A new science curriculum proposed in Georgia for high school teachers has been edited to avoid all mentions of the term “evolution.” Republican state school superintendent Kathy Cox backs the changes — it’s a crusade of hers, in fact — and she has described evolution as “a buzzword that causes a lot of negative reactions.”
Now, there are a few states — mainly in the “Bible belt” — that have skirted around the evolution bugbear, but this is ridiculous. These changes will make Georgia the first state to actually remove the word “evolution” from lesson plans after having it in place for years. The plan also conveniently “forgets” about topics such as fossil evidence, the emergence of single-celled organisms, and even the life of Darwin.
All vanished from the curriculum with nary a trace — it’ll be up to Georgia teachers to teach evolution, and there will be no state guidelines in place to even make sure that high school students learn about, say, Gregor Mendel’s pea plant experiments, crucial to understanding how genes make up life to begin with. Truly a tragic state of affairs.