Thank you for inviting me to testify before the Commission.

I understand that the Commission is concerned about the relationship of religion to the K-12 curriculum. Personally, I favor teaching about religion in the public schools, including the role of religion in history, and the role of religion in human societies. We are not only a scientifically illiterate population, we are also a theologically illiterate population, understanding little about not only the varieties of belief found within Christianity and Judaism, but understanding practically nothing about either the other great world religions or the diverse animistic religions held by native populations, including Native Americans. Teaching about religion is an important undertaking for public school teachers, but unfortunately, too frequently sectarian religious views are advocated in the public schools. The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment requires that public institutions such as schools be neutral towards religion; although the Commission is concerned with both denigration of religion as well as promotion of religion, in science education, the latter is far more prevalent.

I assume I have been asked to testify because of my knowledge of the creation and evolution controversy. This is an area in science education that historically has proven to be a hotbed of religious advocacy, beginning with Scopes-type attempts to ban the teaching of evolution in the early part of the century because of perceived incompatibility of evolution with religion. Such laws were overturned by Epperson v. Arkansas, which held that the US Constitution does not permit a state to require that the curriculum must be tailored to the principles or prohibitions of any particular religious sect or doctrine. (See the enclosed flyer, “Background: Seven Significant Court Decisions Regarding Evolution/Creation Issues”).

I have been asked to provide some “case studies” that demonstrate what is going on nation-wide in the creation/evolution controversy. Because my formal presentation time is short, I hope to be able to elaborate upon and give context for these situations during the question period. Briefly, there are three false claims made by opponents of evolution, which are addressed in the enclosed book, Voices for Evolution:

1. Evolution is a “theory in crisis”; scientists are abandoning it because it is not considered scientific (please see the statements from scientific societies in Voices for Evolution, as well as the enclosed National Academy of Sciences book, Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science.)

2. Evolution is incompatible with religious belief; one has to choose between being a good Christian and accepting evolution (please see the statements from religious organizations in Voices for Evolution, and the enclosed 1996 statement from John Paul II.)

3. It is only “fair” to present creationism (or “alternatives to evolution”) and/or it is good “critical thinking” pedagogy to give the children “both sides” and “let them decide” (please see the statements by educational organizations in Voices for Evolution, and also the enclosed statements on the teaching of evolution by the National Science Teachers Association and the National Association of Biology Teachers.)

Case Studies

There are two manifestations of the creation/evolution issue in American schools.

1) Equal time for Creationism in some form

These range from requests by parents or school board members for the Bible to be taught in science classes, to the advocacy of creation “science”, to the encouragement of “alternatives to evolution” to be taught.

Creation Science “Creation science” advocates claim to be able to support with scientific data a Biblical literalist view of creation. Supposedly, scientific data can be found to support a six day, sudden creation of everything, relatively recently (within the last 10,000 years.) When creation science came on the scene in a major way in the late 1970's and early 1980's, dozens of books and hundreds of articles were written by scientists analyzing these allegedly scientific claims. It was demonstrated that creation science was not science at all. Creation science organizations such as the Institute for Creation Research and Answers in Genesis remain the major providers of information for the antievolution movement, and their literature is the most widespread.

In the 1987 Supreme Court decision Edwards v. Aguillard (see “Background: Seven Significant Statements...”), laws requiring equal time for creation and evolution were struck down. Creationism, the court said, is inherently a religious perspective, thus to advocate it, to present it as a valid alternative to evolution in a science class (as opposed to teaching about it in a social studies class) is unconstitutional. Creation science is creationism. It is religious advocacy.

Alternatives to Evolution After the banning of creation science, antievolutionists began promoting “alternatives to evolution”, which turned out to be creation science in content, if not in name. Several synonyms have been used, the two most frequent being “intelligent design theory” and “abrupt appearance theory.” Intelligent design (ID) is the most common “alternative to evolution”, and a US District Court (Freiler v. Tangipahoa Parish) has recognized that curriculum proposals for “intelligent design” are equivalent to proposals for teaching “creation science”.

