Creation and evolution in public education
Encyclopedia
The status of creation and evolution in public education has been the subject of substantial debate in legal, political, and religious circles. Globally there is a wide range of views on this topic ranging from countries not allowing teachers to discuss the evidence for evolution or the modern evolutionary synthesis
, which is the scientific theory
that explains evolution
, to mandating that only evolutionary biology is to be taught.
While some religions do not have theological objections to the modern evolutionary synthesis as an explanation for the present form of life on Earth, there has been much conflict over this matter within particular (fundamentalist
) branches of Christianity
, some adherents of which are vigorously opposed to the consensus
view of the scientific community
. Conflict with evolutionary explanations is greatest in literal interpretations
of religious documents, and resistance to teaching evolution is thus related to the popularity of these more literalist views.
Globally, evolution is taught in science courses with limited controversy, with the exception of a few areas of the United States
and several Islamic fundamentalist countries. Even in the United States, however, the Supreme Court
has ruled the teaching of creationism
as science
in public schools to be unconstitutional. In the United States, intelligent design
has been presented as an alternative explanation to evolution in recent decades, but its "demonstrably religious, cultural, and legal missions" have been ruled unconstitutional by a lower court
.
of the Bible
is inerrant
. With the widespread acceptance of the theory of evolution in the 1860s after being first introduced in 1859, and developments in other fields such as geology
and astronomy
, public schools began to teach science that was reconciled with Christianity
by most people, but considered by a number of early fundamentalists to be directly at odds with the Bible.
In the aftermath of World War I
, the Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy brought a surge of opposition to the idea of evolution, and following the campaigning of William Jennings Bryan
several states
introduced legislation prohibiting the teaching of evolution. By 1925, such legislation was being considered in 15 states, and passed in some states, such as Tennessee. The American Civil Liberties Union
offered to defend anyone who wanted to bring a test case against one of these laws. John T. Scopes
accepted, and he taught his Tennessee
class evolution in defiance of the Butler Act
. The textbook in question was Hunter's Civic Biology (1914).
The trial was widely publicized by H. L. Mencken
among others, and is commonly referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial.
Scopes was convicted; however, the widespread publicity galvanized proponents of evolution.
When the case was appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court, the Court overturned the decision on a technicality (the judge had assessed the fine when the jury had been required to). Although it overturned the conviction, the Court decided that the law was not in violation of the First Amendment. The Court held,
The interpretation of the Establishment Clause up to that time was that Congress could not establish a particular religion as the State religion. Consequently, the Court held that the ban on the teaching of evolution did not violate the Establishment clause, because it did not establish one religion as the "State religion." As a result of the holding, the teaching of evolution remained illegal in Tennessee, and continued campaigning succeeded in removing evolution from school textbooks throughout the United States.
In 1967, the Tennessee public schools were threatened with another lawsuit over the Butler Act's constitutionality, and, fearing public reprisal, Tennessee's legislature repealed the Butler Act. In the following year, 1968, the Supreme Court of the United States
ruled in Epperson v. Arkansas
that Arkansas's law prohibiting the teaching of evolution was in violation of the First Amendment
. The Supreme Court held that the Establishment Clause prohibits the state from advancing any religion, and determined that the Arkansas law which allowed the teaching of creation while disallowing the teaching of evolution advanced a religion, and was therefore in violation of the 1st amendment Establishment clause. This holding reflected a broader understanding of the Establishment Clause: instead of just prohibiting laws that established a state religion, the Clause was interpreted to prohibit laws that furthered religion. Opponents, pointing to the previous decision, argued that this amounted to judicial activism
.
In reaction to the Epperson case, creationists in Louisiana passed a law requiring that public schools should give "equal time" to "alternative theories" of origin. The Supreme Court ruled in Edwards v. Aguillard
that the Louisiana statute, which required creation to be taught alongside evolution every time evolution was taught, was unconstitutional.
The Court laid out its rule as follows:
The Court held that the law was not adopted with a secular purpose, because its purported purpose of "protecting academic freedom
" was not furthered by limiting the freedom of teachers to teach what they thought appropriate; ruled that the act was discriminatory because it provided certain resources and guarantees to "creation scientists" which were not provided to those who taught evolution; and ruled that the law was intended to advance a particular religion because several state senators that had supported the bill stated that their support for the bill stemmed from their religious beliefs.
While the Court held that creationism is an inherently religious belief, it did not hold that every mention of creationism in a public school is unconstitutional:
Just as it is permissible to discuss the crucial role of religion in medieval European history, creationism may be discussed in a civics, current affairs, philosophy, or comparative religions class where the intent is to factually educate students about the diverse range of human political and religious beliefs. The line is crossed only when creationism is taught as science, just as it would be if a teacher were to proselytize a particular religious belief.
In the 1980s Phillip E. Johnson
began reading the scientific literature on evolution. This led to the writing of Darwin on Trial
, which examined the evidence for evolution from religious point of view and challenged the assumption that the only reasonable explanation for the origin of species must be a naturalistic one, though science
is defined by searching for natural explanations for phenomena. This book, and his subsequent efforts to encourage and coordinate creationists with more credentials, was the start of the "Intelligent design
" movement. Intelligent design asserts that there is evidence that life was created by an "intelligent designer" (mainly that the physical properties of an object are so complex that they must have been "designed"). Proponents claim that ID takes "all available facts" into account rather than just those available through naturalism. Opponents assert that ID is a pseudoscience
because its claims cannot be tested by experiment
(see falsifiability
) and do not propose any new hypotheses.
Many proponents of the ID movement support requiring that it be taught in the public schools. For example, conservative think-tank, The Discovery Institute
and Phillip E. Johnson, support the policy of "Teach the Controversy
", which entails presenting to students evidence for and against evolution, and then encouraging students to evaluate that evidence themselves.
While many proponents of ID believe that it should be taught in schools, other creationists believe that legislation is not appropriate. Answers in Genesis
has said:
Opponents point out that there is no scientific controversy, but only a political and religious one, therefore "teaching the controversy" would only be appropriate in a social studies, religion, or philosophy class. Many, such as Richard Dawkins
, compare teaching intelligent design in schools to teaching flat earthism
, since the scientific consensus
regarding these issues is identical. Dawkins has stated that teaching creationism to children is akin to child abuse
.
In June 2007 the Council of Europe
's "Committee on Culture, Science and Education" issued a report, The dangers of creationism in education, which states "Creationism in any of its forms, such as 'intelligent design', is not based on facts, does not use any scientific reasoning and its contents are pathetically inadequate for science classes." In describing the dangers posed to education by teaching creationism, it described intelligent design as "anti-science" and involving "blatant scientific fraud" and "intellectual deception" that "blurs the nature, objectives and limits of science" and links it and other forms of creationism to denialism
.
adopted a textbook sticker that was a disclaimer about evolution. It has since been revised and moderated.
in Association of Christian Schools International v. Roman Stearns agreeing with the university's position that various religious books on U.S. history and science, from A Beka Books and Bob Jones University Press, should not be used for a college-preparatory classes. The case was filed in spring 2006 by Association of Christian Schools International
against the University of California
claiming religious discrimination over the rejection of five courses as college preparatory instruction. On August 8, 2008, Judge Otero entered summary judgment against plaintiff ACSI, upholding the University of California's standards. The university found the books "didn't encourage critical thinking skills and failed to cover 'major topics, themes and components'" and were thus, ill-suited to prepare students for college.
State Board of Education adopted new science standards in a 4-3 vote. The new science curriculum standards explicitly require the teaching of the "scientific theory of evolution", whereas the previous standards only referenced evolution using the words "change over time."
in the case Selman v. Cobb County School District
sued to have the following sticker removed from public school textbooks: "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." Selman v. Cobb County School District, No. 1:02CV2325 (N.D. Ga. filed August 21, 2002). Defense attorney Gunn said, "The only thing the school board did is acknowledge there is a potential conflict [between evolution and creationism] and there is a potential infringement on people's beliefs if you present it in a dogmatic way. We're going to do it in a respectful way." Gerald R. Weber, legal director of the ACLU
of Georgia, said "The progress of church-state cases has been that the [U.S.] Supreme Court sets a line, then government entities do what they can to skirt that line. […] Here the Supreme Court has said you can't teach creationism in the public schools. You can't have an equal-time provision for evolution and creationism. These disclaimers are a new effort to skirt the line." Jefferey Selman, who brought the lawsuit, claims "It singles out evolution from all the scientific theories out there. Why single out evolution? It has to be coming from a religious basis, and that violates the separation of church and state." The School Board said it adopted the sticker "to foster critical thinking among students, to allow academic freedom consistent with legal requirements, to promote tolerance and acceptance of diversity of opinion and to ensure a posture of neutrality toward religion."
On January 14, 2005, a federal judge in Atlanta ruled that the stickers should be removed as they violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The school board subsequently decided to appeal the decision. In comments on December 15, 2005 in advance of releasing its decision, the appeal court panel appeared critical of the lower court ruling and a judge indicated that he did not understand the difference between evolution and abiogenesis
.
