Right now in Florida, a campaign is being started to overturn the proposal that evolution be taught in schools more comprehensively than it has been. In Texas, the director of science curriculum was dismissed, so it seems, for advocating evolution by circulating news of a lecture about evolution through e-mail. Both of these states are hotbeds for anti-evolution forces, and many people who seem to be ignorant not only of science but of Kitzmiller vs. Dover, are ready to jump at any opportunity to push religious education into public schools, even if it’s only Intelligent Design.

In trying to advocate against science and for wild stabs in the dark, most of them actually show why we need more science in public schools, and more evolutionary biology taught, not less. The fact that they can graduate from the public school system and say “It’s only a theory” shows that the schools did not adequately teach them about scientific method or even vocabulary. “There are holes in the fossil record” demonstrates that they have not learned some basic facts about geology and how fossilization occurs. “There are no transitional fossils” shows that they know little about the vast fossil record collected around the world – and should brush up on current events, too, since the discovery of tiktaalik was widely publicized, but was far from the only “transitional” creature ever found. All the arguments they make have been addressed over and over, explained by scientists and teachers, yet they persist. Clearly, a good foundation of scientific understanding was not laid during their public school years, and this must be corrected for current and future generations. Read the rest of this entry →