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Public Policy Office
Policy Issues Related to Teaching Evolution
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The AIBS/NCSE Evolution List Server Network, for the U.S. and Canada. Allows scientists, teachers, and other interested parties to be in touch with each other locally, nationally, and internationally. They can facilitate support groups for teachers trying to teach evolution in a difficult atmosphere. They can also permit rapid communications and grass-roots activity when school boards or legislatures are considering policies that will promote the teaching of anti-evolutionary ideas in science classes.
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State News on Teaching Evolution
The federal education law, No Child Left Behind, requires states establish standards for student assessment. As a consequence, states across the country are working to develop K-12 science standards and model curricula that will ensure students meet these standards. This process has seemingly reinvigorated a host of organizations that oppose the inclusion of evolution in public school curricula or advocate for the inclusion of "alternative theories" ranging from young-Earth creationism to intelligent design.
The AIBS Public Policy Office works with various national and state organizations to monitor and report on state and local threats to the teaching of evolution in public school science courses. The AIBS Public Policy Office reports on these threats through its bi-weekly public policy report. To enable scientists and science educators to better track current and historic challenges to evolution, past public policy report items on evolution education are organized below by state and date.
Additionally, AIBS has prepared a brief fact sheet (pdf) summarizing recent developments in different states.
Recent Evolution Education Related Items from the Pages of BioScience
AIBS' journal, BioScience, regularly publishes items related to the improving and defending the teaching of evolution in the K-16 science curriculum. Following are some recent items that may be of interest to those working to provide students with a modern science education.
American Fisheries Society Resolution on Evolution Education
The American Fisheries Society officially adopted a resolution on 4 September 2007, concerning the teaching of alternatives to evolution in public school science classes. The resolution "affirms that the theory of evolution is the only current scientific explanation for the diversity of life on earth for inclusion in the science curricula of public schools."
SETAC North America Statement on Teaching Science
The Board of Directors of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) North America approved in November 2006 and recently posted their position statement on the teaching of science, particularly evolution, in the classroom.
Biologists Applaud Dover Decision, December 2005
The precedent has been set in the case of Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District, and teachers in Dover, PA, are now free to keep science in the science class. Judge John E. Jones III ruled in favor of the parents who sought to prevent the incorporation of intelligent design, a religious concept, into science lessons on evolution. Read Judge Jones's 139-page decision.
"The real winners of this case are Dover students," says Kent Holsinger, incoming president of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. "Students should be able to learn about the nature of science, which can be tested based on our observations of the natural world. Intelligent design does not fit that criterion."
AIBS Criticizes President's Statement on Intelligent Design
The American Institute of Biological Sciences is concerned with President Bush's recent statement suggesting that it would be appropriate to teach the concept of intelligent design/creationism alongside the well-established theory of evolution. ... "Intelligent design is not a scientific theory and must not be taught in science classes," said AIBS president Dr. Marvalee Wake, a perspective shared by President Bush's science advisor, Dr. John Marburger III.
Biologists Speak Out Against Vote by Kansas Board of Education
The Kansas State Board of Education is doing a disservice
to the state's K-12 students by adopting a curriculum that redefines
science such that intelligent design/creationism and other
non-scientific concepts could be taught in science classes.
NAS President Bruce Alberts 4 March 2005 letter to NAS members regarding threats to evolution education
On 4 March 2005 Dr. Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academies of Science, sent a letter to Academy members alerting them to a growing threat to quality science education — attempts by anti-evolution activists to remove evolution from the biology curriculum or to have intelligent design/creationism added to the curriculum. Alberts encourages NAS members to be prepared to utilize their scientific expertise and prestige to help defend science education in their states and local communities.
The National Academies also maintains an online resource for the public on evolution. This site allows easy access to books, position statements, and additional resources on evolution education and research. These materials have been produced by the National Academies and other sources.
AAAS Board Resolution Opposing "Intelligent Design" Theory in U.S. Science Classes, November 2002. The Board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science has passed a resolution urging policymakers to oppose teaching "Intelligent Design Theory" within science classrooms, but rather, to keep it separate, in the same way that creationism and other religious teachings are currently handled. Diversity enriches the educational experience for students, said AAAS CEO Alan I. Leshner, and American society supports and encourages a broad range of viewpoints. But, he added: "If intelligent design theory is presented within science courses as factually based, it is likely to confuse American schoolchildren and to undermine the integrity of U.S. science education." - The AIBS-endorsed 1998 report, Evolution, Science, and Society: Evolutionary Biology and the National Research Agenda, from the American Society of Naturalists, the Society for the Study of Evolution, the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution, the Ecological Society of America, the Society of Systematic Biologists, the Genetics Society of America, the Animal Behavior Society, and the Paleontological Society. Also online at http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/%7Eecolevol/evolution.html.
"What is Evolution?"
"Biological evolution consists of change in the hereditary characteristics of groups of organisms over the course of generations. Groups of organisms, termed populations and species, are formed by the division of ancestral populations or species, and the descendant groups then change independently. Hence, from a long-term perspective, evolution is the descent, with modification, of different lineages from common ancestors. Thus, the history of evolution has two major components: the branching of lineages, and changes within lineages (including extinction). Initially similar species become ever more different, so that over the course of sufficient time, they may come to differ profoundly."
"All forms of life, from viruses to redwoods to humans, are related by unbroken chains of descent. The hierarchically organized patterns of commonality among species "such as the common features of all primates, all mammals, all vertebrates, all eukaryotes, and all living things" reflect a history in which all living species can be traced back through time to fewer and fewer common ancestors. This history can be described by the metaphor of the phylogenetic tree. Some of this history is recorded in the fossil record, which documents simple, bacteria-like life as far back as 3.5 billion years ago, followed by a long history of diversification, modification, and extinction. The evidence for descent from common ancestors lies also in the common characteristics of living organisms, including their anatomy, embryological development, and DNA. On such grounds, for example, we can conclude that humans and apes had a relatively recent common ancestor; that a more remote common ancestor gave rise to all primates; and that successively more remote ancestors gave rise to all mammals, to all four-legged vertebrates, and to all vertebrates, including fishes."
Botanical Society of America's 2003 Statement on Evolution.
The Society for the Study of Evolution website contains myriad of resources about evolution science, current research, and evolution education.
- A resolution from the National Conference on Teaching Evolution, October 2000, University of California, Berkeley.
Evolution is Good Science. Understanding evolution and the nature of science is important to society. AIBS supports teaching evolution and the nature of science in our nation's classrooms and informal science centers.
Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science. From the Working Group on Teaching Evolution, National Academy of Sciences. 1998. "Teaching about Evolution: Old Controversy, New Challenges", by Rodger Bybee, Biological Sciences Curriculum Study, recipient of the 2001 AIBS Education Award. Published by AIBS in BioScience, April 2001. pdf, 100k Evolution and the Fossil Record. 2001. From the American Geological Institute and the Paleontological Society. The Evolution Project: website, television series, and teaching resources EvoNet: a Worldwide Network for Evolutionary Biology National Center for Science Education The Paleontological Society statement on evolution education issued 3 April 2003
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