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Record: 1
Title: Debate Over Teaching of Evolution Theory Shifts to Ohio.
Authors: Hoff, David J.
Source: Education Week; 3/20/2002, Vol. 21 Issue 27, p14, 2p, 1c
Document Type: Article
Subject Terms: CREATIONISM
DEBATES & debating
EDUCATION -- Curricula
EVOLUTION
EVOLUTION (Biology) -- Study & teaching
LIFE -- Origin
RELIGION & science
Geographic Terms: OHIO
UNITED States
Abstract: Offers a look at a debate in Columbus, Ohio, over how to teach the theory of evolution. Debate between two defenders of evolutionary theory and two advocates of intelligent design; Problems advocates of intelligent design have with Darwinian evolution; Preservation of the academic freedom of teachers to teach intelligent design alongside evolution theory; Declaration of the National Academy of Sciences in 1999 that intelligent design should not be part of the high school curriculum.
Full Text Word Count: 845
ISSN: 0277-4232
Accession Number: 10285706
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Debate Over Teaching of Evolution Theory Shifts to Ohio


More than 1,000 people turned out last week for a biology lesson in Columbus, Ohio.

The 21/2-hour debate between scientists over how schools should teach natural selection drew scientists, educators, students, and .parents, as well as members of the state board of education, who will decide what to include in new science standards to be issued by the end of the year.

Audience members heard about a clash of ideas that typifies the ongoing debate over how to teach evolution--a concept that scientists say is the basis for understanding modern biology, but which some critics say is insufficient to explain the biological complexities of the world.

The board's standards-writing committee invited two defenders of evolutionary theory and two advocates of "intelligent design" to participate in a public debate over whether to mention intelligent design in conjunction with the theory of evolution, which originated with the studies of Charles Darwin in the 19th century.

Advocates of intelligent de, sign--a small proportion of the scientific community--say that scientists still debate many of the key assumptions of Darwin's theories. Too many changes happened too quickly in fossil records, they say, for natural selection to explain them. Therefore, their argument goes, teachers should be free to discuss the possibility that an intelligent designer, such as God, intervened to shape humans and other animals.

"We want to protect teachers that choose to share information about the controversy with their students," said Jonathan Wells, a scientist and religious scholar who argued in favor of intelligent design at the debate. "Teachers should be protected from the [American Civil Liberties Union] or other pro-Darwin organizations," said Mr. Wells, who is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, a Seattle think tank that promotes the theory.

Intelligent design, his debating foes responded, shouldn't be brought up in classrooms because it hasn't been accepted by most scientists.

The journal Science hasn't cited intelligent design in any of the 200 articles that have mentioned biological evolution since January 2001, according to Lawrence M. Krauss, the chairman of the physics department at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

Leading science organizations-such as the National Academy of Sciences, the American Society for Cell Biology, and the Ohio Academy of Sciences-all refute the theory, Mr. Krauss added during his presentation at the March 11 event.

In 1999, the National Academy of Sciences declared that intelligent design and "other claims of supernatural intervention" should not be part of the high school curriculum. (See Education Week, April 28, 1999.)

Free Speech?

Ohio is the current hotbed in the debate over how to teach evolution in schools. Under state law, the state school board must revise Ohio's science standards by the end of the year.

The last major state-level debate on the subject occurred in 1999, when the Kansas state school board eliminated evolution from the state's science standards, prompting a flurry of national discussion of the issue. After new members were elected in 2000, the board revised the standards to include a thorough treatment of the subject. (See Education Week, Feb. 21, 2001.)

Ohio's draft of the revisions say 10th graders should "analyze how natural selection and its evolutionary consequences provide a scientific explanation for the diversity and unity of all past life forms as depicted in the fossil record and present life forms."

The proposal is much better than the state's current standards, which give an incomplete treatment of the topic, according to Lawrence S. Lerner, a professor emeritus of physics at California State University-Long Beach, who has graded every state on how well its standards cover evolution.

Mr. Wells said in an interview that the Discovery Institute is advocating that teachers be given the option of teaching about intelligent design. Many of those who have tried, he said, have been prevented from doing so.

