State Senator Wants Students to Hear 'Full Range' of Evolutionary Theories
by Jim Brown
August 26, 2005
(AgapePress) - A South Carolina lawmaker has introduced a bill that would free up public schools to teach the controversy surrounding evolutionary theory by requiring them to expose students to the "full range of scientific views that exist" on biological evolution. State Senator Mike Fair says his bill would not prevent teachers from discussing evolution, but would require them to present other theories such as intelligent design, which says that life is too complex to have evolved by accident. The bill has gained local support from U.S. Senator Jim DeMint and Congressman Bob Inglis.
Fair believes what students learn in public school science classes should not undermine what they are taught at home or at church.
"Many of us -- most of us, I hope -- come from homes where children are taught by their parents that there's a reason behind it all," Fair says. "The biblical worldview, the one that I embrace, is that our Creator God spoke things into existence, and that same creator God demonstrated His love for me by sending His only son, Jesus, to die on the cross. And what a wonderful message that is."
According to Fair, science needs to be taught in the classroom as education, not indoctrination. But he admits he is troubled that evolution is currently being taught in schools as a solid fact -- not a theory.
"The approach that I think needs to be made -- and, of course, the president spoke, I think, very succinctly to that circumstance -- is [that] the subject of Darwin's theory of evolution should be handled more thoroughly," he says, "both [with] that information that supports it and that information that challenges it; things such as the Cambrian Explosion."
Fair also notes the absence of "missing links" of any kind continues to be a problem for Darwin's theory -- yet that is not talked about in the classroom.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
