Bill to Debate Evolution Theory Ready for House Floor

Opponents haven’t been able to slow down a bill in the state legislature that would allow public school teachers to discuss theories at odds with the theory of evolution.

As worded, the bill invites “critical thinking” about scientific theories. But Molly Miller, a geology professor at Vanderbilt University, says the proposed bill opens up science classrooms to religious and “Intelligent Design” theories, in an attempt to discredit the long-held theory of evolution.

“My objection to this bill is primarily based on the fact that it is not needed. There are science standards that are already set in place.”

Miller says the bill follows the same wording proposed by national groups who promote “creationist” Biblical theories, and the recently adopted argument that life itself implies an “intelligent design.”

David Fowler, president of the Family Action Council of Tennessee, says his organization backs the bill. Fowler says organizations like the Professional Educators of Tennessee are concerned that teachers will be discipline if they question scientific theories.

“To ever cast any questions about some of the evidence offered in support of macroevolution gets them blackballed from the academy.”

“Macroevolution,” Fowler says, is the theory that life proceeded from a single-celled organism.

The measure goes before the full Tennessee House, once it gets through the Committee on Calendar and Rules. In the Senate, the same bill is on the agenda for the Education Committee Wednesday.

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The bill is HB 368 Dunn/SB 893 Watson.

Fowler expresses a point of view from evolution skeptics, who say that evolution may occur within species. But they find little evidence that evolution – “macroevolution,” based on genetic mutation and the “survival of the fittest” – can create a new species.

“Essentially it would be the starting from some kind of amoeba, or some kind of single-celled organism out of which all the complex diversity of life has come. That’s what macroevolution would essentially be.”

Fowler argues that teachers are afraid to express any criticism of the theory of evolution.

“I met earlier in the year with some teachers. I met with the Professional Educators of Tennessee and discussed the question of whether or not there were teachers who might be concerned to bring up any of the questions that are raised by scientists about the difference between microevolution, for instance, and macroevolution….”

Fowler’s Family Action Council of Tennessee web site includes a page showing the organization’s position on various bills.

On this bill, the position is:

“This bill would make clear that schools should create an atmosphere conducive to questioning scientific theories and that no teacher can be fired for questioning scientific theories.”

Miller, a professor of geology and earth sciences at Vanderbilt for 33 years, says a scientific “theory” is really an explanation that satisfactorily explains observable facts. Her own experience in the field supports that explanation, she says.

“I am an Antarctic geoscientist – I have worked on the environments of 250 million years ago that existed at the South Pole. And so I have seen tree stumps growing out of rocks – not currently alive — So I have witnessed a lot of fossils and climate change.”