To the State Capitol
You are my representative and senator in the Ohio General Assembly. Please oppose HB 692. Supporters of this bill claim that they just want to encourage students to think, but their real intent is to mislead students about evolution. If they really want students to think, they would demand that questions be raised about all scientific concepts. But they appear to want only questions about evolution to be raised. The bill's supporters are just prejudiced against evolution.
They may also say that there are no scientific problems with the other concepts, and only scientific problems about evolution. They err when they say this. Evolution is as well confirmed as any other concept in science. You don't have to actually see something happen to confirm that is occurred. Adequate physical traces are enough to test and confirm it. Mainline science accepts evolution and has no problem with it, as does mainline religion.
Anti-evolutionists would introduce misleading teaching into the classroom. They would say, for example, that there are no transitions between different species. This is not true. There is a well documented series of intermediate species. For example, the australopithecines, such as "Lucy" are apes, but no ape has the posture that "Lucy" had. Anti-evolutionists should not be allowed to bring their misleading teaching into classrooms.
Mansfield News-Journal, Sunday 30 June 1996, p. 8A
House Bill 692, discussed in the paper on June 2nd, is not designed to encourage students to think, but to mislead them about evolution. If it is an educator's function to encourage students to think by challenging scientific principles, then why doesn't the legislation demand evidence for and against everything else accepted by the scientific community be presented in the classroom -- such as atomic theory, germ theory, gravity, and the spherical shape of the earth!
Evolution is a well established scientific principle. There is empirical proof how the earth and its inhabitants came to be. Testable predictions, in empirical style, can be made of what physical remains will be found. Denying this denies the historical sciences, such as paleontology, and history itself -- whose evidence can't be discovered in a laboratory, but can be uncovered and compared to predictions. The most important scientific organizations in the United States have endorsed evolution. The scientific community questions how, not whether, evolution occurred. Scientists who don't accept evolution are simply part of the constant fringe that buzzes around the edges of real science, and should be compared to those who believe in flying saucers. Anti-evolutionists say they want reasonable questions about evolution brought up, but their real interest is to teach students that evolution didn't happen.
Anti-evolutionists would do this by giving misleading information. They would say, for example, that there is a lack of transitional fossil species, something that even Darwin admitted. What anti-evolutionists won't tell is that the fossil record has grown richer since Darwin, that many transitional fossil species have been identified, and that every transition creates two gaps -- between itself and the two it is in between. Anti-evolutionists, in effect, unreasonably demand remains of every species that has ever existed.
John Scopes was not fighting for the right to teach anything, but to present science as accepted by the scientific community. To not do this is to misinform students about the state of knowledge.
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