This letter is in response to a review headlined ‘An evolution for educators” in the May 2003 edition.
I would like to comment on the statement ‘As the new Further Education and Training (FET) curriculum is implemented it will be essential for biology and science teachers to understand the theory of evolution as a thoroughly researched and tested body of knowledge which forms the best scientific explanation available for observable phenomena”.
We need to be aware that when dealing with our distant past, scientists can only make educated guesses about our origins. In fact there are not one but several theories of evolution.
We all have the right to ask the question, ‘If there are so many different theories of evolution and so many problems with it, why are we not told about them?”
In my view, every possible type of scientific evidence that has any bearing on the subject of origins can be explained equally, if not better, in terms of the creation science model.
In the words of Douglas J Futuyma, published in a book called Science on Trial: ‘Creation and evolution, between them, exhaust the possible explanations for the origin of living things. Organisms either appeared on the earth fully developed or they did not. If they did not, they must have developed from pre-existing species by some process of modification. If they did appear in a fully developed state, they must indeed have been created by some omnipotent intelligence”.
My plea is that all science teachers expose their learners to the scientific evidence for both the evolution and creation models and give them the academic freedom to come to their own conclusion regarding our origins.
Joshua Gilbert
Chatsworth