"Pittsburgh Post-Gazette", July 12, 2001 Thursday, Pg.B-1
STATE PANEL REJECTS TEACHING CREATION; SCIENCE STANDARDS ENDORSE EVOLUTION
PAMELA R. WINNICK, POST-GAZETTE STAFF WRITER
WILKESBARRE, Pa.
A state education committee yesterday recommended adoption of proposed
science standards that strongly endorse the teaching of evolution in
Pennsylvania public schools.
The new standards also would eliminate loopholes that critics say
encourage the teaching of creationism.
The revised standards have been more than three years in the making
and, because they address how students will be taught about the origins of
life, have been highly controversial.
The Council of Basic Education voted unanimously to recommend the
standards be adopted.
The state Board of Education is expected to approve them today.
An earlier draft of the standards, released last year by the state
Department of Education, contained language that would require students in
science classes to critically analyze data that "support or do not
support" the theory of evolution. They do not mention creationism.
Some in the scientific community have argued that such phrases, along
with other language in the standards, was "creationist jargon" that would
open the door to the teaching of creationism in public schools.
Language allowing for evolution to be questioned has been removed and
language has been added that strongly emphasizes the Darwinian concept of
"natural selection," the theory that species change through a series of
random mutations.
Yesterday's council vote was not without opposition.
State Sen. James Rhoades, a council member and chairman of the state
Senate Committee on Education, said he "could live with the standards,"
but that they are overly dogmatic and leave no room for debate.
"It's almost as if we don't want to let the light shine in," said
Rhoades, R-Schuylkill. "Are we limiting the ability for a mind to be
exposed to as much as it can?"
Rhoades yesterday abstained from voting because the Legislature will
eventually vote on the standards.
Board of education member Larry Wittig suggested that he might cast
the only vote against the standards at today's meeting.
He criticized the standards as "political."
"This smacks of somebody saying we want the biggest mouths closed,"
he said.
Wittig said he preferred the earlier draft because it encouraged
critical thinking.
Evolution, which is commonly covered in public school curriculums,
holds that Earth is billions of years old and that life forms developed
over millions of years.
Creationism is a biblical-based view that Earth and most life forms
came into being suddenly about 6,000 years ago.
Critics say that teaching it in public schools violates the
constitutional separation of church and state.
At the federal level, the battle over teaching evolution vs.
creationism continues.
Last month, U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., introduced an amendment
to a Senate education bill calling for "openness" in the teaching of
evolution.
"It is the sense of the Senate," said the resolution, which the
Senate overwhelmingly passed last month, "that good science education
should prepare students to distinguish the data or testable theories of
science from philosophical or religious claims that are made in the name
of science."
Santorum said that science, as currently taught, is itself a
religion.
"Science has become a philosophy [that] insists that nature is all
there is and that the means of creation must not have included any role
for God," Santorum said in a statement.
Oryginal: http://www.post-gazette.com/regionstate/20010712evolution0712p4.asp
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