When the subject of balanced treatment for evolution and divine creation in public schools is brought up, newspaper columnists repeatedly inform us that evolution is science and creationism is religion.

Robert Jastrow is a well-known science writer and professor of astronomy and geology at Columbia University in New York. He is an evolutionist and an atheist, but an honest man. He says in his book, "Until the Sun Dies:"

"Perhaps the appearance of life on earth is a miracle. Scientists are reluctant to accept that view, but their choice is limited: either life was created on earth by the will of a being outside the grasp of scientific understanding, or it arrived on our planet spontaneously, through chemical reactions occurring in non-living matter lying on the surface of the planet.

The first theory places the question of the origin of life beyond the reach of scientitic inquiry. It is a statement of faith in the power of a Supreme Being not subject to the laws of science.

The second theory is also an act of faith. The act of faith consists in assuming that the scientific view of the origin of life is correct, without having concrete evidence to support the belief."

An Arkansas Educational Network television program showed a fish changing forms and then turning into an amphibian and crawling up on the land. What a shame that such flights of fancy are taught to impressionable young people as scientific fact!

There are no fossils showing a change from fins to legs. Coelacanth, a fish formerly thought to have been extinct for 300 million years, had bulges from which its fins grew. It was supposed that these bulges were turning into legs and the fins would disappear. But live coelacanths caught off the coast of Africa since 1938 still have bulges and fins. There are no transitional forms anywhere in the fossil record. Even Charles Darwin stated: "We cannot prove that a single species has been changed into another."

Why then do we see transitional forms in books and museums? Ernest Haekel, father of the recapitulation theory, confessed that a small number of his embryo diagrams were really forgeries, and hundreds of other scientists were also guilty. He said, "The observed material is so incomplete or insufficient as to compel us to fill in and reconstruct the missing links. The great majority of all morphological, anatomical, histological and embryological diagrams are not true to nature, but are more or less doctored, schematized and reconstructed."

These days many reputable and honest scientists are turning from the evolution theory. In West Germany Professor Fleischmann of Erlangen, a zoologist, said, "The Darwinian theory of descent has not a single fact to confirm it in the realm of nature. It is not the result of scientific research but purely the product of imagination."

When the covering of fraud is stripped away, the theory of evolution will be recognized as the biggest hoax in history.

Recently the school board of Dallas, Texas, adopted the book, "Biology, A Search for Order in Complexity," as a supplementary textbook for use in the Dallas schools, one copy to be placed in each biology classroom. This book presents both evolution and creation as alternate models for origins. Some evolutionists were outraged. The idea of hinting that life could have come about by any other means than evolution!

In order to present both sides to the public, a television debate was arranged, with five people speaking briefly on each side. The creationists presented scientific arguments for the belief in special creation, explained that the creation model was no more "religious" than evolution, and brought out the advantages of giving students information about both beliefs.

The evolutionists charged that the creationists were a political movement, that the textbook was propaganda, and threatened court action to remove the book from the schools.

Evidently, these people were not representative of the main body of evolutionists. Most people who believe in evolution believe in fairness as well. What is more fair than to teach both creation and evolution and let students make up their own minds from the evidence presented, instead of giving the evolution theory a monopoly?

It seems that in every other area of education the trend is to present all possible viewpoints (including the worst) for student discussion and personal decisions. Students are forced to read material that is immoral, traitorous and blasphemous, so that they can make up their own minds as to whether they will be moral, law abiding citizens, or rabble rousers seeking to overthrow the government. But let someone suggest exposing them to a concept related to God and there is violent opposition. However, transcendental meditation, part and parcel of idolatrous Eastern religions, is taught in some schools.

Creationists are not asking that only their viewpoint be used, as the evolutionists are. Nor do we ask that the Bible be taught, but only the scientific aspects of creationism. Many people are not aware that there are any.

There's been a widespread propaganda campaign to the effect that only a tiny group of fundamentalists, with little education and even less sense, believes in special creation. Actually, there are thousands of qualified scientists as well as thousands of other well educated professional people who realize that claims of evolution to be scientific just aren't so. And in every case where an unbiased poll has been taken concerning the teaching of creation as well as evolution in the public schools, at least 80%, often over 90%, have been in favor. In contrast, less than 10% feel that the present practice of teaching only evolution is right.

