“But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).

A recent court case in Pennsylvania highlights the efforts across the United States to break the stranglehold of evolution on American schools. It was pictured as eleven parents versus the Dover school board. However, there would have been many parents who did not want evolution forced on their children. The passion and polarization in the conflict was revealed by the caricaturing of creationism as religious foolishness. Evolutionists invariably divert the debate away from physical evidences and turn it into a religious debate. On the other hand, the creationist believes that “the fool hath said in his heart, There is no God” (Psalm 14:1).

Repeated statements are made that scientific “authorities” have observed, by examining the remains of nowextinct creatures, how one creature has emerged to replace another. Then they give examples of variation in kinds such as the different beak sizes in Galapagos finches. This, of course, is working with the billions of bits of information already in the bird. This information controls size, color, and many other features. This has nothing to do with originating the masses of complex, ordered information on the genome for a fin, a leg, a wing, or just a feather! Nothing just happens without an information cause. Environmental pressure can only select from existing information. According to Dr. Lee Spetner (Johns Hopkins University information theory teacher) no one has ever observed an increase of constructive information to the genome.

The Wall Street Journal said the Dover, Pennsylvania case was one of the biggest tests of evolution since the 1925 Scopes “Monkey Trial.”

The Scopes Event

The Scopes “trial” was a staged event in Dayton, Tennessee, in response to an ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) ad in the Chattanooga Times (May 4, 1925). They offered to pay the expenses of any teacher willing to test Tennessee’s recently passed anti-evolution law. The proceedings moved according to script, including a staged fight between a druggist and a promoter of the event. The promoter made a pro-evolution speech, but he didn’t really believe it. (Mr. Scopes had not actually taught evolution in classes.)

The trial pitted Clarence Darrow, a shrewd criminal lawyer, against William Jennings Bryan, a popular lecturer, debater, and politician. His speech entitled “Is the Bible True?” had influenced support for the Tennessee law. This law made it illegal for teachers to promote any theory that denies the story of divine Creation and to teach that man has descended from a lower order of animals.

The trial involved eight days of proceedings—scientists and lawyers were brought hundreds of miles to testify. The climax came when Clarence Darrow questioned Bryan on the witness stand, ridiculing his Bible beliefs. Darrow then got the judge to conclude the trial before Mr. Bryan could question Darrow (the agreement) or give his 15,000-word rebuttal. Even the Science News magazine (3-1-97) took credit in an anniversary issue for helping to finance the affair.

The Evolutionists’ Evidences!

What were these “evidences” given for evolution in 1925?

1. Vestigial Organs: Around two hundred supposedly useless parts of the body, such as tonsils and appendices, were left over from our evolutionary ancestors. Today medical science has found a function for all of these.
2. Embryonic Recapitulation: The idea that the human embryo goes through the stages of its evolutionary ancestors. Ernest Haeckle made drawings of numerous embryos to show similarity. In later years, Haeckle was found guilty of falsifying his information and is in disrepute today.
3. Neanderthal Man: Anthropologists began to dig up fossil bones of humans and apes to find what they wanted to see. From 1857, human bones and artifacts were found across Europe. In 1908, Marcellin Boule concocted a brutish, bowlegged, hairy, naked apeman that led many to believe evolution. Today, it is believed that these people were altogether human but suffered from rickets. They actually had a larger brain case than the average human does today.
4. Java Man: Mr. Dubois, who found these bone pieces, acknowledged in 1935 that this skullcap was that of a gibbon-like ape.
5. Piltdown Man: This fake was a cornerstone of the UCLA Scopes Trial. A partial skull and jawbone found in England fooled scientists for forty years. In 1953, it was admitted that the fragments had been stained with acid to look old and the teeth had been filed. But it had also served its purpose of indoctrinating two generations of schoolchildren.
6. Nebraska Man: In 1925, this “ancient” man was the current sensation. It was found in Nebraska in 1922. The highest authorities, such as Henry Fairfield Osborn, certified it to be man’s early ancestor. A whole family of naked hominoids were drawn, based on a single molar tooth. In 1928 evidence was found that the tooth was from an extinct pig. In 1972, this variety of pig was discovered living in Paraguay.

These are the “evidences” referred to in the current Dover Case when an article says: “Evolution has been tested by examining remains of now-extinct creatures.” But all their best case “evidences” for evolution have been disproved. Much discredited material still remains in textbooks to indoctrinate schoolchildren to believe in evolution. (Peppered moths, for example. There is no evolution here, just variation and selection of existing information.)

Media Power Play

The Scopes Trial had the world’s attention. In 1925, radio was just coming into prominence. The movers in the media were feeling their power to influence the masses by controlling what they heard and the bias then used in reporting events. The reporters knew what their liberal editors wanted. They found plenty of captivating stories in the circus atmosphere in Dayton, including a trained chimpanzee named Mendi. About two hundred reporters wrote stories totaling around one million words. Prominent intellectuals such as George Bernard Shaw in England wrote columns full of bombast and ridicule of Mr. Bryan and the American legal system.

The recent Dover case mimics many of the 1925 incidents. Apparently, Darwin’s grandson was present and a documentary may be made of the case. The judge threw out the school board’s 6-3 vote to introduce an alternate to evolution. He ridiculed “the breath-taking inanity of the board’s decision . . . when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial” (Wall Street Journal 12/21/05).

Judge Jones may have some authority, but he had no facts supporting evolution. Lawyers and judges have taken the power from the people today and dictate from the bench. The media, along with an activist judicial system, are working together to subvert the moral values that many people want to preserve.

Political correctness does not allow for dissent from conventional wisdom. Numerous scientists see evidence that the five billion + bits of information on the human genome could not self-organize from inorganic minerals (dirt), but they are not given a public forum. Only writers weighing in on the side of evolution are printed in the major news publications.

Methods Examined

You can’t overcome the world on its own battleground. God does honor all who in every nation honor Him (Acts 10:35). However, it is a mistake to not see the separation from the world required for the believer (see Rev. 18:4). On the evolutionists’ own turf one is subject to and victim of their powers. Satan is the “prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2). Powerful public relations firms and propaganda machines are working behind the scenes to shape events to turn American and world opinion against conservative Christians.

Unbelievers ignore evidences and turn the burden of proof on believers, trying to force them into compromising positions. Intelligent Design scientists were used who don’t claim to know who or if God is. These notions about God gave Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education (antagonist of creation), the opportunity to give a painful stab by saying believers are “burying God deeper.”

The Outcome

God is working to polarize people’s beliefs in the irreconcilable conflicts of our end-time. “Many shall be purified . . . but the wicked shall do wickedly” (Daniel 12:10). Nominal Christianity, which gives lip service to God and also serves the flesh, has failed. “Choose you this day whom ye will serve” (Joshua 24:15). The life of everyday devotion to God and obedience to His Word spreads as salt in society. When this happens, it will strengthen and preserve a nation (see Acts 10:35). “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 13:34). These are the true believers who will die (not fight) to keep the faith of God even when it is no longer popular.

The suffering, disease, violence, and death in our world are evidences that there is a real Satan behind the scenes. That old serpent, the devil, is raising the world up in rebellion against God, but it is God that is bringing them to judgment. “Babylon hath been a golden cup in the lord’s hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad” (Jeremiah 51:7).

Sources:
Wall Street Journal 12/21/2005
US News 12/6/05
Scopes: Creation on Trial -R. M. Cornelius and John Morris
Not by Chance — Dr. Lee Spetner

-by Elvin Stauffer