Campaign defends evolution

A national campaign to defend evolution lessons in public school science classes was launched Thursday, and it already is zeroing in on 10 states, including Utah.

The Campaign to Defend the Constitution calls itself an "online grass-roots movement to combat the threat posed by the religious right to American democracy, public education and scientific leadership."

Its launch coincides with a Dover, Pa., court battle over so-called "intelligent design" making its way into school discussions about life's origins.

The campaign, whose launch included former American Civil Liberties Union executive director Ira Glasser and National Center for Science Education executive director Eugenie Scott, is asking all 50 governors to ensure "science classes teach evolution and base curricula on established science, not ideology."

"Not all religious leaders in America are interested in fusing . . . their doctrines with science," the Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes Jr., senior minister at The Riverside Church in New York City, said in a teleconference launching the campaign.

"We can do better when we let science do its job, and let religion do its job, and if there is reason for conversation (between the two) . . . let's have arenas where we discuss this," he said. "But to interject into the science curriculum a theological ideology with a controversial dynamic is not likely to increase the effectiveness of our science teaching."

The campaign also highlights the nation's top 10 "Islands of Ignorance," where science education is threatened. Utah is among them due to efforts of Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, to include so-called intelligent design into human evolution discussions, the group reports.

The moniker bothers Utah curriculum director Brett Moulding.

"We're very clear in our position," Moulding said of a State Board of Education statement approved unanimously this month. "We will teach evolution."

Buttars shrugs off the campaign altogether.

"Consider the source: ACLU, the devil's law firm, struck again," Buttars said. "Anything that could involve God, they panic about. I wonder why they're so terrified of someone questioning Darwin's evolution? That's going to continue to grow, those (questions). "

Intelligent design holds that life is so complex it can't be explained by Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and natural selection alone. 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 — one trial is playing out now over a Dover, Pa., board decision — that have adopted it nationwide.