Facts Of Life

By Richard N. Ostling

The famous Scopes trial ended 64 years ago, but educators are still grappling with the impassioned evolution vs. creation debate. Last week California's board of education adopted new teaching and textbook guidelines and, responding to Fundamentalist pressure, removed a reference to evolution as "scientific fact." But overall the document strongly supports teaching of evolution. California accounts for 11% of all U.S. textbook sales, and the guidelines could have wide impact.

Four years ago, California's education department declared that elementary and junior high school science texts needed fuller treatment of evolution. Subsequently, the education department detailed pro evolution guidelines for kindergarten through eighth grade to take effect in 1992. But the policy needed approval from the state board of education, which faced heavy lobbying on both sides.

That led to eleventh-hour alterations to accommodate Fundamentalists, who believe God directly created Adam and Eve. The board deleted references to a 1987 Supreme Court ruling and a National Academy of Sciences booklet that oppose giving Darwin and creationism equal weight in science classes. The Californians also omitted this: "There is no scientific dispute that evolution has occurred and continues to occur; this is why evolution is regarded as a scientific fact." But another section asserts, "It is a scientific fact that organisms have evolved through time." The board advises teachers not to suppress part of the curriculum "on the grounds that it may be contrary to an individual's beliefs" nor to demean people who reject evolution "on the basis of religious faith." The guidelines say the ultimate cause of the cosmos is not appropriate for science courses but may be treated in history or English classes.

An anticensorship lobby, People for the American Way, fears that the board's concessions could send the wrong message to nervous publishers or fire up Fundamentalists elsewhere. But California's superintendent of public instruction, Bill Honig, contends that advocacy of evolution remains firmly in place; irate California Fundamentalists agree.

A similar battle has been taking place in Texas, which has the country's No. 2 textbook market. The state board of education drafted guidelines requiring positive teaching about evolution for the first time. But in March, Bible Belters won a last-minute insertion that in addition to evolution, science classes should cover "other reliable scientific theories, if any." That opens the door to "scientific creationism," which offers evidence for the immediate creation of life-forms but does not refer to the Bible. Publishers are now trying to tackle the new requirements as they prepare science textbooks for submission to Texas officials next April.

With reporting by James Willwerth/Los Angeles