Curbing the teaching of evolution

Christian Century, August 25, 1999

The Kansas Board of Education has adopted new standards for teaching biology that critics say will virtually eliminate any consideration of evolution from the science curriculum in the state's public schools. Republican Governor Bill Graves called the action by the Kansas Board of Education "a terrible, tragic, embarrassing solution to a problem that didn't exist."

The action by the education board, on a 6-4 vote, is among the most far-reaching victories yet for the so-called creationist movement, which rejects the scientific concept of evolution in favor of a biblical view of the world as only a few thousand years old, and which teaches that each species was created separately by a divine being.

Although the new standards adopted by Kansas do not prevent local school boards from allowing evolution to be taught, it will not be included in the state assessment tests that evaluate students' performances in various grades and is likely to discourage school districts from spending time or money on the subject. Equally, the August 11 decision is likely to embolden some school districts to consider adopting creationist textbooks.

In taking the action, conservative board members said they wanted to make sure that schools teach "sound" science, arguing that evolution, or natural selection, is a flawed theory that cannot be proved. Kansas is only the most recent battleground in a war between creationists and biologists that has been going on for more than a decade following a Supreme Court ruling that public schools cannot teach creationism as a fact.

Alabama, New Mexico and Nebraska have made changes in their science teaching guidelines that challenge the preeminence of evolution by labeling it one possible explanation of the way the world works. Other states--Texas, Ohio, Washington, New Hampshire and Tennessee--have considered but rejected changes called for by creationists.

Educators, however, called the Kansas case significant because of the reach of the new curriculum. "The number of changes made, the thoroughness with which references to evolution are deleted or definitions changed--it's more extensive than what we've seen before," said Molleen Matsumura of the National Center for Science Education. -RNS