On December 20, 2006, the Cobb County Board of Education abandoned all of its legal activities and will no longer mandate that biology texts contain a sticker stating "evolution is a theory, not a fact." Their decision was a result of compromise negotiated with a group of parents, represented by the ACLU, that were opposed to the sticker. The parents agreed, as their part of the compromise, to withdraw their legal actions against the board.
State Board of Education changed their science education
standards to remove any mention of "biological macroevolution, the age of the Earth, or the origin and early development of the Universe", so that evolutionary theory no longer appeared in state-wide standardized tests and "it was left to the 305 local school districts in Kansas whether or not to teach it." This decision was hailed by creationists, and sparked a statewide and nationwide controversy with scientists condemning the change. Challengers in the state's Republican primary who made opposition to the anti-evolution standards their focus were voted in on August 1, 2000, so on February 14, 2001, the Board voted 7–3 to reinstate the teaching of biological evolution and the origin of the earth into the state's science education standards.
In 2004 Kansas Board of Education elections gave religious conservatives a majority and, influenced by the Discovery Institute
, they arranged the Kansas evolution hearings
. On August 9, 2005, the Kansas State Board of Education drafted new "science standards that require critical analysis of evolution – including scientific evidence refuting the theory," which opponents analyzed as effectively stating that intelligent design should be taught. The new standards also provide a definition of science that does not preclude supernatural explanations, and were approved by a 6–4 vote on November 8, 2005—incidentally the day of the Dover school board election which failed to re-elect incumbent creationists (see #Pennsylvania).
In Kansas' state Republican primary elections on August 1, 2006, moderate Republicans took control away from the anti-evolution conservatives, leading to an expectation that science standards which effectively embraced intelligent design and cast doubt on Darwinian evolution would now be changed.
On February 13, 2007, the Kansas State Board of Education approved a new curriculum which removed any reference to Intelligent Design as part of science. In the words of Dr Bill Wagnon, the board chairman, "Today the Kansas Board of Education returned its curriculum standards to mainstream science". The new curriculum, as well as a document outlining the differences with the previous curriculum, has been posted on the Kansas State Department of Education's website.
Department of Education replaced the word "evolution" with "change over time" in state school standards.
School Board voted that a statement must be read to students of 9th grade biology mentioning Intelligent Design. This resulted in a firestorm of criticism from scientists and science teachers and caused a group of parents to begin legal proceedings (sometimes referred to as the Dover panda trial) to challenge the decision, based on their interpretation of the Aguillard
precedent. Supporters of the school board's position noted that the Aguillard holding explicitly allowed for a variety of what they consider "scientific theories" of origins for the secular purpose of improving scientific education. Others have argued that Intelligent Design should not be allowed to use this "loophole." On November 8, 2005, the members of the school board in Dover were voted out and replaced by evolutionary theory supporters. This had no bearing on the case. On December 20, 2005 federal judge John E. Jones III
ruled that the Dover School Board had violated the Constitution when they set their policy on teaching intelligent design, and stated that "In making this determination, we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents."
director of science curriculum Christine Comer
was forced to resign over an e-mail she had sent announcing a talk given by an anti-Intelligent Design author. In a memo obtained under the Texas Freedom of Information act, TEA officials wrote "Ms. Comer's e-mail implies endorsement of the speaker and implies that TEA endorses the speaker's position on a subject on which the agency must remain neutral". In response over 100 biology professors from Texas universities signed a letter to the state education commissioner denouncing the requirement to be neutral on the subject of Intelligent Design.
In July 2011, the Texas Board of Education, which oversees the Texas Education Agency, did not approve anti-evolution instructional materials submitted by International Databases, LLC, while continuing to approve materials from mainstream publishers.
in Virginia
decided on May 23, 2007, to approve science textbooks for middle and high schools which do not include the idea of intelligent design. However, during the board meeting a statement was made that their aim was self-directed learning which "occurs only when alternative views are explored and discussed", and directed that professionals supporting curriculum development and implementation are to be required "to investigate and develop processes that encompass a comprehensive approach to the teaching and learning" of the theory of evolution, "along with all other topics that raise differences of thought and opinion." During the week before the meeting, one of the intelligent design proponents claimed that "Students are being excluded from scientific debate. It's time to bring this debate into the classroom", and presented "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism
".
poll among Americans found that:
In 2006, a poll taken over the telephone by Zogby International
commissioned by the Discovery Institute
found that more than three to one of voters surveyed chose the option that biology teachers should teach Darwin's theory of evolution, but also "the scientific evidence against it". Approximately seven in ten (69%) sided with this view. In contrast, one in five (21%) chose the other option given, that biology teachers should teach only Darwin's theory of evolution and the scientific evidence that supports it. One in ten was not sure. The poll's results may be called into question however, because the wording of the poll question implies
that significant scientific evidence against evolution exists to be taught.
and the scientific usage, and thus insinuates that evolution does not have widespread acceptance amongst scientists; promoting the teaching of alternative pseudoscience
s such as intelligent design
; and completely ignoring evolution
in biology classes. In general, these controversies, at the local school district level, have resulted in Federal and State court actions (usually by parents who are opposed to teaching of religion in school). There have been a number of consequences of these activities:
The Supreme Court, Epperson v. Arkansas
(1968):
McLean v. Arkansas
case (1982), the judge wrote that creation scientists:
The Supreme Court, Edwards v. Aguillard
(1987):
In Webster v. New Lenox School District
(1990), the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals stated:
The 9th Circuit Federal Appeals Court wrote in a California case (Peloza v. Capistrano School District
, 1994):
United States District Court Judge John E. Jones III stated thus in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
, 2005:
adopted its resolution 1580: The dangers of creationism in education
. The resolution rejects that creationism in any form, including "intelligent design", can be considered scientific (Article 4), but considers possible its inclusion in religion and cultural classes (Article 16). The resolution concludes that teaching creationism in school as a scientific theory may threaten civil rights (Articles 13 and 18). The resolution summarizes itself in Article 19:
to a large number of European, including Danish
, schools.
On April 25, 2007, Member of Parliament Martin Henriksen (Danish People's Party) asked Minister of Education Bertel Haarder (The Liberal Party) for information about how many educational institutions had received The Atlas of Creation. The minister responded that the Ministry of Education was not in possession of information about the number of educational institutions that had received the book, that choice of educational material was not up to the ministry, and that it is an objective of the discipline biology in primary school that the education must enable the pupils to relate to values and conflicts of interest connected with issues with a biological content.
On November 11, 2007, following the October 4 release of the Council of Europe's resolution 1580, Danish member of ISKCON and leading ID-proponent Leif Asmark Jensen published a letter on his website. The letter is addressed to "Danish politicians" and is a clarification why Asmark and other ID-proponents consider the resolution "so problematic that the Danish Parliament ought to ignore the resolution and maintain the Danish tradition for openness in school education."
In interview sessions during 2002, less than 10% of the interviewed Danes declared the theory of evolution false.
some factions teach creationism in their own schools. In May 2005, a discussion on Intelligent Design erupted when education minister Maria van der Hoeven
suggested that debate about Intelligent Design might encourage discourse between the country's various religious parties. She sought to "stimulate an academic debate" on the subject. Following strong objection from the nation's scientists, she dropped plans of holding a conference on the matter.
After the 2007 elections, she was succeeded by Ronald Plasterk
, described as a "molecular geneticist, staunch atheist and opponent of intelligent design".
proposed new education plans for the elementary and middle school levels which included skepticism to the theory of evolution and would hold that a final answer to the origin of mankind was unknown. The proposal was withdrawn after it had generated controversy.
saw a major controversy over creationism in 2006 when the deputy education minister, Mirosław Orzechowski, denounced evolution as "one of many lies" taught in Polish schools. His superior, Minister of Education Roman Giertych
, has stated that the theory of evolution would continue to be taught in Polish schools, "as long as most scientists in our country say that it is the right theory." Giertych's father, Member of the European Parliament
Maciej Giertych
, has however opposed the teaching of evolution and has claimed that "dinosaurs and humans co-existed because Poles remember the Wawel Dragon
and Scots knows about the Loch Ness monster
".
the teaching of evolution was suspended for one week in 2004, under education minister Ljiljana Čolić
, only allowing schools to reintroduce evolution into the curriculum if they also taught creationism. "After a deluge of protest from scientists, teachers and opposition parties" says the BBC report, Čolić's deputy made the statement, "I have come here to confirm Charles Darwin is still alive" and announced that the decision was reversed. Čolić resigned after the government said that she had caused "problems that had started to reflect on the work of the entire government."
, there is an agreed syllabus for religious education
with the right of parents to withdraw their children from these lessons. The religious education syllabus does not involve teaching creationism, but rather teaching the central tenets of major world faiths. At the same time, the teaching of evolution is compulsory in publicly funded schools. For instance, the National Curriculum for England requires that students at Key Stage 4 (14-16) be taught:
Similar requirements exist in Scotland
, Wales
and Northern Ireland
.
In 2003 the Emmanuel Schools Foundation
(previously the Vardy Foundation after its founder, Sir Peter Vardy
) sponsored a number of "faith-based" academies where evolution and creationist ideas would be taught side-by-side in science classes. This caused a considerable amount of controversy.
