Evolution and Intelligent Design in the Classroom

While the teaching of evolution is a central tenet of the National Science Education Standards, it has come under increasing fire at the state-level and anti-evolution advocates attempt to remove it from state science standards. They use many diverse tactics to undermine the teaching of evolution. For example, teaching evolution has been linked to many of society's ills, including school shootings, teenage pregnancy, drug addiction, and Nazism, to name a few. This rhetoric serves to inflame public opinion about evolution, and allows anti-evolution lobbyists to impose restrictions and modifications upon state science standards, using a variety of methods. Recently, advocates of a philosophy known as "intelligent design" (ID) have attempted to include their teachings in state science standards. Evolutionary biologists claim that ID is simply a euphemism for creationism. ID supporters claim that it is a valid scientific theory, supported by experimental evidence, and should be taught alongside evolution in science classes. To keep evolution as the central tenet of biology instruction, new tactics must be sought to keep ID hypotheses out of state science standards.