The stateโs top school official is trying to downplay โ and in some cases remove entirely โ references to evolution in the science standards of what students are supposed to be taught in Arizona high schools.
Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas is proposing to eliminate requirements that students be able to evaluate how inherited traits in a population can lead to evolution. Instead, she would replace the word โevolutionโ with โbiological diversity.โ
Elsewhere, Douglas seeks to repeal language that students develop the understanding of how โadaptations contribute to the process of biological evolution.โ Instead, that verbiage would read โhow traits within populations change over time.โ
And a reference to the โmechanism of biological evolutionโ would be supplanted with โchange in genetic composition of a population over successive generations.โ
The word โevolutionโ would remain in some other places, though it would specifically be referred to as a theory.
But it isnโt just the idea of evolution thatโs on Douglasโ hit list.
The standards crafted by a committee previously said students should be able to analyze and interpret โsupporting evidence for the Big Bang theory and the scale of the universe.โ That verbiage is gone, replaced with the more generic โtheories related to the scale and expansion of the universe.โ
But Douglas told Capitol Media Services this isnโt her attempt to replace the teaching of evolution with โintelligent design.โ That essentially is a theory that life is too complex to have evolved at random and must be the product of some specific design, presumably by a higher power.
โWe have absolutely nothing in these standards in reference to intelligent design,โ she said.
The changes have drawn particular concern after KPNX-TV in Phoenix unearthed an audio recording of Douglas from last November where she was speaking at an event for Republican candidates.
โShould the theory of intelligent design be taught along with the theory of evolution?โ she said in response to a question. โAbsolutely,โ Douglas said.
Douglas said Monday she was simply giving her personal beliefs on the issue. And she called reports that she is trying to put intelligent design into the curriculum โfake news.โ
But in those November comments, the school superintendent did not separate her own beliefs from those of what she thinks should be taught in public schools.
โI had a discussion with my staff because weโre currently working on science standards, to make sure this issue was addressed in the standards weโre working on,โ Douglas said at the time.
Douglas stressed Monday that the word โevolutionโ does remain in the standards, at least in several places.
โBut we need to look at it from all sides,โ she said.
โThe point of education is really to be seekers of the truth, whatever the truth may be,โ Douglas said. โAnd thatโs what all standards should work toward.โ
She acknowledged that the wording changes she wants may open the door to teachers providing students with alternate theories of how life on Earth got to where it is.
โEvolution is a theory in many ways,โ Douglas said. โThatโs what our children should understand.โ
She said there are parts of evolution that are proven science, other elements are โvery theoretical.โ
โAnd if weโre going to educate our children instead of just indoctrinate them to one way of thinking, we have to be able to allow them to explore all types of areas,โ she said.
So does Douglas believe thereโs any scientific basis behind intelligent design?
โMaybe there will be someday,โ she responded.
โOnce upon a time people said the Earth was flat and it couldnโt possibly be round,โ Douglas said. โI donโt know.โ
Tory Roberg, lobbyist for the Secular Coalition for Arizona, said her concerns are not assuaged by the fact that Douglas is not proposing to add intelligent design to the standards. She said Douglas clearly realizes she canโt do that, citing federal court rulings that have slapped down schools that have attempted to require the teaching of intelligent design as an unconstitutional effort to put a religious belief into a classroom.
Still, Roberg, who has children in the Washington Elementary School District, said what Douglas is proposing is still wrong.
โItโs a disservice to our kids, a disservice to our teachers,โ she said.
But author Ed Reitz had a different take on it when he spoke at a hearing last month.
โThe teaching of evolution is something that concerns me because itโs a theory and itโs not science,โ he said.
Reitz said his new book, โAmericaโs Last Chance: Where Hope Lives,โ with a picture of a boy on the cover praying next to a cross and U.S. flag, devotes an entire chapter to the issue of evolution and humans descending from previously existing vertebrates.
โIn the first place, it is illogical,โ Reitz testified. โWhen we observe nature, our natural instincts tell us there was design and planning somewhere.โ
And Reitz said if schools would teach creationism, there would not be the need for vouchers that let parents use taxpayer dollars to send their children to private and parochial schools which do not have to follow the standards for teaching science that govern public schools.
โWe want creation taught in schools and God brought back in,โ he said.
The proposed changes drew opposition from Joe Thomas, president of the Arizona Education Association.
โWe support the teaching of the scientific theory of evolution in the schools,โ he said.
โScientific standards should be based on scientific research and nothing else.โ
And Thomas said this is more than a question of standards.
โIt risks Arizona students falling behind the rest of the nation and world if we start watering down our education standards,โ he said.
Thomas also said he was skeptical about Douglasโ claim that there are other valid theories that should be taught in schools.
โIf there are other theories that exist, the science that has escaped the science community, the superintendent should bring those to the forefront,โ he said.
Any changes to the science standards ultimately have to be approved by the Arizona State Board of Education.
