APPENDIX

 

 

*A Here are to be seen –

 

OTHER PRESENTATIONS
WHICH LITTLE ANGEL DISCOVERED IN HIS RESEARCHES
ABOUT THE CHALLENGE TO GOVERNMENT FOUND IN THE BOOK,
WHICH RELATED TO THE EXPERIENCE OF THE PROFESSOR,
AND MANY LIKE HIM, IN ITS ATTITUDE,

 

These might be useful

IN HELPING OR STIRRING OTHERS TO BE PREPARED
FOR THOSE WHO MIGHT SIMILARLY
BE DISMISSIVE BOTH OF TRUTH AND OF PERSONEL!

 

There was a conclusion found of this kind, presented to the authority concerned.
He found something very like this at:

 

 

 

http://webwitness.org.au/thatmagrock/remodelling2.html#issues

 

In this excerpt file, he read also this.

Nearly all the above material consists of excerpts from an evidentially rich and reasoned presentation in That Magnificent Rock,. Ch. 8. It is taken for ease of understanding of major issues, but by the nature of the case, is not a substitute for the material on which it is based, which requires attention in any studious exercise. In addition, many other volumes in the 99 volume set, In Praise of Christ Jesus, a work in the discipline of biblical Christian Apologetics contain material which relates to the basic and underlying issues concerned. It is to the extent of 99 volumes, to be found at http://webwitness.org.au. The same applies to the material to follow.

 

However, first he came upon two summaries which he placed in his mental files before the material from That Magnficent Rock, and being a methodical sort of angel, he called those parts C and D, and the two summaries not in that book, A and B. There are reproduced below, so that the reader may know something of what was in his mind as he surveyed the tertiary scene!

 

Many who read of Little A will perhaps find that some of the issues raised in the material which he came upon, relate to their own districts, schools, colleges, and their Staff! Take courage, the end is coming near, and the world is going headlong like Judas to its unhappy conclusion as an Age of Gospel; and if it is at this end, more and more with pseudo-sophistication and logical menopause, dismissing truth with passion, that is but one more of the multiple and patterned signals of the End of the Age^*B . That is a relief and a delight for what it portends.

 

And that ? it is nothing less than the return of our Lord Jesus Christ, who first coming in love to save, did not leave His wisdom behind, but having later given the world the time so long which He announced in Matthew 24, for the Gospel to spread to all races, and sent His workers to accomplish the distribution, in the power of the Spirit which has applied that same Gospel to millions of hearts in two millennia, He has the last prepared as He had the first. He is Himself the First and the Last (Revelation 2:8, cf. Isaiah 44:6). It has been substantially unveiled in His word, the Bible, and is being now successively exposed in history, which always follows what God says, like a dog its master.
 

This is judgment, and when He comes with all His saints (I Thessalonians 3:13, Zechariah 14:5), it is rest for the redeemed and relief for a devastated world construction, until its final term completed, like a temporary platform in a church for an anniversary, it is packed away, indeed departs with great noise and enormous heat (II Peter 3), a fitting conclusion for those who rejecting the judgment of the flood which is embedded so clearly in the earth (cf. News 1), and the realities of creation (II Peter 3:1-5), put their trust in ‘mother nature’. In this, they are forgetful of the Father of spirits and the God of eternity whose power, imagination and intelligence wrought their own, derivative and created powers which intoxicated, have led to this impasse.
 

The glory of it all is this: that there is yet an opportunity, even for every one of those who seek judgment by ignoring it, like those who refuse to consult tsunami measuring equipment, but prefer to await the wave in ignorance, as if this would increase their peace or its term. God WOULD HAVE all to be reconciled, to repent, to receive Him (Colossians 1:19ff., I Timothy 2, Ezekiel 33:11, Matthew 23:37 cf. SMR Appendix B, The Kingdom of Heaven Ch. 4), and HENCE there is that delicious awareness available that He is ready to receive.

 

Wrath is coming, but it succeeds pardon’s presentation; and as to the former, those who want it, to them it is but their due. For there is no man or woman or child who is immune to judgment; but the blessed predestinative certainties of God leave none out; and as to the latter, it is the good pleasure of God to render it through the Gospel. If reader, you yourself have not yet received the ransom from sin and the pardon in peace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, who assumed flesh in order to save flesh, and was resurrected to demonstrate with His other many miracles, who He was past all confusion, and what He offered, then this is a delightful moment. You may.

 

For background to what follows, remember it is found in http://webwitness.org/thatmagrock/remodelling.html and /remodelling2html

 

A

 

BRIEF ABSTRACT of a  PRESENTATION  

touching the issue to schools of a GOVVERNMENT CIRCULAR TO SCHOOLS,
recently confirmed as still OPERATIONAL : with update

 

Quite simply creation is not allowed to be considered in science, though it fulfils scientific method as evolutionism does not; it is not allowed to be considered in debate in the realm of fact, anywhere else in the school curriculum. This is the position since 1988 in SA, probably illegal and surely slanted.

 

In fact, the UN Declaration concerning the Elimination of Discrimination in all Forms of Religion and Belief, specifies that there must be no exclusion from any usage or benefit based on religion or belief. This implies, for example, that you cannot legally reduce the facilities for what you do not believe, on the part of those contrary to your conceptions in these fields. If your belief system prefers to have a universe which does what no one ever sees it do, and another prefers a system where what is not observed is not postulated, and what is observed is deemed applicable, then you cannot exclude from help, those who hold the latter, or reduce their help. This is part of the scientific aspect of creationism.

