Do you believe that the earth is billions of years old and that people evolved from ape-like creatures? If you do, many people agree with you, because such mindless drivel is routinely taught in public schools as "fact."

Am I uneducated? I have a college degree (Hamilton College) and two masters' degrees (University of Rochester and Rutgers). Am I science-illiterate? The U of R masters' degree is in Chemistry. Am I a crackpot? Perhaps (I've been called worse in better places than this!), but as a trained scientist I must ask the question, What is the scientific evidence for evolution?

Consider the fossil record. It is a great embarrassment to evolutionists, because it shows the sudden appearance of huge numbers of fully developed, complex species, without any possible transitional species. The "missing link" is still missing.

Consider Carbon-14 dating. Any geologist will tell you it is useless for dating the age of rocks because of its short half-life. Rock dating is done with such elements as uranium, thorium, potassium, and rubidium, because they take longer to decay. But he results of these tests are routinely "adjusted" to fit the same evolutionary theory that they are supposed to be trying to prove! Send a rock sample to a lab, and they will ask where it was found, and if there were any fossils nearby. They will then use the presence of certain types of fossils to indicate the age of the rock, and declare that rock to be the age of the nearby fossils! This is circular reasoning.

Consider Mount Saint Helens, which erupted in 1980 to carve a canyon 1/40 the size of the Grand Canyon in a single day! Scientists have abandoned the theory that the Colorado River carved the Grand Canyon, believing that some cataclysm was responsible, but they ignore the biblical account of a worldwide flood in the days of Noah. The effects of such a flood could easily have formed the Canyon.

Consider Yellowstone. If the coal strata there formed over millions of years, as the National Park signs say, then how did those tree trunks imbedded in the coal layers survive long enough to be visible today? Anyone who has seen the effects of termites and dry rot on wood would certainly like to buy such wood, that would last for millions of years!

Consider other scientific phenomena: the salt content of the world's oceans, planetary magnetic fields, recent discovery of "fresh" dinosaur bones, dust levels on the moon, the incredible complexity of biological systems, the phenomenon called pleichroic halos, and atmospheric helium levels, to name a few. The list could go on and on.

Consider the very beauty of the universe, devoid of evolutionary purpose, but pointing to the existence of an awesome Creator.

Despite all of the evidence, evolutionists are hell-bent on sticking to a crumbling theory. Even Nobel laureate Francis Crick, recognizing that life could never have evolved on our planet, came up with the convoluted idea that life originated in outer space and then somehow traveled to earth. Now tell me, who is the crackpot?

If evolution is such a good theory, why has it been necessary in state after state across our nation to mandate the teaching of evolution as fact? If the evidence for evolution is so great and the evidence for creation so limited, why not present the evidence for both, and let students make up their own minds?

I object to indoctrinating children in the evolutionist, secular humanist religion. It destroys our society by teaching that people are no better than animals because we evolved from them. It teaches that there is no right or wrong because nature created itself, so that there are no immutable rules that must be followed. Now wonder teen suicides, pregnancies, drug abuse and violence are so commonplace.