Such arguments from intelligent-design advocates have become common since 1987, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana law that required schools to teach creationism as an alternative to evolution in science classes.

To avoid being labeled religious zealots, intelligent-design supporters are framing the debate in terms of academic freedom or freedom of speech, according to Eugenie C. Scott, the executive director of the National Center for Science Education, an E1 Cerrito, Calif., nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the teaching of evolution in high schools.

"Each point taps into a cultural norm that is certainly intended to get political support," Ms. Scott said. "It places the scientific and education community on the defensive."

The debate in Ohio will continue through the end of the year. The state board of education plans to release its latest draft of the science standards on April 1 and will be accepting, public comments throughout the summer, according to Beth A. Gianforcaro, a spokeswoman for the Ohio education department.

PHOTO (COLOR): A crowd of more than 1,000 gathers in Columbus last week to listen to a debate over how to teach the theory of evolution. The Ohio school board is revising the state's science standards.


Copyright of Education Week is the property of Editorial Projects in Education. Copyright of PUBLICATION is the property of PUBLISHER. The copyright in an individual article may be maintained by the author in certain cases. Content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
Source: Education Week, 3/20/2002, Vol. 21 Issue 27, p14, 2p
Item: 10285706
 
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Record: 2
Title: Not (Just) in Kansas Anymore.
Authors: Scott, Eugenia C.
Source: Science; 05/05/2000, Vol. 288 Issue 5467, p813, 2p
Document Type: Article
Subject Terms: CREATIONISM -- Study & teaching
SCIENCE -- Study & teaching -- United States
Geographic Terms: UNITED States
Abstract: Opposes the teaching of scientific creationism and other religiously based views in science classes in the United States (US). Problems with antievolutionism in science education; Degree of public acceptance of evolution; Impact of US religious history on science.
Full Text Word Count: 1996
ISSN: 0036-8075
Accession Number: 3124230
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Section: SCIENCE'S COMPASS

ESSAYS ON SCIENCE AND SOCIETY

NOT (JUST) IN KANSAS ANYMORE


In August of 1999, after months of wrangling, the Kansas State Board of Education passed its state science education standards. Against the recommendations of a committee of 27 scientists and teachers, the board voted to strip from the standards all mention of the Big Bang, the age of the Earth, and any reference to organisms having descended with modification from common ancestors: in other words, evolutionary astronomy, geology, and biology. Teachers were informed that evolution would not be included in the state high-school assessment exams, greatly decreasing the likelihood that the subject would be taught.

The New York Times, the Washington Post, Associated Press, and other national media covered the story widely. Nature, the Economist, the BBC, and other British media--as they tend to do when antievolutionism makes the news--presented their usual spin of "aren't the colonials an odd bunch?" As the media probed for more stories, the National Center for Science Education (where I work) informed the sometimes incredulous press that, yes, indeed, antievolutionism is a widespread problem in American kindergarten through high school or "K-12" education. The experience of the committee that wrote the Kansas science education standards is mirrored in many other states; such committees are regularly lobbied by antievolutionists either to include some form of creationism or to omit, decrease, or set apart the teaching of evolution from all other sciences. Months before the Kansas school board acted, Nebraska watered down evolution in its science standards. A few years ago, Illinois adopted science standards that ignored the e-word, and Arizona and New Mexico include evolution in their current standards largely because scientists, teachers, and other citizens fought for revisions of these documents after initial passage of what can only be referred to as substandards omitting evolution. Many other states treat evolution in only a cursory fashion.

Even though the Supreme Court has ruled that teaching creationism and creation "science" are unconstitutional, we still get calls from parents, teachers, or school board members asking whether some impending resolution in their district requiring "equal time" for creationism is appropriate. We get a disturbing number of questions about teachers who give equal time to creationism and evolution, even though their districts do not (and cannot) require them to do so. We are still being consulted about school assemblies where, in the name of "fairness," a creationist is invited to tell students that the scientifically well-accepted idea that living things shared common ancestry is a "theory in crisis" with many "serious flaws"-and also that the world is only 10,000 years old. Some of these assemblies violate the U.S. Constitution's requirement that schools be religiously neutral, by providing a forum for a speaker who openly proselytizes students to reject evolution in favor of a literal Biblical interpretation of history.