The Archbishop of Canterbury
Dr Rowan Williams
, leader of the Church of England
, has expressed his view that creationism should not be taught in schools.
An organisation calling itself Truth in Science
has distributed teaching packs of creationist information to schools, and claims that fifty-nine schools are using the packs as "a useful classroom resource". The government has stated that "Neither intelligent design nor creationism are recognised scientific theories and they are not included in the science curriculum. The Truth in Science information pack is therefore not an appropriate resource to support the science curriculum." It is arranging to communicate this message directly to schools.
The efforts to introduce creationism and intelligent design into schools in the UK is being opposed by an organization called the British Centre for Science Education
. The BCSE has been involved in government lobbying and has a website which presents information on the relevant issues.
and her father decided to take the teaching of evolution in Russian schools to court. The position of the Russian Ministry of Education
supports the theory of evolution. The suit has been backed by representatives of Russian Orthodox Church.
i universities; however, the grade 12 Biology textbook contains a chapter on Evolution, and presents it as a fact. In 2006, the Pakistan Academy of Sciences
became a signatory of the InterAcademy Panel Statement on "The teaching of evolution". Many of the contemporary titles on the creation-evolution controversy
, such as those by Richard Dawkins
, have been translated into Urdu
.
, a mostly Islam
ic country, evolution is often a controversial subject. Evolution was added to the school curriculum shortly after the Turkish Revolution of the 1920s and 30s. There was some resistance to this, such as that of Said Nursî
and his followers, but opposition was not particularly powerful. In the 1980s, conservatives came into power, and used the ideas of scientific creationists in the US as a method of discrediting evolution (notwithstanding material on the age of the earth
, which Islamic creationism
is less specific about).
One anti-evolutionist group in Turkey is the Istanbul
based Bilim Arastirma Vakfi (BAV), or "Science Research Foundation", which was founded by Adnan Oktar
. Its activities include campaigns against the teaching of evolution. It has been described as one of the world's strongest anti-evolution movements outside of North America. US based creationist organizations such as the Institute for Creation Research
have worked alongside them. Some scientists have protested that anti-evolution books published by this group (such as The Evolution Deceit) have become more influential than real biology textbooks. The teaching of evolution in high schools has been fought by Ali Gören, a member of parliament and professor of medicine, who believes such education has negative effects.
The situation is very fragile, and the status of evolution in education varies from one government to the next. For example, in 1985 Education Minister Vehbi Dincerier had scientific creationism added to high school texts, and also had the discredited Lamarckism
presented alongside Darwinism. Only in 1998 was this changed somewhat, with texts presenting a more balanced view, though still mentioning creationism and Lamarckism. At present the moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party
, which is sympathetic to creationist views, holds power. It was elected in 2002 and again with a greater majority in 2007.
In general, material that conflicts with religious beliefs is highly controversial in Turkey. For example, in November 2007 a prosecutor launched a probe into whether biologist Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion
is "an attack on religious values". Its publisher could face trial and up to one year in prison if the prosecutor concludes that the book "incites religious hatred" and insults religious values.
Turkish academics who have defended evolutionary theory have received death threat
s, for instance biologist Aykut Kence received an email telling him to enjoy his "final days". Kence helped establish the Evolution Group, whose aim is to improve public understanding of evolution. However, opposition to creationism is not very powerful; Umit Sayin, a neurologist, describes academics and universities as "slow and sluggish" in their response. Kence maintains that "if knowledgeable people keep quiet, it only helps those who spread nonsense."
ian scientists.
Modern evolutionary synthesis
The modern evolutionary synthesis is a union of ideas from several biological specialties which provides a widely accepted account of evolution...
, which is the scientific theory
Scientific theory
A scientific theory comprises a collection of concepts, including abstractions of observable phenomena expressed as quantifiable properties, together with rules that express relationships between observations of such concepts...
that explains evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
, to mandating that only evolutionary biology is to be taught.
While some religions do not have theological objections to the modern evolutionary synthesis as an explanation for the present form of life on Earth, there has been much conflict over this matter within particular (fundamentalist
Fundamentalism
Fundamentalism is strict adherence to specific theological doctrines usually understood as a reaction against Modernist theology. The term "fundamentalism" was originally coined by its supporters to describe a specific package of theological beliefs that developed into a movement within the...
) branches of Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, some adherents of which are vigorously opposed to the consensus
Scientific consensus
Scientific consensus is the collective judgment, position, and opinion of the community of scientists in a particular field of study. Consensus implies general agreement, though not necessarily unanimity. Scientific consensus is not by itself a scientific argument, and it is not part of the...
view of the scientific community
Scientific community
The scientific community consists of the total body of scientists, its relationships and interactions. It is normally divided into "sub-communities" each working on a particular field within science. Objectivity is expected to be achieved by the scientific method...
. Conflict with evolutionary explanations is greatest in literal interpretations
Literal and figurative language
Literal and figurative language is a distinction in traditional systems for analyzing language. Literal language refers to words that do not deviate from their defined meaning. Figurative language refers to words, and groups of words, that exaggerate or alter the usual meanings of the component...
of religious documents, and resistance to teaching evolution is thus related to the popularity of these more literalist views.
Globally, evolution is taught in science courses with limited controversy, with the exception of a few areas of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and several Islamic fundamentalist countries. Even in the United States, however, the Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
has ruled the teaching of creationism
Creationism
Creationism is the religious beliefthat humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being, most often referring to the Abrahamic god. As science developed from the 18th century onwards, various views developed which aimed to reconcile science with the Genesis...
as science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
in public schools to be unconstitutional. In the United States, intelligent design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
has been presented as an alternative explanation to evolution in recent decades, but its "demonstrably religious, cultural, and legal missions" have been ruled unconstitutional by a lower court
United States district court
The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. Both civil and criminal cases are filed in the district court, which is a court of law, equity, and admiralty. There is a United States bankruptcy court associated with each United States...
.
United States
In the United States, creationists and proponents of evolution are engaged in a long-standing battle over the legal status of creation and evolution in the public school science classroom.Early law
Until the late 19th century, creation was taught in nearly all schools in the United States, often from the position that the literal interpretationBiblical literalism
Biblical literalism is the interpretation or translation of the explicit and primary sense of words in the Bible. A literal Biblical interpretation is associated with the fundamentalist and evangelical hermeneutical approach to Scripture, and is used almost exclusively by conservative Christians...
of the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
is inerrant
Biblical inerrancy
Biblical inerrancy is the doctrinal position that the Bible is accurate and totally free of error, that "Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact." Some equate inerrancy with infallibility; others do not.Conservative Christians generally believe that...
. With the widespread acceptance of the theory of evolution in the 1860s after being first introduced in 1859, and developments in other fields such as geology
Geology
Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...
and astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
, public schools began to teach science that was reconciled with Christianity
Theistic evolution
Theistic evolution or evolutionary creation is a concept that asserts that classical religious teachings about God are compatible with the modern scientific understanding about biological evolution...
by most people, but considered by a number of early fundamentalists to be directly at odds with the Bible.
In the aftermath of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, the Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy brought a surge of opposition to the idea of evolution, and following the campaigning of William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan was an American politician in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. He was a dominant force in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, standing three times as its candidate for President of the United States...
several states
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
introduced legislation prohibiting the teaching of evolution. By 1925, such legislation was being considered in 15 states, and passed in some states, such as Tennessee. The American Civil Liberties Union
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...
offered to defend anyone who wanted to bring a test case against one of these laws. John T. Scopes
John T. Scopes
John Thomas Scopes , was a biology teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, who was charged on May 5, 1925 for violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of evolution in Tennessee schools...
accepted, and he taught his Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
class evolution in defiance of the Butler Act
Butler Act
The Butler Act was a 1925 Tennessee law prohibiting public school teachers from denying the Biblical account of man’s origin. It was enacted as Tennessee Code Annotated Title 49 Section 1922...
. The textbook in question was Hunter's Civic Biology (1914).
The trial was widely publicized by H. L. Mencken
H. L. Mencken
Henry Louis "H. L." Mencken was an American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, acerbic critic of American life and culture, and a scholar of American English. Known as the "Sage of Baltimore", he is regarded as one of the most influential American writers and prose stylists of the...
among others, and is commonly referred to as the Scopes Monkey Trial.
Scopes was convicted; however, the widespread publicity galvanized proponents of evolution.
When the case was appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court, the Court overturned the decision on a technicality (the judge had assessed the fine when the jury had been required to). Although it overturned the conviction, the Court decided that the law was not in violation of the First Amendment. The Court held,
We are not able to see how the prohibition of teaching the theory that man has descended from a lower order of animals gives preference to any religious establishment or mode of worship. So far as we know, there is no religious establishment or organized body that has in its creed or confession of faith any article denying or affirming such a theory. Scopes v. State 289 S.W. 363, 367 (Tenn. 1927).
The interpretation of the Establishment Clause up to that time was that Congress could not establish a particular religion as the State religion. Consequently, the Court held that the ban on the teaching of evolution did not violate the Establishment clause, because it did not establish one religion as the "State religion." As a result of the holding, the teaching of evolution remained illegal in Tennessee, and continued campaigning succeeded in removing evolution from school textbooks throughout the United States.
