Evolution is today accepted almost everywhere as the TRUTH. In school and media evolution is in the form of a simple and easily understood topic. Well, the truth is that it isn’t, there is much more to it than it looks. This article will focus on pinpointing the sublime indoctrination of evolution.

School

In school there are two main sources of information; teachers and books. Often teachers let their personal belief in something become a part of their teaching. I remember one of the first Physics-classes we had. The teacher asked us about the possibility of the theory of evolution being false. There was only one person who disagreed. Then the teacher said, I quote "it is very likely that it is true", without even having something to back his words up with. We were just supposed to believe what he was saying. That is wrong, every pupil should be able to form his, or her, own opinion. No one should say: read this, it’s the truth, accept it. The books in school regarding evolution often tend to mix-up science and metaphysics, meaning they mix-up scientifical facts with a metaphysical hypothesis. Books should always be objective and bring forth different theories about the beginning of life. In the Swedish elementary school, from the lowest grade to the highest grade, the evolutionary perspective is to be a cornerstone of all education. Young children will henceforth grow up with evolution as a fact. I doubt that they will reflect upon that it possibly could be false. That is what I call indoctrination.

Media

With media I focus on the science magazines. They write the most about evolution. For example I read an article where, as the first sentence, it was written, I quote "We now know that evolution has occurred". The article which didn’t involve evolution as a subject at all, just left it at that point. The reader now has the impression that evolution is taken for granted, it’s not even worthwhile to discuss it’s possible flaws. This is merely one example among many. In most articles the reader gets a very simplified picture of the subject at hand. Of course it has to be simplified sometimes, otherwise you may not understand it. But if the articles fail to point at weaknesses and problems, they might even not have been brought up at all, then you get the wrong impression. The problems mentioned may be the results of human error, or it’s the result of a problem that couldn’t be explained by the authors’ theory. Most people have, much like the case with teachers, an over-zealous belief in scientists and archaeologists.

Those who criticise evolution are often divided into four different categories:
1. The Ignorant ones, those who haven’t cared about the theory.
2. The Unintelligent, those who simply can’t grasp the meaning of it.
3. Those Fanatic Religious, who just don’t care for logical arguments and facts.
4. Those Malicious, who simply are against everything ( Ex: Association Of Flat Earth).

It’s bad that it seldom comes to a debate between those who believe in evolution and those who don’t. Every scientist must be open-minded and willing to always seek the truth, even if it turns out that what he believed was proven wrong. There’s much more to tell about evolution, macro-evolution and micro-evolution. The first is an irrepeatable phenomenon and the last happens every day, for example the various dog breeds. But this article has only come to existence to make you aware of the sublime indoctrination in every-day life. The actual counter-proof of evolution has to be sought elsewhere. Don’t just accept evolution, think, read articles, make your own opinion. The theory of evolution affects much in your lives, make sure that you know if it’s for the better or the worse.


© 2002 Freeway
Writers: Tomas Olofsson(NV04-36@park.se).
HTML by: Erik Östman(te04-78@park.se).