 

In our present context, the point is this: ARE CHRISTIAN children and those OTHER CHILDREN whose religion or belief specifies creation by a Founder equipped with the finesse found, to suffer the following discrimination:

 

1)    NO use of teacher expertise in conveying scientifically represented material on creation, such as multitudes of Ph.D. scientists hold, convey and consider more apt than any other option.

 

2)    NO use of such scientifically prepared materials, so cited,  in school libraries, or help from Librarian in order most aptly to find them, as with any other material, and no comparable scope in range for such books.

 

3)    LOWERED sense of social participation in Class on the topic of the beliefs they hold, which eminent scientists hold, present and verify them repeatedly on many fronts, while on the contrary they are made to feel that their beliefs are irrelevant to science. It is important to realise that the point here in view is NOT what given religion A or B teaches, but what in scientific method is  the hypothesis of creation PER SE. That affirms existing by action not from WITHIN our present system, but from OUTSIDE it, so that it can exist, given its verification in the 3 major scientific laws which mirror and verify the concepts of a past creation, a running down of the same in many ways, and a life-to-life mode of transmission of life (Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy, Second Law of Thermodynamics, Law of Biogenesis).

 

4)    NO exposure to experimentation to verify or fail to verify various theories in the area of the origin of the universe or life.

 

5)    NO effort to create awareness of the diversity of opinion among evolutionary theories, so that some of the greatest of scientists have been attacking Darwinism in the most vital language, and dismissing it on scientific grounds, even though they are evolutionists (cf. academics and authors Hoyle, and Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard, both renowned scientists, and the latter perhaps the most famous of all biologist academics, of the last 50 years, together with Nilsson, Løvtrup and others).

If it be held that students are incapable of critical assessment, the fact remains that critical assessment of arguments is a component of school instruction, in order to assist students to     beware of propaganda, and to know something of its methods in many fields.

If further it be held that it is hard enough to give them critically wounded Darwinism, then the first reply is this: Why give it, in view of its condition ? In fact, it is quite easy – and one speaks here as a registered and experienced teacher and Headmaster – to give a short account of the contention of Darwin and of Gould, and indeed of Denton. It is easier than some elements taught in Commercial Law or Mathematics.

 

6)    NO balance, even with what precisely fits scientific method!

 

Thus, if, further, it be held that the current indoctrination is still to continue, then there is discrimination not only against those of a religious creationist belief, but against evolutionists  of a diverse evolutionary view from whatever is being taught, for example, Darwinism. Again, it forwards not only secular concepts but those of some religionists discriminatingly: thus the Bishop in London, aghast at creationist teaching, has maintained that it undermined the teaching of Christianity. The thrust of such advocates, secular or religious, is forwarded without balance or knowledge. It means that any thought of freedom of learning is defunct, of non-discrimination in religion is defiled, while this appears decidedly unlawful in terms of Commonwealth Law and adoption of the UN ruling on Religious Discrimination.

 

7)    SCANT justice: Since such things being discriminatory, are also bad teaching, which follows evidence, not blind dogma, it is an interference also with the Rights of the Child, as in the UN Declaration, precluding or inhibiting its desire for knowledge, while simultaneously degrading some aspects of knowledge by authoritarian fiat and daring to present such concepts to Principals by fiat now said to be “enforced”.  

Its assault on the Christian faith by implication of its gratuitous claim that religion is not a matter for rational test is not merely an export of simple prejudice in a State educational setting, but one contrary to demonstrable fact as may be seen in Rev. Dr. Robert Donaldson 99 volume set on Christian Apologetics at http://webwitness.org.au. Thus assumptions here are slanted in presumption and constitute an imposition of a governmentally thrust belief system in a discriminatory, insupportable and in simple fact, unsupported manner. This is dominion by philosophy set on grounds that are wholly invisible, either in government presentation or availability. It is likewise discrimination in the use of Commonwealth funds for schools.

 

Preceding its illicit because question-begging application to evolutionistic philosophy, it becomes a DIRECT breach of the discrimination law, giving place and position to such philosophy, in a manner which also misrepresents on its p. 1, biblical creationism on ‘kinds’ in a flagrant manner, contrary both to scientific norms in creationism and biblical presentation in Genesis 1. Actively promoting a rationally unsupported State belief system with multiple discriminatory denials for some students’ life and work is a vast intrusion; but applying it to teaching perspective is discrimination to the uttermost degree. It is not isolated but principial, not episodic but thematic; and it not merely promotes a belief system shamelessly, but EXCLUDES the rational discussion of opposition and the systematic teaching of what is contrary, in science. If this is not discrimination, it could not exist, and the law would be a hollow pretence.

 

8)    SLANT: In addition, evolutionism being contrary in method, to what scientific method prescribes, by which what is not verified must be set aside or re-developed, this is again discrimination on the basis of religion or belief, demeaning a basic concept in various religions, while giving advantage to the religion or belief system outlined in the Circular, which is subjectivistic, and without stated ground, while also gratuitously contrary in claim to Christianity as to the objective nature of God and of His revelation, and to His action in space and time, not only in doctrine, but in attestable evidence. This tends to establish a religion or belief by using schools for its dissemination. If this religious dogma for Principals to rule their schools by a belief system of such a character is actually the governmental purpose, it should be clearly stated before any future election, and noted at once to its public. If it is not, it should not be done.

