No, My Great Grandfather Was Not A Monkey!

 

            For those of you who follow my blogs, you know we’ve had some ongoing arguments with my oldest daughter’s science teacher.  I understand that faith and science don’t always agree.  I understand that the whole Creation Vs Evolution has been an argument in public schools for years.   I understand that currently my child goes to a secular school, and thus is subject to what the state standards say.  Believe it or not I am not a person that tries to start arguments, but in this case I feel the situation got thrown in my lap.

            The first time I blogged about this I was legitimately mad because I felt the Science Teacher was telling me that my daughter was not allowed to view her opinion.  That felt to me like a violation of the Freedom of Speech, and no matter if I agree with a person’s opinion or not, I think that it’s still America and we all have a freedom to say and believe how we choose.  When I went into that conference, the teacher assured me it was a communication error, and my daughter misunderstood some things that he had said.  My daughter thinks he was lying to cover himself from the absolutes he’d been speaking to her class.  I wasn’t in the classroom and while I tend to side with her in her assessment I have to respect the teacher gave me the answers that he did.

            So for the last several months my daughter has been coming home telling me that her teacher is going on and on regarding evolution.  He keeps telling the class that they all came from monkeys.  She keeps getting very upset.  Given my last go around in this class I was hoping that by now the teacher would just move onto another topic.  Instead he appears to be preaching from his own pulpit.  I finally started to tell my daughter if he is upsetting you that much, you need to confront it and know I will have your back.

            His response will put us all in the principal’s office again.  Honestly I didn’t go to the principal’s office this much when I was in school.  He replied to me that according to the FL Board of Education Benchmark it’s his job to do this. “SC.7.L.15.1 - Recognize that fossil evidence is consistent with the scientific theory of evolution that living things evolved from earlier species.”

            In all honesty I am what I call a Creation Evolutionist.  I believe that in Genesis 1:1 that God created man and woman (Adam and Eve).  I believe that our world and environment has changed over the years and mankind has evolved through the Divine Design to change with the environment.  IE. I have no doubt that through the years man’s forehead isn’t as sloped or is not as strong as a caveman.  I don’t disagree with the fossils.   However my great granddaddy was not a monkey.

            So to prove my point in this and to dance around the Florida Board of Education I learned that the definition of Evolution is NOT that we came from monkeys, as many people try to profess.  The definition of evolution is simply put the “process by which different kinds of living organisms are thought to have developed and diversified from earlier forms during the history of the earth.”  In that regard I don’t disagree with that brand of evolution.   

            According to a Spanish Scientific Study (http://christiannews.net/2013/06/17/groundbreaking-genetic-discoveries-challenge-ape-to-human-evolutionary-theory/), I printed out both the article and the report that it has already been discovered that Apes and Humans though similar in their DNA, they aren’t the same.  So science has already begun to debunk the THEORY that we were once monkeys.  “A recent 12-page journal article, written by three scientists in Spain and published in Molecular Biology and Evolution, details the results of careful analysis of human and chimpanzee DNA. After comparing and contrasting thousands of orthologous genes from humans and chimps, the scientists found their final data to be very much at odds with evolutionary theory. In fact, they even titled their article “Recombination Rates and Genomic Shuffling in Human and Chimpanzee—A New Twist in the Chromosomal Speciation Theory.”

            I understand this teacher in his mind is trying to do his job, but this crusade he’s on to tell a bunch of kids that they have evolved from monkeys, is not scientific.  It’s just a theory, and while going there and having to have this conversation yet again is the last thing I want to do, it appears that it’s been thrown my way again. 

            So while you all go about your day, I’d ask that you pray that God gives me wisdom on how to handle this. 

            God has awesome plans for your life.  Get excited!