Modern legal cases
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
ruled in Epperson v. Arkansas
Epperson v. Arkansas
Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97 , was a United States Supreme Court case that invalidated an Arkansas statute that prohibited the teaching of human evolution in the public schools...
that Arkansas's law prohibiting the teaching of evolution was in violation of the First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
. The Supreme Court held that the Establishment Clause prohibits the state from advancing any religion, and determined that the Arkansas law which allowed the teaching of creation while disallowing the teaching of evolution advanced a religion, and was therefore in violation of the 1st amendment Establishment clause. This holding reflected a broader understanding of the Establishment Clause: instead of just prohibiting laws that established a state religion, the Clause was interpreted to prohibit laws that furthered religion. Opponents, pointing to the previous decision, argued that this amounted to judicial activism
Judicial activism
Judicial activism describes judicial ruling suspected of being based on personal or political considerations rather than on existing law. It is sometimes used as an antonym of judicial restraint. The definition of judicial activism, and which specific decisions are activist, is a controversial...
.
In reaction to the Epperson case, creationists in Louisiana passed a law requiring that public schools should give "equal time" to "alternative theories" of origin. The Supreme Court ruled in Edwards v. Aguillard
Edwards v. Aguillard
Edwards v. Aguillard, was a legal case about the teaching of creationism that was heard by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1987. The Court ruled that a Louisiana law requiring that creation science be taught in public schools, along with evolution, was unconstitutional because the law...
that the Louisiana statute, which required creation to be taught alongside evolution every time evolution was taught, was unconstitutional.
The Court laid out its rule as follows:
The Establishment Clause forbids the enactment of any law 'respecting an establishment of religion.' The Court has applied a three-pronged test to determine whether legislation comports with the Establishment Clause. First, the legislature must have adopted the law with a secular purpose. Second, the statute's principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion. Third, the statute must not result in an excessive entanglement of government with religion. Lemon v. KurtzmanLemon v. KurtzmanLemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 , was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that Pennsylvania's 1968 Nonpublic Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which allowed the state Superintendent of Public Instruction to reimburse nonpublic schools for the salaries of teachers who...
, 403 U.S. 602, 612-613, 91 S.Ct. 2105, 2111, 29 L.Ed.2d 745 (1971). State action violates the Establishment Clause if it fails to satisfy any of these prongs. Edwards v. Aguillard 482 U.S. 578, *582-583, 107 S.Ct. 2573, 2577 (U.S.La.,1987).
The Court held that the law was not adopted with a secular purpose, because its purported purpose of "protecting academic freedom
Academic freedom
Academic freedom is the belief that the freedom of inquiry by students and faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy, and that scholars should have freedom to teach or communicate ideas or facts without being targeted for repression, job loss, or imprisonment.Academic freedom is a...
" was not furthered by limiting the freedom of teachers to teach what they thought appropriate; ruled that the act was discriminatory because it provided certain resources and guarantees to "creation scientists" which were not provided to those who taught evolution; and ruled that the law was intended to advance a particular religion because several state senators that had supported the bill stated that their support for the bill stemmed from their religious beliefs.
While the Court held that creationism is an inherently religious belief, it did not hold that every mention of creationism in a public school is unconstitutional:
We do not imply that a legislature could never require that scientific critiques of prevailing scientific theories be taught. Indeed, the Court acknowledged in Stone that its decision forbidding the posting of the Ten Commandments did not mean that no use could ever be made of the Ten Commandments, or that the Ten Commandments played an exclusively religious role in the history of Western Civilization. 449 U.S., at 42, 101 S.Ct., at 194. In a similar way, teaching a variety of scientific theories about the origins of humankind to schoolchildren might be validly done with the clear secular intent of enhancing the effectiveness of science instruction. But because the primary purpose of the Creationism Act is to endorse a particular religious doctrine, the Act furthers religion in violation of the Establishment Clause. Edwards v. Aguillard 482 U.S. 578, 593-594, 107 S.Ct. 2573, 2583 (U.S.La., 1987)
Just as it is permissible to discuss the crucial role of religion in medieval European history, creationism may be discussed in a civics, current affairs, philosophy, or comparative religions class where the intent is to factually educate students about the diverse range of human political and religious beliefs. The line is crossed only when creationism is taught as science, just as it would be if a teacher were to proselytize a particular religious belief.
Movements to teach creationism in schools
There continue to be numerous efforts to introduce creationism in US classrooms. One strategy is to declare that evolution is a religion, and therefore it should not be taught in the classroom either, or that if evolution is a religion, then surely creationism as well can be taught in the classroom.In the 1980s Phillip E. Johnson
Phillip E. Johnson
Phillip E. Johnson is a retired UC Berkeley law professor and author. He became a born-again Christian while a tenured professor and is considered the father of the intelligent design movement...
began reading the scientific literature on evolution. This led to the writing of Darwin on Trial
Darwin on Trial
Darwin on Trial is a 1991 book about the theory of evolution and the creation-evolution debate. It was written by Harvard graduate and University of California, Berkeley law professor emeritus Phillip E. Johnson...
, which examined the evidence for evolution from religious point of view and challenged the assumption that the only reasonable explanation for the origin of species must be a naturalistic one, though science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
is defined by searching for natural explanations for phenomena. This book, and his subsequent efforts to encourage and coordinate creationists with more credentials, was the start of the "Intelligent design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
" movement. Intelligent design asserts that there is evidence that life was created by an "intelligent designer" (mainly that the physical properties of an object are so complex that they must have been "designed"). Proponents claim that ID takes "all available facts" into account rather than just those available through naturalism. Opponents assert that ID is a pseudoscience
Pseudoscience
Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...
because its claims cannot be tested by experiment
Experiment
An experiment is a methodical procedure carried out with the goal of verifying, falsifying, or establishing the validity of a hypothesis. Experiments vary greatly in their goal and scale, but always rely on repeatable procedure and logical analysis of the results...
(see falsifiability
Falsifiability
Falsifiability or refutability of an assertion, hypothesis or theory is the logical possibility that it can be contradicted by an observation or the outcome of a physical experiment...
) and do not propose any new hypotheses.
Many proponents of the ID movement support requiring that it be taught in the public schools. For example, conservative think-tank, The Discovery Institute
Discovery Institute
The Discovery Institute is a non-profit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Washington, best known for its advocacy of intelligent design...
and Phillip E. Johnson, support the policy of "Teach the Controversy
Teach the Controversy
Teach the Controversy is the name of a Discovery Institute campaign to promote intelligent design, a variant of traditional creationism, while attempting to discredit evolution in United States public high school science courses...
", which entails presenting to students evidence for and against evolution, and then encouraging students to evaluate that evidence themselves.
While many proponents of ID believe that it should be taught in schools, other creationists believe that legislation is not appropriate. Answers in Genesis
Answers in Genesis
Answers in Genesis is a non-profit Christian apologetics ministry with a particular focus on supporting Young Earth creationism and a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis. The organization has offices in the United Kingdom and the United States...
has said:
"AiG is not a lobby group, and we oppose legislation for compulsion of creation teaching ... why would we want an atheist forced to teach creation and give a distorted view? But we would like legal protection for teachers who present scientific arguments against the sacred cow of evolution such as staged pictures of peppered moths and forged embryo diagrams ..."
Opponents point out that there is no scientific controversy, but only a political and religious one, therefore "teaching the controversy" would only be appropriate in a social studies, religion, or philosophy class. Many, such as Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
, compare teaching intelligent design in schools to teaching flat earthism
Flat Earth
The Flat Earth model is a belief that the Earth's shape is a plane or disk. Most ancient cultures have had conceptions of a flat Earth, including Greece until the classical period, the Bronze Age and Iron Age civilizations of the Near East until the Hellenistic period, India until the Gupta period ...
, since the scientific consensus
Scientific consensus
Scientific consensus is the collective judgment, position, and opinion of the community of scientists in a particular field of study. Consensus implies general agreement, though not necessarily unanimity. Scientific consensus is not by itself a scientific argument, and it is not part of the...
regarding these issues is identical. Dawkins has stated that teaching creationism to children is akin to child abuse
Child abuse
Child abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of a child. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Children And Families define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or...
.
In June 2007 the Council of Europe
Council of Europe
The Council of Europe is an international organisation promoting co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation...
's "Committee on Culture, Science and Education" issued a report, The dangers of creationism in education, which states "Creationism in any of its forms, such as 'intelligent design', is not based on facts, does not use any scientific reasoning and its contents are pathetically inadequate for science classes." In describing the dangers posed to education by teaching creationism, it described intelligent design as "anti-science" and involving "blatant scientific fraud" and "intellectual deception" that "blurs the nature, objectives and limits of science" and links it and other forms of creationism to denialism
Denialism
Denialism is choosing to deny reality as a way to avoid an uncomfortable truth: "[it] is the refusal to accept an empirically verifiable reality...
.
Alabama
In 1996, the Alabama State Board of EducationAlabama State Board of Education
The Alabama State Board of Education is a nine-member body which authorizes the education policy for the state of Alabama. The governor is the ex officio president of the board. The remaining eight members are elected from single-member districts for four-year terms with no limit on the number of...
adopted a textbook sticker that was a disclaimer about evolution. It has since been revised and moderated.