 

In either event, it appears to break current Commonwealth law and that change is needed. In sum, it is not known that the Government has such a deliberate program; but if it has not, it should AT ONCE abandon it in this field, where it is currently operative, whether through oversight or indifference, or other cause.

 

In his Wonderful Life, contrary examples, noted by Stephen Jay Gould re gradualistic theories of evolution for ‘progress’, are major in the field of Cambrian rock; and he argues  that it is inconceivable that such theories could last in view of this fact. His contentions there are major in the field of macro-change, Gould maintaining that it is not even conceivable how such changes could be made, the matter “literally incomprehensible” (p. 260, cf. SMR p. 234 cf. Spiritual Refreshings Ch. 6); while Hoyle considers it nonsense of a high order (SMR p. 226), how intelligence should be discounted in creation.

 

Such views do not figure in the Curriculum agenda as exposed. It needs broadening and more common sense coverage of realities, so that thought can freely course, not be put in an arrogant prison of the personal preferences of some parties in a merely dogmatic society, misaligned to scientific method and law alike. The point here is not to argue the necessities of the case, but to note the divergencies at the top level, the recklessness of ignoring these, their point, and the abuse of children’s education in not using these things as a stimulus to thought, but with whatever intention, using them as an opportunity for what becomes such blinkering of the child, that growth and welfare are crassly prejudiced. Licence for outrageously intrusive preference should not blinker children. In a society of free thought it would not merely fail to be apposite, but would become the opposite.

 

Indeed, how this relates to the stated political desires that South Australia should be a free-thinking society is wholly unclear! It is the intrusive, entrenched, unrelenting these many years.

 

The teaching of information theory, applied to the concept of new information proceeding down the generations, is likewise contrary with the other scientific laws noted above, to the concept of natural increase. Here again is the exact opposite. The information theory teaching is natural decrease over time, which as Gould points out has not only IN FACT occurred biologically, but done so to an extreme degree.  This verifies creation’s forecast, clashes with the outcome of organic evolutionism. This scarcely is a datum to occasion due theories concerning information gain.

 

In addition to not validating current scientific law in the special field of information, such notions contradict them. Whoever heard of explaining observable gross natural decrease in design by theories designed to account for increase, and calling this – then – scientific! Are we empirically to account for loss by supposing gain and relate this in some obscure fashion to the thing called science!

 

Thus slow, ultimately large degradation in design exhibit over time is not only in particular contrary to the whole thrust of the Darwinian contention, but so too is the co-ordinate brute fact of information law. Contraries to such concepts not only contradict Darwinian teaching, but harmonise both with creationism and with each other. In fact, information LOSS in the natural system, as Gould declares from evidence in geological formations, is deemed some 90% of information in designs in the ‘early’ Cambrian field (op.cit. pp. 226-239). As often pointed out, it is difficult to use a method of LOSS to establish a procedure of GAIN, and worse if one’s object is empirical science, thus devastated! It is worse yet when one never finds occurrences of the type instead specified, nor the engines for their production visible or viable, far less demonstrated in the practical world.

 

Such religious attachment to mere preference in the face of scientific method, albeit secular religion, to correlative theories and hostile evidence appears wholly untenable in terms of non-discrimination, and hence illegal in this country. Hence it should cease. What meets empirical requirements should not be excluded, above all, in science. Creation should certainly be presented, with other aspects of science. It has the scientific advantage of being in harmony with the fact, and securing a basis for harmonising facts.

 

When creation meets in its applications precisely what evolution fails to cover or explain, it is time to present it, lest the term ‘science’ become falsified, and religion not merely illicitly summed in the aggregate, but degraded in the sum: a political outlaw that contains the answers which organic evolution notoriously lacks. Because it lacks, its variations fibrillate. As its heart fibrillates, it still fails; and because it fails, it still fibrillates.

 

Thus

 

¨  1)_ the illicit religious intrusion should be annulled.

 

¨  2) Its application should be expunged.

 

¨  3) Scientific method should be applied rigorously (cf. http://smr/bookmap.html at pp. 149ff. from the slot provided, and in  /nogoapp2.html   and  /nogo5.html)

 

OTHER MATERIAL FOR THE GOVERNMENT:

 

On the Web, please see a specifically relevant feature and coverage in http://webwitness.org.au/comingking4.html while the major systematic critique of the Circular to Principals of January 1988 is found at http://webwitness.org.au/thatmagrock/remodelling.html. Also referring to matters for review and information are  /thatmagrock/appendix1rem1.html and  /definingdrama10.html#kind

 

One might add, Earth Spasm ... Ch. 7!

 

B

 

 

EVANGELICAL PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE

 

REFERENCE MATERIAL FOR THE JANUARY LETTER TO THE PREMIER

 

We refer to earlier letters sent by the above body, re the issue of creationism and evolutionism. Now, after some 10 months, we have received the first substantive reply from your Government.

 

Like the generality of replies received over the last decade and more, it is only in form a reply, since the challenge is in no point met, and in this instance the main point not even mentioned.

