Creation vs. Evolution: The Great Debate…Still?

By Jason Glynn

How did we get here? This is a question that has plagued the minds of men and women since we could think. There are two sides that offer drastically different answers to this: creationism and evolution. One answer comes from a book, original author unknown, which has been translated numerous times throughout history; the other has thousands of scientists and piles and piles of empirical evidence supporting it. Which would you trust?

These battles are not new; they’ve been raging ever since Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859. However, it is quite saddening to me that in this day and age we are still having this discussion, and it is utterly disturbing that some public school systems in our country are still teaching an ideology that is just that: ideology. What we teach children in public schools should be supported and proven with actual and repeatable evidence. Whatever is taught in a religious or charter school is up to whoever runs them, because it’s not mandated that students attend them, they choose to.

I recently watched a debate between two well-respected men of their fields. It pitted the creator of the Creation Museum, Ken Ham, against my childhood hero, Bill Nye ‘the Science Guy.’ The debate centered on the argument of just how old the earth was, and how we, as in humans, got here. A sideline argument was if creationism was scientific, with Ham trying to differentiate ‘observational science’ from ‘historical science,’ stating that we can’t know what happened yesterday because of today.

Science is just plain science. And it is how we make our best guesses about what happened yesterday, and centuries before, much like we make predictions with what will happen tomorrow. These predictions often prove right, but once in a while we get something wrong, and then we are willing to change and embrace the new idea. Ideology doesn’t work like that.

Ken Ham, a self-proclaimed ‘follower of god,’ believes in the literal interpretation of the Bible: that the earth and universe is but a mere 6,000 years old; whilst modern science puts that figure closer to nearly 4.5 billion years old. This is a rather large discrepancy; one that you might assume could be easily debated with an obvious winner. However, it is hard to debate ideology that is so deeply rooted.

The bible also teaches that humans were made in the exact image of god, on the sixth day, after he made the sun, moon, plants, animals, and fish earlier in the week. This is all according to ‘his word’ in Genesis 1. One seemingly contradictory thing I notice is that all depictions of the first humans, Adam and Eve, created by god all have belly buttons…think on that one.

Another story that Ken Ham reiterated as factual is the story found in Genesis 5:32 of Noah’s flood. Noah, a man at the ripe age of 500 years, and his family were told to construct an ark about 300 cubits in length (450 feet) to put two of every species on, in order to repopulate the Earth after the impending flood. They would need to bring enough food for him his family, and seemingly thousands of animals and birds to eat for the 150 days that this flood would last. Two of every species on a 450 foot long boat built by a 500 year old man…think about that one.

So if you believe in creation and that story let’s do some math here. AnswersinGenesis.org places the flood happening when the Earth was 1,500 years old. 6,000 years minus 1,500 equals 4,500. So all the animals and people you see today have come forth over the last 4,500 years. Forget about carbon-dating those dinosaur fossils or rocks, that’s all a lie.

Okay, calm down, I don’t have a great disdain for religion, I do appreciate what it tries to do. The morals that it strives to get across are virtuous ones, and I understand that for a story to carry those values and transcend time then it must be a fanciful one. It needs to grab people’s attention and resonate. But does that make it all completely factual and literal?

I am worried that there are people that read it and take it as literal. In fact, nearly half of all Americans still believe in the story of creation as written in Genesis 1. Many researchers believe this number is actually much lower, but when people are asked, groupthink takes over rationality. This is likened to the mob mentality, where people will answer not what they think, but what they think others around them think.

The theory of evolution has been substantiated in observed numerous times. Conversely, creationism has been disproven numerous times and never observed. Children should be taught how to think critically, even question our theory of evolution, try to come up with a better one, the entire scientific community will embrace it. What people teach in Sunday school is one thing, but don’t teach it in my child’s school.