More frequently, we are asked for help when school districts are considering leaving out the teaching of evolution ("if they can't teach both, they won't teach either;' as one board member put it), or limiting or separating out evolution as somehow different from other scientific fields. Disclaimers that teachers must read to students or paste into textbooks are becoming more popular. Typically, they declare that evolution is "only a theory" (in other words, a guess, hunch, or half-baked idea) and therefore by implication nothing that students should take seriously. Shortly after the Kansas incident, Oklahoma's textbook commission voted to place in biology textbooks a disclaimer identical to the one currently in Alabama textbooks, which states that evolution is a theory, not fact, because "no one was present when life first appeared on Earth." No other subject in the science curriculum is so disclaimed.

Whereas "balancing" evolution with Creation science was advocated before the Supreme Court struck down laws requiring equal time for creation and evolution, the neocreationist approach is to balance evolution with "evidence against evolution." Scientists unfamiliar with such "evidence" soon discover that evidence against evolution is just a euphemism for creation science. In fact, as I write this, a law is making its way through the Arizona legislature that would require that evidence against evolution be taught along with evolution. Don't be misled: Such evidence-against-evolution regulations are not proposing that teachers present controversies about how evolution occurs, but that teachers pretend there is a serious debate taking place among scientists over whether evolution occurs. A lawsuit scheduled for trial in Minnesota State Court this spring concerns a high-school teacher who wishes to teach an evidence-against-evolution curriculum indistinguishable from creation science. Only the terminology has been changed in order to circumvent the First Amendment's prohibition against establishment of religion.

The degree of public acceptance of evolution in the United States differs sharply from that within the scientific community. In a 1996 survey of a sample selected from American Men and Women of Science, Witham and Larson asked scientists the same Gallup poll questions regularly asked of the general public.(*) Whereas in 1997, 47% of Americans answered "agree" to Gallup's question about whether humans were created in their present form 10,000 years ago, only 5% of scientists did. (I for one was surprised it was that high!) To Gallup's question on agreement whether evolution occurred without God's involvement, 45% of scientists answered affirmatively, but only 9% of nonscientists. Disproving the idea that all evolutionists are atheists, scientists and nonscientists had the same response to the "theistic evolution" question (evolution occurred, but was guided by God): 40% agreed. So while fewer than half of Americans accept evolution, an overwhelming majority of scientists do.

The United States stands out among developed countries in its low acceptance of one of the major organizing principles of science. I believe these statistics reflect the unique settlement and religious history of our nation, in which frontier communities set up their own school systems largely independent of state and federal influence, much less control. The decentralization of American education is a source of wonder to Europeans and Japanese, for example, who have state curricula that are uniform across all communities in their nations. In the United States, even schools within the same district may not teach the same subjects in the same order, or even in the same year!

American religious history reflects an equally decentralized, "frontier" orientation. We were initially settled, after ail, by religious dissidents, who formed congregational rather than hierarchical religious systems in which decisions largely were made locally. The United States also has been the nursery for a wide variety of spontaneously generated, independent sects, often inspired by charismatic leaders. It was in the United States that the Seventh Day Adventists, the Church of Latter Day Saints, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Science, and extinct sects such as Shakers and Millerites were founded, reflecting our decentralized, nonhierarchical religious past. But perhaps the most important reason modern antievolutionism developed here rather than in, say, Europe, was the founding in 1910-1915 of Fundamentalism, a Protestant view that stresses the inerrancy of the Bible. Fundamentalism was not successfully exported to Europe or Great Britain, but it formed the basis in the United States for the antievolutionism of the 1920s Scopes trial era, as well as the present day.

Because of its deep religious and historical roots, creationism will not go away any time soon. "Young Earth" creation science organizations such as the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) and the newer (but almost as large) Answers in Genesis ministries have been joined by scores of local and regional organizations. Their constituency is literalist conservative Christians, an estimated 30 to 35% of the American public. But nonliteralist Christians (about 50% of the American population) are being reached by a newer creationist movement, "intelligent design creationism" (IDC), that advocates the idea that evolution (and modern science in general) are stalking horses for philosophical materialism and atheism. IDC stresses existential issues, claiming that if evolution is true, there is a substantial price to pay in loss of purpose and meaning of life. Although they rarely express traditional creationist positions on a young age of the Earth, IDCs echo their predecessor's claims that evolution is a theory in crisis, which scientists are rapidly abandoning.