California
In August 2008 Judge Otero ruled in favor of University of CaliforniaUniversity of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
in Association of Christian Schools International v. Roman Stearns agreeing with the university's position that various religious books on U.S. history and science, from A Beka Books and Bob Jones University Press, should not be used for a college-preparatory classes. The case was filed in spring 2006 by Association of Christian Schools International
Association of Christian Schools International
The Association of Christian Schools International is an association of evangelical Protestant Christian schools.-Purposes:ACSI, a protestant association for Christian schools, impacts nearly 23,000 schools and transforms the lives of more than 3.9 million students worldwide...
against the University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
claiming religious discrimination over the rejection of five courses as college preparatory instruction. On August 8, 2008, Judge Otero entered summary judgment against plaintiff ACSI, upholding the University of California's standards. The university found the books "didn't encourage critical thinking skills and failed to cover 'major topics, themes and components'" and were thus, ill-suited to prepare students for college.
Florida
On February 19, 2008, the FloridaFlorida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
State Board of Education adopted new science standards in a 4-3 vote. The new science curriculum standards explicitly require the teaching of the "scientific theory of evolution", whereas the previous standards only referenced evolution using the words "change over time."
Georgia
In 2002, six parents in Cobb County, GeorgiaCobb County, Georgia
Cobb County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. Its county seat and largest city is Marietta, which is located in the center of the county. The county was named for Thomas Willis Cobb, who in the early 19th century was a United States representative and senator from Georgia...
in the case Selman v. Cobb County School District
Selman v. Cobb County School District
Selman v. Cobb County School District, 449 F.3d 1320 , was a 2006 American court case in Cobb County, Georgia involving a sticker placed in biology textbooks...
sued to have the following sticker removed from public school textbooks: "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." Selman v. Cobb County School District, No. 1:02CV2325 (N.D. Ga. filed August 21, 2002). Defense attorney Gunn said, "The only thing the school board did is acknowledge there is a potential conflict [between evolution and creationism] and there is a potential infringement on people's beliefs if you present it in a dogmatic way. We're going to do it in a respectful way." Gerald R. Weber, legal director of the ACLU
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...
of Georgia, said "The progress of church-state cases has been that the [U.S.] Supreme Court sets a line, then government entities do what they can to skirt that line. […] Here the Supreme Court has said you can't teach creationism in the public schools. You can't have an equal-time provision for evolution and creationism. These disclaimers are a new effort to skirt the line." Jefferey Selman, who brought the lawsuit, claims "It singles out evolution from all the scientific theories out there. Why single out evolution? It has to be coming from a religious basis, and that violates the separation of church and state." The School Board said it adopted the sticker "to foster critical thinking among students, to allow academic freedom consistent with legal requirements, to promote tolerance and acceptance of diversity of opinion and to ensure a posture of neutrality toward religion."
On January 14, 2005, a federal judge in Atlanta ruled that the stickers should be removed as they violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The school board subsequently decided to appeal the decision. In comments on December 15, 2005 in advance of releasing its decision, the appeal court panel appeared critical of the lower court ruling and a judge indicated that he did not understand the difference between evolution and abiogenesis
Abiogenesis
Abiogenesis or biopoesis is the study of how biological life arises from inorganic matter through natural processes, and the method by which life on Earth arose...
.
On December 20, 2006, the Cobb County Board of Education abandoned all of its legal activities and will no longer mandate that biology texts contain a sticker stating "evolution is a theory, not a fact." Their decision was a result of compromise negotiated with a group of parents, represented by the ACLU, that were opposed to the sticker. The parents agreed, as their part of the compromise, to withdraw their legal actions against the board.
Kansas
On August 11, 1999, by a 6–4 vote the KansasKansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
State Board of Education changed their science education
Science education
Science education is the field concerned with sharing science content and process with individuals not traditionally considered part of the scientific community. The target individuals may be children, college students, or adults within the general public. The field of science education comprises...
standards to remove any mention of "biological macroevolution, the age of the Earth, or the origin and early development of the Universe", so that evolutionary theory no longer appeared in state-wide standardized tests and "it was left to the 305 local school districts in Kansas whether or not to teach it." This decision was hailed by creationists, and sparked a statewide and nationwide controversy with scientists condemning the change. Challengers in the state's Republican primary who made opposition to the anti-evolution standards their focus were voted in on August 1, 2000, so on February 14, 2001, the Board voted 7–3 to reinstate the teaching of biological evolution and the origin of the earth into the state's science education standards.
In 2004 Kansas Board of Education elections gave religious conservatives a majority and, influenced by the Discovery Institute
Discovery Institute
The Discovery Institute is a non-profit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Washington, best known for its advocacy of intelligent design...
, they arranged the Kansas evolution hearings
Kansas evolution hearings
The Kansas evolution hearings were a series of hearings held in Topeka, Kansas, United States May 5 to May 12, 2005 by the Kansas State Board of Education and its State Board Science Hearing Committee to change how evolution and the origin of life would be taught in the state's public high school...
. On August 9, 2005, the Kansas State Board of Education drafted new "science standards that require critical analysis of evolution – including scientific evidence refuting the theory," which opponents analyzed as effectively stating that intelligent design should be taught. The new standards also provide a definition of science that does not preclude supernatural explanations, and were approved by a 6–4 vote on November 8, 2005—incidentally the day of the Dover school board election which failed to re-elect incumbent creationists (see #Pennsylvania).
In Kansas' state Republican primary elections on August 1, 2006, moderate Republicans took control away from the anti-evolution conservatives, leading to an expectation that science standards which effectively embraced intelligent design and cast doubt on Darwinian evolution would now be changed.
On February 13, 2007, the Kansas State Board of Education approved a new curriculum which removed any reference to Intelligent Design as part of science. In the words of Dr Bill Wagnon, the board chairman, "Today the Kansas Board of Education returned its curriculum standards to mainstream science". The new curriculum, as well as a document outlining the differences with the previous curriculum, has been posted on the Kansas State Department of Education's website.
Kentucky
In October 1999, the KentuckyKentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
Department of Education replaced the word "evolution" with "change over time" in state school standards.
Louisiana
On 12 June 2008, bill (SB561) or the "Louisiana Academic Freedom Act" passed into law.Ohio
In 2002, proponents of intelligent design asked the Ohio Board of Education to adopt intelligent design as part of its standard biology curriculum, in line with the guidelines of the Edwards v. Aguillard holding. In December 2002, the Board adopted a proposal that required critical analysis of evolution, but did not specifically mention intelligent design. This decision was reversed in February 2006 following both the conclusion of the Dover lawsuit and repeated threats of lawsuit against the Ohio Board.Pennsylvania
In 2004 the Dover, PennsylvaniaDover, Pennsylvania
Dover is a borough in York County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 2,007 at the 2010 census.-History:James Joner purchased in 1764 and laid out the town of Dover...
School Board voted that a statement must be read to students of 9th grade biology mentioning Intelligent Design. This resulted in a firestorm of criticism from scientists and science teachers and caused a group of parents to begin legal proceedings (sometimes referred to as the Dover panda trial) to challenge the decision, based on their interpretation of the Aguillard
Edwards v. Aguillard
Edwards v. Aguillard, was a legal case about the teaching of creationism that was heard by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1987. The Court ruled that a Louisiana law requiring that creation science be taught in public schools, along with evolution, was unconstitutional because the law...
precedent. Supporters of the school board's position noted that the Aguillard holding explicitly allowed for a variety of what they consider "scientific theories" of origins for the secular purpose of improving scientific education. Others have argued that Intelligent Design should not be allowed to use this "loophole." On November 8, 2005, the members of the school board in Dover were voted out and replaced by evolutionary theory supporters. This had no bearing on the case. On December 20, 2005 federal judge John E. Jones III
John E. Jones III
John Edward Jones III is an American lawyer and jurist from the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. A Republican, Jones was appointed by President George W. Bush as federal judge on the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania in February 2002 and was unanimously confirmed by...
ruled that the Dover School Board had violated the Constitution when they set their policy on teaching intelligent design, and stated that "In making this determination, we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents."
Texas
On November 7, 2007 the Texas Education AgencyTexas Education Agency
The Texas Education Agency is a branch of the state government of Texas in the United States responsible for public education. The agency is headquartered in the William B...
director of science curriculum Christine Comer
Christine Comer
Christine Castillo Comer is the former Director of Science in the curriculum division of the Texas Education Agency . Comer spent nine years as the Director of Science until she resigned on November 7, 2007...
was forced to resign over an e-mail she had sent announcing a talk given by an anti-Intelligent Design author. In a memo obtained under the Texas Freedom of Information act, TEA officials wrote "Ms. Comer's e-mail implies endorsement of the speaker and implies that TEA endorses the speaker's position on a subject on which the agency must remain neutral". In response over 100 biology professors from Texas universities signed a letter to the state education commissioner denouncing the requirement to be neutral on the subject of Intelligent Design.
In July 2011, the Texas Board of Education, which oversees the Texas Education Agency, did not approve anti-evolution instructional materials submitted by International Databases, LLC, while continuing to approve materials from mainstream publishers.
