Compromise on Texts Reluctantly Backed

Scientists and educators are not completely happy with proposed changes in state guidelines for science textbooks that would not allow the books to refer to evolution as “scientific fact,” but most feel that the politically motivated compromise is necessary to ensure that evolution is discussed in the classroom at all.

The compromise on the guidelines, proposed by Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig and scheduled to be voted on by the State Board of Education today, also would eliminate references to a U.S. Supreme Court decision and a National Academy of Sciences booklet that question the scientific validity of creationism--the belief that humans were created by a supreme being.

“Honig is trying to get something through that makes some sense,” said William Aldridge, executive director of the National Science Teachers Assn., “but he is being pushed very hard . . . and is having to give a little bit in order to do that. The main thing is that the books are not required to say anything contrary to scientific understanding.”

Noting that as recently as a few years ago, biology textbooks often said nothing at all about evolution in an effort to avoid the creationism controversy, Harvard University law professor Laurence H. Tribe said: “If the only choices open to the board are this compromise and a total curtain of darkness over the whole subject, then this (the compromise) is far better.”

Every seven years, the Board of Education publishes new guidelines about what can and cannot be included in textbooks for use in California schools. Its decisions have nationwide impact because California is one of the largest textbook purchasers in the country. Publishers generally follow the California guidelines for all their books rather than produce a regionalized edition that reflects the guidelines.

A proposed 187-page framework for science texts has been presented to the board for its approval by the California Curriculum Commission. That framework was prepared to conform to a previous board policy that only scientific fact, hypothesis and theory should be presented in science textbooks and that religious beliefs should not.

But four board members have been replaced since that policy was promulgated, and other members have publicly suggested that evolution not be emphasized strongly in texts. The compromise suggested by Honig is an effort to win over conservative board members.

“If some modifications are made as proposed, we can live with them,” said Don Chernow, a Los Angeles businessman who chairs the commission. “We’re not excited about them, and we don’t think they are necessary.” Even if the changes are made, he added, the framework would still be “a very, very excellent document for science education.”

Elizabeth Stage, chairman of the committee that authored the framework, said any reasonable person who read the description of evolution in the document would conclude that it is scientific fact, even if there is not a sentence explicitly saying so.

“There’s no reason to claim that evolution is scientific fact, if you want to be precise about it,” said UC Berkeley physicist Charles H. Townes. “It is a theory, but . . . it is so well substantiated that it is difficult to doubt it.”

Townes, who was a co-author of the National Academy of Sciences booklet, was also not disturbed that the booklet and the Supreme Court decision would be omitted. “Most school texts would not have such references anyway,” he said.

Tribe, another author of the academy booklet, argued that excluding the Supreme Court decision “seems a little silly. The fact that the decision was controversial and that there was a dissent should be included . . . especially since the interest of all the parties would be better served by having students discuss and debate that decision. The more students know about that decision, the more they will know about creationism.”

But Aldridge and others were troubled about the changes.

“Science is not a set of beliefs,” Aldridge said. “It is a set of assumptions, facts and explanations of facts. Evolution is a fact. There are theories that account for the facts of evolution, and it is those theories that one can question. To deny evolution is a fact is to deny that change occurs, and that is ridiculous.”

Physicist Steven Weinberg of the University of Texas in Austin noted that Americans have a “natural philosophy” of being open-minded.

“But there comes a point when you should stop being open-minded,” he concluded. “Americans are so open-minded that they are open to belief in astrology and all sorts of other nonsense. With evolution, the time has long passed to be open-minded. The existence of evolution is as sure as anything we know.”

Times staff writer Virginia Ellis in Sacramento contributed to this story.