10/26/2009 - BBC News
More than half of adults in a survey of 10 countries thought school science lessons should teach evolutionary theories alongside creationism.
10/14/2009 - Inside Higher Ed
A new movement is encouraging Christian colleges to embrace the teaching of evolution—without giving up professors' or students' faith.
9/18/2009 - 2theadvocate.com
Louisiana's top school board Wednesday approved procedures for residents who object to materials that challenge the teaching of evolution in public school science classes. Backers say the law is needed to give science teachers more freedom to challenge traditional theories, including Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Critics contend the measure is aimed at injecting religious themes into public schools.
8/13/2009 - Education Week
State science standards tend to cover evolution more extensively and better than they did nearly a decade ago, but at the same time, “creationist language” has become more common in them, concludes a review of the standards in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
8/6/2009 - Education Week
A forum run by the University of Pittsburgh helps teachers prepare lessons on the controversial and confusing topic of evolution.
7/13/2009 - CNSNews.com
A Zogby poll commissioned by the Seattle-based Discovery Institute says more than three-quarters of Americans would like teachers to have the freedom to discuss both the strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian evolution, with an even higher number reported among Democrats.
3/27/2009 - ScienceInsider
A new attempt to weaken the teaching of evolution in Texas failed. Science standards under consideration by the Texas Board of Education will not contain existing language that has required teachers to teach both the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution.
3/25/2009 - San Antonio Express News
The fight over how evolution is taught in Texas public schools is heading for a showdown this week. Whether school children learn traditional teachings about evolution or what many scientists describe as a watered-down version hinges on a final vote of the State Board of Education.
2/17/2009 - The Chronicle of Higher Education
An association of biologists has decided against holding its 2011 annual meeting in New Orleans because of a Louisiana law that the group sees as diluting scientific standards for the teaching of evolution and other science topics.
8/23/2008 - New York Times (requires free registration)
With a mandate to teach evolution but little guidance as to how, science teachers are contriving their own ways to turn a culture war into a lesson plan. How they fare may bear on whether a new generation of Americans embraces scientific evidence alongside religious belief. "If you see something you don't understand, you have to ask 'why?' or 'how?'" a Florida teacher admonishes his students. Yet their abiding mistrust in evolution, he fears, jeopardizes their belief in the basic power of science to explain the natural world—and their ability to make sense of it themselves.
7/10/2008 - USA Today
A former science curriculum director for the Texas Education Agency has filed a federal lawsuit alleging she was illegally fired for forwarding an e-mail about a speaker who was critical of teaching a controversial alternative to evolution.
6/4/2008 - New York Times (requires free registration)
Opponents of teaching evolution, in a natural selection of sorts, have gradually shed those strategies that have not survived the courts. Now a battle looms in Texas over science textbooks that teach evolution, and the wrestle for control seizes on three words. None of them are "creationism" or "intelligent design." Starting this summer, the state education board will determine the curriculum for the next decade and decide whether the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution should be taught.
2/26/2008 - Wired Magazine
Just weeks after Florida education officials approved an evolution-heavy curriculum over the objections of religious conservatives, two pro-intelligent design candidates will vie for seats on the Texas Board of Education. The board selects textbooks and decides what Texas children are taught. Later this year, the state will review its science curriculum; observers fear that creationist explanations of life's origins will be presented as scientifically valid alternatives to evolution.
2/21/2008 - U.S. News & World Report
Florida's state Board of Education decided yesterday on a compromise solution to the tumultuous question of how, or whether, to teach evolution in classrooms. Whereas the word was once an unmentionable in the Sunshine State—though teaching biological "changes" was sanctioned—evolution now will be explicitly taught by name. The so-called compromise? It must be phrased the "scientific theory of evolution." That's just fine with scientists, for whom the word theory means a testable truth.
2/20/2008 - The Orlando Sentinel
A bitter debate over how to teach evolution in Florida's public schools ended, at least temporarily, with a compromise Tuesday. The state Board of Education voted 4 to 3 in Tallahassee to adopt new science standards that for the first time require evolution to be taught.
2/12/2008 - St. Petersburg Times
Opponents of Florida's proposed new science standards turned out in force Monday, encouraging education officials, in the last public hearing before next week's vote, to take a more skeptical view of evolution. More than 70 people spoke at the hearing, which itself drew criticism because board members were not present. About 45 speakers were opposed.
