New Legal Strategy: Darwin Foes Also Target Global Warming Education
Those who targeted the teaching of evolution in public schools ran into a legal roadblock: Courts have said singling out evolution violates the separation between church and state.
So Darwin foes apparently have a new legal strategy: They want to require schools teaching not only evolution but also global warming to include the other side on both matters, the New York Times reports. “By insisting that global warming also be debated, deniers of evolution can argue that they are simply championing academic freedom in general,” the story says.
Joshua Rosenau, a project director for the National Center for Science Education, told the Times he noticed opponents began to combine their attacks on global warming and evolution after a 2005 ruling by an Atlanta federal judge.
The ruling said it was unconstitutional for school officials to place stickers on textbooks encouraging students to consider evolution as only a theory. Because evolution was the only target, the motive was apparently religious, and thus violated the separation between church and state, the judge said.
The critics are gaining some ground. The Texas Board of Education last year said teachers must present both sides of evolution and global warming, according to the Times. In Louisiana, a law passed in 2008 says the state board of education may help teachers promote critical thinking of evolution, the origins of life, global warming and human cloning.
And a bill introduced in Kentucky would require teachers to discuss both the advantages and disadvantages of scientific theories, including evolution and global warming.
