In Colorado In 1996, Fifteen-Year-Old Danny ...

In Colorado in 1996, fifteen-year-old Danny Phillips protested a classroom video on human reproduction from the PBS series NOVA, which opened with the sweeping statement that life originated billions of years ago when “powerful winds gathered random molecules from the atmosphere.” Danny approached school authorities, arguing that the video violated a local school policy requiring teachers to present evolution as theory, not fact. He presented his case respectfully and persuasively, pointing out that the video’s opening statement was unnecessary and doctrinaire – that it asserted without any evidence that life on earth is the outcome of natural laws operating purely by chance. A review committee from the school board agreed to discontinue using the video. Immediately, like vultures swooping down from the kill, representatives from the ACLU descended on the board, breathing threats of lawsuits, and school authorities reversed their decision.

Danny was one young student alone against stiff opposition, so perhaps the reversal was predictable. Yet just raising the issue responsibly is an important starting point. And the way he went about it provides a good model for approaching public school officials. Danny acted completely on his own, so critics could not dismiss him as a pawn of outside groups. He limited his complaint to a clear case of naturalistic philosophy presented as scientific fact. And he politely offered for classroom use and educational video called Darwinism: Science or Naturalistic Philosophy? Featuring debaters with impeccable academic credentials in an event held at Stanford University.

If Christians intelligently raise issues in the classroom and the media, using reason and evidence, eventually we can shift the balance.

Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey, How Now Shall We Live? (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Pub., Inc., 1999), 427.