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State panel backs disputed lesson, infuriates supporters of evolution
Plain Dealer Reporter
Columbus - The State Board of Education gave preliminary approval Tuesday to a 10th-grade biology lesson that scientists say could put "intelligent design" in Ohio classrooms.
Setting aside an impassioned plea from the National Academy of Sciences, the board voted 13-4 to declare its intent to adopt the "Critical Analysis of Evolution" lesson next month.
The academy warned that doing so would give a green light to teaching intelligent design, the idea that life is so complex that a higher being must have created it.
The disputed lesson plan has thrust Ohio back into the middle of a national fight over how to best teach the origins and development of life on Earth to public school children.
That fight is between supporters and critics of Charles Darwin's theory that life evolved through natural processes, a battle that has raged since the "monkey trial" of biology teacher John Scopes nearly 80 years ago.
"It's a sad day for science in Ohio," said Patricia Princehouse, who teaches biological evolution at Case Western Reserve University. "This opens up the reputation of Ohio scientists to ridicule nationally and internationally."
Board member James Turner of Cincinnati, who supported the lesson plan, said he believed some members of the scientific community were overreacting.
"I think this is a case of passion lacking perspective," he said.
“I reject the notion that this lesson somehow advances the notion of intelligent design or creationism,” Turner said.
Princehouse and other scientists complained that much of the language in the lesson plan came from Jonathan Wells' “Icons of Evolution,” a seminal text in the intelligent design movement. The board’s standards committee Monday deleted the title of the book from the lesson plan’s bibliography, but critics complained that Wells’ ideas remained.
Princehouse and others vowed to fight the measure and predicted a court challenge if the lesson plan stands. The board will take a final vote on the measure next month, although changes to the lesson are possible through June.
Board member Martha Wise of Avon, who opposes the lesson plan, said support for the measure reflects a turnover on the board that has left it more conservative than the body that approved the state’s science standards 14 months ago. Supporters of the lesson plan said it simply reflects the science standards the board adopted in December 2002, which called for students to examine criticisms of biological evolution. They also argue that Ohio’s curriculum will include more arguments on behalf of evolution than standards in most other states.
“I wish intelligent design were in the lesson — then there would be something to complain about,” said Robert Lattimer, a Hudson chemist and outspoken intelligent design supporter. “But it’s simply not there.”
Teachers are not required to use the model curriculum, but exams such as the state’s new graduation test will test children on what the curriculum covers.
Debate about the lesson plan rose to such a fevered pitch this week that the board’s president, Jennifer Sheets of Pomeroy, took the extraordinary step of admonishing her colleagues against attacking one another or members of the public.
Tempers continued to flare after the vote. Board member Sam Schloemer said Ohio Department of Education officials were pressured by intelligent design advocates on the board to make sure the writing team of educators and scientists came up with a lesson plan sympathetic to intelligent design. He called on Gov. Bob Taft to intervene.
“Senior level staff members at the Department of Education are ready to revolt,” said Schloemer of Cincinnati. “They’re totally embarrassed by this whole process. If the governor would call it off, it would be gone.”
Taft spokesman Orest Holubec said the governor had no intention of getting involved in the board’s work. “The governor has faith in the board members and expects they will approve curriculum based on the standards they adopted in 2002,” he said.
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© 2004 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission.
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