Evolutionists class creationism as "religion," claiming that it is a matter of faith. Of course it takes faith to believe that there is an all-wise, all-powerful Designer Who made this universe and all that is in it. But doesn't it take much more faith to believe that what we see about us came into being by chance? What set in motion the forces that produced man and his environment? Where did the materials come from?

Over most of the United States, Christian people find some of their tax dollars spent to teach their children that there is no God. It's past time that people who object to this evolutionary monopoly stand up and be counted.

Some people seem terribly confused these days about the teaching of religion.

Is it teaching religion to point out that the geologic column -- supporting pillar of evolution -- can be found nowhere on earth? That in hundreds of places the layers are out of order, that in some large areas they are almost all missing, and that in most areas only a few are found?

Is it teaching religion to explain that ancient writings and drawings and oral traditions from many countries tell of a world-wide flood, and that this would better explain the mixed-up strata which make up the crust of the earth?

Is it teaching religion to quote from modern writers who say that the present land mass of the earth, at the present rate of erosion, would be washed into the ocean in 14 million years, and to point out that even if some unknown mechanism kept pushing the land up above the waters the layers containing the fossils would have been washed off and we would have no fossil record? We still have the fossils, so how could the earth be billions of years old?

Is it teaching religion to state that no intermediate kinds of creatures have been found, and that the so-called "simple" forms that should have evolved into something else long ago are still with us?

Is it teaching religion to say that Karl Popper, called "the greatest philosopher of science that has ever been," said, "...it is important to show that Darwinism is not a scientific theory, but metaphysical." Sir Arthur Keith said, "Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable."

There's a lot of talk about "rights," the so-called "right" of women to destroy their unborn children, the "right" of students to receive a passing grade they did not earn, the "right" of minority workers to hold jobs for which they are not qualified. But what about the true rights that are being denied?

In many schools the students are denied the right to think, except along prescribed lines. (Does that sound like communist Russia?) A federal court struck down a New Jersey law mandating a moment of silence in schools, because the students might use that moment for prayer. They didn't worry that the time might be used to formulate plans to blow up the school or rape the teacher. But they seem to be paranoid about God, deathly afraid that He will sneak in somehow and influence someone.

Students are drilled in all the reasons why they should believe the evolution theory, but they are carefully shielded from all facts that cast a doubt on it. They are not told that breeders of animals and plants can breed for changes up to a certain point, but there are limits beyond which they cannot go. How could evolution occur if one kind of living thing could not change into another? They are told that coal was formed millions of years ago before man existed, but they are not told about the gold chain, definitely man made, which was found in a lump of coal in Illinois, or the iron pot found in a lump of coal in Oklahoma.

We need more people running for office who are concerned about true rights and who won't be scared off by the clamor of the extremists. We need more voters -- people concerned about the welfare of the country -- to vote such people into office. Otherwise we may wake up some morning to find that all our rights have been taken from us.

I read with interest the article "Instructor Wins Right to Monkey Around With Darwinism," (Jan. 8, 1994)

If evolution is such a sure thing, why are its proponents so afraid of having a competing theory taught? Do they harbor doubts, as Darwin did, that blind chance could produce a functioning eye? But of course that isn't politically correct! Their terror, at the Idea of intelligent design being presented as a possibility, must be rooted in the conviction that the evolution theory is vulnerable!

Some people say they don't believe in miracles, usually meaning the miracles recorded in the Bible. They seem to think God isn't powerful enough to do anything out of the ordinary, but they don't bat an eye at the manmade miracles of technology that have become part of our everyday lives. Did our technological marvels just happen by chance, or was intelligent design involved?

Everyone knows the answer to that question. But the human body is much more complicated than the most advanced computer, airplane, or space ship. Each tiny cell contains a multitude of working parts that must be arranged in exactly the proper order. Yet our children are taught in school that this just happened, and no intelligence was involved.