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It's time to teach the controversy: since creationism isn't going away, let's use it in the classroom to teach the difference between Science and Pseudoscience.

Article Excerpt
"Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again."

--J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

I AM REMINDED OF TOLKIEN'S WORDS WHENEVER I consider the history of creationism in the United States. The pattern is by now very familiar: the creationists mount an attack on the teaching of evolution; this attack is defeated in the courts; the creationists reframe their objectives, modify their tactics and try again.

They began, of course, by attempting to ban evolution outright. When the Supreme Court eventually put a stop to this, the creationists altered their goal from eradicating evolution to undermining it. At first they sought to mandate equal classroom time for "creation science," essentially an attempt to make a scientific case for the literal truth of the creation account in the book of Genesis. Not surprisingly, the Supreme Court took a dim view of this as well (though not quite dim enough, as we shall see), and so again the creationists went back to the drawing board. This time they jettisoned explicit biblical references and reformulated their core principles, in less overt (though no less transparent) religious terms, as "intelligent design." They also gave up on the idea of winning equal classroom time for their ideas. Instead, they tried to compel biology programs to adopt a disclaimer stating that evolution is "only a theory, not a fact," and that some scientists preferred other theories--such as intelligent design. This effort met its end in a U.S. District courtroom in 2005, in the landmark Kitzmiller v. Dover decision.

But the respite has been brief, and again the "Shadow" has sprung up in a new guise. Having failed to keep evolution out of the classroom altogether, and having failed to get their own ideas added to the curriculum alongside it, the creationists are now trying to persuade certain states' legislatures to enact "academic freedom statutes." The stated purpose of these statutes, which are derived from model legislation proposed by the creationist Discovery Institute, is to "protect" the teaching of "alternative views" on the origin and development of life, and of the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolutionary theory.

This emphasis on "alternative views" and "strengths and weaknesses" is nothing new, of course. Undermining evolutionary theory by pointing out its alleged flaws and limitations has been a favorite rhetorical strategy of creationists from the very beginning. Indeed, little (if any) of the coded language of the academic freedom statutes is new; their very name derives from a well-worn creationist catch phrase. As long ago as 1981, the Louisiana state legislature could assert that its purpose in passing the Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science in Public School Instruction Act was to "protect academic freedom."

The U.S. Supreme Court eventually declared that Act unconstitutional in Edwards v. Aguillard. But this "shadow" too has...

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