When Galileo proposed that the earth orbited the sun, challenging the view of the time that the sun orbited the earth, he was silenced and forced to renounce his statement. As it turns out, Galileo’s theory was true and those who silenced him have been judged harshly by history for using their own presumptions to dictate what others might think.

The battle between science and theology has been waged for centuries and continues to this day. The Kansas school board has decided that students there will not be tested on the theory of evolution. In response to the decision, many are calling the Kansas board ignorant, stupid, unscientific and archaic — not too different from the words the Catholic Church used to describe Galileo.

It is important to note that Kansas will not be replacing the theory of evolution with any theories of creation. In 1983, the Supreme Court ruled that creation theories cannot be taught in public schools, even if the theory of evolution is taught concurrently. To sidestep that ruling, the Kansas board has said they will not test on any theories describing where our world came from.

The 1983 Supreme Court ruling is really what the argument comes down to. Why shouldn’t schools teach both the evolution and creation theories, and let students decide for themselves? If the creation theory is so preposterous and ridiculous, would not students realize that? What are the evolutionists afraid of?

Evolutionists fear losing their grip on science. Just like the Catholic Church in Galileo’s time, science today is based on a theory that cannot be proven, and anything challenging that is seen as ignorant, stupid, unscientific and archaic. When an opposing theory is brought up, it is quickly censured — just like Galileo.

When I took Astronomy 100 at Palomar College, one test question asked, “If the universe began with just gases and dust, how could stars and planets have formed?” Not wanting to regurgitate the explanation in the textbook, I wrote that stars, planets and the universe in general could have been created by God. The instructor marked my answer wrong, and wrote in his red pen, “There’s no proof of this.”

The truth is, neither theory can be proven by science. The scientific method requires that one observes something, then a hypothesis is made to explain the observation. The scientist must then test that hypothesis to see whether it is true. We cannot observe the beginning of the world, so we can only observe the results.

Creationists believe everything was created by God in its current form. Evolutionists believe that everything evolved from simpler organisms into the more complex. How can these hypotheses be tested? By making more observations, observing more of the world and finding more fossils by which both sides hope to prove their theory. The problem for evolutionists is that the missing link, a fossil that would prove evolution, is just as the name says — missing.

So, why cannot the two competing theories be taught together as such? It is sad that science continues to be censured as we go into the next millennium. If evolutionists are so sure that they are right, and that creation is ridiculous, then they have nothing to lose in putting the two theories next to each other. Or are they not so sure, and just as the Catholic Church did with Galileo, to keep their power they need to use their own presumptions to dictate what others might think?