A year or so ago, I posted something here about the claim by anti-evolutionists that school shootings, like those that took place at Columbine, could be explained by the lack of biblical education in the American public school system. “This is what happens,” they maintained, “when God is kept out of the classroom.” These claims of theirs were bolstered in the weeks after the attack by the story that one of the shooters was wearing a “Survival of the Fittest” t-shirt as he made his way through the school, murdering his classmates. At the time, I suspected that the story about the shirt was a convenient fabrication on the part of religious extremists in our country who saw an opportunity to influence public opinion, but it now looks as though that wasn’t the case.

Last night, a man identifying himself as an author working on a book about public school violence and Darwinism, sent me what he claimed was the scan of a page taken from the autopsy of Columbine shooter, Eric Harris. (The section of interest is copied here.) And, after a bit of poking around, I suspect it’s legitimate. I still don’t know that it proves any kind of causal relationship between Darwinism and school violence, but I thought that it was worth mentioning.

As for the fellow who sent it, I was going to e-mail him back and ask what side of the debate he would be approaching this from, but decided to Goggle him first. And, here’s the first quote I found online from Mr. Sherwin Dillard:

The Democratic Party and its presidential candidates for 20 years have embraced Sodomy, infanticide and Socialism.? Jamming scissors into the base of babies skulls at the moment of birth and suctioning out their brains (Partial-Birth Abortion) is something John Kerry has repeatedly voted to continue…

So, I think it’s pretty clear that he’ll be making the case that there is a connection. While it might make for a nice illustration, though, I don’t know how much can really be inferred from the fact that Harris was wearing the shirt. Harris, as you’ll also notice in the same attached blurb, was also wearing one glove at the time of the murders. Does this prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the crimes were perpetrated at the behest of Michael Jackson? Of course not.

All it proves to me is that this one very disturbed individual liked the phrase and found it somehow appropriate for the occasion. It does not say to me, “Darwin has shown me that there is no God, and so these actions can be taken without repercussion.” It also doesn’t give me any reason to believe that the very same Eric Harris, if he were extremely religious, wouldn’t have done the exact same thing in a shirt saying, “Vengeance is mine, sayth the Lord.”