CRITICS say it is creationism by stealth. Ohio鈥檚 State Board of Education is attempting to include criticisms of evolutionary theory, which include ideas from advocates of intelligent design, in an official lesson plan for public schools.
In a move that has shocked biologists, the board has given preliminary approval for the lessons to be introduced into the curriculum for tenth-graders aged 15 to 16. Intelligent design theory repackages creationism in non-religious terms to get round a US ban on teaching religion in public schools.
The US National Academy of Sciences and the Ohio Academy of Science have asked the board to purge creationism from the plan. But on 10 February the plan was given preliminary approval with only two minor changes: deleting references to the book Icons of Evolution by intelligent-design advocate Jonathan Wells, and to a non-existent paper critical of evolution that was supposedly published in Nature in 1992. But Patricia Princehouse, a specialist in evolutionary theory at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, says the revised plan is riddled with errors and should be scrapped.
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The document has still to receive final approval from the state board. State officials say that the vote will come no earlier than April, and that hearings may be required first. But Princehouse points out the board is also considering introducing further creationist ideas into lesson plans, including one that promotes the notion that the sun is only 6000 years old.