Some IDC proponents are also deliberately targeting intellectuals. IDC leader Phillip Johnson has published opinion pieces (opposite the editorial page or "oped") in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and other major national media. An IDC think tank in Seattle, the Center for Renewal of Science and Culture, supports several postdocs who organize conferences on university campuses and write op-ed pieces and books in an effort to persuade the intellectual elite that IDC and "theistic science" are legitimate scholarly enterprises.

Although IDCs agree on the philosophical issues, when it comes to the scientific issues, they are vague--and very much disunited. Some support a 10,000-year-old Earth; others accept the Big Bang, an old earth, and radiometric dating, but reject biological evolution's core idea that living things descended with modification from common ancestors. Two ideas not already present in creation science have emerged from IDC: biochemist Michael Behe's "irreducible complexity" (developed in his book, Darwin's Black Box) and philosopher William Dembski's "the design inference" the subject of his book of the same name. Behe argues that natural selection is incapable of explaining certain kinds of complex molecular structures that supposedly would not function without a minimal number of interacting components; hence, we must seek an "intelligent" (divine) explanation. Dembski claims that a logical procedure heavily dependent on probabilities can filter out designed phenomena from those produced by either natural processes or chance.

Scientists and philosophers have examined these concepts and have found them wanting. Biologists have rejected irreducible complexity,(A) and philosophers have been similarly unresponsive to the design inference.(B) Although IDC proponents seek validation by university colleagues and intellectuals, they have not yet produced scholarship accepted in scientific circles.(Section) Just as creation science was rejected by the scientific community, but accomplished its goals politically by "equal time" laws, IDC is being promoted to school boards for inclusion in the science curriculum without having contributed anything substantial to our understanding of either science or philosophy of science.

Scientists and educators have been calling for improvement of both college-level and precollegiate science education. This necessarily involves assuring that local schools and school boards do not further weaken evolution education. According to the neutralist principle in biology, a mutation will eventually replace the wild type unless it is opposed by natural selection. It is an unsubtle metaphor: if scientists do not oppose antievolutionism, it will reach more people with the mistaken idea that evolution is scientifically weak, and further, that scientists are clinging to it only because of a previous commitment to atheism--and perhaps a selfish desire to keep the grant money flowing. The subsequent further reduction of scientific literacy (to say nothing of a decline in confidence in the scientific community) is not something we should passively let happen.

The author is at the National Center for Science Education, 925 Kearney Street, Et Cerrito, CA 945302810, USA, E-mail: scott@natcenscied.org

(*) L. Witham, Washington Times, 11 April 1997, p. A8.

(A) See, for example, N. W. Blackstone, Q. Rev. Biol. 72, 445 (1997); J. A. Coyne, Nature 383, 227 (1996); R. Dorit, Am. Sci, 85, 474 (1997); A. H. Orr, Boston Rev. 21(6):28 (1997).

(B) See, for example, B. Fitelson, C. Stephens, E. Sober, Philos. Sci. 66, 472--88 (1999); E. Eells, Philos, Books 40(4) (1999).