Virginia
Despite proponents' urging that intelligent design be included in the school system's science curriculum, the school board of Chesterfield County Public SchoolsChesterfield County Public Schools
Chesterfield County Public Schools is the school system of Chesterfield County, Virginia, United States. Almost 59,000 students are enrolled in 62 Chesterfield public schools...
in Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
decided on May 23, 2007, to approve science textbooks for middle and high schools which do not include the idea of intelligent design. However, during the board meeting a statement was made that their aim was self-directed learning which "occurs only when alternative views are explored and discussed", and directed that professionals supporting curriculum development and implementation are to be required "to investigate and develop processes that encompass a comprehensive approach to the teaching and learning" of the theory of evolution, "along with all other topics that raise differences of thought and opinion." During the week before the meeting, one of the intelligent design proponents claimed that "Students are being excluded from scientific debate. It's time to bring this debate into the classroom", and presented "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism
A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism
A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism is a statement issued in 2001 by the Discovery Institute, a conservative non-profit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Washington, USA, best known for its advocacy of intelligent design.The statement expresses skepticism about the ability of random...
".
Polls
In 2000, a People for the American WayPeople For the American Way
People For the American Way is a progressive advocacy group in the United States. Under U.S. tax code, People For the American Way is organized as a tax-exempt 501 non-profit organization.-Purpose:...
poll among Americans found that:
- 29% believe public schools should teach evolution in science class but can discuss creationismCreationismCreationism is the religious beliefthat humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being, most often referring to the Abrahamic god. As science developed from the 18th century onwards, various views developed which aimed to reconcile science with the Genesis...
there as a belief; - 20% believe public schools should teach evolution only;
- 17% believe public schools should teach evolution in science class and religious theories elsewhere;
- 16% believe public schools should teach creation only;
- 13% believe public schools should teach both evolution and creationism in science class;
- 4% believe public schools should teach both but are not sure how.
In 2006, a poll taken over the telephone by Zogby International
Zogby International
IBOPE Zogby International is an international market research, opinion polling firm founded in 1984 by John Zogby. The company polls and consults for a wide spectrum of business media, government, and political groups, and conducts public opinion research in more than 70 countries...
commissioned by the Discovery Institute
Discovery Institute
The Discovery Institute is a non-profit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Washington, best known for its advocacy of intelligent design...
found that more than three to one of voters surveyed chose the option that biology teachers should teach Darwin's theory of evolution, but also "the scientific evidence against it". Approximately seven in ten (69%) sided with this view. In contrast, one in five (21%) chose the other option given, that biology teachers should teach only Darwin's theory of evolution and the scientific evidence that supports it. One in ten was not sure. The poll's results may be called into question however, because the wording of the poll question implies
Push poll
A push poll is a political campaign technique in which an individual or organization attempts to influence or alter the view of respondents under the guise of conducting a poll. In a push poll, large numbers of respondents are contacted, and little or no effort is made to collect and analyze...
that significant scientific evidence against evolution exists to be taught.
Consequences
Over the past few years, there have been several attempts to undermine the teaching of evolution in public schools. Tactics include claims that evolution is "merely a theory", which exploits the difference between the general use of the word theoryTheory
The English word theory was derived from a technical term in Ancient Greek philosophy. The word theoria, , meant "a looking at, viewing, beholding", and referring to contemplation or speculation, as opposed to action...
and the scientific usage, and thus insinuates that evolution does not have widespread acceptance amongst scientists; promoting the teaching of alternative pseudoscience
Pseudoscience
Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...
s such as intelligent design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
; and completely ignoring evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
in biology classes. In general, these controversies, at the local school district level, have resulted in Federal and State court actions (usually by parents who are opposed to teaching of religion in school). There have been a number of consequences of these activities:
- The teaching of religious doctrines, such as Creation ScienceCreation scienceCreation Science or scientific creationism is a branch of creationism that attempts to provide scientific support for the Genesis creation narrative in the Book of Genesis and disprove generally accepted scientific facts, theories and scientific paradigms about the history of the Earth, cosmology...
and Intelligent DesignIntelligent designIntelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
, relies upon an understanding of and belief in the supernatural. This is in direct opposition to the principle that science can only use natural, reproducible, testable forces to explain phenomena. This could lead to the disabling of students' abilities to develop the critical thinking skills necessary for all scientists. - The costs to school districts to defend their actions in imposing religious teaching over the science of evolution are high, diverting funds that the districts could use for the education of their students.
- The lack of proper science education will have a long-term effect of eroding the technological leadership of the US.
- Most biology and medical research institutions assume a well-grounded undergraduate education in biology, which includes the study of evolution. Since modern medical research has focused on the cellular and biochemical levels, the knowledge that all of these processes have evolved from a common ancestor and the processes are remarkably similar between diverse species will be critical in designing experiments to test novel treatments for disease.
- Christine ComerChristine ComerChristine Castillo Comer is the former Director of Science in the curriculum division of the Texas Education Agency . Comer spent nine years as the Director of Science until she resigned on November 7, 2007...
, the Director of Science Curriculum for TexasTexasTexas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, resigned after being placed on administrative leave for a breach of Texas Education AgencyTexas Education AgencyThe Texas Education Agency is a branch of the state government of Texas in the United States responsible for public education. The agency is headquartered in the William B...
policy, which requires a neutral stance regarding ID and evolution. Ms. Comer had forwarded an email containing details of an upcoming talk by Barbara ForrestBarbara ForrestBarbara Carroll Forrest is a professor of philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana. She is a critic of intelligent design and the Discovery Institute.- Biography :...
, an expert on the history of the ID movement who had been an expert witness on that subject in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School DistrictKitzmiller v. Dover Area School DistrictTammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. was the first direct challenge brought in the United States federal courts testing a public school district policy that required the teaching of intelligent design...
, and a prominent critic of ID. Lizzette ReynoldsLizzette ReynoldsLizzette Gonzalez Reynolds is Statewide Policy and Programs Deputy Commissioner, Education Agency, State of Texas. She came to public attention in November 2007 over the controversial firing of Christine Comer.-Career:...
, formerly of the U.S. Department of Education and also deputy legislative director for former Texas Governor, George W. BushGeorge W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
, emailed Comer's supervisor: "This is highly inappropriate," Reynolds said. "I believe this is an offense that calls for termination or, at the very least, reassignment of responsibilities.
U.S. legal quotations
Epperson v. Arkansas
Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97 , was a United States Supreme Court case that invalidated an Arkansas statute that prohibited the teaching of human evolution in the public schools...
(1968):
...the First Amendment does not permit the state to require that teaching and learning must be tailored to the principles or prohibitions of any religious sect or dogma...the state has no legitimate interest in protecting any or all religions from views distasteful to them.
McLean v. Arkansas
McLean v. Arkansas
McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, 529 F. Supp. 1255, 1258-1264 , was a 1981 legal case in Arkansas.A lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas by various parents, religious groups and organizations, biologists, and others who argued that the...
case (1982), the judge wrote that creation scientists:
...cannot properly describe the methodology used as scientific, if they start with a conclusion and refuse to change it regardless of the evidence developed during the course of the investigation.
The Supreme Court, Edwards v. Aguillard
Edwards v. Aguillard
Edwards v. Aguillard, was a legal case about the teaching of creationism that was heard by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1987. The Court ruled that a Louisiana law requiring that creation science be taught in public schools, along with evolution, was unconstitutional because the law...
(1987):
...Because the primary purpose of the Creationism Act is to advance a particular religious belief, the Act endorses religion in violation of the First Amendment.
In Webster v. New Lenox School District
Webster v. New Lenox School District
Webster v. New Lenox School District was a 1990 court case in New Lenox, Illinois, in which a social studies teacher Ray Webster sued his school district which he accused of violating his first amendment right to free speech for stopping him from teaching "creation science" in class...
(1990), the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals stated:
If a teacher in a public school uses religion and teaches religious beliefs or espouses theories clearly based on religious underpinnings, the principles of the separation of church and state are violated as clearly as if a statute ordered the teacher to teach religious theories such as the statutes in Edwards did.
The 9th Circuit Federal Appeals Court wrote in a California case (Peloza v. Capistrano School District
Peloza v. Capistrano School District
Peloza v. Capistrano Unified School District, 37 F.3d 517 , was a 1994 court case heard by United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in which a creationist schoolteacher, John E...
, 1994):
The Supreme Court has held unequivocally that while belief in a Divine Creator of the universe is a religious belief, the scientific theory that higher forms of life evolved from lower ones is not.
United States District Court Judge John E. Jones III stated thus in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. was the first direct challenge brought in the United States federal courts testing a public school district policy that required the teaching of intelligent design...
, 2005:
We have concluded that Intelligent Design is not science, and moreover that I.D. cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious antecedents.
Council of Europe's resolution 1580
On October 4, 2007, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of EuropeParliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe , which held its first session in Strasbourg on 10 August 1949, can be considered the oldest international parliamentary assembly with a pluralistic composition of democratically elected members of parliament established on the basis of an...
adopted its resolution 1580: The dangers of creationism in education
The dangers of creationism in education
The dangers of creationism in education are title and subject of a Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe resolution and two reports of 2007. Initially, in 2006 several delegates of the assembly suggested to adopt a recommendation on this theme...
