Creationism v. evolution in schools has been for many years a battle in the nation’s culture war, and these days it’s no different.
Texas had an evolution casualty in the recent resignation of a state education official over the divide, Florida next week will consider acknowledging evolution by name for the first time in its proposed new curriculum and South Carolina in December approved a textbook teaching evolution after a skirmish over its content.
But though evolution has won some recent battles, its supporters aren’t relaxing. Instead, they’re bracing against what they see as a growing effort to undermine the theory’s credibility.
“There’s a big push to teach the weaknesses of evolution,” said Dan Quinn, a spokesman for the Texas Freedom Network, which supports separation of church and state. “It’s all just phony arguments in an attempt to raise doubt among students that evolution is a valid theory.”
But evolution’s detractors argue that the science has too many gaps to be considered ironclad. They say, for example, there is an incomplete fossil record to support evolution’s claims and that random processes are incapable of producing complex systems.
“There are some very specific items where students are only getting one side of the story and we would like to see students getting all of the information,” said Robert Crowther, a spokesman for the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which favors more education about evolution’s weaknesses. “If a 10th grader can understand some of the evidence that supports evolution, they can certainly learn some of the evidence that challenges it.”
Evolution states that natural selection and gene mutations are responsible for all life on earth and is considered by most scientists to be the cornerstone of modern biology. Creationists, on the other hand, believe that the development of life is the work of a supernatural being.
On Jan. 3, the National Academy of Sciences, which advises the government on scientific matters, released a book that reiterated the group’s previous position: evolution, and not creationism, should be taught in American public schools.
Over the years, those who oppose evolution have changed tactics. They originally pushed for schools to teach creationism. But when the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987 equated creationism with religion and found it unconstitutional for public schools, the movement began promoting the “intelligent design” argument as a scientific concept which posits that biological processes are so complex they must be the work of a greater force than nature.
But a federal judge ruled in 2005 that intelligent design is also rooted in religion. He barred the Dover School District in Pennsylvania from its first-in-the-nation inclusion of intelligent design in a science curriculum. The school district had required that a statement be read during ninth-grade biology classes that said evolution had inexplicable gaps and referred students to a book about intelligent design.
This year, the Florida and Texas state boards of education will decide which direction to take their science standards, which are up for review.
On Feb. 19, Florida’s Board of Education will vote on proposed revised standards that for the first time require students to learn about evolution as the basis of modern biology. Florida, whose standards currently require students to learn about “biological changes over time,” is one of only a handful of states that don’t use the word “evolution” in their standards.
Florida’s new standards have won praise from teachers and scientists.
“If we expect Florida to become a hi-tech biotechnology center, we’ve got to teach the kids good science,” said Joe Wolf, president of Florida Citizens for Science.
But others say the curriculum should include the option of discussing other theories. At least eight local school boards, out of 67 in the state, have passed resolutions objecting to the new standards.
One state Board of Education member has already signaled her opposition. In a November newspaper interview, former middle school principal Donna Callaway said evolution should be taught, but not “to the exclusion of other theories of the origin of life.” She added that though she didn’t feel intelligent design should be taught, it should still be “acknowledged as a theory which many people accept along with others.”
Last week, three Republican legislators — including future House Speaker Dean Cannon — said they were considering filing a bill to force the board to specify that evolution is a “theory” and not fact which would raise questions about the credibility of evolution.
Opponents say such a move is disingenuous. In everyday language, a theory is a guess. But scientific theory is an explanation for phenomena that can be tested and is supported by evidence, they say.
Texas will begin debating its revised standards later this year, although the fight has already begun. In November, Chris Comer, the state’s nine-year director of science curriculum, resigned after forwarding an e-mail announcing a speech by an intelligent design opponent. She said she was pressured to quit by state education officials, who said that sending the e-mail signaled that she improperly endorsed evolution.
Texas students are required to learn about evolution, but the standards include a provision that allows students to “critique scientific explanations…as to their strengths and weaknesses.” In 2003, that provision resulted in a campaign by conservative members of the state Board of Education to reject biology books that they felt did not adequately cover the weaknesses of evolutionary theory.
The effort failed 11-4, but the board’s makeup has since grown more conservative, and one member on the losing side is now the chairman of the board. “Even though it’s incredibly strong that (scientists) all agree on evolution, they could be wrong,” Don McLeroy said. “They’ll be the first ones to admit that they don’t know anything for sure; they always say it could change.”
He pointed that there was a time when science claimed “the sun went around the earth… and Galileo was the outlier.”
Texas is in the early stages of reviewing its science standards, but McLeroy said a group of science teachers has already suggested removing a provision that allows criticism of theories like evolution. If such a move passed, it would eliminate the kind of books McLeroy wants to see in schools. This type of decision could dictate the textbook options for smaller states since Texas is the country’s second largest textbook purchaser.
The one evolution fight that has already taken place recently followed the trend of the past few years: a victory for evolution.
In December, the South Carolina Board of Education held off endorsing a biology textbook because a retired Clemson professor challenged the book’s claim that evolution was the foundation of all lessons about life. The book’s author, Ken Miller, had testified against intelligent design in the Dover, Pa., case.
