By Carol Chmelynski
12/14/04 — A recent controversy about a small Ohio school district’s alleged decision to teach alternatives to evolution highlights the resurging interest in this issue.
The school board of the Dover (Pa.) Area School District, which serves 3,600 students, says the news media had it wrong when it reported that the board voted Oct. 18 to require the teaching of intelligent design.
The Dover school board issued a press release Nov. 19 clarifying the situation and offering a lengthy explanation of what it really intended students to learn in biology class.
About 40 states have been involved in the last four years with some challenge to the teaching of evolution at the local or state level, says Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education in Oakland, Calif.
A provision in the No Child Left Being Act requiring states to review science standards over the next two years provides a chance for critics to reshape how evolution is taught in public schools.
The evolution controversy drew national headlines a few years ago when the Kansas state board of education voted to de-emphasize teaching many aspects of evolution in statewide standards in 1999. The decision drew outrage from scientists, educators, and the media, and the board reversed its policy in 2001.
Since then, similar debates have occurred over state science standards in Ohio and Georgia.
In Ohio, the state board adopted a “teach the controversy” approach requiring students to examine criticisms of evolution. The policy states that this approach should not be construed as endorsing intelligent design — a hypothesis that says life is so complex that some intelligent force had to create it — and says that only evolution will be covered on state standardized tests.
“Ohio’s approach appears to represent an attempt to conform to the 1987 holding in Edwards v. Aguillard, in which the Supreme Court indicated that exploring other scientific theories of the origins of species might be constitutionally acceptable,” says NSBA staff attorney Thomas Hutton. “The court indicated that such an approach would be closely scrutinized for acceptable secular motives.”
“The controversy over evolution is arguably not scientific, but religious,” Hutton says. “School boards considering a ‘teach the controversy’ approach should be prepared to answer tough questions, for example, whether that approach is being applied to other topics.”
In Wisconsin, the school board of the 1,000-student Grantsburg school district fine-tuned its science curriculum Dec. 6 to read in part: “Students should be able to describe how scientists continue to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory. . . . In other words, evolution should be taught as a scientific theory that is open to critical scrutiny, not as a theory that can’t be questioned.” The policy also states that it “does not call for the teaching of creationism or other religious concepts.”
Proponents of intelligent design lauded the policy. “[Grantsburg] students are the real winners here,” says John West, associate director of the Discovery Institute in Seattle, “because now they will be able to study all the relevant scientific evidence relating to evolutionary theory, not just a skewed selection of the evidence.”
And this fall, six parents filed a lawsuit — with help from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) — against the Cobb County, Ga., school district for inserting a disclaimer in ninth-grade biology textbooks. It says: “This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.” A judge is expected to rule on the case soon.
The 102,000-student district added the disclaimer in 2002 after more than 2,000 parents complained that the book did not present other views about the origins of life.
Linwood Gunn, the school district’s attorney, told USA Today, “We’re trying to . . . improve our evolution instruction and at the same time acknowledge that religious beliefs do enter into it.”
“Lay people are confused about the word ‘theory,’” says Scott. “They think the word theory means something we are uncertain about. But in science, theories explain facts.”
“Giving equal time to alternative views suggests that they are on par scientifically with evolution. That might be politically smart but it is scientifically inaccurate and an injustice to students,” says Scott. “Evolution is grounded in empirical evidence; and that’s what we should be teaching.”
The ACLU is now considering a lawsuit against the Dover, Pa., school district over its policy on intelligent design.
The Dover, Pa., school board issued a statement to “clarify and correct information” it says was wrongly reported in the media. To set the record straight, the press release says that, on the recommendation of science teachers, the school district purchased 220 copies of the Prentice Hall textbook, Biology.
The press release explains that the district also received a donation of 60 copies of Of Pandas and People, which is listed as a reference book in the curriculum. That book, which teaches intelligent design, “is not a required text,” the board states. “In an effort to present a balanced curriculum, the book is made available to all students who wish to review the book.”
The school district also updated its biology curriculum to include the following statement: “Students will be made aware of gaps/problems in Darwin’s theory and of other theories of evolution including, but not limited to, intelligent design.”
The district requires the following statement to be read to all students: “The state standards require students to learn about Darwin’s theory of evolution and to eventually take a standardized test of which evolution is a part. Because Darwin’s theory is a theory, it is still being tested as new evidence is discovered. The theory is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence.”
The press release says the district “wants to support and not discriminate against students and parents that do have competing beliefs, especially in the area of the origin of life debate.”
The release states that Superintendent Richard Nilsen will monitor instruction to make sure teachers are neither promoting nor inhibiting religion. But it also says, “Nilsen is on record stating that no teacher will teach intelligent design, creationism, or present his/her or the board’s religious beliefs.”
Two school board members — Jeffrey Brown and his wife, Carol Brown — resigned in protest over the decision.