Battle on Teaching Evolution Sharpens

Battle on Teaching Evolution Sharpens
By Peter Slevin
Mar 19, 2005, 20:58

The fight to teach God's role in creation is becoming the
essential front in America's culture war.

Propelled by a polished strategy crafted by activists on
America's political right, a battle is intensifying across the
nation over how students are taught about the origins of life.
Policymakers in 19 states are weighing proposals that question
the science of evolution.

The proposals typically stop short of overturning evolution or
introducing biblical accounts. Instead, they are calculated
pleas to teach what advocates consider gaps in long-accepted
Darwinian theory, with many relying on the idea of intelligent
design, which posits the central role of a creator.

The growing trend has alarmed scientists and educators who
consider it a masked effort to replace science with theology.
But 80 years after the Scopes "monkey" trial -- in which a
Tennessee man was prosecuted for violating state law by teaching
evolution -- it is the anti-evolutionary scientists and
Christian activists who say they are the ones being persecuted,
by a liberal establishment.

They are acting now because they feel emboldened by the
country's conservative currents and by President Bush, who
angered many scientists and teachers by declaring that the jury
is still out on evolution. Sharing strong convictions, deep
pockets and impressive political credentials -- if not always
the same goals -- the activists are building a sizable network.

In Seattle, the nonprofit Discovery Institute spends more than
$1 million a year for research, polls and media pieces
supporting intelligent design. In Fort Lauderdale, Christian
evangelist James Kennedy established a Creation Studies
Institute. In Virginia, Liberty University is sponsoring the
Creation Mega Conference with a Kentucky group called Answers in
Genesis, which raised $9 million in 2003.

At the state and local level, from South Carolina to California,
these advocates are using lawsuits and school board debates to
counter evolutionary theory. Alabama and Georgia legislators
recently introduced bills to allow teachers to challenge
evolutionary theory in the classroom. Ohio, Minnesota, New
Mexico and Ohio have approved new rules allowing that. And a
school board member in a Tennessee county wants stickers pasted
on textbooks that say evolution remains unproven.

A prominent effort is underway in Kansas, where the state Board
of Education intends to revise teaching standards. That would be
progress, Southern Baptist minister Terry Fox said, because
"most people in Kansas don't think we came from monkeys."

The movement is "steadily growing," said Eugenie C. Scott,
executive director of the National Center for Science Education,
which defends the teaching of evolution. "The energy level is
new. The religious right has had an effect nationally. Now, by
golly, they want to call in the chits."
Not Science, Politics

Polls show that a large majority of Americans believe God alone
created man or had a guiding hand. Advocates invoke the First
Amendment and say the current campaigns are partly about respect
for those beliefs.

"It's an academic freedom proposal. What we would like to foment
is a civil discussion about science. That falls right down the
middle of the fairway of American pluralism," said the Discovery
Institute's Stephen C. Meyer, who believes evolution alone
cannot explain life's unfurling. "We are interested in seeing
that spread state by state across the country."

Some evolution opponents are trying to use Bush's No Child Left
Behind law, saying it creates an opening for states to set new
teaching standards. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), a Christian who
draws on Discovery Institute material, drafted language
accompanying the law that said students should be exposed to
"the full range of scientific views that exist."

"Anyone who expresses anything other than the dominant worldview
is shunned and booted from the academy," Santorum said in an
interview. "My reading of the science is there's a legitimate
debate. My feeling is let the debate be had."

Although the new strategy speaks of "teaching the controversy"
over evolution, opponents insist the controversy is not
scientific, but political. They paint the approach as a
disarming subterfuge designed to undermine solid evidence that
all living things share a common ancestry.

"The movement is a veneer over a certain theological message.
Every one of these groups is now actively engaged in trying to
undercut sound science education by criticizing evolution," said
Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for
Separation of Church and State. "It is all based on their
religious ideology. Even the people who don't specifically
mention religion are hard-pressed with a straight face to say
who the intelligent designer is if it's not God."

Although many backers of intelligent design oppose the biblical
account that God created the world in six days, the Christian
right is increasingly mobilized, Baylor University scholar Barry
G. Hankins said. He noted the recent hiring by the Southern
Baptist Theological Seminary of Discovery Institute scholar and
prominent intelligent design proponent William A. Dembski.

The seminary said the move, along with the creation of a Center
for Science and Theology, was central to developing a
"comprehensive Christian worldview."

