California Gets `A' in Evolution Education

[Peter Rauch]

So, according to one infamous Kansan, the AAAS has "an ax to
grind about evolution".  Let's hope so! 

And, according to one lawyerly CALifornian, it's pure nonsense
--a program of indoctrination.

See the entire article at URL:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/09/27/MN104683.DTL

Peter


   California Gets `A' in Evolution Education
   19 other states fail to make the grade in national survey
   
   Tanya Schevitz, Chronicle Staff Writer   Wednesday, September 27, 2000
     _________________________________________________________________
   
   California is among just six states that received high marks for their
   teaching of evolution, while 19 states faired poorly and Kansas
   flunked, with a curriculum deemed ``disgraceful,'' according to a new
   report that promises to spur the decades-old debate between science
   and creationism in the schools.
   
   The report, commissioned by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation in Ohio
   and released yesterday by the American Association for the Advancement
   of Science, considers how well evolution is included in the state
   science education standards of 49 states and the District of Columbia.

...cut, cut...   
   
   Phillip Johnson, a law professor at the University of California at
   Berkeley and an author of books about evolution, criticized the
   report.
   
   ``I think it is a pile of nonsense and the enlistment of the cultural
   and financial power of the scientific enterprise in a program of
   indoctrination and not education,'' he said.
   
...cut, cut...
   
   Linda Holloway, former chairman of the Kansas State Board of
   Education, said the report was deceptive and ``very unfair.''
   
   ``Clearly they have an ax to grind about evolution,'' she told the
   Associated Press.

...cut, cut...   
   ©2000 San Francisco Chronicle   Page A2