Teaching evolution in East Tennessee

Lawyers on both sides of the Scopes trial drew national attention. Clarence Darrow was part of science teacher John Scopes's defense. The prosecuting attorney was William Jennings Bryan.

It's been 150 years since Darwin made his big discovery. It's been 84 since a trial initiated for the crime of teaching it at an East Tennessee school shone a hot, bright and not particularly flattering light on Rhea County, Tennessee. But East Tennessee's connection with the evolution issue isn't merely relegated to dusty archives from the 1920s.

In 2003, the Blount County Board of Education received media attention when the body voted not to adopt three high school biology textbooks because they didn't discuss creationism along with evolution. Two years later the terminology had changed, but the board's perspective had not. As reported in The Daily Times, the board unanimously passed a resolution calling for the teaching of "a variety of scientific theories about origins." Board member Dr. Don McNelly, who introduced the resolution and is still on the school board, reportedly indicated at the time that teachers should be able to teach intelligent design in conjunction with evolution, claiming it is based on scientific criteria.

McNelly recently said that the resolution still stands as far as he knows but "without any activity on it since." He and fellow school board member Charles Finley indicate that, like all Tennessee public school boards, the Blount County school board votes on textbooks from an approved list provided by the Tennessee Department of Education.

In 2007, then Senator Raymond Finney of Tennessee's Eighth District representing Blount and Sevier counties tried to back Tennessee Commissioner of Education Timothy Webb into a rhetorical corner by introducing a resolution in the General Assembly calling for him to answer existential questions like: "Is the Universe and all that is within it, including human beings, created through purposeful, intelligent design by a Supreme Being, that is a Creator?" Finney's resolution went on to imply that creationism should be taught in conjunction with evolution. It went nowhere.

In Knoxville, a "Darwin vs. Design" conference was held at the convention center in 2007. Local intelligent design supporters brought in research fellows from the Discovery Institute, a conservative nonprofit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Wash., best known for its advocacy of the intelligent design perspective. Hundreds attended the event, and a smaller number of protesters handed out fliers.

The value of scientific literacy is the most oft-cited reason put forward for teaching evolution, First Amendment considerations the most frequently mentioned for not teaching creationism or intelligent design.

Teaching Tactics

Scientific literacy was one of the areas addressed when Tennessee developed new curriculum standards in January with the state's adoption of the Tennessee Diploma Project, part of the broader American Diploma Project. Those changes are being implemented this school year, and Knox County Schools has tweaked its curriculum to meet the new criteria. According to Becky Ashe, science supervisor and director of curriculum and instruction with Knox County Schools, some of the changes have to do with the teaching of evolution, or "biological change" or "change over time" as seems to be the plain vanilla terminology being adopted in public education circles.

"What has changed within that curriculum is that there are only five stand-alone standards now," says Ashe. "There had been an individual standard called "biological change," but that's been taken out."

The 1925 trial, which took place in Dayton, Tennessee, was also known as the "monkey trial."

Ashe, who is also the president-elect of the Tennessee Science Teachers' Association and taught biology and chemistry at West High School for 14 years prior to attaining her current status, is quick to add that the curriculum change doesn't mean that schools aren't teaching evolutionary processes.

"Evolution is the lynchpin to understanding why organisms act the way they do," says Ashe. "Even at the molecular level, their behavior can all be examined through the lens of change over time. In recognition of that, when this curriculum was rewritten at the state level, they took out biological change as its own unit of standard, instead dispersing that content everywhere it supports the other tenets of biology. We intend to teach that nature has a systematic way, an observable way that you can watch change over time, over generations."

Among other changes in the science program according to Ashe, beginning with this year's freshmen, students will have to pass a bona fide biology course to get a high school diploma. Previously students were required to have three science credits but not necessarily biology. And they still have to pass the biology exam, as has always been the case, but now it counts for a higher percentage of their overall exam score.

One can't help but wonder if perhaps some of these changes in curriculum and terminology are designed to offset any resistance that may exist toward the term and teaching of evolution. Ashe acknowledges that some Knox County parents have disagreements about the subject matter, though she says it's often a misunderstanding and involves a very small percentage of parents.

"My experience in the classroom showed me that most people's concerns about teaching evolution sprang from worrying about whether or not we were teaching about the genesis of life," says Ashe. "We don't teach that. That's not part of our curriculum, and teachers are encouraged not to put their personal beliefs into that."

