F
OR EIGHT YEARS, I taught biology in a public school.
At first, I proclaimed the evolutionary concepts straight
from the textbooks. Then, as a nominal Christian, I began to
study the Scriptures. I eventually realized that my beliefs in
God and naturalism were incompatible.
I became aware that the ideas I was teaching my students
were not based on science but on a belief system. In time, my
understanding of true Christianity grew, and my concern
about what I was teaching the students did, too. I began
to encourage my students to use critical thinking skills to
decide which belief about origins they were going to put
their faith in.
My passion to help students understand the truth about
history—and eternity—led me to accept a position at
Answers in Genesis, writing curriculum. One of my first
tasks was to examine the three most popular biology text-
books used in high schools across the United States so that I
could write a guide for students sitting in classrooms like the
one where I once taught.
Highlighter and sticky notes in hand, I pored over the
biology textbooks. Five thousand pages later, I had enough
notes to write the guide. Even though I had used the text-
book published by Holt in my classes, I was amazed to
see how thoroughly evolutionary ideas littered the book.
Moreover, I was surprised to see just how flimsy the argu-
ments really were.
EXPOSING EVOLUTIONARY CONCEPTS
Thanks to the work of creation biologists in recent years,
the answers to common evolutionary arguments are readily
available—they just have not been organized into a format
that is easy for students to use.
So in preparation for my book, I reviewed and summa-
rized hundreds of articles and books. Within each chapter
of Evolution Exposed, I discussed the topic from both the
evolutionary and creationist perspectives.
All three textbooks present evolution as the only scientific
view of the history of life on earth. The assumed authori-
ty is summarized in the statement “most scientists.” Those
two words are used to persuade students that evolution
happened and that science is just trying to understand the
details. Two of the textbooks do mention that some individ-
uals believe in special creation, but the idea is not discussed
as a scientific alternative to naturalistic evolution.
One common argument used to support evolutionary
theory is that populations change as mutations are acted on
by natural selection. Students are supposed to believe this
observable phenomenon can change amoebas into men, an
unobservable process.
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Evolutionary references are flagged with yellow tabs in three of
the most popular biology textbooks. It is obvious that evolution-
ary teaching is woven throughout the entire textbook.
ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE
The books present many evidences that have been discredit-
ed by scientists. One idea presented as “evolution in action”
is antibiotic resistance in bacteria.
Some bacterial populations naturally contain individuals
that are resistant to antibiotics. In other cases, mutations
can cause the resistance, often resulting in a loss of genet-
ic information. Students are told that this type of change,
when allowed to accumulate over millions of years, leads to
the evolution of one kind of organism into another. How-
ever, a loss of information cannot be evidence for evolution
because evolution requires new information to produce new
organisms and structures.
Mutations are presented as the “raw material” for evolu-
tion over millions of years, despite the fact that science
has demonstrated that mutations do not add the substan-
tial amounts of information to the genome that evolution
requires.
SIMILARITY IN BONE STRUCTURE
Another evidence that “proves” evolution is the similar-
ity (known as homology) in bone structure in the fore-
limbs of certain animals. The textbooks present drawings
of color-coded bones of humans, bats, alligators, and birds
to argue that all of these animals must have had a common
ancestor.