Suppose you had an idea that you thought was true. It was a revolutionary idea that would change the very fabric of societal beliefs and moral foundations.

You very much want this idea to be accepted by the general population because you desperately desire to see the changes in society that this idea will bring. You begin of course with a book. The book is a best seller. It’s more than a best seller; it is hailed around the world as the most important book written since the Bible.

Wow! Everyone is talking about your idea. Newspapers and magazines are buzzing with the possible implications to society if your idea is adopted. But now what? Even though your book is a best seller, it still has impacted only a small percentage of society. In order for your idea to have the desired effect, that is societal transformation, it has to be embraced by virtually everyone.

Then the ultimate strategy is hatched. It’s a strategy that cannot fail. Require every public school to teach your idea to every student. It can’t miss. How long will it take to indoctrinate enough people to reach the desired result? Perhaps a generation or two at the most will work. Certainly within 50 years every politician, judge, educator and even clergy will have been taught your idea.

Now fast forward 100 years. Four generations of school children have been taught your idea. Furthermore, opposing ideas have been banned from the public schools. Any teacher or student who even hints at an alternative theory is ridiculed and immediately silenced.

But wait. It hasn’t worked! How could it not work? You have forced every child in the western world to learn your idea. Every university teaches your idea and violently silences any opposition. But how is possible that most of the people still do not believe it?

This scenario is not a Grimm’s Fairy Tale or even a parable. It’s the true story of the Theory of Evolution. A USA Today/Gallup Pole last week found that 66% of Americans believe it is definitely or probably true that God created humans in their present form within the past 10,000 years.

How can it be that 100 years of indoctrination at every level of our society have failed to convince most of the people that evolution is true?

Perhaps it is the complete absence of transitional fossils. In his blockbuster book The Origin of the Species, Charles Darwin admitted that evidence for evolutionary transition was totally lacking. But from his vantage point in 1865, he was confident that scientists would unearth such evidence in the future. But they haven’t.

Perhaps it’s the complexity of creation at every level. In order to believe in evolution, one must believe in a series of outlandish coincidences strung together.

Or perhaps recent scientific discoveries such as DNA, the building blocks of all life, have revealed complexities of existence that make a belief in blind chance a totally outlandish thought.

But ultimately the answer is faith and instinct. Man instinctively knows he is more than an animal. Man feels a sense of destiny and purpose. Man has an inner drive to change this world and make a difference. He instinctively knows that drive comes from being made in the image of God, not the image of Bonzo the chimp. That’s why the greatest indoctrination campaign in history will never succeed.