(Section) G. Gilchrist, Rep. NCSE17(3), 14 (1997).

~~~~~~~~

By Eugenia C. Scott

Eugenie C. Scott, a physical anthropologist, is executive director of the National Center for Science Education, Inc., a not-for-profit membership organization that works to improve the teaching of evolution and of science as a way of knowing. It opposes the teaching of "scientific" creationism and other religiously based views in science classes. She is a coauthor of the National Academy of Science's, Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science, and has consulted with the NAS on the revision of its "Science and Creationism" booklet.


Copyright of Science is the property of American Association for the Advancement of Science and its content may not be copied without the publisher's express written permission except for the print or download capabilities of the retrieval software used for access. This content is intended solely for the use of the individual user. Copyright of Science is the property of American Association for the Advancement of Science and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
 
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Record: 3
Title: Bob Jones U. Offers Its Controversial Curriculum to High-School Students Online.
Authors: Carr, Sarah
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education; 3/10/2000, Vol. 46 Issue 27, pA47, 3/4p
Document Type: Article
Subject Terms: BOB Jones University (Greenville, S.C.)
DISTANCE education
Geographic Terms: SOUTH Carolina
UNITED States
GREENVILLE (S.C.)
Abstract: Reports on the Bob Jones University's sale of satellite-delivered courses to Christian high schools and home-schooled students. Types of schools that purchased mathematics and science courses; Criticism against the courses' curricula, including the teaching of creationism; Potential problems offered by university courses, according to educators and business leaders involved in distance learning.
Full Text Word Count: 1136
ISSN: 0009-5982
Accession Number: 3092357
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Section: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
BOB JONES U. OFFERS ITS CONTROVERSIAL CURRICULUM TO HIGH-SCHOOL STUDENTS ONLINE


BOB JONES UNIVERSITY is notorious as a Christian institution whose controversial ban on interracial dating became the subject, of a U, S. Supreme Court case. Now it is Starting to make a name for itself another way--selling satellite-delivered courses to Christian high schools and home-schooled students,

Most of the schools that have purchased the mathematics and science courses are small institutions that have been unable to find or afford enough teachers to offer a full curriculum. While many of the schools say that Bob Jones supplies a needed service, other educators have questioned the courses' curricula, including the teaching of creationism.

Brenda Ball, a biology instructor at Bob Jones, says the university is offering its satellite courses to 41 schools across the country this semester. The university started the broadcasts five years ago.

Bob Jones, which is not accredited, has a residential campus in Greenville, S.C., where it enrolls about 5,000 students. It has attracted national attention several times. in 1998, university officials threatened to arrest a gay alumnus if he visited the campus. And in a case that reached the Supreme Court in 1983, the university was denied tax-exempt status as a result of its ban on interracial dating.

A SHORTAGE OF TEACHERS

What is less well known is the increasing hunger for the university's courses among administrators at small, religious high schools and among families who teach their children at home.

Students at Calvary Baptist Academy, located north of Pittsburgh, are taking six courses through Bob Jones this semester. The success of the courses has prompted school officials to hope that they have at last solved the perennial problem of finding qualified instructors.

"Math and science teachers are very hard to come by," says Janet M. Brewer, the Calvary Baptist teaching assistant who supervises the satellite courses. "A lot of math and science students seem to be going into other professions, and as a small school in rural Pennsylvania, we had difficulties finding a qualified teacher for our students."

Michael Boole, the principal of Calvary Baptist, says the school pays the university $11,900 per year for a package of up to six courses. The school has some additional expenses related to the courses, such as equipment, but even so, Mr. Boole says it costs the school much less to use the Bob Jones courses than to find and hire instructors.

Ms. Ball, the Bob Jones instructor, teaches a 10th-grade biology course to about 500 students, including those at Calvary. The students are connected to the Bob Jones network and watch Ms. Ball on television monitors. Students are able to push a button to get her attention and speak into a telephone-like device to ask questions.

Ms. Ball says the university occasionally receives inquiries from small public schools or nonreligious private schools that are interested in the satellite courses, but it usually works only with those that have some kind of Christian affiliation.

"We begin the classes in prayer, and there is a strong teaching of creationism in my class," says Ms. Ball. "Some schools would not be able to go along with us on this."

Ms. Ball says she tries to cover all of the major topics that would be included in a public high school's biology course, so she does provide an overview of evolution. But she points out what she says are weaknesses in the argument for evolution.

"I believe in theistic evolution, and we have some students whose background is in deistic evolution, but I try to draw a line and say that one has got to be right and the other wrong," she says. "I tell them that if they hold the Bible as the basis of belief, then they need to hold to what the Bible says."

Ms. Ball also "makes applications whenever possible" to various social issues in the course, discussing such topics as abortion and cloning from "a Christian perspective."

Gerald D. Skoog, a former president of the National Science Teachers Association and a professor of science education at Texas Tech University, says "it is within Bob Jones's prerogative" to teach such perspectives as long as the university offers its courses only to private schools.

But Mr. Skoog adds: "Biologists basically agree that evolution is the most important concept to study in biology, and so any attempt to diminish the power of that particular concept is not good science education regardless of where it takes place."

LEARNING AT HOME

The demand for the Bob Jones courses is growing not only among Christian high schools, but also among home-schooled students, says Ms. Ball. Several hundred students view the courses from their homes, although most do not have or cannot afford the equipment that would enable them to interact with the instructor during classes.

Jackie B. Hicks, president of the South Carolina Education Association, says she has not heard about the Bob Jones course offerings to high schools, but she urges parents and schools to examine closely what is being taught in courses and the accreditation status of their source.

"We hope they would look closely at the quality and content," she says. "But since it is going into private schools and for homeschoolers, it would be a local decision."

MORE OPTIONS

Educators and business leaders involved in distance learning say they believe that the number of courses like those at Bob Jones will increase rapidly as distance education spreads. But they note that the new offerings also bring a potential for problems.

"The rise of distance learning offers students far greater educational choice than they have ever had before," says Burck Smith, the president of Smarthinking Inc., a company that provides online tutoring services. "While this means that students have far more opportunity to learn subjects they never would have had access to, it also means that they are exposed to more controversial messages.

"Roughly," he adds, "I think this is an issue that is more reflective of the Internet and the wired world than simply of education."

Mr. Smith and Bruce Droste, the director of a consortium of Massachusetts high schools that share a set of online courses, say that the constitutionally required separation of church and state could become an issue if Bob Jones offered its courses to public schools.

Mr. Droste says he likes to think of online learning as a "smorgasbord," but adds that he thinks the feast may eventually be subject to increased regulation.

"People can pick up what they wish and pass on what they don't want," he says. "It is obvious that many will take a [lass on Bob Jones, and there is probably another segment that will be drawn to their offerings."

