Evolution
curriculum facing new challenges
Monday, September 26, 2005 • BY
JENNIFER WEISS • Star-Ledger
Staff
In the first serious challenge to the way
evolution is taught in New Jersey, a Hunterdon County school
board is considering a parent's proposal to include
criticisms of the widely accepted theory in the
middle-school science curriculum.
Annie Imbesi told the Bethlehem Township
school board that the controversy surrounding evolution
should be taught in science classes so students can think
more critically about the theory. Darwin's theory is
contested by many people in the scientific community, she
said.
"If you're going to teach it, it should
be taught with the caveat that lots of scientists disagree
with points of it," Imbesi said. She said she does not
support teaching faith-based theories alongside
evolution.
While the idea has gained traction in
several states, "it's the first time we've heard a school
board is taking this under consideration," said Frank
Belluscio, a spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards
Association.
In New Jersey, local school boards
implement their own curricula based on the standards
provided by the state Department of Education.
The proposal will be discussed at a
meeting of Hunterdon County's superintendents Wednesday. But
some educational leaders in New Jersey worry such a change
would pave the way for sanctioned discussions of theories
such as "intelligent design."
Intelligent design is a set of beliefs
based on the notion that life on earth is so complex that it
must have been created by an intelligent being. Since it
cannot be tested with experiments, it is not considered to
be a scientific theory.
Evolution is the prevailing scientific
theory that attempts to explain how life on earth has
changed over time.
"I do not think it's appropriate to mix
science and religion, period. Not at a public school," said
Bethlehem Township Superintendent Mario Barbiere.
He said he planned to bring up the issue
at the Wednesday meeting of superintendents, but first, he
said he would look to a Pennsylvania court for guidance. In
October, the Dover (Pa.) Area School Board decided to
require biology teachers to present intelligent design to
their students as an alternative to the theory of evolution.
Eleven parents formed a coalition and sued, and the lawsuit
-- Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School -- will be heard in
Harrisburg today.
The suit is the first legal challenge to
the constitutionality of teaching intelligent design in
public schools, according to the American Civil Liberties
Union.
Imbesi, who has a child who just entered
middle school, sought advice from the Discovery Institute, a
Seattle-based organization that is a nonpartisan, but
generally conservative think tank. It supplied Imbesi with
some information she presented at the board's last
meeting.
According to the Web site of the ACLU,
the intelligent design movement has been led by a "group of
activists" at the Discovery Institute, which was formerly
called the Center for Renewal of Science and
Culture.
"The best policy for schools right now is
to teach criticisms of evolution, because they're very
well-established in the scientific literature ... and
there's a very strong public policy precedent to do this,"
said Casey Luskin, a program officer with public policy and
legal affairs in the Discovery Institute's center for
science and culture.
While Luskin said the institute does not
advocate teaching intelligent design in science classrooms
of public schools, he said he does consider intelligent
design to be a scientific theory and a valid answer to
evolutionary theory's flaws.
Luskin called Charles Darwin's related
theory of natural selection a "blind, purposeless
cause."
"Natural selection is concerned with the
survival of the fittest, not the arrival of the fittest," he
said.
School districts in Ohio, New Mexico and
Minnesota already teach evolution as controversy, as Imbesi
is suggesting, Luskin said. Ohio changed its curriculum in
2002 to accommodate the changes, and New Mexico and
Minnesota altered curricula in 2003. Kansas is expected to
finalize its decision to do the same in October.
New Jersey's state science curriculum,
which is readopted every five years, will be considered next
in 2009. Discussions of possible revisions could start as
early as 2007. Imbesi has said she would like to be part of
those discussions.
Barbiere is not the only superintendent
in Hunterdon County to deal with this issue
recently.
Elizabeth Nastus, the superintendent in
Clinton Township, said two parents shared information about
the creationism movement with the board of education at a
meeting last week. They did so to express their opinion that
it did not belong in school science lessons, Nastus
said.
She said she agrees that creationism has
no place in public schools. Creationism, a religious theory
that was barred from public school classrooms by the U.S.
Supreme Court in 1987, is seen by many as the catalyst for
the intelligent design movement.
"We're very careful about making sure
that church and state are separate," Nastus said.
Jennifer Weiss works in the Hunterdon County bureau. She
may be reached at jweiss@starledger.com or (908) 782-8326.
© 2005 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
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