The world of education today might be considered in direct conflict with Charles Darwin. He brought us “evolution”. Modern teaching theory in some areas of the United States could be better classified as “devolution”. As our society ”devolves” into barbarism, so our educational system follows.
Case in Point! The Texas Board of Education on Friday, November 22, 2013 (or was it the year 1513) refused to approve a “biology textbook” widely accepted throughout the United States because one reviewer was concerned that it“presented evolution as fact rather than theory”. nytimes.com 11/23/13
The textbook review process in Texas is contaminated by individuals who refuse to accept evolution or climate change as scientific fact. “Biology”, a well respected publication from Pearson was written by Kenneth R. Miller, a Brown University Biologist, and Joseph S. Levine, a science journalist.
The review process was disrupted specifically by a member of the review panel, Ide P. Trotter, a chemical engineer and financial advisor, who cited errors in the textbook, specifically with regards to evolution. Note: Mr. Trotter is listed as a“Darwin Skeptic” on the website of the “Creation Science Hall of Fame”.
Ronald Wetherington, Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at SMU, upon scanning Mr. Trotter’s complaints, declared them as “non sequiturs and irrelevant”. To quote Dr. Wetherington, “It was simply a morass of pseudoscientific objections”.
Yet, in spite of the criticism of Trotter’s objections by world class scientists, the textbook remains under further review by the Texas Board of Education and is not being utilized in Texas classrooms at this time.
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In 1925, in the infamous “Scopes Monkey Trial”, evolution was brought to public attention in a trial displaying two of the most famous attorneys at that time, Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan. Several years later, educational systems throughout the United States embraced evolution as scientific theory.
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In 2005, in Dover, PA, a small town south of Harrisburg, eleven parents sued their school board for including “intelligent design” (considered by many a sly pseudonym for creationism) in the ninth grade biology curriculum. On December 20, 2005, Federal Judge John E. Jones III ruled that teaching “intelligent design” in the classroom was unconstitutional. He declared that “intelligent design”may not be taught as an alternative to evolution because “it is a religious viewpoint that advances a particular version of Christianity”.
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To summarize, in 1925, evolution caught public attention. In 2005, a federal judge declared the teaching of “intelligent design” as scientific fact unconstitutional. And in 2013, the Texas Board of Education reverts back to 1925 with an attempt to circumvent Judge Jone’s ruling by “banning” a textbook that declares evolution as science. The final conclusion to be drawn is that while Darwin declared that humans have evolved throughout the centuries into more civilized beings, he apparently forgot to visit Texas.