"As the Christian right has success on a variety of issues, it
emboldens them to expand their agenda," Hankins said. "When they
have losses . . . it gives them fuel for their fire."
Deferring the Debate

The efforts are not limited to schools. From offices overlooking
Puget Sound, Meyer is waging a careful campaign to change the
way Americans think about the natural world. The Discovery
Institute devotes about 85 percent of its budget to funding
scientists, with other money going to public action campaigns.

Discovery Institute raised money for "Unlocking the Mystery of
Life," a DVD produced by Illustra Media and shown on PBS
stations in major markets. The institute has sponsored opinion
polls and underwrites research for books sold in secular and
Christian bookstores. Its newest project is to establish a
science laboratory.

Meyer said the institute accepts money from such wealthy
conservatives as Howard Ahmanson Jr., who once said his goal is
"the total integration of biblical law into our lives," and the
Maclellan Foundation, which commits itself to "the infallibility
of the Scripture."

"We'll take money from anyone who wants to give it to us," Meyer
said. "Everyone has motives. Let's acknowledge that and get on
with the interesting part."

Meyer said he and Discovery Institute President Bruce Chapman
devised the compromise strategy in March 2002 when they realized
a dispute over intelligent design was complicating efforts to
challenge evolution in the classroom. They settled on the
current approach that stresses open debate and evolution's
ostensible weakness, but does not require students to study
design.

The idea was to sow doubt about Darwin and buy time for the
40-plus scientists affiliated with the institute to perfect the
theory, Meyer said. Also, by deferring a debate about whether
God was the intelligent designer, the strategy avoids the
defeats suffered by creationists who tried to oust evolution
from the classroom and ran afoul of the Constitution.

"Our goal is to not remove evolution. Good lord, it's incredible
how much this is misunderstood," said William Harris, a
professor at the University of Missouri at Kansas City medical
school. "Kids need to understand it, but they need to know the
strengths and weaknesses of the data, how much of it is a guess,
how much of it is extrapolation."

Harris does not favor teaching intelligent design, although he
believes there is more to the story than evolution.

"To say God did not play a role is arrogant," Harris said. "It's
far beyond the data."

Harris teamed up with John H. Calvert, a retired corporate
lawyer who calls the debate over the origins of life "the most
fundamental issue facing the culture." They formed Intelligent
Design Network Inc., which draws interested legislators and
activists to an annual Darwin, Design and Democracy conference.

The 2001 conference presented its Wedge of Truth award to
members of the 1999 Kansas Board of Education that played down
evolution and allowed local boards to decide what students would
learn. A board elected in 2001 overturned that decision, but a
fresh batch of conservatives won office in November, when Bush
swamped his Democratic opponent, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.),
here by 62 to 37 percent.

"The thing that excites me is we really are in a revolution of
scientific thought," Calvert said. He described offering advice
in such places as Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio and Cobb County,
Ga., where a federal court recently halted an attempt to affix a
sticker to science textbooks saying evolution is theory, not
fact.
'Liberalism Will Die'

Despite some disagreement, Calvert, Harris and the Discovery
Institute collectively favor efforts to change state teaching
standards. Bypassing the work of a 26-member science standards
committee that rejected revisions, the Kansas board's
conservative majority recently announced a series of "scientific
hearings" to discuss evolution and its critics.

The board's chairman, Steve Abrams, said he is seeking space for
students to "critically analyze" the evidence.

That approach appeals to Cindy Duckett, a Wichita mother who
believes public school leaves many religious children feeling
shut out. Teaching doubts about evolution, she said, is "more
inclusive. I think the more options, the better."

"If students only have one thing to consider, one option, that's
really more brainwashing," said Duckett, who sent her children
to Christian schools because of her frustration. Students should
be exposed to the Big Bang, evolution, intelligent design "and,
beyond that, any other belief that a kid in class has. It should
all be okay."

Fox -- pastor of the largest Southern Baptist church in the
Midwest, drawing 6,000 worshipers a week to his Wichita church
-- said the compromise is an important tactic. "The strategy
this time is not to go for the whole enchilada. We're trying to
be a little more subtle," he said.

To fundamentalist Christians, Fox said, the fight to teach God's
role in creation is becoming the essential front in America's
culture war. The issue is on the agenda at every meeting of
pastors he attends. If evolution's boosters can be forced to
back down, he said, the Christian right's agenda will advance.

"If you believe God created that baby, it makes it a whole lot
harder to get rid of that baby," Fox said. "If you can cause
enough doubt on evolution, liberalism will die."

Like Meyer, Fox is glad to make common cause with people who do
not entirely agree.

"Creationism's going to be our big battle. We're hoping that
Kansas will be the model, and we're in it for the long haul,"
Fox said. He added that it does not matter "who gets the credit,
as long as we win."

Washington Post