evolution

Evolution teaches that the natural state of all animals is wild, not tame. They postulate that the taming of dogs, horses, and other animals required thousands of years of evolution. The process they describe involved dogs eating the garbage deposited by humans and slowly, after many years, dogs that were genetically less fearful of humans became used to being around humans. Concurrently, humans became used to the ‘wild’ dogs, and later, even positive about their presence. Eventually, humans began to feed them, causing the dogs to rely on humans for food instead of hunting rabbits.

Dwight Eisenhower was a distant relative of mine by marriage. His brother, Roy, married Edna Shade who was related to the Eckhoff family. My mother’s mother was an Eckhoff. I have been collecting material about ‘Ike’ for about 40 years and finally published an article in a peer-reviewed journal, Kansas History, on his religious upbringing. My article was given the Edgar Langsdorf Award for superior writing, as determined by a panel of judges appointed by the Kansas Historical Foundation.

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: