Curriculum

It is a well documented fact that Darwinian evolutionism...

Evolutionism and the Curriculum in the Public School

It is a well documented fact that Darwinian evolutionism has not only infiltrated every discipline of the American educational system, but it has also, in a vast majority of classrooms, become the center and circumference for all of the ideas, explanations, and predictions that are made in these classes.1 The liberal thinker Jeremy Rifkin admits that: "Evolutionary theory has been enshrined as the centerpiece of our educational system, and elaborate walls have been erected around it to protect it from unnecessary abuse."2

Of the many subjects offered by the public school in which the above phenomenon is observable, I believe it is excessively pronounced in most all divisions of the social studies department. Within this department, the world history and American history classes (both being required at the high school level) are an excellent example of this atheistic encroachment in a remarkable way. I will attempt to briefly demonstrate this condition in the balance of this article.

Atheistic Bias Supported Through Exclusion of Data

In the first place, then, evolutionism has caused the authors of textbooks to bias their presentation of historical content against Christianity be excluding obvious historical facts. And since most teachers are totally textbook driven, this is the message that dominates the classroom.

But, you ask, "How is it possible for evolutionism to affect historical content... after all, history is history... it should not, then be possible to manipulate it?" This is generally true, however, after Darwin's theory became the generally accepted scientific explanation for the origin of the universe, life, and man by the scientific community, it wasn't but a short time until men and women within the history departments of all major teacher training centers of America began to apply the evolutionary model to their own discipline.

By 1900, there was hardly any major university in America that had not begun to rethink their former interpretation of history because of the general acceptance of Darwin's theory. Thus, the Bible, with all of its plain teaching about man and his world was becoming less and less important as a guide to history.

By now, the evolutionary tide has reached full strength mainly because of the unrelenting labor of such groups as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the National Education Association (NEA), as well as many other evolutionary based humanistic organizations.

Important to this story, is the devastating effect that evolutionism has had on the law and government of this country. While I know this is totally another area of discussion, there is nevertheless an important point regarding evolutionism and the law, that I must make.Simply stated, as the Darwinian worldview grew in the minds of men, it eventually "leavened the whole lump." The first recognizable signal, that this leavening was ding its job, can be seen in the fact that by the 1920's a legal philosophy called legal positivism 3 was beginning to dominate American jurisprudence. By the way, the positivistic philosophy was firmly based in evolutionism.There were, of course, many other circumstances and activities that contributed to the growth of this godless system. However the first clear evidence, that legal positivism was gaining the upper hand in American law, was the outcome of the famous Scopes trial (Dayton, TN-1925), that gave public favor for the teaching ofevolutionary based instruction in the public school.

Evolution: The Directive of History

Shortly following the 1925 decision, the Everson vs. Board of Education decision was handed down by the U.

S. Supreme Court, and was indeed the most lethal of them all.

This precedent setting decision, that interpreted for the first time in American history, the First Amendment to mean that our government and our governmental institutions must be separate from Christianity. Which of course, was never the intention of any of our Founding Fathers, even Thomas Jefferson, who is given credit for the idea. Nevertheless, because of a previously accepted evolutionary view, the thinking of key men in America was changed, which in turn changed the interpretation of the law. As a result, by the late 1940's and up to this present day, the content of America's textbooks have been written very carefully so as not to impinge upon the "separation rule."The attention that is paid to the "separation rule" has either become inviolable revered, or else it is being used as an excuse, to the point, that any mention of our Christian foundation is considered an infringement of the rule.This fact has been overwhelmingly proved by Dr. Paul Vitz in his remarkable book Censorship Evidence of Bias in our Children's Textbooks, which is a 680 page short form of a report from the Department of Education. This work was the results of a study that was conducted by several researchers, who, in the 1980's, investigated the 60 top history textbooks that were being used by 90% of our nations school children. The purpose of the study was to determine how the traditional beliefs of America were being presented. Dr. Vitz plainly reported: "Bias is primarily accomplished by exclusion, by leaving out... such bias is mush harder to observe than positive vilification or direct criticism, by it is the essence of censorship. It is effective not only because it's hard to observe--it isn't there--and therefore hard to counteract." 4 [Emphasis mine]