Examples:

These creationist approaches manifest themselves in a variety of forms. Even though the Supreme Court has spoken clearly about creation science being unconstitutional, districts still receive and consider requests from parents to include creation science, such as in a current controversy in Post Falls, ID, and a 1995 controversy in Merrimack, NH. Other communities where creation science recently has been debated at the school board level include Lake County, FL, and Salisbury, NC. In a number of communities, including Morgan Hill, CA and Weed, CA, ministers had been invited to present creation science to students in school assemblies. In some cases, students heard presentations on creationism from representatives of creationist ministries, such as in Stanwood, WA, a recent appearance by Walter Brown at Elma, WA and a long-running series of presentations by Institute for Creation Research personnel in Peoria, IL. In Eads, CO, students were actually taken to a local church by school faculty to hear a presentation by the “Alpha Omega Institute”, who teach that the earth is less than 10,000 years old. Other communities have used school equipment to bus students to creationist revivals after hours.

There are teachers who decide to introduce creation science or an alternative on their own. In two such cases, district courts and later, appeals courts rejected this approach as strongly as did Edwards in rejecting equal time as a district or state directive. (See “Background: Seven Significant Court Cases....”, Webster and Peloza.) Moon Township, PA settled a lawsuit over a teacher who presented assemblies to students in which he told them not only odd science like the Grand Canyon having been laid down by Noah’s Flood, but also that if they didn’t accept Jesus, they would not go to heaven. A current controversy in Boise, ID involves a teacher who assigns students to creationist and evolutionist “teams” and has them “research” the question of “origins” as a “critical thinking” exercise. In Harrah, OK, an eighth grade teacher told students that if they “believed” in evolution, they couldn’t believe in God, and replaced their textbooks with creationist tracts. A physics teacher in Lakewood, OH taught students creation science, including that dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time. Charter schools need to be watched for religious advocacy: though more freedom is given to charter schools for curriculum experimentation, they are still have to honor the Constitution. We have had problems with charter schools presenting creationism (or being suspected of teaching creationism) in Colorado Springs, CO, and Paradise, CA.

 Remember, this is creation science -- which has been declared by scientists, teachers, and the courts to not be science and to be unconstitutional religious advocacy.

Creation science may also be presented as Intelligent Design theory, or more vaguely, as “alternatives to evolution”, or “alternate theories to evolution”, or even a “balanced treatment of evolution”. The vaguer language is a direct result of the banning of creation science by Edwards v. Aguillard; the hope is that a less obviously religious approach will avoid Establishment Clause problems. The new language has cropped up in one form or another in Tippecanoe, IN, Melvindale, MI, Prior Lake, MN, Rio Rancho NM, Chesapeake, VA, and Burlington, WI. The ID textbook, Of Pandas and People has been a lightening rod for controversy ever since it was published in 1989. We have had disputes over whether a district should use Pandas in Texas, Colorado, Ohio, Indiana, New Mexico, and many other states.

2. Antievolutionism

In addition to promoting creationism in its various forms, the controversy also plays out through frank antievolutionary activity.

Elimination of Evolution From the Science Curriculum Although evolution cannot legally be banned (see Epperson v. Arkansas), there is no guarantee that teachers will teach it -- and many are intimidated either directly by parents and students, or indirectly by the mere presence of a controversy in the district. It is my impression from monitoring this controversy that in fact, teachers avoiding evolution is far commoner than the teaching of creationism.

“Evidence Against Evolution” The mainstay of creation science for 25 years has been the presentation of alleged, “evidence against evolution.” These include supposed gaps in the fossil record, the inability of random mutation and natural selection to produce new forms, the second law of thermodynamics prevents evolution from occurring, and so on. When examples of “evidence against evolution are requested, a familiar list of topics appears: gaps in the fossil record, the inability of random mutation and natural selection to produce new forms, the second law of thermodynamics prevents evolution from occurring, and so on. Truly, “evidence against evolution” is merely a synonym for the now-illegal creation science. It needs to be made clear that to scientists and teachers, there is about as much “evidence against evolution” as there is “evidence against heliocentrism”. (Please see the enclosed Voices for Evolution statements from scientific and educational societies, the book Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science from the National Academy of Sciences, and the statements from the National Science Teachers Association and the National Association of Biology Teachers, affirming the importance of evolution as a major tenet of science.)