. The resolution rejects that creationism in any form, including "intelligent design", can be considered scientific (Article 4), but considers possible its inclusion in religion and cultural classes (Article 16). The resolution concludes that teaching creationism in school as a scientific theory may threaten civil rights (Articles 13 and 18). The resolution summarizes itself in Article 19:
Denmark
In 2007, Turkish creationist Harun Yahya sent his book The Atlas of CreationThe Atlas of Creation
The Atlas of Creation is a series of three books, written by Adnan Oktar under the pen name Harun Yahya. Oktar published volume 1 of The Atlas of Creation with Global Publishing, Istanbul, Turkey in October 2006....
to a large number of European, including Danish
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, schools.
On April 25, 2007, Member of Parliament Martin Henriksen (Danish People's Party) asked Minister of Education Bertel Haarder (The Liberal Party) for information about how many educational institutions had received The Atlas of Creation. The minister responded that the Ministry of Education was not in possession of information about the number of educational institutions that had received the book, that choice of educational material was not up to the ministry, and that it is an objective of the discipline biology in primary school that the education must enable the pupils to relate to values and conflicts of interest connected with issues with a biological content.
On November 11, 2007, following the October 4 release of the Council of Europe's resolution 1580, Danish member of ISKCON and leading ID-proponent Leif Asmark Jensen published a letter on his website. The letter is addressed to "Danish politicians" and is a clarification why Asmark and other ID-proponents consider the resolution "so problematic that the Danish Parliament ought to ignore the resolution and maintain the Danish tradition for openness in school education."
In interview sessions during 2002, less than 10% of the interviewed Danes declared the theory of evolution false.
Netherlands
In the NetherlandsNetherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
some factions teach creationism in their own schools. In May 2005, a discussion on Intelligent Design erupted when education minister Maria van der Hoeven
Maria van der Hoeven
Maria Josephina Arnoldina van der Hoeven is a Dutch politician of the Christian Democratic Appeal party. She is the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency since 1 September 2011....
suggested that debate about Intelligent Design might encourage discourse between the country's various religious parties. She sought to "stimulate an academic debate" on the subject. Following strong objection from the nation's scientists, she dropped plans of holding a conference on the matter.
After the 2007 elections, she was succeeded by Ronald Plasterk
Ronald Plasterk
Ronald Hans Anton Plasterk is a Dutch politician of the Labour Party . He was Minister of Education, Culture and Science from February 22, 2007 until February 23, 2010 in the Cabinet Balkenende IV. He has been a Member of the House of Representatives since June 17, 2010. He focuses on matters of...
, described as a "molecular geneticist, staunch atheist and opponent of intelligent design".
Norway
In 1986, the then minister of education Kjell Magne BondevikKjell Magne Bondevik
Kjell Magne Bondevik is a Norwegian Lutheran minister and politician . He served as Prime Minister of Norway from 1997 to 2000, and from 2001 to 2005, making him Norway's longest serving non-Labour Party Prime Minister since World War II...
proposed new education plans for the elementary and middle school levels which included skepticism to the theory of evolution and would hold that a final answer to the origin of mankind was unknown. The proposal was withdrawn after it had generated controversy.
Poland
PolandPoland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
saw a major controversy over creationism in 2006 when the deputy education minister, Mirosław Orzechowski, denounced evolution as "one of many lies" taught in Polish schools. His superior, Minister of Education Roman Giertych
Roman Giertych
Roman Jacek Giertych is a Polish politician; he was Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education until August 2007. He was a member of the Sejm from 2001 until October 2007, and chairman of the League of Polish Families party.- Biography :Roman Giertych comes from a prominent family of Polish...
, has stated that the theory of evolution would continue to be taught in Polish schools, "as long as most scientists in our country say that it is the right theory." Giertych's father, Member of the European Parliament
Member of the European Parliament
A Member of the European Parliament is a person who has been elected to the European Parliament. The name of MEPs differ in different languages, with terms such as europarliamentarian or eurodeputy being common in Romance language-speaking areas.When the European Parliament was first established,...
Maciej Giertych
Maciej Giertych
Maciej Marian Giertych is a Polish dendrologist and social conservative politician of the League of Polish Families . He favours state intervention in the economy. He was a member of the Sejm and a Polish member of the European Parliament...
, has however opposed the teaching of evolution and has claimed that "dinosaurs and humans co-existed because Poles remember the Wawel Dragon
Smok Wawelski
The Wawel Dragon , also known as the Dragon of Wawel Hill, is a famous dragon in Polish folklore. He laired in a cave at the foot of Wawel Hill on the bank of the Vistula River. Wawel Hill is in Kraków, which was then the capital of Poland...
and Scots knows about the Loch Ness monster
Loch Ness Monster
The Loch Ness Monster is a cryptid that is reputed to inhabit Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. It is similar to other supposed lake monsters in Scotland and elsewhere, though its description varies from one account to the next....
".
Serbia
In SerbiaSerbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
the teaching of evolution was suspended for one week in 2004, under education minister Ljiljana Čolić
Ljiljana Colic
Ljiljana Čolić, Ph.D. is a former Minister for Education and Sport in the Government of Serbia.-Personal life and achievements:...
, only allowing schools to reintroduce evolution into the curriculum if they also taught creationism. "After a deluge of protest from scientists, teachers and opposition parties" says the BBC report, Čolić's deputy made the statement, "I have come here to confirm Charles Darwin is still alive" and announced that the decision was reversed. Čolić resigned after the government said that she had caused "problems that had started to reflect on the work of the entire government."
United Kingdom
In each of the countries of the United KingdomUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, there is an agreed syllabus for religious education
Religious education
In secular usage, religious education is the teaching of a particular religion and its varied aspects —its beliefs, doctrines, rituals, customs, rites, and personal roles...
with the right of parents to withdraw their children from these lessons. The religious education syllabus does not involve teaching creationism, but rather teaching the central tenets of major world faiths. At the same time, the teaching of evolution is compulsory in publicly funded schools. For instance, the National Curriculum for England requires that students at Key Stage 4 (14-16) be taught:
- that the fossil record is evidence for evolution
- how variation and selection may lead to evolution or to extinction.
Similar requirements exist in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
and Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
.
In 2003 the Emmanuel Schools Foundation
Emmanuel Schools Foundation
The Emmanuel Schools Foundation is a charitable trust which has been involved in education since 1989.ESF sponsored four schools: Emmanuel City Technology College in Gateshead , The King's Academy in Middlesbrough , Trinity Academy in Thorne, Doncaster and Bede Academy in Blyth, Northumberland...
(previously the Vardy Foundation after its founder, Sir Peter Vardy
Peter Vardy (businessman)
Sir Peter Vardy is a British businessman and philanthropist from Houghton-le-Spring in Durham. His business interests have been mainly in the automotive retail business...
) sponsored a number of "faith-based" academies where evolution and creationist ideas would be taught side-by-side in science classes. This caused a considerable amount of controversy.
The Archbishop of Canterbury
Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...
Dr Rowan Williams
Rowan Williams
Rowan Douglas Williams FRSL, FBA, FLSW is an Anglican bishop, poet and theologian. He is the 104th and current Archbishop of Canterbury, Metropolitan of the Province of Canterbury and Primate of All England, offices he has held since early 2003.Williams was previously Bishop of Monmouth and...
, leader of the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
, has expressed his view that creationism should not be taught in schools.
An organisation calling itself Truth in Science
Truth in Science
Truth in Science is a United Kingdom-based creationist organization which promotes the Discovery Institute's "Teach the Controversy" campaign. It uses this strategy to try to get intelligent design taught alongside evolution in school science lessons...
has distributed teaching packs of creationist information to schools, and claims that fifty-nine schools are using the packs as "a useful classroom resource". The government has stated that "Neither intelligent design nor creationism are recognised scientific theories and they are not included in the science curriculum. The Truth in Science information pack is therefore not an appropriate resource to support the science curriculum." It is arranging to communicate this message directly to schools.
The efforts to introduce creationism and intelligent design into schools in the UK is being opposed by an organization called the British Centre for Science Education
British Centre for Science Education
The British Centre for Science Education is a volunteer-run organization in the United Kingdom that has the goal of "countering creationism within the UK" and was formed to campaign against the teaching of creationism in schools.- Activities :...
. The BCSE has been involved in government lobbying and has a website which presents information on the relevant issues.
Russia
In December 2006, a schoolgirl in St. Petersburg, RussiaRussia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
and her father decided to take the teaching of evolution in Russian schools to court. The position of the Russian Ministry of Education
Russian Ministry of Education
Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation oversees scientific institutions, education and school accreditation in the Russian Federation...
supports the theory of evolution. The suit has been backed by representatives of Russian Orthodox Church.
