Florida Passes Bill to Allow Critical Analysis of Evolution

The latest battleground is Florida, where a bill has been passed in the House of Representatives to require schools to teach “critical analysis of evolution.” Additionally, Michigan, Missouri, Louisiana, and Alabama all have similar bills under consideration in state government.

Unsurprisingly, evolutionists claim these bills are merely a “smokescreen” for teaching creation or intelligent design, which would pit these bills against the 2005 Dover ruling that teaching intelligent design in schools was an unconstitutional imposition of religion.

“Encourage teachers and students to engage in discussion that criticizes evolution.”

Alan Hays, the Florida representative who sponsored the bill, claimed it would “not permit, nor authorize, nor allow the teaching of creationism or intelligent design,” but would rather “encourage teachers and students to engage in discussion that criticizes evolution,” reports FOX News. Similar bills in the other states mentioned aim to protect teachers who introduce ideas critical of evolutionary theory.

Fascinatingly, Eugenie Scott of the evolution-promoting National Center for Science Education—who has previously been on record for suggesting that evolution and religion can coexist peacefully (though she is an atheist)—said that allowing criticism of evolution in the classroom may encourage students to “flip over to this dichotomous thinking that God must have created us” (emphasis added). Apparently Scott is letting her true colors show: religion and evolution can coexist together peacefully—so long as the religion doesn’t say anything about God creating humans.

At Answers in Genesis, we try to encourage parents to remember that they have the responsibility, first and foremost, for educating their children about the true origin of life. We also note that evolutionist schoolteachers cannot be expected to give a valid defense of what the Bible says about origins (nor even necessarily intelligent design), so expecting legislation to change the climate in public school science classrooms may be putting hope in the wrong place.

That said, we strongly applaud efforts to ensure the classroom is open for discussion, that different viewpoints are protected, and that teachers have the freedom to bring up valid scientific criticism of evolutionary theory. None of this, however, will ever replace the role of Christian parents in raising their children to understand what God says in His Word—about origins and a whole lot more!