Several scientists, including Miller, came to the board’s January meeting to defend the book. The board voted to approve it.
Contact Pauline Vu at pvu@stateline.org.
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By Bob Yourell on Feb 23, 2008 3:28:02 PM
Specify who you are talking about. "Science lost its credibility when 'consensus' was inserted as validation of science. (i.e. Global Warming)" The idea that science lost it's credibility is a real howler. Who are the people that stopped believing in science, exactly? Who changed science so that consensus alone validated it? This statement is really manipulative and unethical.
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THEORY
By Robert Balogh-Robinson on Feb 18, 2008 3:05:55 PM
Michael in the post above (#3) used the word theory as if it denigrated the idea. It doesn't, to have achieved the high status of a scientific theory is to reach a high intellectual state indeed. Although the use of it at all in that context is completely incorrect, Global Climate Change predictions are based on a number of fairly well established scientific theories, including thermodynamics, fluid flow, electro-magnetism, optics, and a bunch of others I don't know well personally. One of the key tools used is non-linear dynamics, a cumbersome branch of mathematics still in its infancy.
Consensus in science is very important, and always has been. Peer review, frequent conferences, open communication and cooperation have been extremely important in the advance of science in the 20th and 21st centuries. The Hollywood version of the lone scientist working against the establishment and winning out in the end is largely fictional. Einstein is the perfect example of the media (and to an extent Einstein) created myth of the outcast made good. Even a rather cursory glance at the facts refutes that though. He was working a patent clerk, based on his academic record, a pretty good job. Then in 1905 he published 4 major papers in a top journal, so much for being cast aside by the establishment. He was noticed and snatched up by Max Planck, as established and important a Physicist as ever lived. Einsteinâs career arc can only be described as meteoric within the community. True there were some lunatics in the established order such as Lenard the anti-Semite, but he had other problems, and his opposition never prevented anyone else from taking up Quantum Theory or Relativity. At least until Hitler gave the right wing "Aryan Physicists" some power.
So, The Theory of Evolution deserves a tremendous amount of respect for its predictive and explanatory powers. The "gaps" in the fossil record are not all that troubling, and will continue to be filled in, slowly but surely. Contrary to ID advocates wild claims there is no known structure that could not have come from a series of slight changes over time from previous structures. Although I hope they continue to suggest them as they seem to motivate evolutionary biologists to explain the history and detail of neat structures. I am quite sure I would never have read the description of the history of the eye if some ID'er hadn't annoyed an evolutionary biologist enough to write it out in detail in lay terms. ID on the other hand neither explains nor predicts anything, nor has it withstood the long and arduous review process that is the hallmark of good science theory.
And "rocket scientists" in the way that term was used in a previous post refers more to engineers and inventors, who in fact probably did understand the need for consensus in science quite well.
Good science that survives and is used in some form, even if a more complete theory exists.
Quantum Mechanics, Relativity, Thermodynamics, E+M, Optics, Germ Theory, Evolution, Atomic Theory, Platetechtonics. And others of the sort. Just THEORY all.
Good science that has been abandoned or supplanted because it was incomplete and not really useful.
Aluminiferous Ether, Caloric theory of heat, Lamarckian Genetics and a host of others deserving of recognition.
Bad Science
Creation Science, Intelligent Design, the Demon Possession Theory of Disease, Voodoo (both regular and economic), psychic powers, astrology, alchemy, spells and potions, UFOâs and a host of others. Be they right or wrong, they are not science!
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biology
By Bob C on Feb 16, 2008 11:01:26 AM
michael williams said "I would forbid my child to hear such 'science' in school in the absence of the faith or religous side being PROPERLY explained in schools as well."
You want science teachers to teach supernatural magic? You want all public school students to be as ignorant and uneducated as you are?
You can lie to your child all you want, but if you think you can force science teachers to do your lying for you, you're crazy.
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Faith vs Science
By michael williams on Feb 16, 2008 9:31:05 AM
Science lost its credibility when "consensus" was inserted as validation of science. (i.e. Global Warming)
It doesnt take a "rocket scientist" to know that consensus is not science! As soon as it was applied to the Global Warming THEORY, it became political.
I would forbid my child to hear such "science" in school in the absence of the faith or religous side being PROPERLY explained in schools as well.
If these liberal secularists and aethists want to pollute our kids with junk science then they need to be ready to allow the faith based side of the argument to accompany it!!
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Galileo
By Robert Balogh-Robinson on Feb 15, 2008 1:03:00 PM
"Science" never had the Sun going around the Earth. That little piece of wisdom came from the religious conservative dogma and its slavish devotion to Aristotle and the classics. The first real western science on the issue was done by Copernicus (and Bruno) and then was tested by Galileo and his telescopic observations and the underlying mechanism was developed by Newton. In a very real sense, science as we know it didn't exist until then.
The people that made Galileo an "outlier" would have applauded the work of the discovery institute.
I should, but don't, know what the Persian and Indian Astronomers were doing during the middle ages. If they had an observation and measurement based system of astronomy I would be happy to give them the precedence they are due.
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By Bob C on Feb 14, 2008 9:34:58 AM
The Christians who attack science education are the people who most need a science education.
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