed numbers and situations in scientific experimentation in order to
conceal his identity. It works as well. Advocators/creators of the flying spaghetti monster theory
are trying to get it taught in Kansas city schools. According to Wikipedia, “The Flying Spaghetti
Monster is the deity of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which has been called a
parody religion. It was founded in 2005 by Oregon State University physics graduate Bobby
Henderson to protest against the decision by the Kansas State Board of Education to require the
teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to biological evolution.”
This goes to show that people are against and for all these theories. So, as a committee I
would urge us to come up with a logical solution to end the dispute surrounding our people, at
the same time providing respect to creationists and evolutionists. Therefore, I would be in favor
of possibly allowing different local school boards to decide what to do with this topic. This way,
if a region has more parents who are creationist, then that region teaches creation, if the region is
more evolutionist, the region teaches evolution, or if the parents believe the child should have a
choice, the ancient history class and biology class must be taught in the 9th grade with ancient
history teaching creation science at the same time as the biology class teaches evolution. Or else,
we can standardize both to be taught and allow the student to contemplate on their own.
Otherwise, we can do what the church did, allow evolution to be taught in the upper level
classes, and to educate the lower level classes have creation science taught. Or, if we want to
dodge the subject altogether we can have it banned from being taught in classes, however have
every high school standardize an assembly on it once every year, and during that assembly have
students debate both topics, maybe have the AP level Biology class debate with another AP level
history class. As a committee we must calm the masses on this topic, therefore I believe we must
compromise and allow creationism to be taught as well as evolution as they are both valid topics.
We must allow the children to decide which way to take subjects such as this. Although, by law a
parent is able to give their children whatever religious instruction they want till the age of 18, we
are not allowed to interfere with that.
A counter to this argument would be by those heavily favoring the teaching of evolution,
saying creationism has no backing. This argument is well backed up, as there is actually no valid
response to saying any facts which have happened to back up creationism, except those dealing
with faith. Faith is an acceptance of information without any backing, just sheer trust in its
source. Since creationism has no backing except by faith, there will always be a problem by
those who honestly believe in creationism.
Teaching creation stories in a public school may even defy separation of church and state,
which would mean that we are legally not allowed to teach it. One can say this, however, people
want it to be taught, therefore, as they are our American people, we must give it to them, or else
this issue will not be stopped.
Any legislation favoring one over the other for that matter will likely not solve this
problem; therefore we must get a balanced legislation favoring both sides of the argument. In
order to do this we must compromise well and this topic could go by rather quickly, given the
context.