Disclaimers; “Theory, not Fact” Antievolutionism also manifests itself through efforts to present it as a weak or scientifically deficient theory -- different from other scientific theories. Controversies have arisen over disclaiming evolution in some fashion, such as requiring teachers to read a statement denigrating evolution to students, or paste such a disclaimer into a textbook. (Please see the enclosed brochure “What’s Wrong With ‘Theory not Fact’ Policies”.)

Examples:

Elimination of Evolution It is difficult to document the many teachers who quietly avoid evolution out of fear of stirring controversy. Most of these examples, unfortunately, are anecdotal, and come from my personal experience talking with teachers around the country. But there certainly are examples of situations where controversy has arisen. We have had protests to evolution being included in a mural in Shawnee Mission, KS, and even to an advanced placement genetics course in Lincoln County, WV. A college teacher told me she was shocked when teachers in her community in Ohio told her that they didn’t teach basic taxonomy because it was “too much like evolution.”

“Evidence Against Evolution” School districts adopt or attempt to adopt rules requiring teachers to teach evolution and “evidence against evolution”. We have had calls from Prior Lake, MN, Louisville, OH, Tippecanoe, IN and other communities.

Disclaimers; “Theory not Fact” Beginning with Alabama in 1995, several states and districts have debated the inclusion of an antievolution disclaimer in textbooks. The Alabama disclaimer has spread to several districts in Georgia, and was introduced (but not passed) in Washington early in 1998. Other disclaimers have appeared in Elizabethtown, PA, and the states of Tennessee and Ohio attempted to pass legislation disclaiming evolution. The Tennessee law threatened teachers with insubordination and dismissal if they taught evolution as “fact rather than theory”.

Textbook Controversies Many states and districts have controversies over textbooks. In Marshall County, KY, a school superintendent glued shut two pages of a 4th grade book because it discussed “only” the Big Bang, and did not give equal time to Genesis. Kelso, WA rejected a very standard textbook (Holt, Rinehart and Winston’s Modern Biology) for having “too much evolution”, and presenting evolution “as a fact.” A similar fate befell a Prentice Hall evolution unit in Sheridan CO. Fairfax, VA was embroiled over a standard biology textbook’s negative comment about creation science, even though the book was respectful of religious beliefs about creation. In last summer’s Texas biology textbook adoptions, textbook critic Mel Gabler sent a memo to all school districts in the state ranking the proposed texts with highest rank going to the one with the thinnest coverage of evolution.

State Standards An important manifestation of antievolutionism is its elimination or reduction in importance in state curriculum guidelines. As discussed in a recent report on state science standards published by the Fordham Foundation (Lerner, L.S., “State Science Standards; An appraisal of science standards in 36 states”), those states that eliminate evolution from their guidelines are presenting inferior educational standards to their students, and do them a disservice. Lerner or NCSE have found that Illinois, Arizona, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, and New Mexico do not use the “e-word”, though in some of these states concepts of evolution are included. Georgia speaks of “organic variation”, and Kentucky speaks ambiguously about “change”. Ironically, in the fields of geology and physics, the “e-word” appears, further illustrating the fact that it is religious opinion rather than science that motivates antievolutionism.

Conclusion

The attack upon evolution and the promotion of creationism in its various forms in the K-12 school districts of the US is an Establishment Clause problem under the First Amendment of the Constitution. It is also a problem for science literacy in the US. Polls demonstrate that in the United Kingdom, for example, 79% of adults agree that evolution took place, whereas only 47% of adult Americans do.

