A reader in Colorado recently sent to us a newspaper article written by Dr. Joseph D. McInerney in reaction to the recent discussions in the Jefferson County schools about an evolutionist video to which a student took exception (see article in October Acts & Facts). Dr. McInerney is Director of the notorious Biological Sciences Curriculum Study Center, whose government financed biology textbooks dogmatically promoting evolution have been used by many, many millions of school children since they were first published in the 1960's following the 1959 Darwinian Centennial celebrations — used not only in this country, but also in 50 other countries.

With so much at stake, it is not surprising that evolutionists such as Dr. McInerney rise up in fury whenever their monopoly on public education is threatened or even questioned. The article mentioned above was published in the Arvada Jefferson Sentinel on August 8, 1996, and had the provocative title "Shall School Administrators be Ruled by Reason or Rhetoric?"

Alarmed that the Jefferson County School Board might be persuaded to tolerate the views of creationist students, Dr. McInerney pontificated as follows:

Ignorance and zealotry are the twin towers of creationism, structures deeply rooted in the rejection of reason, and in rhetoric devoid of scientific substance.

He went on to describe creationists as:

. . . scientific illiterates who call the cadence on a march toward ignorance.

Talk about rhetoric! Dr. McInerney seems quite adept at inflammatory "rhetoric," but one can search in vain for any "scientific substance" in his article.

One wonders whether he may have studied at the feet of the late Dr. Isaac Asimov who, in a fundraising letter for the American Humanist Association back in 1982 called creationists

. . . religious zealots . . . marching like an army of the night into our public schools with their Bibles held high.

Asimov wrote hundreds of books on many fields of science, so he presumably was quite familiar with any scientific evidences for evolution if such evidences exist, but he always refused invitations to debate the subject with Dr. Gish or me or any other creationist scientist.

Dr. McInerney has an interesting explanation as to why evolutionists generally elect not to debate the scientific evidences for and against evolution and creation. He says that

. . . creationism has no scientific basis and therefore cannot occupy any side in a scientific debate.

One suspects, however, that Dr. McInerney's real reason may be that the evolutionists practically always lose such debates! The fact is that all genuine scientific evidence fits the creation model of origins much better than the evolution model. The fact that creationists generally win these debates is not at all because creationists are better debaters, but simply because there is no real scientific evidence for evolution. In fact, the National Center for Science Education, whose specific function is to monitor and oppose activities of creationists, recommends that evolutionists should always decline invitations to debate creationists, acknowledging that they will probably lose the debate.

Dr. McInerney's article reminds me of an exchange I had back in 1973 with his predecessor at the BSCS Center, the late Dr. William V. Mayer. As a result of an inflammatory article he had written against creationists in his monthly BSCS Newsletter, I wrote and challenged him to a scientific debate on the subject.

As far as I can recall, this is the only time any of us here at ICR ever tried to arrange a debate on our own initiative. Although we have been involved in over 300 such debates (with Dr. Gish doing the debating in most of them — and always winning, of course), these have always been in response to invitations by others, usually by student organizations on various campuses.

Anyway, this led to a rather fascinating interchange of personal letters between Dr. Mayer and me. Most of these were published in the May 1973 Acts & Facts and later reprinted in our book, Creation — Acts, Facts, Impacts (both of these are now out of print).

The bottom line, however, was that Dr. Mayer flatly refused to debate the scientific aspects of the issue before a general audience.

Several years later, however, he did finally agree to a public debate in Evansville, Indiana, this time with Dr. Gish. Dr. Mayer's presentation was, characteristically, mostly insulting "rhetoric, devoid of scientific substance," and Dr. Gish clearly won the debate.

Another statement in Dr. McInerney's article is "that all scientists accept the reality of evolution." This, of course, is not true, and it is hard to believe that he does not know this. There are literally thousands of qualified scientists — including scores of biologists — who are creationists, ICR alone has some forty Ph.D. scientists on its resident faculty, adjunct faculty, and advisory board, with at least 15 having terminal degrees in one of the biological sciences. If the distinguished BSCS Director is really unaware of this fact, then he ought not to be writing articles on this subject.

It is very frustrating to encounter so many books, articles, talks, etc., repeatedly proclaiming that creationism is nothing but religion, while so many scientists continue to insist that evolution is a scientific fact. Fifty or more anti-creationists books have been published echoing this theme, and even the courts have been persuaded. Every time a school board — such as this one in Colorado even thinks about letting creation in the classroom, evolutionists demonstrate at the meetings, write indignant letters to the editor, and get the ACLU to threaten an expensive lawsuit, and the intimidated school board quickly backs off. We can't mix "science" and "religion," they whimper.

Why do evolutionists go to all this trouble and expense? As I have frequently said to them, all they would have to do to destroy creationism once and for all is to provide just one scientific proof that macro-evolution is true! Arguments against flood geology or the young earth are irrelevant, because even though these are important subjects in their own right — they do not treat the basic issue, which is special creation or macro-evolution. Citing Darwin's finches or mutations on fruit flies or other such phenomena won't do either, because such "horizontal" or "downward" minor changes (micro-evolution, if they wish) are all accepted by creationists anyway.

Macro-evolution is the issue, and for this there is no proof whatever, or even any good evidence that can't be better explained in terms of the creation model. No true evolution has ever been observed during human history, there are no true transitional structures in the billions of fossil remains from the past, and vertically upward macro-evolution seems flatly impossible in terms of the universal (even for open systems!) second law of thermodynamics. Furthermore, these very phenomena are actual "predictions" from the creation model. It seems that creationism is the system that is based on sound science while evolutionism relies solely on faith.

Why, then, do evolutionists perpetually insist that their evolutionary paradigm is science and must be taught exclusively in science classes, textbooks, and media?

"Why?" questions cannot be answered scientifically, of course. They require a philosophical answer, or a theological answer, or — best of all — a Biblical answer! So how does the Bible explain such unbelief? It does so in fiery rhetoric based on divine reason!

For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse. . . . Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. And changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up. . . . Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, . . . even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, . . . Romans 1:20,22,23,25,28)

Thus, they insist on evolution because they, like Satan, don't want God to be God. It is not because of science that they reject God and His word, but because of sinful unbelief, and they are without excuse.

They may well be brilliant scientists in everything but this. They may not believe there is a devil, but the fact is that "the god of this world [that is, Satan] hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. . . . For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (II Corinthians 4:4,6).

If any reader of these lines is trying to straddle the fence between evolution and creation — young person, parent, teacher, school board member, or whoever, we would urge him or her not to be intimidated by those who speak "great swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage" (Jude 16). The empty rhetoric of evolutionary humanism cannot compare with the sound "reason of the hope that is in you" (I Peter 3:15) through the omnipotent person and saving work of our great Creator/Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ.

* Dr. Henry Morris is Founder and President Emeritus of ICR.