1 of 3 States Flunks Teaching Evolution

by Lu Leon, AAAS

These findings are reported in Good Science, Bad Science: Teaching Evolution in the States, a 51-page report by Lawrence S. Lerner that offers the first comprehensive analysis of how each state handles evolution in its science standards for the public schools. The report is the centerpiece of a symposium on teaching evolution held last week at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The bad news is that 19 states do a weak-to-reprehensible job of teaching evolution, in most cases making it nearly impossible to teach the sciences properly. Ten of them never use the word evolution and three entirely avoid teaching biological evolution. Kansas goes so far as to delete all references, direct or indirect, to the age or the earth or the universe, including even radioactive decay. Those 19 states are the major focus of Lerner's report. (A list of states and the grades they received is attached.)

"Almost all science is the study of the evolution of one system or another," Lerner said. "Given the far-reaching ramifications of evolution in the life sciences -- to say nothing of the other historical sciences -- a complete and proper exposition of evolution is an essential component of state science standards. Shortchanging, distorting, or omitting evolution not only harms the teaching of life sciences but makes it difficult for the student to come to a clear understanding of how science works."

For many Americans, confusion still reigns on the subject of evolution. Although almost all scientists accept evolution as the central concept of biology, a 1999 Gallup poll found that 68 percent of Americans favor teaching both creationism and evolution in public schools. And half the respondents in another survey felt evolution is "far from being proven scientifically."

In addition to the analysis of evolution and state science standards, Lerner's report examines how politics and religion have helped shape the evolution debate, turning it into a controversy that is essentially nonscientific.

"We begin to see why young Americans do so poorly on international comparisons of scientific knowledge," said Chester E. Finn, Jr., President of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. "Many of them attend school in states that don't expect them to learn the essentials of biology and other scientific fields. Yet we must also recognize the political dilemma that confronts education policy makers: the public that they serve is itself not nearly so ready as the scientists to mandate that schools teach evolution and only evolution. No wonder the schools don't do as well as they should in educating their students."