~~~~~~~~

By Sarah Carr gan ck Healy


The Chronicle of Higher Education: (http://chronicle.com) 1-800-728-2803 Copyright of Chronicle of Higher Education is the property of Chronicle of Higher Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
 
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Record: 4
Title: A Warning about the Teaching of Evolution in Kansas.
Authors: Lee, Earl
Source: American Libraries; Nov99, Vol. 30 Issue 10, p36, 1p
Document Type: Article
Subject Terms: CREATIONISM
EDUCATION
EDUCATION -- Curricula
EVOLUTION
Geographic Terms: KANSAS
UNITED States
Abstract: Comments on the public education debate in Kansas. Kansas State Board of Education's vote in August 1999 to remove evolution from a set of teaching standards; Problems for school libraries; Creationism.
Full Text Word Count: 1023
ISSN: 0002-9769
Accession Number: 2471957
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Section: Opinion

On My Mind

A WARNING ABOUT THE TEACHING OF EVOLUTION IN KANSAS


When the Kansas State Board of Education voted August 11 to remove evolution from a two-page set of standards written by scientists, they probably could not have imagined the storm of protest their action would cause. The New York Times, the television networks, and other major media outlets covered the story; even cable TV's satirical The Daily 5how on Comedy Central made jokes about monkeys and the apparent lack of evolution in Kansas.

This evolution debate in Kansas began a year ago, when a committee of scientists started writing new science standards for public schools. These standards were presented to the board in May; but they were rejected by Steve Abrams, aboard member and former state Republican chairman. Abrams then rewrote the standards to delete virtually all references to evolution, and to include a statement on "intelligent design" suggested by creationists. Before this, the passage of any new standards for science had been delayed for several years, as the 10-member state board had been evenly divided between conservatives and moderates/liberals. In the most recent election, however, conservatives managed to get a stealth candidate elected, and he proved to be the swing vote in support of the creationists, a fact that has some voters in Kansas hopping mad.

Problems for school libraries

Although five other states have resisted similar efforts to downgrade evolution, the problem for school libraries is easy to see. Last year, when creationists came to Melvindale, a suburb of Detroit, and asked that "creation science" be included in the curriculum, they brought a list of creationist books and resource materials to be acquired by the school libraries. Eugenic Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, reviewed the material and dismissed most of the books as "completely unacceptable" as science texts. Scott noted that school libraries would probably be forced to acquire some of the material "to keep the conservatives in the community happy" and suggested that school libraries try to "pick the books that will do the least damage."

