Parent shares anti-evolution school project that dunks on science, says Bible is the only truth

Human beings have made huge strides in the field of science and it's been crucial in helping us understand the world we inhabit and what it takes to sustain on earth. While science has made great strides, much of the progress is being deterred by the persistence of unscientific claims in the form of conspiracies and in the name of religion. Vaccine hesitancy is rooted in unscientific claims and is hampering America's and the world's fight against the pandemic. The conspiracy theories discrediting science were laid long before the pandemic and a Reddit user gave us an insight into the efforts made to discredit science after they posted a note about a project at her private school in Texas.

The Reddit user said the schools were pushing religious views and teaching kids to discredit science at the school level. "My daughter has a project at her private school. The negatives of living in rural Texas," they wrote. The note appeared to be coaching students that evolution isn't real, dinosaurs aren't real, and tries to establish that scientists are just shooting in the dark because the Bible is 'completely true.' The note makes a statement and then appears to give an explanation to counter that argument. In the first paragraph, it counters the statement: "Scientists claim that dinosaurs lived over 200 million years ago."

The counter goes, "Everything you read isn’t true. The Bible is the only book that is completely true. If you read the Bible and study its history, you will see that the world can’t be that old. The Bible tells us that God created the world about 6,000 years ago, not millions of years ago." This is followed by a statement that questions if today's animals evolved and have adaptations from dinosaurs. It basically tries to discredit the claim that evolution is real. What's ironic is that the people refusing vaccination are at a greater risk of dying from Coronavirus through natural selection, a key cog of evolution. 

The counter to evolution goes, "Many people do not want to believe that God created everything. They want to believe that everything happened by chance. They want to believe that everything happened by chance. They want to believe, somehow, things just started to exist without God and to form into all the amazing and wonderful creatures we have today. Many scientists say things existed millions of years ago because they think that it would have taken a long, long, time even millions of years for nothing to turn into something amazing such as a dinosaur. But, we know that not even in millions of years can change something into something else without God creating it." It then references a passage from the Bible stating that everything was made by God.

The third and final statement on the note says that scientists are smart because they study things all the time. For starters, no one ever says that. Anyway, the note went on to present its counter. "Scientists don't know everything, especially things that happened before they were born. They make lots of mistakes and sometimes they want to believe something so bad."

Reddit users were horrified that such notes were being handed to kids in a private school in Texas, laying the foundation for discrediting science early on. One user asked the person why their daughter was still at the school. Another confirmed that this was more common than people thought. "I went to a private Christian school and we had this kinda sh*t in the early grades," they wrote. Another said the same, writing, "Same. They didn’t even teach evolution at all in my science classes at mine. There was maybe a single mention about how it is wrong but still widely believed, and that's it." 

It has in many ways led to a contingent of the conservative movement questioning the efficacy of vaccines despite ample evidence showing that those who mask and get vaccinated have a much much better chance of not getting Coronavirus. An NPR report from last year showed that more than 97% of people entering hospitals right now are unvaccinated. One of the popular arguments goes that God gave humans natural immunity which trumps everything else and hence no vaccination is needed. Jonas Salk who developed the polio vaccine is turning in his grave.