Creationism Surfaces in North Carolina
Science | Sat, Sep 20, 2008 at 7:19:27 pm PDT
Another attempt by creationists to slip their religious agenda into science classrooms, this time in Brunswick County, North Carolina: Brunswick school board to consider creationism teaching.
The Brunswick County school board is looking for a way for creationism to be taught in the classroom side by side with evolution.
“It’s really a disgrace for the state school board to impose evolution on our students without teaching creationism,” county school board member Jimmy Hobbs said at Tuesday’s meeting. “The law says we can’t have Bibles in schools, but we can have evolution, of the atheists.”
When asked by a reporter, his fellow board members all said they were in favor of creationism being taught in the classroom.
The topic came up after county resident Joel Fanti told the board he thought it was unfair for evolution to be taught as fact, saying it should be taught as a theory because there’s no tangible proof it’s true.
“I wasn’t here 2 million years ago,” Fanti said. “If evolution is so slow, why don’t we see anything evolving now?”
The board allowed Fanti to speak longer than he was allowed, and at the end of his speech he volunteered to teach creationism and received applause from the audience.
The State of North Carolina’s Department of Public Instruction is not impressed: No place for creationism in science class, state says.
Keep creationism out of science class, the state school system says.
At its meeting Tuesday, the Brunswick County school board began discussions on teaching creationism alongside evolution – something all four board members present showed a strong interest in. The talk began after Joel Fanti, a parent and graduate of the school system, told the board that he considered it a problem to teach evolution as a fact and that science teachers should include creationism in the curriculum, as well.
The audience applauded. The school board and staff said they would research whether creationism is allowed in the classroom.
But neither creationism nor the related “intelligent design,” which says life forms are so complex only a higher power could have created them, may be taught as a required course of study, Edd Dunlap, science section chief for the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, said Wednesday. These are considered religious teachings and may not be taught in science class or as fact, although they may be included as part of an elective, such as a course on religion or philosophy, he said.
While evolution is a course of study that must be taught in public schools, based on national standards, creationism is not, Dunlap said. Brunswick, New Hanover and Pender counties all follow the evolution curriculum.
“If you’re teaching something not in the standards, you’re not teaching what students need to be assessed on,” Dunlap said.
