Science Is Science, and Faith Is Faith : Evolution: Attempts to dress up biblical creationism as “creation science” do not circumvent a basic principle.

People across America who care about the quality of our children’s education are waiting to see how California resolves the “Great Scopes Monkey Controversy” of 1989.

By early November, the state Board of Education will decide on new science textbook guidelines, amid a mounting clamor from religious-right fundamentalists still intent on forcing the inclusion of biblical creationist beliefs into science teaching. The board’s public hearings on Wednesday represent the anti-evolution forces’ major opportunity to twist the outcome in their favor.

The creationists are threatening one of America’s most cherished values--our shared belief that, whatever our private religious faith, the public schools should not be used to promote sectarian religious doctrine. Transparent attempts to dress up biblical creationism as “creation science” and parade it as a “rival scientific theory” to evolution do not circumvent this basic principle. Science is science, and faith is faith--a crucial distinction that has been repeatedly underscored by the courts. Blurring this line would ill serve our children and our Constitution.

Yet extremist groups are on the march across America to do just that, using such tactics in other states as promoting legislation and influencing school board races. Leading the charge is a group calling itself the Citizens for Excellence in Education, the activist arm of the right-wing National Assn. of Christian Educators based in Costa Mesa. The group, along with the California Traditional Values Coalition, has spearheaded the California challenge.

If the anti-evolution campaign wins even a partial victory in California, the reverberations will be felt around the nation. California and Texas dominate the textbook market, together accounting for more than 20% of total national sales. Books developed for use in California and Texas schools are often sold without modifications to the rest of the nation. Quite simply, the outcome of California’s creationism controversy will help setthe standards for America’s science instruction well into the next decade.

Thus far, California’s education leadership has held firm. But the pressure is mounting. Last January, when the Board of Education drew a clear line between science instruction and religious teaching, the Traditional Values Coalition labeled their verdict a “gag order.”

When the science committee of the California Curriculum Commission reaffirmed this decision in July, fundamentalists stepped up their rhetoric. “If it’s war they want, it’s war they’re going to get,” warned the Rev. Louis Sheldon, chairman of the coalition. Robert Simonds, president of Citizens for Excellence in Education, threatened that “all hell’s going to break loose” if the creationists don’t get their way this fall.

When the curriculum commission finally adopted a pro-evolution science framework at the end of September, the creationists lashed out again. With backward logic, Sheldon claimed that unless “credible competing views” are included in science teaching, “textbooks will present evolution dogmatically.” It would certainly be news to Charles Darwin and legions of biologists who have tested this theory for more than 100 years that evolution is dogma.

Alarmingly, the board has recently been sending signals that it may be backing away from its pro-evolution stance. A letter from the board to the curriculum commission faulted that panel’s evolution discussion as “too defensive.”

Educators and mainstream religious leaders have been speaking up strongly in defense of evolution. Seven major educational and science organizations recently sent a joint letter urging the board to accept the pro-evolution guidelines. The Rev. Bruce Lundberg, a Lutheran bishop’s associate from Sacramento, testified in earlier hearings that he believes “most of mainline Christendom” accepts evolution as the explanation of life’s origins. “I . . . considered this to be a subject that was closed a long time ago,” Lundberg remarked.

The Board of Education can finally close the subject at a hearing on Wednesday and in its vote Nov. 9. Members should endorse the excellent guidelines before them. Then schools in California--and across the nation--can get on with the job of imparting scientific knowledge that the next generation must have if our nation is to remain competitive.