The Latest Face of Creationism Creationists who want religious ideas taught as scientifi c fact in public schools continue to adapt to courtroom defeats by hiding their true aims under ever changing guises • • • BY GLENN BRANCH & EUGENIE C. SCOTT rofessors routinely give advice to students but national spotlight as a state that pursues politics usually while their charges are still in school. over science and education,” and the American Arthur Landy, a distinguished professor of Association for the Advancement of Science, molecular and cell biology and biochemistry at which told Jindal that the law would “unleash Brown University, recently decided, however, an assault against scienti! c integrity.” Earlier, that he had to remind a former premed student the National Association of Biology Teachers of his that “without evolution, modern biology, had urged the legislature to defeat the bill, plead- including medicine and biotechnology, wouldn’t ing “that the state of Louisiana not allow its sci- make sense.” ence curriculum to be weakened by encouraging The sentiment was not original with Landy, the utilization of supplemental materials pro- KEY CONCEPTS of course. Thirty-six years ago geneticist Theo- duced for the sole purpose of confusing students dosius Dobzhansky, a major contributor to the about the nature of science.” ● Creationists continue to foundations of modern evolutionary theory, fa- But all these protests were of no avail. On agitate against the teaching of evolution in public mously told the readers of The American Biol- June 26, 2008, the governor’s of! ce announced schools, adapting their ogy Teacher that “nothing in biology makes that Jindal had signed the Louisiana Science Ed- tactics to match the road- sense, except in the light of evolution.” Back ucation Act into law. Why all the fuss? On its blocks they encounter. then, Dobzhansky was encouraging biology face, the law looks innocuous: it directs the state teachers to present evolution to their pupils in board of education to “allow and assist teachers, ● Past strategies have included portraying creationism as spite of religiously motivated opposition. Now, principals, and other school administrators to a credible alternative to however, Landy was addressing Bobby Jindal— create and foster an environment within public ) evolution and disguising the governor of the state of Louisiana—on whose elementary and secondary schools that pro- styling it under the name “intelli- desk the latest antievolution bill, the so-called motes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, gent design.” Louisiana Science Education Act, was sitting, and open and objective discussion of scienti! c awaiting his signature. theories being studied,” which includes provid- ● Other tactics misrepresent evolution as scienti! cally Remembering Jindal as a good student in his ing “support and guidance for teachers regard- );KURSTEN BRACCHI ( controversial and pretend genetics class, Landy hoped that the governor ing effective ways to help students understand, that advocates for teaching would recall the scienti! c importance of evolu- analyze, critique, and objectively review scien- photograph creationism are defending tion to biology and medicine. Joining Landy in ti! c theories being studied.” What’s not to like? academic freedom. his opposition to the bill were the American In- Aren’t critical thinking, logical analysis, and —The Editors stitute of Biological Sciences, which warned that open and objective discussion exactly what sci- “Louisiana will undoubtedly be thrust into the ence education aims to promote? ZACHARYZAVISLAK ( 92 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN January 2009 INJECTING RELIGION into the science curricula of public schools is often a hidden goal of state legislation addressing the teaching of evolution. CREDIT www.SciAm.com SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN 93 As always in the contentious history of evolu- John T. Scopes was prosecuted in 1925. It was tion education in the U.S., the devil is in the de- not until 1968 that such laws were ruled to be tails. The law explicitly targets evolution, which unconstitutional, in the Supreme Court case is unsurprising—for lurking in the background Epperson v. Arkansas. No longer able to keep of the law is creationism, the rejection of a scien- evolution out of the science classrooms of the ti! c explanation of the history of life in favor of public schools, creationists began to portray cre- a supernatural account involving a personal cre- ationism as a scienti! cally credible alternative, ator. Indeed, to mutate Dobzhansky’s dictum, dubbing it creation science or scienti! c creation- nothing about the Louisiana law makes sense ism. By the early 1980s legislation calling for ) ESTABLISHMENT CLAUSE of except in the light of