I have always enjoyed reading biographies. I read one recently that was not about a president or a famous scientist, but one who walked in my shoes and that of millions of other men and women. His name is Doctor Stephen T. Blume. Rather than me telling his story I will let him tell it.
We are all familiar with the Christian creation story. A 312-page book I read recently by Dr. Stephen T. Blume tells the secular creation story. He did such a good job that I summarized it in this newspaper column as follows:
The now-infamous Scopes ‘Evolution’ Trial took place in Dayton, Tennessee, to challenge the law that prohibited teaching human evolution as fact in public schools. The trial occurred in the summer of 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee. Apart from Jesus’s trial before Pilate, the Scopes ‘Monkey Trial’ is probably the best-known legal confrontation in history. The law was supported by famous Christian attorney William Jennings Bryan and opposed by the famous agnostic ACLU attorney Clarence Darrow.
I was told this recently by the pastor. One of the elders at his church wanted me to do a creation sermon. To decide if this topic was appropriate, the elders and the pastor had a meeting. The pastor explained his view, which was as follows:
The fact is, the theory of evolution is not a theory, but a proven fact which is supported by the universal scientific consensus. Except for a few ignorant creationists, every scientist on Earth accepts the fact of evolution, including the evolution of humans from our common ape ancestor.
For good reasons it is a rare textbook today that openly teaches racism, but it was very commonly taught in the past. The first major scientist to openly teach racism was Charles Darwin. His racist worldview is even evident in the title of his most famous book, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. Darwin’s 1871 book, The Descent of Man, Chapter Seven titled, “On the Races of Man” contains forty pages that covers in detail his racist conclusions about humans.
To illustrate the diversity of life, Dr. Stephen Law, in his popular textbook Real Big Questions, states:
“In our forests, jungles, deserts, and oceans, there is an extraordinary range of living things—from enormous blue whales to tiny jewel like insects. But where did all of these different species come from?”
Then Law lists one possibility that explains where all life came from:
What will your children be taught in public school this Fall? A popular textbook by Stephen Law, titled “Real Big Questions,” begins by asking the student, “Have you ever wondered: Where did everything come from? Did someone design the universe?” Then Law answered:
I joined the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA) in 1970 and for the next 40 years became very involved. The ASA is a Christian organization of scientists interested in associating with like-minded persons. As I became more involved I began attending their annual meetings held at various Christian colleges. I also published 27 articles in their peer-reviewed scientific journal Perspectives. On April 30, 1983, I was honored by being elected a fellow of ASA.
The sticker was written in response to a petition signed by 2,300 parents over a new biology textbook written by Kenneth Miller and Joseph Levine. The text selection was to conform to proposed school board changes that required strengthening the teaching of evolution. In an attempt to defuse the protest, the decision was made to attach to each new textbook a sticker containing a statement written by the school district's legal counsel. The sticker read:
I previously wrote a column documenting that, as a result of our technological developments, America has revolutionized the world. American inventions include the record player, telegraph, telephone, electric light bulb, television, tape recorder, motion-picture projector, electrification of the nation (before this time the only source of electricity was by large, inefficient, batteries), mass production assembly line, MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), most vaccines, to list a few of hundreds of examples.