Proposed 'Template' for Ohio Teachers Ignites Intelligent Design Debate
by Jim Brown
July 24, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A proposal before the Ohio Board of Education has rekindled the debate over how evolution should be taught in the classroom.Conservative Board member Colleen Grady recently floated a proposal that would create a "template" teachers could use for classroom discussions on issues such as evolution, global warming, stem-cell research and cloning. However, liberal groups like Americans United for Separation of Church and State have raised concerns about the plan.
Critics say Grady's proposal would allow for the teaching of intelligent design theory in schools. But the executive director of the Intelligent Design Network of Ohio, Roddy Bullock, says, on the contrary, the plan would simply allow for criticism of Darwinian evolution.
"The idea," Bullock explains, "is to open up these topics to different points of view, to different lines of evidence, to different interpretations of the evidence, to give students a more objective approach to science education." He says evolution, as it is now taught in many schools and defended by many Darwinist groups, has become a protected dogma that some believe must be defended at all costs.
"These groups -- I don't want to impute any motives to them that I've not aware of -- but it appears they are simply building a defense around Darwinism," Bullock contends, "and any action on the part of any school board or any local school district or any teacher that would in any way criticize Darwinism suddenly becomes an object of litigation."
In February, the Ohio Board of Education dumped its "Critical Analysis of Evolution" lesson plan after facing intense pressure from Darwinists. The Board abandoned the science lesson plan just one month after narrowly voting against a proposal to remove it.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
