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William Paley Institute
for
Intelligent Design™ |
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Federal Department of Education Backs Academic
Freedom on Evolution Controversy
By: Staff
Discovery Institute
June 30, 2004
SEATTLE, MARCH 9 – The US Department of Education has given its
clear support to the right of state and local school boards to teach
the scientific debate that now exists about biological evolution.
In a March 8 letter signed by Acting Deputy Secretary Gene Hickok,
the department called official attention to Congressional report
language in the No Child Left Behind Act that states that “where
topics are taught that may generate controversy (such as biological
evolution), the curriculum should help students to understand the
full range of scientific views that exist.” The Department further
expressed its own support for the “general principles...of academic
freedom and inquiry into scientific views or theories.”
Advocates of greater intellectual freedom in science education
hailed the statement: “The letter is important.” notes Dr. Stephen
C. Meyer, director of the Center for Science and Culture at
Discovery Institute, “because some Darwin-only activists and
educational officials have claimed that public schools could risk
losing their federal funding if they allow students to learn about
current scientific criticisms of evolutionary theory. By affirming
the importance of the Santorum language, the executive branch of the
federal government has just joined the Congress in making clear that
states and local school boards have the right to teach students the
scientific controversy that exists about Darwinian evolution and to
determine their own science curriculum content.”
The letter also made clear that the federal government does not
require OR prohibit the teaching of any particular scientific view
or theory of origins. The letter was circulating Tuesday in
Congressional offices.
The Education Department letter was a response to an inquiry from
Montana’s superintendent of public instruction in which the
superintendent apparently asked whether the alternative theory of
“intelligent design” was “required” by the federal law. (Intelligent
design theory “holds 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.”) The school board in
Darby, Montana has not proposed teaching intelligent design, let
alone asserting that doing so is “required” under the NCLB act.
“No doubt the Darwin-only lobby will claim the Education Department
letter as victory because it makes clear that states are not
required to teach the theory of intelligent design,” said Bruce
Chapman, president of the Discovery Institute.
“But the question posed by the Montana state official was a red
herring,” Chapman stated. “No one that we know of has suggested that
the federal law requires teaching intelligent design. At the school
board in Darby, Montana the issue is the same as it is in Ohio and a
number of other states; namely, can students be taught about the
growing scientific debate over Darwin’s theory? The issue before
states and localities is not about teaching intelligent design, let
alone requiring it, no matter how hard the Darwinists try to spin
the topic.
“What the federal government actually does support,” Chapman
continued, “is ‘academic freedom and inquiry’” on scientific
theories, and that now should be quite plain to any fair-minded
observer. If states and localities follow that common sense approach
they will not go wrong.”
Public opinion polls by the Zogby International organization, and by
the Cleveland Plain Dealer, have shown overwhelming public support
for teaching the evidence for and against Darwin’s theory in public
schools. Though a minority within science, hundreds of scientists
have indicated their agreement.
“That is why,” Chapman said, “Darwinists try to change the terms of
the debate to bogus targets.”
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Promoting an
Understanding of the Intelligent Design of the Universe
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