- Dec 9, 2004
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Evolution debate experiences resurgence in Texas
In 1925, the Scopes "Monkey" trial in Tennessee was the first shot fired in the war over teaching evolutionary theory in public schools. Now, 80 years later, new challenges have arisen all over the country, with 19 states reviewing the presentation of evolution in classrooms as science.
Challenges vary from lawsuits to school board debates over how evolution is taught. In January, United States District Court Judge Clarence Cooper ruled that stickers proclaiming that evolution is a theory, not a fact, must be removed from biology textbooks in Cobb County, Ga.
According to the Cobb County school board, the purpose of the stickers was to promote critical thinking. Texas School Board member Terri Leo, a Spring resident representing District 6, expressed a similar sentiment in an opening statement during the September 2003 hearings preceding the adoption of the current biology textbooks.
Leo quoted the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) state board operating rules that students must "analyze, review and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to the strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and information."
"If we censor out scientific weakness, not only do biology textbooks not conform to State Board of Education rules and requirements, but we limit the best of our educators by directing them to avoid controversy and to try to remain politically correct," Leo said. "If students cannot learn to debate different viewpoints and to explore a range of theories in the classroom, what hope have we for civil discourse beyond the schoolhouse doors?"
There was some success in having disputed points in biology textbooks removed by publishers. Because of Texas' size and its budget for books, publishers generally cater to the state's guidelines for school texts.
Mark Ramsey's Texans for Better Science Education is a group of concerned citizens based in Spring. TBSE encourages teachers to supplement evolution education with information about "Intelligent Design" and other criticisms. Advocates of Intelligent Design posit that certain biological mechanisms, such as the human eye, indicate design rather than evolution. However, opponents argue that there is no empirical way to test for design by an unspecified intelligent being.
Ramsey's group also lobbies publishers to remove inaccuracies, including alleged weaknesses of evolution. His group was successful in having the disproved Haeckel embryo drawings removed from some of the 2004 biology textbooks used in Texas, Ramsey said. Haeckel's embryo drawings were used in the past to support evolution. The embryo drawings of a fish, tortoise, chick, and human were meant to show the similarities in appearance of the embryos supporting common ancestry.
"Darwin considered the drawings to be the best evidence for common ancestry," Ramsey said. "Haeckel literally used the same wood block carving for the different embryos. He pressed and inked each slightly differently."
Joe Miller and Ken Levine are writers for Prentice Hall, a high school biology textbook publisher with the largest share of the Texas market. They replaced the embryo drawings with accurate depictions from photomicrographs of embryos in 1998. According to Miller and Levine's Web site, www.millerandlevine.com, evolutionary biologists have long agreed that Haeckel's drawings are inaccurate. Despite this, the drawings were the basis for comparative embryology in textbooks from 1874 until relatively recently.
While there is no serious challenge to remove evolution from Texas biology textbooks, some science teachers feel pressured to alter their presentations of evolution. The National Science Teachers Association unveiled an informal survey a week before their national convention in Dallas last month. Close to 30 percent of the teachers surveyed felt pressured to de-emphasize or omit evolution from the science curriculum and to include alternatives like Intelligent Design. Teachers answered that the pressure most often comes from parents and students. But if there's one thing evolution's supporters and detractors agree on, it's that no one wants students to receive a poor science education.
"I want my children to be able to understand the theory well enough to think about it critically," Leo said in support of teaching both the strengths and weaknesses of evolution.
"Students should be critical of all scientific theories," said L. Aron Nelson, a paleontology student from Dallas with an extensive knowledge of evolutionary evidence. "You have to be, or it isn't science. But the theory of evolution is actually better-supported than the current theory of gravity, and children shouldn't be misled to be doubtful of the best-supported theories we have."
Nelson and most of the scientific community support teaching students about evolution without additions or deletions.
Leo will take a break from Texas School Board duties when she judges an online debate between Ramsey and Nelson. Nelson contends that most, if not all, of the "weaknesses of evolution" proposed by the TBSE are inaccurate or misrepresented. The debate will focus on how evolution is taught to Texas students and is scheduled for April 23 at www.texasevolutiondebate.bravehost.com. The TBSE Web site is www.strengthsandweaknesses.org.
http://www.hcnonline.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=14329690&BRD=1574&PAG=461&dept_id=532256
