State education official pans Darby's origins decisionBy MICHAEL MOORE of the Missoulian
The state's superintendent of public instruction said Tuesday that she is troubled by the Darby school board's approval of a new science policy called "objective origins."
"It is not science," Linda McCulloch said Tuesday in a telephone interview from Helena. "You won't find any credible group of scientists or science teachers who advocate these philosophies as science."
McCulloch said "objective origins" is little more than Christian creation science re-envisioned to try to pass constitutional muster. So far, federal courts have dismissed efforts to install creationism in school curriculums on grounds that such moves violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment.
"I think it's creationism again," said McCulloch.
The new policy was passed by the Darby school board Monday night by a 3-2 vote. The policy "encourages" science teachers to instruct their students on valid criticism of current theories, but the only theory identified is evolutionary theory, which happens to be the state standard for science instruction. The policy doesn't identify any such criticisms, nor does it outline a process to determine how such criticisms might be evaluated.
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