Evolution under attack ... again

[Leah Larkin]

Dear Taxacomers,

Well, it's that time of year again ... hunting season on evolution.
An article on the front page of this morning's Albuquerque Journal
reports on a proposed change to the state of New Mexico's Science
Content Standards, Benchmarks and Performance Standards.  The change,
which will be voted on by the State Board of Education at the end of
this month, would involve a subtle change in wording which would
seriously undermine the teaching of evolution in the state.  New
Mexico already ranks in the bottom 10% of States for most measures of
educational performance.

Current standards say that students should be able to "analyze the
data and observations supporting the conclusion that species living
on Earth today are related by descent from common ancestral species
originating over 3 billion years ago".  The proposed change would
reword this to read "evaluate the data and obserations that bear on
the claim that species living on Earth today are related by descent
from common ancestral species originating over 3 billion years ago".
The phrasing would undermine the teaching of evolution as accepted by
the scientific community and allow the introduction of "intelligent
design" (an alias for creationism) into the curriculum.

The changes were proposed by the New Mexico chapter of the
Intelligent Design Network.  As reported in the Albuquerque Journal,
the submission to the Board of Education and associated press
releases include the following:
- evolution "challenge(s) the fundamental beliefs held by most New
Mexicans that a Creator was responsible for creating the cosmos and
all of life";
- "there is no scientific basis for concluding 'that species living
on Earth today are related by descent from common ancestral species'".

As recently as 1996, the state of New Mexico removed evolution
completely from state educational standards.  It was reinstated in
1999.

Frankly, I have no idea how credible the threat is, but if you would
like to weigh in with the State Board of Education, e-mail addresses
for most of the 15 members can be found at:
http://www.nmsba.org/sbe.html.

--
-Leah Larkin, Ph.D.
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Department of Biology
MSC03 2020
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001