'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
Our country is founded on the inalienable notion that people have the right to believe whatever they want and, more importantly, the government cannot impose religious belief upon the nation. But for as long as the First Amendment has existed, some religious leaders have been trying to subvert it. Sadly, school districts in Wisconsin and Georgia are attempting to do just that.
School boards in these states and others continue to raise doubts about the validity of evolution. But they don't stop there. They are even trying to shift the emphasis away from evolution to teaching creationism in public schools. That's right -- the religious belief of creationism.
In suburban Atlanta, Cobb County school officials ordered that a sticker be placed on science textbooks that reads, "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered." CNN reports that in Grantsburg, Wis., school officials have revised the science curriculum to permit the teaching of alternative theories of life's origin, including creationism. While it may be foolish to ignore thousands of volumes of hard science, it's even more troubling that people are trying to impose their religious values alongside a scientific theory that is acknowledged the world over to be true.
In an attempt to circumvent the overtly religious overtones of creationism, anti-evolution zealots have crafted a sort of new theory known as "intelligent design." It's an alternative theory that would be studied in the Wisconsin district. Penn Anthropology lecturer Janet Monge called the theory a "'gee wow, we don't understand this at all!' philosophy. 'Hemoglobin [is] pretty cool, [but] we have no idea how this came to be. Gee wow, God must have done it.' Since this view does not espouse any particular type of 'god,' then it must not be 'religious.'" Oh, those tricky fundamentalists.
But our nation is filled with countless references to God! Surely creationism reflects that notion. Yes, our nation is filled with an inordinate number of references to a deity. Read the dissenting opinion in Engel v. Vitale for the laundry list if you're interested. The difference is that, while our nation recognizes that some sort of god does in fact exist, such references do not attempt to impose on us a belief that science has proven untrue. The role of public schools is to teach facts to children. Creationism is a belief, not a fact. It's unfortunate that the line is indistinguishable to so many.
Opponents of evolution explain that evolution is just a theory, not fact, and thus we should consider alternative options. While evolution is just a theory, there is an inordinate amount of evidence that supports that theory. Heck, gravity is a theory, too, but I don't hear anyone claiming that isn't science. National Geographic pointed out that evolution is just a theory in the same way "the notion that Earth orbits around the sun rather than vice versa, offered by Copernicus in 1543, is a theory. ... [A theory] is not a dreamy and unreliable speculation, but an explanatory statement that fits the evidence." Perhaps, then, we should teach Ptolemy's model alongside Copernicus'?
The article researched the question, "Was Darwin Wrong?" The answer, as explained by author David Quammen, is clearly no. Quammen writes that "the supporting evidence is abundant, various, ever increasing, solidly interconnected, and easily available in museums, popular books, textbooks, and a mountainous accumulation of peer-reviewed scientific studies. No one needs to, and no one should, accept evolution merely as a matter of faith."
In fact, Monge mentioned that the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology here at Penn is preparing an exhibit on human evolutionary history. The exhibit, slated to open in 2007, will provide the basics of evolution and evolutionary history and examine how evolution has affected the lives of individuals.
People have tried to teach creationism in schools before and failed. In 1987, in the case Edwards v. Aguillard, the Supreme Court ruled Louisiana's "Creationism Act" unconstitutional. The act forbade the teaching of evolution in public schools unless creationism was also taught. Consider it a sort of "fair and balanced" approach to learning about the origin of man. The court rejected the statute, because "the act's primary purpose was to change the public school science curriculum to provide persuasive advantage to a particular religious doctrine that rejects the factual basis of evolution in its entirety."
In the classic tome America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction, Jon Stewart writes, "It had been tens of thousands of years since man first made his presence felt on planet Earth, or six thousand years, if you prefer to ignore all aspects of rational scientific discovery." Sadly, those in the states of Wisconsin and Georgia are trying to impose the former, not the latter. By trying to debunk the teaching of evolution in schools, they're doing nothing but living in the state of denial.
Craig Cohen is a Wharton junior from Woodbury, N.Y. He Hate Me appears on Fridays.