 

The reply, this time, comes from a Minister of State to whom the matter was addressed at your own instance. Though it was felt at the time that this was a strange choice, as the matter was not least concerning your own personally stated aims, we forbore in order to see what you might have had in mind.

 

The event only confirms our concern since the letter from the Minister, in common with what we have found to be normal bureaucratic practice in this matter for many years, does not noticeably cover any single point of our stated concern. Rather, it presents a set position, a statement of faith which might as well have been written, had none of our correspondence even been read. This raises the question whether the material presented has been read, passed on with the results of the researches of your advisers, for whose assured response, we waited several months. One does not normally address questions in order to have other questions answered, and one’s own ignored. It is one thing to answer proposals put; it is quite another to ignore them. It thus seems unprofitable to proceed there after more than a decade of such responses.

 

We therefore can only repeat our request for a personal interview with yourself, since it is a statement of your own that is a basic concern; and we agree with it.

 

It is this. You have stated, according to TV report, that you believe in a free thinking South Australia. This concept is of course grossly abused in the fact that the assessment of the very nature of ‘religion’ in the Circular to Principals concerned (Creationism and the School Curriculum), is a generalisation which ignores the fact that different religions make different claims, as to their import and purport, and the nature of researchable data in them.

 

The Circular’s error in this field is on the one hand procedural, in making such an illicit and unsustained generalisation about religions, a simple statement of its own faith; and on the other, substantial, in that lacking such evidence, its statement by implication attacks the biblical assertions concerning things such as the resurrection, the creation and the nature of history. If the Government wishes to attack Christianity in this way, fine, but it will be necessary to admit it, and to provide something in the way of grounds, and not only to abandon any thought of a free thinking South Australia, but even one of duly scholarly one, or a non-oppressive one.

 

Unfortunately, the answer we have received, in a way too usual in our experience in this field, did not even MENTION the issue of the religious assault; for however you may wish to present various religions, it is no part of presentation of religions to assault any without ground, by inadequate generalisation of what any of them claim. A reply omitting mention of the main feature of the question in any examination would simply fail. Worse, the confusion of the concept of religion, which is merely an aspect of one particular official and officious religious faith, in the Circular, is added to the ideas about creationism as religious only, in orientation, so as to make a confused contusion of error.

 

This thus becomes on two counts a religious imposition, and not at all a religious coverage. The teaching discrimination involved is colossal. The student awareness of religions on such a basis is distorted.

 

It is precisely here that the persecution of children is occurring and of families including those of all creationists. Freedom of thought is invidiously blocked by inadequate exposure to fact, as by a tyranny of unsustained philosophy and omissions of coverage of scientific action on the part of many. Moreover, creationism is simply unfactually presented in the Circular, in its p. 1, para 1, and this actively misleads the students, if followed. It is not good to be contra-factual in educational curriculum material.

 

This basic point is shown in detail in material prepared for the Government in our meeting with advisers last year and which should be with you. It is however  ignored in the answer, as is also the point that creation is not only a scientific study. In terms of scientific method, as detailed in that same material, it is also shown that the basic contentions of scientific creationism are decisively and distinctively supported. Moreover, we have presented names of some 160 scientists^*C with doctoral degrees who are biblical creationists (a sub-variety of the much wider body of generic creationists).

 

Creationism is certainly, in principle, no less than evolutionism, part of the paradigm of rational science, and is far more so, since NO ONE of the criteria which, philosophy apart, are presented for empirical result, fails to meet the test in this case; whereas not one but several fail in the case of evolutionism. This summarises some of the detailed points made in the material provided.

 

It was put to your advisers: Are we to designate the 160 scientists with science-related doctorates of whom one is aware, who hold to creationism, as dunderheads – and that, for the sake of prejudice ? Is this free enquiry ? Is this rational ? Is this any answer ? Is this education, avoiding the issue ? And what of the grounds ? Are these answered by mystical statements about science, rather than the evidence, as if the word science were magic and its application to the issue systematically, were mysterious ?  If it be held in defence that a majority of scientists support one doctrine of evolution or other (many of the evolutionary doctrines compete, and attack each other through their proponents, in EMPIRICAL fact, and this not without reason!), is that of the nature of free thinking ?  Are students to think as most people think, or to examine and learn to examine, evidence ? and if not the latter, how does this differ from authoritarian educational tyranny ? and in what way does it even resemble free thinking.

 

In the Circular, misrepresentation of fact vies with dissemination of a specific religious Circular faith, disguised as a generalisation about religion; and both are bound by authority, in an appalling way. Is the government elected to rule religion! Let it then say so, before the next election. The Circular’s spurious definition of religion is applied pragmatically to education and so not only distorts thought and provides basis for distortion in that field.

 

Are we then to decline to educate our children so that they are informed and able to choose at the rational and relevant level ? or rather tell them what to think! Are they to be made selectively aware of what is philosophically preferred in the domain of science and religion, not of the actual empirical presence!

 

And if so, is this to be called freedom of education, or indeed of anything else ?

 

Dr Dmitri Kouznetsov, a holder of three bio-science doctorates and winner of the Lenin Science Prize in Russia,  is a scientist who spoke at Adelaide University some years ago. Stating that he became a creationist because of the evidence, before becoming a Christian, he deemed it wise to teach children diverse approaches in science, so that they can be educated … freely. This famous researcher is a little difficult, as are hundreds of  creation scientists with doctorates in science related fields, to dismiss as an oddity.

