Creating a Controversy: Biology Teacher’s Biblical Presentation at School

The Capistrano High School officials were justified in reprimanding biology teacher John Peloza for favoring the biblical version of creation over evolution in his class. As a high school teacher myself, I am naturally concerned about issues of academic freedom, but this case has nothing to do with free expression and everything to do with competence.

Mr. Peloza is by all accounts a creditable propagandist for Christian mythology, but he is, I would argue, incompetent as a biology instructor if he teaches that evolution is unfounded, just as he would be if he were a geography teacher pushing the flat-Earth theory.

He is paid by the state to teach evolution, for which there is overwhelming as well as compelling evidence, and which Mr. Peloza would know had his college major been biology rather than P.E.

HARRY GORDON, Huntington Beach