Junk science

Education: Ohio school board caves to legal threats, dumps critical teaching on evolution | Mark Bergin

Last month's removal of intelligent design (ID) from science classrooms in the Dover, Pa., school district has not yet generated further legal battery. But the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) brandished that ruling like a sledge hammer in Ohio on Feb. 14, intimidating the state school board into dropping a curriculum that questioned Darwinism.

Under threat of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit, the Ohio board voted 11 to 4 to toss out its mandate for critical analysis of evolution and an accompanying voluntary lesson plan. The decision defies public opinion, with 68 percent of Ohio respondents in a recent Zogby poll agreeing that biology teachers should teach Darwin's theory of evolution and the scientific evidence against it. Only 20 percent advocated teaching evolutionary theory without mentioning its weaknesses.