The problem with creation science is that it is pseudoscientific in its methods, having more in common with UFO theory than biology or physics. Creation science is a faith-based set of beliefs, held by religious fundamentalists and supported by pop-scientific "studies." Because it is based on a fundamentalist reading of the Bible, creation science starts with a set of unshakable "facts" and then tries to support them with evidence. Creationists say they believe that the earth was created only a few thousand years ago.

How then do they account for dinosaur fossils? The answer is that they believe that men and dinosaurs coexisted during earth's brief history, much like the characters in a B.C. cartoon. It is probably not a coincidence that radio evangelist James Dobson's Focus on the Family magazine recently included a feature on the author of the B.C. comics, praising him for the religious message of his cartoons. If the creationists get their way, we may soon be seeing similar cartoons printed in biology textbooks.

Dobson's influential Focus on the Family organization has recently been pressing its support for creationist ideas. After the National Academy of Science published a guide called Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science last year, FOF published an angry rebuttal by Mark Hartwig, editor of its Teachers in Focus magazine, which attacked NAS for "dogmatism and skewed treatment of evidence."

It is worth noting, too, that Focus on the Family is a strong supporter of the Family Friendly Libraries organization, and this group is likely to be involved in any effort to push for more creationist materials in public libraries. Since both public and school libraries already have sizeable collections of biology books that include evolution, you can count on creationism demanding that libraries add more creationist materials, to "balance" their collections and offer "divergent" viewpoints. Unfortunately, this means trying to balance science with pseudoscience. In terms of fairness, libraries are only obligated to try to balance creationist with anticreationist materials, and these materials should be cataloged as religious materials.

A more immediate problem is the fact that if more states adopt antievolution standards similar to those adopted in Kansas--and in Alabama, Nebraska, and New Mexico as well--textbook publishers will reduce even further the space they give to evolution in high school textbooks, already cut back in recent years because of complaints from religious fundamentalists. In the wake of the decision by the Kansas board, the publisher of Kansas---The Prairie State Lives has decided to cut the entire first chapter of this history text, which included references to fossils and the inland sea that once covered what is now Kansas. A similar decision to cut evolution from the curricula in California, Texas, or Florida would probably send textbook publishers scrambling nationwide.

Evolution in reverse

In spite of these and many other problems presented by teaching creationism as science, many school superintendents and school board members in Kansas privately express support for removing evolution from state standards. Many school officials are under pressure from conservative religious groups to cut back--or cut out-evolution from school curricula. Many of these officials are only too happy to accommodate right-wing religious groups in their communities.

By passing these new standards, the State Board of Education maintains that it is only allowing for more local control of school curricula. Unfortunately, the growth of scientific learning often runs counter to popular opinion, turning this from a scientific search for truth into a political contest. Media analyst Noam Chomsky recently noted that in the United States, where about 50% of the population hold some creationist views, conservatives are likely to win many of these political contests. According to some political analysts, conservatives are looking to the evolution issue as a way to motivate rightwing voters to go the polls in the primary elections of 2000.

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By Earl Lee

EARL lEE is a librarian at Pittsburg State University in Kansas, and is the author of Libraries in the Age of Mediocrity (McFarland, 1998). He serves on the editorial board of Counterpoise.


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Source: American Libraries, Nov99, Vol. 30 Issue 10, p36, 1p
Item: 2471957
 
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Record: 5
Title: Censorship of school textbooks.
Source: Science; 1/2/87, Vol. 235 Issue 4783, p19, 3p
Document Type: Article
Subject Terms: TEXTBOOKS
Abstract: Court cases in Tennessee and Alabama on censorship of public school textbooks demonstrate a clash over values as well as problems with the quality of teaching. Church-state separation; Creationism/evolution. INSET: `Romeo and Juliet' promotes drug use and youth suicide.
ISSN: 0036-8075
Accession Number: 8700011587
Persistent link to this record: http://search.epnet.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tfh&an=8700011587
Cut and Paste: <A href="http://search.epnet.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tfh&an=8700011587">Censorship of school textbooks.</A>
Database: Professional Development Collection
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