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Dr. David Herbert believes that the way to overcome the conflict between teachers teaching evolution as a provable fact and Christian parents who want their children taught the biblical account of creation is to teach neither. In their place, says the retired London, Ontario school teacher, children should be taught the "underlying assumptions" common to both these attempts to answer the same, age-old question - where did we come from?

"They are two singularities in the past. Neither can be proven nor disproven," says Herbert, the author of three books on the subject. "One of the underlying assumptions in society is that evolution is a science. It's not a science at all. In fact, I don't use the word evolution. I use the word evolutionism."

Nor does Herbert, an evangelical Christian, agree with creation science, the attempt by some in recent years to merge the two streams. Its advocates, he told Today's Family News, "are primarily scientists - very few philosophers and certainly no historians. But this [question of origins] has nothing to do with science. It is philosophical and historical. Let's treat it that way."

By coming at the question in this fashion, Herbert argues that far from being polar-opposites, evolutionism (as he calls it) would not exist today were it not for creationism.

"I've shown that within Western society, we had creationist underlying assumptions," he says. "The Bible was the source of these underlying assumptions. In the Enlightenment, we had a new authority, which was reason. I've shown that all those underlying assumptions became naturalistic. And within that framework, evolutionism arose. And that's only within the last, say, 300 years."

"So within the school system, then, I believe we have a responsibility to teach both of these as philosophies, as opposed to just offering one point of view disguised as unassailable science."

But trying to persuade an entrenched, secular education system to even consider such a radical approach is - in Herbert's view - an ongoing "spiritual battle."

Yet there is progress. At his third presentation in as many years to the Thames Valley District School Board in October, Herbert and a small group of supporters reminded trustees that under government guidelines, they cannot uncritically offer evolution and nothing else.

As proof, they produced a letter from former education minister Janet Ecker. "Regarding the instruction of the topic of origins, whether done formally or informally," she wrote to Herbert in September 2002, "the ministry has stipulated that different points of view on such controversial issues as evolution and creationism should be discussed, where appropriate, in the classroom."

They also unveiled a new document entitled Parental Empowerment and the Instruction of Origins that sets out their expectations of the public school system. To date, two parents have taken it to their children's teachers and principals.

"The areas of responsibility are all lined up," says Herbert. "And the responsibility's going where it should be - right in the hands of the parents. They're the key players. They've got to decide where they're going to take this thing."