 

Further, there is a serious question whether this authoritative and inadequately rational approach to education, defining terms by desire, rather than by empirical reality, or even accuracy, is indeed legal by Commonwealth Law, in view of the formally adopted UN Declaration on intolerance in religion and belief.

 

It is an indisputable  fact, as far as evidence is concerned rather than mere position taking, that creationism represents a sustained and reputable scientific option, held by a multiplicity of outstanding scientists. Much further detail is available on this point, and facts are our friends. It seems also an indisputable proposition that this practical creationist aspect of scientific reality, by its omission in the field of State education IN SCIENCE, constitutes a discrimination and a deprivation for all creationists; for they or their families must either pay for those who will in fact educate them on the scope of present day science, or accept a defective version of the actual fact, which appears tilted, slanted, repressive, religiously oriented by what becomes a State religion.

 

Further, the current action discriminates against non-creationist students, by failing to provide them through dedicated teaching skills, with a rational aspect, according to scientific method, of the researched creationist position.  This limits their thought and research as students, and misrepresents in advance, one of its potential areas, confusing species with ‘kinds’. If now, there were some error in the presentation in detail in the materials we have provided on this general position, it would be appreciated if someone would show it decisively, instead of merely DECLINING TO DO ANYTHING RELEVANT, in word or in deed. 

 

If the intention were to protect entrenched positions, well; but if education is intended to be a work of integrity on covering factual realities in what is taught by eminent scientists, then there is acute failure. In drawing attention to this fact, one is allowing for those who rightly insist on such precision, to make changes to ensure that it happens.

 

Our concern, emphatically and statedly, is not that a religious perspective be imposed on students, which would indeed be an oddity, for a secular State. It is precisely the fact that this is already BEING DONE, at which we protest, and for which we seek cleansing. Such imposition is not, nor has ever been relevant in our approach to this State; but rather the opposite,  that various perspectives be faithfully and accurately taught.

 

However, to make ALL creationism religious only, or to make ALL religion only unscientific, these are rash and unsustained generalisation, both about religion, and about creationism: and it is to fail in this educative criterion. It becomes instead a substitution of authority for reason, opinion for evidence and ignorance of the position, for scholarship. If some prefer this, tax use should not dictate it.

The response from your Government, therefore, concerning religion and science, in essence has so far been to beg the question, a traditional trend here. The reply to us makes many assumptions; but presents no grounds.  The Government position is  then make ex-grounds, in the areas of concern: a declaration of what is to be. Now a Government CAN do this; but not rationally, freely or justly.

 

Since creationism, on the other hand,  has been abundantly shown to be rational and uniquely so (in the webwitness books, now 99, on this amongst other subjects, being validated in the works of many Ph.D. scientists, with a significant scientific following, as it has had over the centuries following creationists Newton, Faraday, Maxwell and Boyle, Lord Kelvin, Agassiz, and in this century, von Braun, and many other well-known and innovative scientists): it merely ignores the point to talk of evolution in terms of ‘rational’ as though it had some mandate, because some hold to it. In fact, as shown in the material presented, this is not one of its aspects. It has support; but not from there. That is one reason why competing evolutionary schools engage in internecine conflict.

 

The reply so far received by us therefore, in effect is an exposition of the Circular to Principals, and provides no answer to the criticism of it supplied; nor as usual, evidence of the material sent having been studied. Allowing the teaching of religion is of little advantage and none as remedy to the point at issue, when its nature is abused and its place distorted. The definitional abuse of religion, in the curriculum and Circular involved, is not helped by opening doors to it.

 

For far more than a decade now, the issues have been drawn, the reasons given, the evidence provided, and scientific method in detail shown in its creationist outcome. The result from Government however, to the point, or any point in it, has been like the silence of the ages. If South Australia is not to be a slave State (South Australia, Slave State ?), in this regard; dictatorially dominated, educationally impoverished, segmentally oppressed, and almost certainly contrary to the Commonwealth Law into the bargain, but a State of free enquiry, then a change will need to be made in this stark and appalling avoidance of the issue.

 

We requested before, an interview so that the matters could be addressed, not repressed. The repetition of the gratuitous dictates of the Circular in no way either justifies them or answers their criticism.

 

We propose, therefore, as we did when with your advisers, that after the requested interview with the Premier who has expressed his desire for a free-thinking State, there should be a multi-disciplinary debate, in a public forum. That would be perhaps one test better than ignoring the issue, as was done on the same topic, where the a notable creationist and successful university debater and biologist also had the debating offer declined by the SA Government when it first imposed its authoritarian approach and implicit assault on the position of Christianity. The record of the State in this area needs radical improvement both both for the avoidance of suppression, and the provision of either expression or answer.

 

 

C

This is where Little A placed the material adapted from That Magnificent Rock, which as his earlier reference shows, is to be read in conjunction with the rest of that Ch. 8 – at /thatmagrock/remodeling.html and /remodelling2.html

 

ACTION DESIRED

1. To have removed defamatory material in a Government Circular, relative to religion, since the Circular  is declared to be still operative and ‘enforced’.

