Support Grows for Oklahoma’s Disclaimer About Evolution

On November 23rd, the Oklahoman reported that eight Oklahoma legislators and over 2,000 teachers and church parishioners have signed a document which thanks the state textbook committee for inserting disclaimers about evolution in next year’s biology textbooks.

The disclaimer was approved by the Oklahoma State Textbook Committee (see previous news feature) on November 5. The disclaimer states that evolution is a theory, not fact, and is an “unproven belief that random, undirected forces produced a world of living things.”

One of the state legislators, Tad Jones of Claremore, Oklahoma, is quoted as saying: “I think the disclaimer is a good step in letting students know the theory of evolution is not perfect.”

Just last week the National Science Teachers Association held its Midwest regional conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma and released a statement which disapproved of the committee’s action to place the disclaimer in biology textbooks. (The entire statement of the NSTA can be found on their web site— http://www.nsta.org.)