Scholars back Cobb County on teaching evolution

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Posted 9:00AM on Sunday, September 22, 2002

MARIETTA - A group of Georgia university professors urged Cobb County education board members on Friday to stand by its policy to encourage discussion of disputed views of evolution, including creationism. The petitioners, called Georgia Scientists for Academic Freedom, say they question whether evolution can explain the complexity of life. They advised the board that ``careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.'' ``Give them a chance to examine, or at least see there are other viewpoints,'' said James Tumlin, an associate professor of medicine at Emory School of Medicine. Tumlin said students should know that scientists have doubts about evolution. The group of Georgia scientists includes chemists, engineers, entomologists and biochemists. On Thursday, the National Academy of Sciences urged the Cobb County school board to drop their effort to teach alternatives to evolution. Academy president Bruce Alberts asked 30 scientists and physicians in the state to lobby board members to remove disclaimers about evolution placed in middle and high school science textbooks. On Sept. 26, the board is expected to vote on a policy that would allow science teachers to discuss ``disputed views of academic subjects,'' specifically citing the ``origin of the species.'' The board has been inundated for several weeks with letters, petitions and e-mails about the upcoming vote. Professors at Georgia State University, Emory University and Kennesaw State University have already submitted sets of petitions challenging the proposed policy. At Emory alone, 99 professors signed petitions, reported The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in its Saturday editions. The National Academy of Sciences is a nonprofit society of scholars that is chartered by Congress to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Its national membership includes 170 Nobel Prize winners. The academy has become involved previously in challenges to the teaching of scientific evolution at both the state and local levels. The actions being considered in Cobb are classic approaches to introduce religious views into science classes, Alberts said.