Teacher quits job rather than modify theory of evolution

He stated his beliefs in 95 theses that he nailed to the door of a church in Wittenberg, Germany -- the town where he lived in 1517.\nFor this act of defiance against the Catholic Church, religious reformer Martin Luther was excommunicated four years later. Dan Clark did somewhat less last month - he quit his job teaching chemistry at Jefferson High School rather than modify his teachings about evolution.\nYet it was an act of defiance also done in the name of God, a personal testimony that many people wouldn't make today. Teaching religion - that's what Lafayette School Corp. Superintendent Ed Eiler essentially accused Clark of doing when he penned an official reprimand in September 2000.\nThe letter said Clark introduced "creationism/special creation and religion" to his students and ordered him to stop. Creationism, and what is sometimes called intelligent design, rests on the belief that the story of biblical creation can be proven scientifically and that evolution can be disproved.\nFor example, Creationists believe the geology of the Earth can be best explained in terms of a global flood, as the Book of Genesis describes. They also believe nothing in chemistry can really explain the emergence of life, hence God must be the Creator.\nClark said he stayed quiet during the past school year because of the reprimand, and that he ultimately demanded it be removed from school files. When Eiler wouldn't do that, Clark quit. He now teaches at Frontier High School in nearby Chalmers. Clark denies that he teaches creationism, but acknowledges highlighting natural phenomena that he thinks are incompatible with evolution. He believes that creationism can be supported by fact. Clark thinks that evolutionists have failed to show "intermediaries" between different species that have presumably succeeded each other. In human evolution, this is ordinarily spoken of as "the missing link."\nClark, 52, is a native of Indiana with degrees from Purdue University and Bob Jones University. He became a Christian in 1971.\nCreationism has been a hot-button topic in public education for decades, as has the teaching of evolution. The modern theory of evolution is largely credited to 19th-century British naturalist Charles Darwin.\nThe most famous American court case involving the teaching of evolution was the so-called "Monkey Trial" in 1925. John T. Scopes, a Tennessee teacher, was accused of breaking state law by introducing evolution into the classroom.\nCraig T. Nelson, an Indiana University biology professor who has lectured on creationism, said that whatever else it is, creationism is not science. Nelson argues that the origin of creationist ideas is irrelevant -- they have to stand up to rigorous scientific testing, just like any other ideas about nature and the universe. For example, Nelson argues that various kinds of radioactive dating on rocks show that the Earth is much older than Creationists can accept. Fossil records also confirm that the Earth is millions of years old. Similarly, modern physicists can study light that originated billions of years ago in the early stages of the universe's development. This also refutes a literal interpretation of the Bible that the world was created in six days, or that the Earth is only a few thousand years old, he said.\n"Creationism doesn't fit the evidence," Nelson said.\nMost of the world has no problem with evolution. It is almost exclusively in America that Creationists and others who believe in "no modification" of Scripture have raised strong objections to the teaching of evolution.\nMost so-called "mainline" churches have little or no problem with the teaching of evolution today, however.\n"The Catholic Church has never had the same difficulties with evolution that some of the Protestant groups have," said Ernan McMullin, professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. "The main reason is that the Catholic Church has never been that committed to the literal word."\nMcMullin referred to 4th-century teacher St. Augustine as a Catholic who questioned the story of creation in six days and sought to reconcile Scripture with what he could see with his own eyes. According to McMullin, Augustine believed that God planted "the seeds of creation" early on, but that only when the time was ripe would these seeds produce a variety of animal and plant life. While this is not identical with the theory of evolution, it's not incompatible with it, either.\nBut it's all beside the point, Clark argues. He claims that he never taught creationism, only facts that he believed either refuted parts of evolution or that seemed to support creationism.\n"You can't challenge evolution at Jefferson High," he said. "Either you'll be fired or you'll have to move on."\nState law forbids the teaching of religion in the classroom, but does allow a comparative or historical analysis of religion, notes IU education professor Martha McCarthy.