Open the debate

Many years ago, I highlighted two passages in Darwin's "The Descent of Man."  Since these occur in the same paragraph, I've connected them: "Many of the views which have been advanced are highly speculative, and some of them will no doubt prove erroneous ... false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, as everyone takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness; and when this is done, one path towards error is closed and the road to truth is often at the same time opened."

In 1996, Michael J. Behe's study, "Darwin's Black Box: the biochemical challenge to evolution" came off the press and sent the scientific world whirling as 100,000 copies flew off bookshelves in a very short time.

What was Darwin's black box? In science, the phrase, ‘black box' indicates a machine or system that does something interesting, but no one knows how it works.

Scientists, in Darwin's time thought the gene was a glob of "protoplasm."

They had no idea DNA existed nor did they have the 20th century's stronger microscopic lens to actually look at those genes.
So, Darwin's "black box" is the gene. He knew it did something interesting but had no way to know how it works.  Then 20th century microbiological research saw how it works.

Behe, who (or at least was) a biochemist at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, was not the first scientist to question Darwin's theory. One of these was a geneticist from Australia, Michael Denton, who published his findings in "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis."  He doesn't discount some aspects of evolution but he does say that Darwin's mechanism of random variation and natural selection falls short of explaining all of biology.

The lists of scientists who are publishing their findings is growing rapidly.

Doris Duncan, in her May 31 letter, writes "Not only do they (fundamentalists) insist they and their children must be exposed only to what they believe, they want your children to be denied knowledge that moves humans forward in understanding how the universe works."

This begs a question: Who is holding the "path to error" wide open while barricading the "road to truth" in preventing this 20th century scientific research from being taught even as a supplement to high school biology texts?

There's no doubt in my mind that had this been available when I took high school biology (sometime around 1954), we would have at least been exposed to it. I think this because I studied Darwin's theory and it did not affect, anyway whatsoever, my belief in God as creator.

Having offered this much, I have noticed that beginning sometime in the early 1960s, there's been an inordinate desire from some to have total control of what our students learn especially in the public school system.

There seems to be a battle going on for this control and it must stop. Our future is being jeopardized by it.  Educate our students and teach them to think for themselves but end the social engineering.