2. To exclude rash generalisation about religion from the same.

3. To require an academic and sustainable basis for the approach to teaching creation or evolution in schools

4. To use scientific method in selecting a science approach to this topic in schools.

5. To adapt to the fact that just as there are various mutually uncongenial approaches to this area within the evolutionary field, so not all who hold to creation start with a religious basis, since it is a scientific option.

6. To end violation of anti-discrimination law in the way indicated within.

 

THE RESULTS OF THIS COMPARISON: ACTION

The result of the survey and comparison
( PARTS I and II preceding this excerpt) is this:

 

There appears, in the Circular, to be a profoundly peremptory and wholly inadequately reasoned presentation of a viewpoint which is so thrust upon School Principals that not merely is their professional integrity subjected to stress or duress, but also that of their Staff ­ relative to freedom of thought and of speech. It is also seen that misuse is made of the notion of scientific method to a degree that appears quite spectacular: whatever else MIGHT have been appealed to, this is one point which is wholly CONTRARY in method, to what is so compulsively required.

 

Failure to educate effectively in SCIENTIFIC METHOD, if this is any just sample of what is being offered in Government Schools, would appear merely buttressed by any reference to this hypothesis of organic evolution, in terms of it.

 

Why ? It is because that hypothesis neither presents itself in ways warranted by the observations, conformable to accepted law, or suitable for prediction, nor predicts, nor authoritatively retrodicts; nor does it have the happiness to be verified in the scope of its claims.

In short, it neither states a law apt for prediction, nor formulates the matter in a way which would permit this, nor explains in intellectually defensible terms what it affirms; nor confirms itself at its own level; nor is there agreement on the very basics of the theory by the most eminent authority. It appears a tussle, a fight and a fiasco, almost like an uproarious party of drunken and dithering kind, a theory without scientific heart, now in a fibrillation so profound, that only the most intensive care is keeping it in this world.

This misnamed method of intrusion into religion ­ which it in fact is ­ ought then to be rejected on the ground of irrationalism, discrimination and denial of what the U.N. might call 'child rights', but we call child integrity, yes and teacher and Principal integrity, improperly here invaded. Free speech and thought ought to be re­introduced. People of whatever rank, with superior arguments ought to be free to deploy them; and authority ought not perilously to intrude, with unsustainable ground, either into religion (where it is effectively and ludicrously posing as expert!), or into science, the real science of verification and formulation, in this way.

As a result, it would be better for those responsible for this continuing outrage, to remove it expeditiously, before more harm is done to this State, than that already wrought. Although it is not possible for us to know the motives for this kind of thing, it is not difficult to see its results.

One FURTHER result, whatever may be made of it, should be noted: Numbers of parents, at least partly because of these and such errors, decline to use what could intellectually be deemed hijacked school premises; and so are required to pay for others (through their taxes) as well as for their own children's education. This undoubtedly appears ONE MORE FORM OF DISCRIMINATION, intolerance of social justice, for those interested in it.

Once again, the motive for so misusing schools is not known; its results however are brought to your attention.

 

A second excerpt from the same file was found too, and Little A liked its tenor, its tone and its truth.

 

 

1. The Portrait 

The problems then with this dreadful directive in SA are these.

·       It is defamatory and presumptuous relative to religion, the Bible in particular: and it is so in an unscholarly and fashion.

 

·       It is suppressive of free speech: in particular, of free, rational debate where the theory is taught, as it often is from my own experience in this State, in schools ­ in science.

·       It is distorting to argument, preceding its permission for talk in humanities on this point with assumptions of 'meaning statements' as distinct from rational challenge, directed if need be at the actual Bible for example. Pre­empting the floor, it tells us the presuppositions to be in view.

·       It is propagandist, using repetition and repression to assist an untenable theory which would require no defence from such means, if facts spoke for it in the realm of austere and accredited scientific method, in such a way as to make it regular and creditable: they do not (cf. SMR pp. 145ff.). The whole realm of the visible is as silent on design advance by nature, as a closed book, which as has been shown, it veritably and verifiably is.

What is observed and in rationality confirms what is written in the Bible, in point of fact, a total estrangement of this current universe from any proclivity to self-create from what it is: this we have on the one hand. Logic as shown in SMR, observation and coalescence with other laws is the spread before us.

What is not observed, never has been observed by mankind in any recorded form, it is this: sure increase of design complexity without intelligence at work and applied to the point. This is what is in fact in conformity with organic evolution - intrinsic integral development by transmutation of what is here, over the spectrum of natural things.

The laws to compose it, the observations to exhibit it, the cohesion with thought used in the process, to validate it and the avoidance of self-contradictory antinomies to render it rational: this is what it needs scientifically. This is what it lacks in each dimension. It is not evidenced as a natural phenomenon. If on the other hand, you acknowledge that nature played no part in setting down the basic structural kinds of life, you return to creation.

Which theory then is chosen?

The theory chosen is the statedly evolution or more exactly evolutionism, providing for internalised upgrading, almost one might imagine, because it is entirely contrary to demonstrable fact. It is spree day when, as it were, the bankers throw their money bags about the Bank. What is not chosen in the Circular is the long-standing statement which is in accord with fact.

Here then is a marvellous thing, concerning creation (more precisely biblical creation) and evolution respectively:

·       that what, in its model, predicts the absence of what is not in fact observable (contemporary design advance - CDA), being verified,  
is rejected in its summary as to the participation of natural things;
 

·       and that what, in its model, makes natural the presence of what is not observable, CDA, being unverified, is accepted.

