From Deseret News archives:
Emotional ed issues ahead
Lawmakers will look at gay clubs, intelligent design
But two-thirds also want intelligent design the notion that the universe is too complex to be explained by Charles Darwin's theory of evolution alone to be taught as a complement to evolution lessons in Utah public schools.
That's according to a Dan Jones & Associates poll for the Deseret Morning News and KSL-TV. The survey of 406 Utah adults, taken Dec. 26 through Jan. 3, has a 5 percent margin of error.
Making intelligent design part of the public school curriculum is among several emotional debates including a proposed gay-straight alliance ban in high schools, on which a poll shows Utah residents are split expected to take place in the upcoming 45-day legislative session that convenes Monday.
But State Board of Education chairman Kim Burningham believes those issues are tangential to what's most important: money for schools.
Among expected public school issues:
Science and the origins of life
SB96, sponsored by Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, would require schools to endorse no particular theory on how life began on Earth or the origins of the present state of the human race. Related curriculum requirements in the bill say that teachers must stress that not all scientists agree on which theory is correct.
Buttars says his bill still allows for evolution lessons, which the poll indicates Utahns favor.
But a State Office of Education attorney says it also opens the door to teaching of intelligent design in public schools, a concept a Pennsylvania federal judge ruled unconstitutional last month. Intelligent design critics call the concept a thinly veiled attempt to inject creationism into public schools.
While 66 percent of Utahns surveyed favor intelligent design lessons to balance those on evolution, the state curriculum boss says such discussions don't belong in science class.
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