creationism. equal time for creation science had been intro- the U.S. Constitution’s First duced in no fewer than 27 states, including Lou- Amendment is now understood Creationism’s Evolution isiana. There, in 1981, the legislature passed the to require the separation of Creationists have long battled against the teach- Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and church and state. It has led the ing of evolution in U.S. public schools, and their Evolution-Science in Public School Instruction GeorgeW.Bush with students Supreme Court to strike down as ( unconstitutional laws aimed at strategies have evolved in reaction to legal set- Act, which required teachers to teach creation teaching creationism in public backs. In the 1920s they attempted to ban the science if they taught evolution. AP Photo schools—which is why creation- teaching of evolution outright, with laws such as The Louisiana Balanced Treatment Act was ists now disguise that aim. Tennessee’s Butler Act, under which teacher based on a model bill circulated across the coun- try by creationists working at the grassroots lev- LAWRENCEJACKSON el. Obviously inspired by a particular literal in- ); terpretation of the book of Genesis, the model bill de! ned creation science as including cre- Scopes ation ex nihilo (“from nothing”), a worldwide flood, a “relatively recent inception” of the );AP PHOTO ( earth, and a rejection of the common ancestry of humans and apes. In Arkansas, such a bill Billof Rights was enacted earlier in 1981 and promptly chal- lenged in court as unconstitutional. So when the Louisiana Balanced Treatment Act was still un- der consideration by the state legislature, sup- ISTOCKPHOTO.COM( Late 1910s and 1925: Butler 1958:1 Biological Sciences Curric- It’s Your early 1920s: Act in Tennes- uulum Study (BSCS) is founded with Move As high school see outlaws ffunds from a federal government attendance rises, more teaching of cconcerned about science education This time line notes some key American students become human iin the wake of Sputnik. BSCS’s events in the see sawing history exposed to evolution. evolution. ttextbooks emphasize evolution, Teacher John T. Scopes (above) is which was largely absent from of the battle between creation- prosecuted and convicted under the textbooks after the Scopes trial; ists and evolutionists. It high- law, although the conviction is later commercial publishers follow suit. lights the way creationist overturned on a technicality. tactics have shifted in response to evolution’s ad vances in 1989: Of Pandas and People, 2001: classrooms and to court rulings the ! rst book systematically to Passage of the No Child Left Behind that have banned religious use the term “intelligent design” Act cements the importance of is published; sstate science standards, which proselytizing in public schools. it touts the hhave become a new battleground notion as an bbetween creationism and evolution alternative ((because inclusion of evolution to evolution. iin science standards increases tthe likelihood that evolution wwill be taught) . 94 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN January 2009 porters, anticipating a similar challenge, imme- and the historicity of Noah’s ! ood) but otherwise THE AUTHORS diately purged the bill’s de" nition of creation riddled with the same scienti" c errors and entan- science of speci" cs, leaving only “the scienti" c gled with the same religious doctrines. evidences for creation and inferences from those Such a careful inspection occurred in a fed- scienti" c evidences.” But this tactical vagueness eral courtroom in 2005, in the trial of Kitzmill- failed to render the law constitutional, and in er v. Dover Area School District. At issue was a 1987 the Supreme Court ruled in Edwards v. policy in a local school district in Pennsylvania Aguillard that the Balanced Treatment Act vio- requiring a disclaimer to be read aloud in the Glenn Branch and Eugenie C. lated the Establishment Clause of the First classroom alleging that evolution is a “Theo- Scott are deputy director and Amendment to the Constitution, because the ry ... not a fact,” that “gaps in the Theory exist executive director, respectively, of act “impermissibly endorses religion by advanc- for which there is no evidence,” and that intel- the National Center for Science ing the religious belief that a supernatural being ligent design as presented in Of Pandas and Education (NCSE) in Oakland, Calif., where they work to defend the ); created humankind.” People is a credible scienti" c alternative to evo- teaching of evolution in the public Creationism adapts quickly. Just two years lution. Eleven local parents " led suit in federal schools. Together they edited Not in later a new label for creationism—“intelligent district court, arguing that the policy was un- Our Classrooms: