Teaching Evolution in Public Schools

Many groups have tried to push their ideas on the public through schooling. Public school students, numbering in the millions, seem a perfect, captive audience for the promulgation of the ideas of a few self-righteous groups. These groups have tried to influence national thinking by promoting their views in the classroom, but this is not an acceptable method. A public school classroom is a place for the passing of accepted knowledge from an instructor to a student, not the place for the ideas of the ignorant few to influence the thinking of the many.

The local and state school boards serve as the check on the vocal few and determine the curriculum to be administered to the throngs of students attending class. Current science curriculum is widely accepted. Parents and communities have no complaints over their students learning about the classification of animals and plants, chemistry, gravity, cells, and body processes. The complaints are focused around the teaching of evolution, but for the many educated people in the field of biology, evolution is a basic principle. Public school students must be exposed to this fundamental concept and be familiar with it. Evolution must be taught in schools since it is a scientific model that cannot and should not be ignored. All other alternatives—creation science, intelligent design, creationism, and others—are religious and have no place in the public school classroom. Looking at the historical precedent and scientific acceptance, evolution is the only model of life origins and progression that should be taught in public schools.

The battle regarding evolution in public schools has been going on for over a century. Charles Darwin published his book On the Origin of Species by Means o...

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[18] Moore 133.

[19] Harbaugh, M.J. Fundamentals of Biology. 450.

[20] Harbaugh 403.

[21] National Science Education Standards. 201. [Emphasis added.]

[22] Appleman, Philip. Darwin. 592.

[23] “NSTA Position Statement.”

[24] “Academic Standards for Science and Technology.” http://www.pde.state.pa.us/k12/lib/k12/scitech.pdf. 15-17.

[25] The National Science Education Standards. 185.

[26] Burlingame, Leonas Lancelot. General Biology. 381-2.

[27] “Science and Creationism.” http://books.nap.edu/html/creationism/appendix.html.

[28] Moore 135.

[29] Moore 135.

[30] “NSTA Position Statement: The Teaching of Evolution.”

[31] National Science Education Standards. 184.

[32] Brandwein, Paul. Teaching High School Science: A Book of Methods. 255.

[33] Brandwein 254.

[34] Brandwein 255.