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EVOLUTION BEING PUSHED OUT OF US CLASSROOMS
3 February 2005

The New York Times is reporting that evolution is an increasingly persecuted field of scientific knowledge in US schools. According to the story, teachers in an around Birmingham, Alabama are being openly and/or indirectly discouraged from discussing the existence of the theory of evolution, the validity of which is not in doubt among scientists in any relevant field.

Teachers are reported to cite fear of raising the issue, due to the opposition of fundamentalist groups in many communities. Dr. Eugenie Scott, from the National Center for Science Education is quoted as hearing complaints "all the time" from teachers around the country who feel it is too much trouble to discuss evolution in communities with active fundamentalist groups.

According to physicist Dr. Gerald Wheeler, it is increasingly common for teachers to keep the concept in the curriculum by telling students that evolution is a controversial theory or that it's validity has not been fully proven, falsehoods based solely on the opposition of "creationists" in their communities. In Oberlin, Ohio, one teacher says he could not teach biology effectively without his students understanding the concept so instead of teaching it as a concept apart, he applies it to pertinent subjects throughout the year, when needed.

The Times article states the intellectual crisis in clear terms: "There is no credible scientific challenge to the idea that all living things evolved from common ancestors, that evolution on earth has been going on for billions of years and that evolution can be and has been tested and confirmed by the methods of science. But in a 2001 survey, the National Science Foundation found that only 53 percent of Americans agreed with the statement "human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals.""

Perhaps more shocking, this was the first poll in the foundation's history which showed a majority of Americans believed in the theory of evolution, already long-since supported by the scientific record. Polls show consistently that a large plurality of Americans believe God created human beings whole and as we presently are roughly 10,000 years ago.

Since 1950, the Catholic Church has admitted that evolution and religion can be reconciled, but that many evangelical groups have developed a decisive opposition to ideas which are not clearly stated in the Bible.

The director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Luis Lugo blames the "marketplace environment" in which numerous religious organizations compete for membership in the US by politicizing ideas which are neither controversial nor morally significant in themselves. In an effort to discredit ideas like evolution and the Big Bang, supported by serious and universally accepted scientific evidence, such groups have sought to portray those aspects of science as "an assault of the secular elite on the values of God-fearing people." [For more: NYT]