It is the view of scientists and teachers that evolution must be taught for students to properly understand astronomy, geology, and biology. Antievolutionists confuse debate over how evolution occurs with nonexistant debates in the scientific community over whether evolution has taken place. Claims are often made that students should be taught the “scientific evidence” against evolution -- but creation science never has been accepted by scientists and is not taught even at sectarian universities such as Brigham Young, Baylor, or Notre Dame, which instead teach evolution matter-of-factly. (see enclosed article by Scott and Cole, “The Elusive Scientific Basis of ‘Creation Science’”). New versions of antievolutionism such as Intelligent Design Theory similarly are lacking acceptance in the scientific world (see enclosed article by Gilchrist, “The Elusive Scientific Basis of Intelligent Design Theory”)

Some individuals in this society are offended when evolution is taught to their children. To alter the curriculum for them means we are promoting some sectarian religious beliefs over others, which surely the Commission would not support. Catholics differ in their attitudes towards creation from Protestants, and Protestants differ widely among themselves (please see the enclosed article, “Antievolution and Creationism in the United States” for a discussion of the different “creationisms”) Arguments that creationism or one of its synonyms deserves a place in the curriculum because “people are upset by evolution” fly in the face of a pluralistic religious community. Whose view of creationism would we include? Even Christian creationism comes in many varieties, and Hindus don’t like evolution (or creation science) because a literal interpretation of the Vedas requires humankind to have been on earth for 300 million years.

Changing the curriculum to satisfy everyone would make the curriculum a shambles. A Christian Science student may not want to hear about the germ theory of disease; a Mormon may not want to hear about Native Americans coming to North America across the Bering Strait. A conservative Christian student may not want to hear about the HIV theory of AIDS, preferring to believe AIDS is a curse from God visited on homosexuals. A middle school teacher from North Carolina told me that she had students who walked out of her class when she taught the solar system: their preacher had told them that the Bible said that the earth is the center of the solar system. We cannot alter the curriculum to make everyone happy.

Truly, the educational issue is what should be taught in a science class, and what should be taught is science.

This having been said, there are ways to teach evolution that do not offend the vast majority of religious individuals in this country. For one thing, teachers should make it clear, as does the California Science Framework, that

Education does not compel belief; the goal is to encourage understanding. Students do not have to accept everything that is taught in school. But they do need to understand the major strands of scientific thought because this thought is the backbone of our intellectual heritage and the basis for the construction of future knowledge. (chapter 1, p. 19)

It is a teacher’s job to present state of the art scholarship, and the student’s to learn the consensus view of the field. But whether students agree or disagree with what the teacher is presenting, their responsibility is to learn it, and it is the teacher’s responsibility to teach it.

Other suggestions for teaching evolution may be found at the end of the enclosed article, “Dealing with Antievolutionism”. They include understanding what evolution is and is not. Critics of evolution, for example, claim it is a philosophical system, and that students learning it will lose their faith. Defining evolution as scientists and teachers do avoids this problem. Evolution is something that happened: the universe has had a history, in the words of the National Science Teachers Association:

If we look today at the galaxies, stars, the planet Earth, and the life on planet Earth, we see that things today are different from what they were in the past: galaxies, stars, planets, and life forms have evolved. Biological evolution refers to the scientific theory that living things share ancestors from which they have diverged: Darwin called it “descent with modification.” (NSTA Position Statement on the Teaching of Evolution, p. 2)

People of faith are free to believe that the ultimate cause of this universal change through time is supernatural. There is nothing in science that precludes ultimate cause. Science, because it is limited to explaining the natural world through natural causes, is neutral to ultimate cause: it does not have the tools to examine supernatural hypotheses. In the aforementioned article, I discuss ways that teachers can “leave the door open” for students of faith to make their own accommodation to science. “Leaving the door open” is important, and need not be confused with advocacy of religion.

In the article, I discuss the importance of treating a student’s religious objections with respect, but nonetheless explaining that it is necessary to learn evolution to be an educated individual. Again, acceptance is up to the student. “Defusing the religious issue”, and coping with the “equal time/fairness” issue are also discussed in this article for teachers. I would like especially to call your attention to the equal time argument, which, though not pertinent to science, has been very persuasive in the American public in general.

I appreciate the opportunity to testify, and if I may be of further service to the Commission, I am willing to help in any way. I do encourage you to consider the enclosed items for a fuller understanding of the current problems surrounding the creation and evolution controversy.