Debate Evolution

In Saturday's Highlands Today, the editorial roundup "Debate Evolution, But Not In Science Class," the author suggested that Florida hasn't reached the 21st century with its state science standards.

Suggesting that by not requiring the term "evolution" to be used in curriculum has deprived Florida's educational system of some vital material is foolishness at best. Finding a biology book which meets the present standards without the term "evolution" or its concept, will be very difficult. No one seems to know just what this new rule will do to enhance science education in Florida.

The most controversial portion of the evolutionary theory is human ancestry. To my understanding, even Highlands County uses and has used the biology book "Dynamics of Life" by McGraw Hill for a number of years. Chapter 15 "The Theory of Evolution" presents Charles Darwin's theory as a modern fundamental concept in biology. Chapter 16.2 "Human Ancestry. Hominids" states, "Some scientists propose that between 5 and 8 million years ago in Africa, a population that was ancestral to the African apes and humans diverged into two lines." I happen to have a 1914 copy of "A Civic Biology" by George W. Hunter. This was the book cited as evidence for illegally teaching evolution in the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. Page 195 Evolution of Man says, "If we follow the early history of man upon the earth, we find that at first he must have been little better than one of the lower animals."

So the term "evolution" is used and has been taught for at least 94 years. So why the big push for an unnecessary rule? Could it be that the multi-billion dollar government sponsored industry which sells evolutionary doctrine as science is a little worried about a competitor called Intelligent Design?

Bill Dailey
Sebring