Small wonder heady clashes in evolutionism are now conspicuous (see Denton, Kouznetsov, Stephen Jay Gould and a collection of clangour).
 

Failure can readily be divisive. Result: Verification void is preferred above verification accord. Loser takes all... THAT! It is science. And this, it is but one of the areas of failure in this model noted in this Chapter.

Science ? No, it is procedurally derelict, evidentially immune, non-science and astounding prejudice: rashly conceived, believed and then foisted into the realm of science in the most contradictory possible way, relative to scientific method.

	It is dangerous: diverting free and rational enquiry by mere effrontery, without the semblance of rationally sufficient grounds, so that error in science may be prolonged.
	It is authoritarian, determining, by a few lines, matters that scholars toil over.
	It replaces science with statistics, consulting what are in fact, personal preferences of scientists in a quite standard appeal to authority, and use of the ad hominem error of logic.
	It is pernicious: setting up an example of dictation from bureaucracy in place of determination by logic and scientific enquiry: it is thus unsystematic.
	It is clandestine: authoritarian pronouncements are made as if assured, to the total ruin of fair play, and then the Department declined to so much as send its text book writers or teachers to confront Dr Gish when he came. If it is true, why not show it? Since it is preferred in this propagandist style, why not defend it? The Department has 'not' taken sides? Not? well, if Hitler did not take sides against the Jews, well then. . . perhaps *1.
	It is outrageous towards children, oppressed like the victims of industrial mines at tender ages in the Industrial Revolution. These children are brain­washed so nicely, so pleasantly by their dear educational community, which appears to have its gods before it, these wet with the blood of those who too well follow their ludicrous lore: for that is as near to law as the theory goes.

S.A. is polluted heavily by this tragi­comic intrusion of the State into the field of religion, dogmatically creating a creed (it is easy to propound one from the Education Department document), without logical requisites or clear ground: a monument to intrusive religious prejudice as also to unscientific methodology - erected on the broken wall that once stood for freedom!

An end note is added which related to a prior point in the chapter, and concerned the failure of the Department concerned near the time of the invention of the Circular, to engage in debate with w world famed debater, in defence of its innovation.

 

·       *1 Granted that the academic debater concerned is a well-known biological scientist and an eminently successful debater for creation on university campuses throughout the world, being granted indeed one hour television coverage in debate in the entire USSR television network when in that area. This however scarcely excuses the Education Department in South Australia for avoiding the debate, when alien material, instead of science, is forced on trussed up children, not allowed, that is, to deal with the material rationally in science in this affair.

 

 

 

                   The Issues ...

 

·       1. The fiat action of creation relative to the misuse of scientific method in this philosophic, naturalistic evolutionism - is this to be considered on merits, or peremptorarily pulped, then hidden, then buried with radioactive waste? Is this to be a society of fear or of assessment and competition?

 

  

·       2. The misnaming of evolutionism as science in the educational setting not merely begs the question but disregards scientific method, which favours performance not philosophy.

 

·       3. The assault on the historic doctrine of creation with appeal to authority seems pseudo-obsessive, safeguarded, kept in private from exposure to speakers of contrary view, indeed from free and open debate... in what are supposedly places of education.

 

·       4. The assault on religion in general is not diminished by caricature of some of major examples of it, worldwide, in terms both undefended and vilificatory; nor does 'good intention' equate with scholarly accuracy.

 

·       5. The mischaracterisation of what 'religion' is about in general terms, does not cover important cases: for at least one of these, this cardinally falsifies, without stated ground, the declarations of its scripture concerning what it is about and its relationship to reason.  

 

·       6. Reciprocally, there is a misrepresentation of evolutionism exclusivistically as science, when it does not in fact meet scientific method, rigorously applied, at all.  

 

·       7. Naturalistic evolutionism is a contra-observational hypothesis long seeking ground for its ideas. As such, it is cardinally misrepresented in the Circular.

 

·       8. The assault on freedom of speech, of thought, ideas, on the commerce of ideas is linked to subjection of ideas both in science and out of it, to 'critique' by mere authoritarian intrusion.  

 

·       9. The assault on the children through this misuse of their freedom, and the adding of prima facie intellectual bullying to the other degrading evils of the presentation, remains a critical issue.

 

·       10. The exaction of this religious philosophy imported into science, as a cost of studying science is oppressive.  

 

·       11. The bureaucratic abuse:

 

of science, through political direction past its methodology and the sustained results of that method,

of children,

of principles, and

of correction through official disregard... is a nearly fatal prescription in terms of the history of nations and of science.

  

·       12. The institution of what is in numbers of points a religion, indeed an assessment bureau for religion, without even telling the electorate, is dishonourable, quite apart from the question of the political authority with which to perform such a task.

  

·       13. The conflict remains between this authoritarian substitute for freedom, made worse by propagandising its advent as science, in terms of jarring discord with:

a) the federal provisions of the Australian Constitution, below which this vastly falls for those in this State and

b) the tenor of spirit in the rejected Referendum several years ago (i.e. before the publication date of this volume), in which Government power increments were searchingly rejected.

  

·       14. The patronising abuse of God's name as a possible additive to the evolutionary teaching concocted, involves the moral attributes of any such god of convenience: murder, mayhem, self-interest, scheming, subtlety, guile, deception, lying and so on, as chosen media of creation.