2/8/2008 - Santa Barbara News Press
The founder of a popular Kentucky Christian museum that rejects evolution says in a new book that Darwin's theory fuels racism and genocide. Ken Ham, who opened the Creation Museum last year, and co-author Charles Ware, president of Crossroads Bible College in Indianapolis, have written "Darwin's Plantation: Evolution's Racist Roots," arguing that the theory inspired the Nazi belief in racial superiority and the murderous policies of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
2/7/2008 - Highlands Today
Scientists, professors, parents, and a student apparently convinced the members of the School Board of Highlands County that their individual beliefs should not collectively affect their decision as a board on the issue of teaching evolution.
2/4/2008 - St. Petersburg Times
As an emotional debate continues to unfold over Florida's proposed new science standards (standards that students will be tested on next year), it's surprisingly unclear how often kids raise concerns about evolution, how teachers respond, and how many avoid the topic altogether. To answer those questions, the St. Petersburg Times attempted to contact more than 50 science teachers in the Tampa Bay area and beyond. Most did not respond.
1/28/2008 - The Dallas Morning News
A Dallas creationist group's proposal to train science teachers has unleashed a flurry of mixed opinions from Nobel laureates, high school teachers, ministers, and scientific researchers.
Last month, a state advisory group gave the Institute for Creation Research preliminary approval to offer an online master's degree in science education. Since then, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board—which has the final say—has received more than 200 e-mails on the subject.
The coordinating board provided 286 pages of e-mails in response to an open-records request from The Dallas Morning news. Many of the notes are from Texas. But others come from all corners of the U.S. and the world—from Florida to the Philippines, Nevada to Nigeria. The letters show how heated the debate has become, as Texas and other states try to figure out the best way to teach students science.
1/19/2008 - My Clay Sun (Orange Park, Florida)
A local school board in Florida has decided that evolution should be presented as a theory, and not fact, in the classroom. Members of the Clay County School Board passed a resolution asking the Florida Department of Education to reword its newly proposed state standards, which present evolution as “the fundamental concept underlying all of biology and is supported in multiple forms of scientific evidence.” “It’s not like we’re asking for permission to teach creationism or any of those things. What we’re saying is let’s not be so dogmatic in our approach,” noted Superintendent David Owens.
1/15/2008 - San Antonio Express-News (Texas)
Members of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board will have to wait to vote on an application by a creation science group hoping to offer online master’s degrees. The Institute for Creation Research is seeking state approval to grant the degrees so educators can “understand the universe within the integrating framework of biblical creationism,” according to the schools’ mission statement. Board members were scheduled to vote on the application next week. However, the institute asked the board to postpone the vote until April to “do justice to the concerns (the board) raised.”
1/15/2008 - St. Petersburg Times (Florida)
A Florida attorney claims that science can be like religion. David C. Gibbs III wrote in a recent legal memo that by singling out Charles Darwin's theory of evolution as the sole pillar of modern biology, Florida's proposed science standards "leave no room for other philosophical perspectives and cross the line between science and faith." Gibbs also notes that the proposed standards could face a legal challenge for violating the constitutional separation of church and state. An attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida described Gibbs's claim as "cockamamy." Gibbs sent the memo to the Florida Board of Education in December. Board members will vote on the new science standards in February.
1/10/2008 - Miami Herald (Florida)
In an effort to promote the benefits of the No Child Left Behind Act, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is visiting states to discuss the law. But during her visit to Florida, Spellings stayed far away from the unfolding controversy on whether the state should add the word “evolution” to its science standards. Spellings noted it is not “her job to make policy decisions and said it was up to people such as new Florida Education Commissioner Eric Smith." When asked if she had a position on the issue, Spellings responded, “No. I don’t.” The Florida Board of Education is scheduled to vote on the new science standards in February.
1/10/2008 - Post and Courier (Charleston, South Carolina)
The South Carolina Board of Education has approved a biology textbook that had been previously questioned. “It’s almost shameful to me that we spent so much time questioning whether evolution should be taught in 2008 in South Carolina schools,” observed Trip DuBard III, who voted to approve the textbook. “I thought we were beyond that.” Board member Charles McKinney spoke for the board’s conservative faction when he said he views evolution as “an incomplete mystery” and worries that the textbook presents “distorted science opinion” as truth. The board is required to approve updated versions of textbooks each year.