In the western part of the United States, one skirmish against evolution has died while another is being born. In Utah on Monday, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, the House of Representatives rejected by a vote of 46-28 a bill that would have required teachers to tell students that evolution is not a fact and that the state does not endorse evolution. SB 96 had been passed by the state Senate after some conservative senators criticized what they called the "religion of atheism." The House, led by Rep. Stephen Urquhart, redrafted the bill to try to eliminate any religious references. By the time it was finally voted on, the bill merely provided "The State Board of Education shall establish curriculum requirements relating to scientific instruction." Then the House defeated even that as a way of stopping the Senate from reviving the issue.
Meanwhile, the Las Vegas Sun reports that in Nevada on Tuesday, masonry contractor Steve Brown filed an initiative petition with the secretary of state's office. His proposal would require that students, by the end of the 10th grade, be informed that "although most scientists agree that Darwin's theory of evolution is well supported, a small minority of scientists do not agree." Several "areas of disagreement" would have to be covered in class, including the view by some scientists that "it is mathematically impossible for the first cell to have evolved by itself." Students also would have to be told some scientists argue "that nowhere in the fossil record is there an indisputable skeleton of a transitional species, or a 'missing link'", and "be informed that the origin of sex, or sex drive, is one of biology's mysteries" and that some scientists contend that sexual reproduction "would require an unbelievable series of chance events".
Brown will need to collect 83,184 signatures by June 20 to get his plan on the November ballot, and will have to get voter approval both this year and in the 2008 elections for the amendment to be finally adopted.