Pakistan
As of 2005, evolution was not taught in PakistanPakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
i universities; however, the grade 12 Biology textbook contains a chapter on Evolution, and presents it as a fact. In 2006, the Pakistan Academy of Sciences
Pakistan Academy of Sciences
The Pakistan Academy of Sciences The Pakistan Academy of Sciences The Pakistan Academy of Sciences (Urdu: پاکستان اكيڈ مى ﺁف سائس; shortened to PAS, is a learned society for science and technology based in Pakistan. The academy consisted and served as the network of science across the Pakistan as...
became a signatory of the InterAcademy Panel Statement on "The teaching of evolution". Many of the contemporary titles on the creation-evolution controversy
Creation-evolution controversy
The creation–evolution controversy is a recurring cultural, political, and theological dispute about the origins of the Earth, humanity, life, and the universe....
, such as those by Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
, have been translated into Urdu
Urdu
Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...
.
Turkey
In TurkeyTurkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, a mostly Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
ic country, evolution is often a controversial subject. Evolution was added to the school curriculum shortly after the Turkish Revolution of the 1920s and 30s. There was some resistance to this, such as that of Said Nursî
Said Nursî
Bediuzzaman Said Nursî ,commonly known as Bediüzzaman , which means "The Wonder of the Age" was a Muslim scholar who wrote the Risale-i Nur Collection, a body of Qur'anic commentary exceeding six thousand pages. . He was born in Nurs, a village in the Ottoman Bitlis Province in eastern Anatolia. He...
and his followers, but opposition was not particularly powerful. In the 1980s, conservatives came into power, and used the ideas of scientific creationists in the US as a method of discrediting evolution (notwithstanding material on the age of the earth
Age of the Earth
The age of the Earth is 4.54 billion years This age is based on evidence from radiometric age dating of meteorite material and is consistent with the ages of the oldest-known terrestrial and lunar samples...
, which Islamic creationism
Islamic creationism
Islamic views on evolution refers to varying Muslim beliefs on how the life came to be. Muslims acknowledge God as the Creator, as explained in the Qur'an. Other than that, Muslim views on evolution vary...
is less specific about).
One anti-evolutionist group in Turkey is the Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
based Bilim Arastirma Vakfi (BAV), or "Science Research Foundation", which was founded by Adnan Oktar
Adnan Oktar
Adnan Oktar , also known as Harun Yahya, is an author and Islamic creationist. In 2007, he sent thousands of unsolicited copies of the Atlas of Creation advocating Islamic creationism to American scientists, members of Congress, and science museums...
. Its activities include campaigns against the teaching of evolution. It has been described as one of the world's strongest anti-evolution movements outside of North America. US based creationist organizations such as the Institute for Creation Research
Institute for Creation Research
The Institute for Creation Research is a Christian institution in Dallas, Texas that specializes in education, research, and media promotion of Creation Science and Biblical creationism. The ICR adopts the Bible as an inerrant and literal documentary of scientific and historical fact as well as...
have worked alongside them. Some scientists have protested that anti-evolution books published by this group (such as The Evolution Deceit) have become more influential than real biology textbooks. The teaching of evolution in high schools has been fought by Ali Gören, a member of parliament and professor of medicine, who believes such education has negative effects.
The situation is very fragile, and the status of evolution in education varies from one government to the next. For example, in 1985 Education Minister Vehbi Dincerier had scientific creationism added to high school texts, and also had the discredited Lamarckism
Lamarckism
Lamarckism is the idea that an organism can pass on characteristics that it acquired during its lifetime to its offspring . It is named after the French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck , who incorporated the action of soft inheritance into his evolutionary theories...
presented alongside Darwinism. Only in 1998 was this changed somewhat, with texts presenting a more balanced view, though still mentioning creationism and Lamarckism. At present the moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party
Justice and Development Party (Turkey)
The Justice and Development Party , abbreviated JDP in English and AK PARTİ or AKP in Turkish, is a centre-right political party in Turkey. The party is the largest in Turkey, with 327 members of parliament...
, which is sympathetic to creationist views, holds power. It was elected in 2002 and again with a greater majority in 2007.
In general, material that conflicts with religious beliefs is highly controversial in Turkey. For example, in November 2007 a prosecutor launched a probe into whether biologist Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion
The God Delusion
The God Delusion is a 2006 bestselling non-fiction book by British biologist Richard Dawkins, professorial fellow of New College, Oxford, and inaugural holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford.In The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that...
is "an attack on religious values". Its publisher could face trial and up to one year in prison if the prosecutor concludes that the book "incites religious hatred" and insults religious values.
Turkish academics who have defended evolutionary theory have received death threat
Death threat
A death threat is a threat of death, often made anonymously, by one person or a group of people to kill another person or groups of people. These threats are usually designed to intimidate victims in order to manipulate their behavior, thus a death threat is a form of coercion...
s, for instance biologist Aykut Kence received an email telling him to enjoy his "final days". Kence helped establish the Evolution Group, whose aim is to improve public understanding of evolution. However, opposition to creationism is not very powerful; Umit Sayin, a neurologist, describes academics and universities as "slow and sluggish" in their response. Kence maintains that "if knowledgeable people keep quiet, it only helps those who spread nonsense."
Australia
Although creationist views are popular among religious education teachers and creationist teaching materials have been distributed by volunteers in some schools, many Australian scientists take an aggressive stance supporting the right of teachers to teach the theory of evolution, unhindered by religious restrictions.Brazil
In 2004, teaching of creationism in religious education classes by Rio de Janeiro's education department sparked protest from BrazilBrazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
ian scientists.
See also
- A Scientific Dissent from DarwinismA Scientific Dissent From DarwinismA Scientific Dissent from Darwinism is a statement issued in 2001 by the Discovery Institute, a conservative non-profit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Washington, USA, best known for its advocacy of intelligent design.The statement expresses skepticism about the ability of random...
and A Scientific Support for DarwinismA Scientific Support for DarwinismA Scientific Support for Darwinism was a four day, word-of-mouth petition of scientists in support of evolution. Inspired by Project Steve, it was initiated in 2005 by archaeologist R... - Clergy Letter ProjectClergy Letter ProjectThe Clergy Letter Project is an project that maintains statements in support of the teaching of evolution and in opposition to the teaching of creationism in public schools and collects signatures in support of the letter from American Christian, Jewish, and Unitarian Universalist clergy. The...
, a signed statement by over 11,000 Christian clergy members rejecting Creationism. - Creation-evolution controversyCreation-evolution controversyThe creation–evolution controversy is a recurring cultural, political, and theological dispute about the origins of the Earth, humanity, life, and the universe....
- Flying Spaghetti MonsterFlying Spaghetti MonsterThe Flying Spaghetti Monster is the deity of the parody religion the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Pastafarianism...
- HomeschoolingHomeschoolingHomeschooling or homeschool is the education of children at home, typically by parents but sometimes by tutors, rather than in other formal settings of public or private school...
- Intelligent design in politicsIntelligent design in politicsThe intelligent design movement has conducted a far-reaching organized campaign largely in the United States that promotes a neo-creationist religious agenda calling for broad social, academic and political changes centering around intelligent design....
- Level of support for evolutionLevel of support for evolutionThe level of support for evolution among scientists, the public and other groups is a topic that frequently arises in the creation-evolution controversy and touches on educational, religious, philosophical, scientific and political issues. The subject is primarily contentious in the United States...
- "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of EvolutionNothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution"Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution" is a 1973 essay by the evolutionary biologist and Russian Orthodox Christian Theodosius Dobzhansky, criticising anti-evolution creationism and espousing theistic evolution...
" - Parochial schoolParochial schoolA parochial school is a school that provides religious education in addition to conventional education. In a narrower sense, a parochial school is a Christian grammar school or high school which is part of, and run by, a parish.-United Kingdom:...
- Project SteveProject SteveProject Steve is a list of scientists with the given name Steven or a variation thereof who "support evolution"...
- Religion and childrenReligion and childrenChildren usually acquire the religious views of their parents, though they may also be influenced by others they communicate with such as peers and teachers...
- Science, Evolution, and CreationismScience, Evolution, and CreationismScience, Evolution, and Creationism is a publication by the United States National Academy of Sciences. The book's authors intended to provide a current and comprehensive explanation of evolution and "its importance in the science classroom"...
(book)
External links
- One hundred years without Darwin are enough, Simpson, George GaylordGeorge Gaylord SimpsonGeorge Gaylord Simpson was an American paleontologist. Simpson was perhaps the most influential paleontologist of the twentieth century, and a major participant in the modern evolutionary synthesis, contributing Tempo and mode in evolution , The meaning of evolution and The major features of...
(1961), Teachers College Record, 60: 617-626; Reprinted in Evolution: Oxford Readers, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 368–378, - National Center for Science Education
- List of articles (mostly from Answers in Genesis) on creation education, including many on recent American and other attempts at legislation
- Science, Evolution, and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences by the Steering Committee on Science and Creationism, National Academy of Sciences, addressing the issue of teaching intelligent design and creationism as science.
- Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science by the National Academy of Sciences.
- Kristi L. Bowman, Seeing Government Purpose through the Objective Observer's Eyes: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Debates, 29 Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 417 (2006)
- Jim Chen, Legal Mythmaking in a Time of Mass Extinctions: Reconciling Stories of Origins with Human Destiny, 29 Harvard Environmental Law Review 279 (2005)
- Wired Magazine's Article on Creationism and Intelligent Design
- Islamic Creationism in Turkey