Creationsim Is Not A Scientific Theory

I hear this argument over and over again and it really, truly makes me crazy: "Evolution is a theory" - I.E., all the geneticists and biologists and paleontologists are just making a glorified guess. This is a general misunderstanding about the difference between a theory you or I or anyone might make, and a true scientific theory. Here is a non-scientific theory: "Hmmm, my leftover ham sandwich is missing. I'll bet it was Jon, he loves ham sandwiches." This is what is known as a hypotheses, just an attempt to explain a situation or phenomenon. In the scientific method, however, this is just the first step. Then you take that hypotheses, and put it through tests and experiments. And here's what makes it true science - you don't just have the person who made the hypotheses test it, you let everyone test it with the intention of disproving it. This is what makes it science, and by that I mean that it is the closest to the absolute truth we can attain at a given time. This is also what disqualifies any type of creationism-based curriculum from being taught in classrooms. Besides the fact that it does indeed push a religious agenda, it is not science. There is no possible way to test out the hypotheses that god created this earth and everything on it.

And on to the last point before we get into the politics and legal side of the argument, the true function of evolution has been shown over and over again. Everything we eat, from hybrid tomato plants to domesticated cattle, has been cultivated through the mechanisms that led life to evolve. Evolution is something we see around us in action every day, not just an unproven theory.


The Establishment clause and Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment state very clearly that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...", almost precisely what you have written that it does not say. We can argue that because Congress passes laws and bills and budgets that fund schools, the Government would be promoting a particular religious doctrine through the educational system. Even without the "Seperation of Church and State" line in the Constitution (Which, by the way, was penned by Thomas Jefferson in a letter to a group of Baptists to relieve a concern that the government would become overly involved in their religion), the Constitution clearly states that this sort of teaching in a government funded school is absolutely unconstitutional.

As an earlier comment mentioned, there is no way to remove religious overtones from creation-based teaching. And as a quick side note, our country was not built on religious principles, as you wrote. That is exactly why the guys that built the country threw in those two clauses in the very First Amendment.