Commenting on this same report, Charles Krauthammer wrote in an article that was printed in the Washington Post Magazine, that: "...It is true that school textbooks have recently developed an allergy to traditional religion. Like blacks a generation ago, religion hardly exists in the work of Dick and Jane. Paul Vitz, a professor at New York University, plowed heroically through 60 social science textbooks and shows that they grossly ignore religion [Christianity] in American history and society. One textbook manages to give the Pilgrims thirty pages without once trespassing on the issue of the religious [Christian] motivation for their excursion to the New World. Another text defines Pilgrim as 'people who make long trips." 5 [Emphasis Mine]

Isn't this nice! Everyone on a backpacking expedition can now be called a pilgrim?

Additionally, the same report also cited that "in grades 1 through 6, the idea that marriage is the origin and foundation of the family is never presented." 6 As a matter of fact, the report said that "the words of marriage, wedding, husband, or wife" never occur in these textbooks.

Thus, by strategically leaving our any reference to God or to any Christian principle, even though they were clearly an inseparable part of our history, the Darwinistic influence has ultimately separated the students of the last forty or so years from the true faith and attitudes of their American Fathers. As Dr. Henry Morris is prone to say, "this is evolutionism with a vengeance".

Another way in which the Darwinian model has taken control of the pages of modern historical textbooks is seen by the presentation of history as a progressively developmental evolutionary process. That is, since "scientists" like Darwin(?), and others, have so clearly "proven" that man has arisen from the primordial swamps of prehistory as the result of billions times billions of chemical accidents, then it is obvious that all history can be nothing more than the continuation of this unfolding drama of evolutionary progress.

Evolution:

This, no only presents man as the relative of some ancestral protozoan, but also explains primitive civilizations as those more closely related to "our" apelike ancestor. The so-called stone age is taught as a 100,000 year trek through which man emerged fully developed as the Homo sapiens. And on and on goes the godless story.

Thus the present-day history textbook says that man evolved, society evolved, culture evolved, all is evolving; therefore nothing is absolute!

To give you some insight into the serious nature of this problem, I have chosen to quote briefly from three of the most recent textbooks that are being used today in many schools throughout America. They read as follows: "At just about the time Neanderthal people disappeared -- Some 30,000 to 35,000 years ago -- a new kind of people appeared in Europe, perhaps having come from Africa or Asia..." 7 [Emphasis mine]

"During the long period of years from about 1 million B.C., early people were beginning to develop their first simple tools. And by 8,000 B.C., some early people were beginning to develop better tools and so better ways of living."

"One of the first advances toward civilization was the development of crude tools and weapons. The pre-humans called Homo erectus found ways to fashion rocks into useful sizes and shapes... Most anthropologists believe that it took hundreds of thousands of years for pre-human to learn how to control fire... During the Ice Age, many people and animals died from exposure and starvation.. Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon people were able... to survive."

You can readily see, that in each of these examples, the entire evolutionary scenario is being presented as obvious historical fact. When in all reality the whole idea is nothing more than an evolutionary story based not in fact, but in faith. However your sons and daughters are not able to sort through all of this academic gobbledy-gook. But, praise the Lord, the story does not end here...

There is a Change in the Air

Because of the work of a great many dedicated children of the Most high God, I can happily report to you that the great evolutionary foundation is beginning to crack, and as David Barton recently reported, "History Rewritten--Again!" 10

He is referring to the fact, that just October of 1990, in the State of California, the new history and social studies textbook were adopted. He said: "The New books were modeled after the concern of the States 1947 history and social studies textbooks [Remember, this was the year of the infamous Everson decision, and the textbooks were not yet changed]...

These new textbooks--now the only state approved textbooks for public school students--contain lengthy comments on:

1). The parables of Jesus (with Scriptures used from Luke 10.) 2). The teachings of the life of Jesus (with lengthy Bible segments from Matthew 4.) 3). The resurrection of Jesus. 4). The spread of Christianity. 5). The first Christian missionary (giving the account of Paul's Damascus road conversion in Act 9.) And many other similar segments." 11

Isn't this great! To God be the glory! But, we must not rejoice prematurely--we must double our efforts. Pray as never before especially for those special ministries that are laboring in thei fight for a return to our Christian Foundation.

G. Thomas Sharp Ph.D.