In response to Ryan Dashek's column Evolution should be taught in classrooms,"" The article laid out three points: evolution is science while creation is religion, teaching anything other than evolution in classrooms would be detrimental to student development and belief in evolution does not necessarily equate a disbelief in God.
Because the opinion given was all based on a belief and not facts or truth, I'd like to present a few facts for consideration.
First, operational science is a systematic approach to an understanding that uses observable, testable, repeatable and falsifiable experimentation to understand how nature commonly behaves. Neither creation nor evolution are observable, testable, repeatable and falsifiable. Each is based on a philosophical belief about how the Earth began.
Next, the formation of the Earth, and all life on it, was a one-time event. Only through our point of view can we comment on our beginnings. Many areas of biology fall into Operational Science. Where evolution diverges, it is based on an interpretation of events, not repeatable experimentation.
Evolution is mathematically impossible. In probability, an occurrence with a 1 x 10-50 chance of happening is considered a mathematical impossibility. It has been calculated the formation of a 100 amino-acid protein assembling by random chance is 4.9 x 10-191.
Teaching Creationism is not detrimental to student development. Carolus Linnaeus (the Linnaeus Method is used for classifying the species) was a creationist and a giant in the field of biology.
And, if given the choice of believing I am the progeny of a random convergence of chemicals in some pond scum or believing I am fearfully and wonderfully made by the Creator, my choice is the latter.
- Casey Martin
UW-Madison Academic Staff
