Educators support teaching evolution

The State Board of Education on Friday unanimously supported continued teaching of evolution theory in high school biology.

But a Utah senator is countering the vote with his "Academic Freedom Act," a document resembling a draft bill that would inject the so-called "intelligent design" concept of life's origin into public school instruction.

"The only recourse I've got to get my side heard is to take it to the Legislature," said Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan.

The board ignored Buttars' request for a two-hour session discussing intelligent design.

He has not yet opened a bill file.

Intelligent design holds that life is so complex it can't be explained alone by Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and natural selection. It does not name the designer. But critics call intelligent design a thinly veiled reference to creationism, which the Supreme Court barred from public school lessons in 1987. Intelligent design has led to controversy and lawsuits in a handful of school boards that have adopted it nationwide.

Buttars, however, believes intelligent design should be taught in Utah public schools — perhaps in a required philosophy or humanities class — if students are to be taught routinely that humans evolved from lesser species.

Evolution "has more holes than a crocheted bathtub," Buttars told the state board, adding hundreds of scientists agree. He said barring discussion of intelligent design alongside evolutionary lessons is akin to censorship.

Buttars says his stand was spurred by parent complaints that evolution lessons were taught as fact instead of theory. State curriculum director Brett Moulding said his office has received no such complaints.

The Utah Eagle Forum, a conservative advocacy group, backs Buttars' stand.

"All you have to do is be open to another idea and allow diversity and tolerance in education," Eagle Forum education director Monica Gardner said. "Especially in this community, diversity and tolerance should be accepted."

But about a dozen scientists, many from Brigham Young University and the University of Utah, told the board Buttars is taking scientists' comments out of context. They said intelligent design theory has no place in science.

"Science, unlike religion, is not dogmatic. But it is also not democratic," said Steve Nelson, isotope geochemist and associate professor at Brigham Young University. "To get a place at the table, you have to show your research is credible and could withstand . . . peer review."

He and other scientists overwhelmingly supported the state board's position statement on teaching evolution.

That document says the theory of evolution is a major unifying scientific concept and is appropriately included in the high school biology curriculum.