Ashe estimates that she and Knox County Schools science teachers get 20 to 30 calls within a school year from parents concerned their child is being taught evolution. She says typically parents are satisfied once they have talked with her or their child's teacher about it, though there are some who seek additional measures.

"I think, when you talk about the whole controversy over evolution, it is about observable data that can't really be disputed," says Ashe. "I think the fact that this evolution issue is still controversial is an indictment of our public school system. If we had been properly teaching through the years what science is, then the argument would move from "Do you believe in evolution or not?" to "Do you see this as a matter of faith or as a matter of science?""

Gez Dos Santos, a Christian and father of three young children who attend schools in the Knox County system, seems to understand Ashe's point about the nature of the "argument." Dos Santos believes in evolution, but not the evolution of humankind. From his perspective, we did not evolve from apes or any other lower life form, and the Earth is not millions of years old.

Editorial cartoonists of the day had plenty of material during the Scopes trial.

"Certain species have evolved over time," said Dos Santos. "We constantly have species that become extinct and new species that come up. But I believe God created Man."

Even though he doesn't have a problem with science teachers teaching the processes of evolution in other life forms, Dos Santos indicates he would have a problem if the evolution of humankind were explicitly addressed.

"As far as evolution and creationism, it's not the school's responsibility to teach my kids the process of creation, that God created Man. That's my job," says Dos Santos.

Ashe agrees.

"Science is about how things happen; faith is about why they happen," says the curriculum director. "As educators, we know our job is not about filling in all the blanks. It's up to parents to fill in the blanks for their child."

Science Savvy

Dr. Gary McCracken shares Ashe's belief that science and religion are different realms of human experience. As professor and department head of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UT, McCracken believes science and religion don't mix well.

"To set up creation myths as an alternative to modern science, I would have serious problems there because it would deny the students access to scientific literacy," says McCracken, noting that the SAT and ACT have questions regarding evolution.

In addition to his UT duties, McCracken also conducts an annual advanced training workshop for middle school and high school teachers in Knox County.

"Nothing makes sense in the context of modern biology except with the understanding of evolution," he says. "We accumulate facts and then attempt to explain those facts by constructing theories. Evolution is a fact. The evidence is the amount of genetic diversity, intensity of natural selection, how individuals interact, how they're distributed in space. The fossil evidence, genetics, molecular genetics, comparative anatomyÉa rich body of knowledge that all supports human evolution. We develop theories based on these phenomena, and then we test these theories to explain that what is now well established is a fact, that evolution is responsible for the diversity of life on Earth. I'm sorry, for people whose religious beliefs are there, it really is an inconvenient truth that Man evolved. We can't deny it as scientists."

But McCracken isn't without appreciation for religion.

"In saying these sorts of things, I'm not denying the value and importance of religious beliefs in structuring people's lives," says McCracken. "Religious belief systems are a perfectly valid source of information for people. But they aren't science. We run into trouble when people confuse a belief system for what is in fact a reality-based scientific system."

Constitutional Constraints

The legal decisions on this issue have been pretty consistent. More than a few federal courts have ruled over the years that biblically based renderings of human origins are unsuitable for instruction as science in public schools due to the First Amendment's Establishment Clause that disallows laws "regarding the establishment of religion." Furthermore, federal judges and U.S. Supreme Court justices have also proven unwilling to allow anything that resembles an institutional endorsement, explicit or implicit, of any particular religion or religious belief in a context of science instruction.

Otis Stephens, a member of the political science faculty at the University of Tennessee and also the university's Resident Scholar of Constitutional Law in the College of Law, notes the Scopes Trial, Epperson v. Arkansas (1968), Edwards v. Aguillard (1987) and Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (2005) as some of the most influential court cases to uphold First Amendment restrictions on religious indoctrination in public school systems.

"What the court is saying in the creationism case and the later intelligent design case is that if you're trying to teach creation "science," you're giving it an underpinning of science that the court says it does not have," explains Stephens. "The courts have rejected the idea that creation science is in any way comparable to the science curriculum taught in the schools. And when the courts perceive that local legislators or local policy makers are trying to inject a particular religious message into teaching in some way, they get upset."

Stephens also makes the point that, from a court official's perspective, if the practice of teaching religious beliefs of creation were opened up for one set of beliefs based on some non-scientific authority such as the Bible then it would also open it up for every religious authority, Christian or otherwise.

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