  

·       15. This simply means that the god in question Biblically corresponds with the devil, with his profound passion for arrival and survival, parasitically preying on the creation. (Cf. SMR pp. 179ff..)

  

·       16. Students are thoughtfully permitted (Circular p.2, end of Section C) to conceive of a matching 'god' for this arrogantly asserted evolutionary mythical process - an imaginary 'cause' which does not articulate with the consequences in any interface, scientifically. (Cf. Secular Myth and Sacred Truth: /smstbook.html at the site noted and /nogobook.html)

  

·       17. The double-action invented process and imagined harmonisable 'god' permitted or prescribed has also this result. It erodes freedom both for teachers and for students.

  

·       18. For some, moreover it means that in all conscience, in the name of freedom and truth, teaching is now morally impossible in State-governed secondary schools.

  

·       19. Such a result involves, categorically, an affliction of minorities and that not only through its propagandising mode and matter, but through its exclusion of people who value truth in the tongue and freedom in the power to express it, more than any approbation or commercial comfort.

  

·       20. Some may not realise this, but these are in fact critical issues. Racism is not only biological but spiritual in such a case.

 

 

THE ACTION DESIRED

 

 ·       What then do we want? For what do we ask?

It is this: the removal of this offensive, minority-afflicting, authoritarian and unscholarly document which not merely afflicts children, but assaults religion with an easy indifference of tone, while failing to provide evidence logically or even scientifically sufficient for its view, even in germ. This it does while gratuitously, mischievously, aggressively, unpeaceably and without any appearance of inhibition, in content assailing the Biblical Christian faith at the same time.

  

·       If this be not vilification, then that activity cannot exist. Manifestation and exposure are one thing: reasoned argument is a part of the price of liberty. However, irrational fiats, irresponsible force, in human politics, these are symptoms of tyranny. 

 

·       We however have not elected tyrants, quasi-popes, religious directors, but people whose policies are to be honestly made clear before they are, after election, set like a boon or, on the other hand, a scalpel in the midst of the heart of the people. That a former government stated this pestiferous substitute for education, tyrannically suppressing, not expressing due and free argumentation in State Schools - and that without cogent argument at the outset: THIS does not improve things. Whatever its motives may have been, this is the effectual result.

In fact, it merely adds for any present government which, duly informed, does not correct this, what would become the woe of unoriginality of oppression to its irksome continuation of the evil.

 

·       In such a case, it would follow that the Circular was not even its invention, only its retention.

  

 

Several Christian Ministers have challenged both Governments on this issue, and a petition of hundreds of signatures was presented during the long process of bypassing the situation. This challenge has been made in the hope that a further elected body would be spared repetition of the errors of earlier Government, or at least limited in its entanglement.

 

We are therefore requesting the removal of this document, fatally flawed in method, the resumption of education, in the way Dr Koutnetzov*, with three bio-science doctorates and the Lenin Science prize, in Russia, advocated when he spoke in Adelaide University. That way ? It is very simple and not entirely original... Carefully present material for students to assess: educate them.

 

Domineering arrest by someone’s unadmirable philosophy is not the domain of State education. If this is to be secular education, let it be education.

 

Finally, when the petition of hundreds of signatures from people of different churches was presented, it summarised its desire in words like this:

The Petitioners have this to say:

WE REQUEST THAT THE CIRCULAR BE WITHDRAWN.

IT IS AN OFFENCE TO OUR RELIGION,

TO THE USE OF REASON AND TO OUR LIBERTY,

AS WELL AS A MISUSE OF AUTHORITY.

 

IT MISCHARACTERISES BOTH THE BIBLE AND THE STATUS
OF THE VARIED EVOLUTIONARY THEORIES.

BY THIS MEANS, IT TAKES SIDES IN AN AREA OF FREQUENT INTERNATIONAL DEBATE
AT TERTIARY LEVEL, AND TENDS TO SLANT STUDENT MINDS PRIOR TO THAT TIME.

IT RUNS COUNTER TO THE STRINGENT REQUIREMENTS OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 
IT DOES NOT RENDER REASON, WHICH IS ONE THING: IT MERELY 'TAKES A POSITION' AND ISSUES A DEMAND.

THIS IS INTOLERABLE IN OUR SOCIETY, A MISUSE OF TAX MONEY AND OF THE LIBERTY OF TEACHERS, INCLUDING PRINCIPALS: A SUPPRESSION OF THAT OF STUDENTS.

NO ADDITIONS WILL REMOVE THE STATEMENTS MADE WHICH, WE BELIEVE,
MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO STAND. WE WISH THE REMOVAL OF THIS CIRCULAR ALSO,
LEST ITS AUTHORITARIAN INTRUSION BECOME AN EXAMPLE OF THINGS TO COME...

 

 

·       See http://webwitness.org.au/thatmagrock/remodelling2.html#kouz
for the reasonable presentation made at that time. 

·       For his part, Dr Dmitri Kouznetsov (cf. pp. 218 ff. The Shadow of a Mighty Rock) indicated that  becoming versed in bioscience, he had to abandon organic evolution because of the evidence, years before becoming a Christian.

·       All page references to The Shadow of a Mighty Rock may be found at
http://webwitness.org.au/smr/bookmap.html