The long-simmering battle over how evolution is taught in high school biology is boiling again.
Nearly 80 years after the famous "Monkey Trial," in which Tennessee teacher John Scopes was convicted of teaching evolution in violation of state law, 24 states this year have seen efforts to change the way evolution is taught.
And because of a requirement in the federal No Child Left Behind law that states must review science standards over the next two years, the debate is likely to intensify. That requirement provides an opportunity for critics of evolution to help reshape how it is taught in public schools.
The battlegrounds include small school districts as well as state school boards that write policy for every district in the state. Among them:
• In western Wisconsin, the small Grantsburg School District now requires that alternative theories of evolution be taught.
• In Ohio, the state school board passed a measure that encourages the teaching of evolution and "intelligent design," a hypothesis that says life is so complex that some intelligent force was responsible.
• In Kansas, the defeat this month of a "pro-science" incumbent on the state school board by a candidate who had questioned evolution has shifted the balance of power on the 10-member board and ensures that the issue will come up again. The board ended the teaching of evolution in 1999, then reversed that decision after a subsequent election. It has been deadlocked since.
Debates over religion, science and natural phenomena are not limited to schools and evolution. The bookstore at Grand Canyon National Park sells Grand Canyon: A Different View by Tom Vail, a Colorado River guide. The book says the Grand Canyon was created during Noah's flood, not through millennia of erosion by the Colorado River.
The fight over evolution is heating up as the country tries to come to terms with the role of religion in government. The American public remains divided. In a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll of 1,105 people conducted Nov. 19-21, 48% said religion has too much political influence in American life, and 40% said it has too little influence. Seven percent said religion has about the right amount of political influence. The poll's margin of error was +/—3 percentage points.
The debate over evolution has itself evolved. It is no longer a clear-cut argument between creationists who support the Bible's version of the origin of life and evolutionists who back Charles Darwin's theory that complex life forms, including humans, developed through genetic changes over millions of years. Now, those challenging Darwin want evolution taught as a theory whose validity is questioned. They also want alternative views taught so students are exposed to all views.
Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education in Oakland, says the new approach is politically smart.
"They have no science," Scott says. "But they can argue to the American public that it's only fair to teach alternative science theories or evidence against evolution. That resonates in American culture. We are a very fair people."
But giving equal time to alternative views, critics such as Scott say, suggests that they are on par scientifically with evolution, which is grounded in scientific fact.
"Part of the job of the public school system is to make professional judgments about what children ought to learn," says Jack Krebs, a teacher and vice president of Kansas Citizens for Science. "It doesn't make any sense to give equal time to all these other ideas that are vastly unsupported. It's misleading to kids."
The most popular alternative is "intelligent design." Proponents of intelligent design do not publicly identify the "intelligent force," although they privately say it is God.
The hypothesis has been promoted to school districts by the Center for Science & Culture, an arm of the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think tank that is involved in other issues, such as regional transportation, and boasts as its largest donor the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
"Some features of the natural universe are best explained as products of an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process like natural selection," says John West, the center's associate director. But identifying the cause, he says, is "outside the scope of science."
The Dover, Pa., school district recently became the first in the nation to require teaching intelligent design. Two school board members, Jeffrey Brown and his wife, Carol, resigned in protest.
"I don't think we should be teaching it. It is not a scientific theory, it is only a hypothesis," Brown says. Opponents call intelligent design "creationism in a tuxedo" that attempts to blur the line between religion and science in a way that will survive an inevitable court challenges. In 1987, the Supreme Court found that teaching creationism in public schools violates the constitutionally guaranteed separation of church and state.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented Scopes in the Tennessee Monkey Trial in 1925 — and lost — is now involved in litigation in Georgia and is considering suing in Dover.
"We've been fighting this since 1925,"says Witold Walczak, a Pennsylvania ACLU lawyer. "Why aren't people questioning atomic theory? Why aren't they questioning the theory that the Earth revolves around the sun? That's because evolution conflicts with their religious beliefs."
The lawsuit in Georgia was filed on behalf of six parents who objected to a disclaimer sticker the Cobb County school board placed on ninth-grade biology textbooks. The case was tried earlier this month in federal court in Atlanta. The judge's ruling is expected soon.
The disclaimer sticker states: "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."
Ken Miller, a Brown University biologist and co-author of the textbook, testified at the trial. He says the sticker "gives the impression that it's a very shaky theory." He adds: "When you say theory, not a fact, you're confusing the word, that it's something that we are not certain of. Theories in science explain facts."
Georgia state science standards require that evolution be taught. But in 2002, the district decided to add the sticker after 2,100 parents complained that the text failed to present other views about the origins of life.
The lawsuit illuminates the problem educators face as they attempt to straddle the divide over religion.
"We're trying to ... improve our evolution instruction and at the same time acknowledge that religious beliefs do enter into it," says Linwood Gunn, the district's attorney. "It is permissible to acknowledge there might be a conflict. Otherwise, you are ignoring the real friction there."