Creationist Book To Be Used In Burlington -- Biology Teacher Questions Evolutionary Theory

BURLINGTON, Skagit County - Last year, high-school biology teacher Roger DeHart was told to stop teaching "intelligent design," the theory that the complexity of life reflects the work of an intelligent being.

Last month, the Burlington-Edison School District curriculum committee rejected his proposal to use some material from a creationist textbook, "Of Pandas and People," in his high-school biology class.

Now DeHart has won permission to use a smaller selection from the book, as long as he balances it with enough support for teachings on evolution. He always included evolutionary theories in his courses, even though he has his doubts - especially in terms of the origin of the human race.

"For the last 20 or 30 years, we've taken (evolutionary theory) as dogma, that you don't question it, and I think there are some legitimate concerns with it," he said.

Superintendent Rick Jones, whose policy bars the teaching of creationism, is supporting the decision by Principal Beth VanderVeen to allow use of the text after a long public debate.

Last year, the American Civil Liberties Union demanded that DeHart stop teaching "intelligent design" after years of including both that theory and evolution in his courses.

Superintendent Paul Chaplik, who supported DeHart, was replaced in July by Jones, who then told DeHart the "intelligent design" theory had to go.

DeHart complied, then submitted the chapter for review.

The committee told VanderVeen that the material DeHart wanted to use seemed to overshadow the evolution-based standard textbook and didn't provide enough rebuttal on behalf of evolution.

The principal approved a smaller part of the chapter than DeHart proposed.

"He's introducing `irreducible complexity' as explaining why we have complex things like the eye. He also has to have a supporting theory of how evolution addressed complex things like the eye. That's my requirement," she said last week.

"My criteria is this: There is to be no introduction of a new theory," she said. "If he wants to show the ongoing controversy and debate, then he needs to do so in a balanced manner."

DeHart denied trying to promote creationism or the intelligent-design theory, saying he only wants to give students a balanced view of a scientific debate.

"There is a legitimate controversy going on throughout the country and in higher education about the evidence for Darwinian evolution," he said.

"I'd say what Beth (VanderVeen) has approved is a question of the mechanism for evolution, whether natural selection and mutation can account for the complexity of life and the meaning of new structures," DeHart said.

The chapter from which he plans to draw emphasizes some of the major differences among life forms.

"According to evolutionary theory, the giraffe evolved to its present form by the accumulation of individual, random changes preserved by natural selection," the authors state, "but it's difficult to see how a random process could produce an integrated package of adaptations."

"Of Pandas and People" is anti-evolutionary in nature, but "it doesn't push people toward Scripture," said Pat Fikkert, a Mount Vernon Christian School teacher. "It's not a biblically based book."