The week before the beginning of the new semester would be a hectic one for the Sandra Maxwell. As one of three biology teachers at Irving Community College in Marshall, Alabama, she would have to meet up with the whole science department, get her laboratory ready and review the new text-books.
Preceding year the department had gone via the long, tedious adoption procedure which included reading and rating over fifteen various books. They had narrowed the fifteen down to three, and the community college board picked from those. Sandra really didn't care which one they had picked; no matter what, she would have to redo her lessons to fit in a new book.
There was still more about her new textbook that Sandra didn't know. The Alabama State Board of Education had adopted an anti-evolution insert to go in all high school and state college biology texts. The insert stated that evolution is a ‘controversial theory’ accepted by some scientists. When Sandra saw the insert, she was distress. Could she teach creationism?
Creationism, generally speaking, is the view that God (the Judeo-Christian God) made the universe, life and the different types of life. Some creationists have sought to undermine the theory of evolution by claiming, for illustration that the earth is only 10,000 years old, not 4.5 billion and that thus evolution hasn't had time to take place. They as well have argued that DNA could not have developed on its own devoid of the help of an ‘intelligent agent’-namely, God.
Ever since State versus Scopes, the famous Tennessee ‘Monkey Trial’ in 1925 (dramatized in the year 1960 film Inherit the Wind), the biology classroom has been the site of a battle pitting science against the religion. In the era of Scopes trial, American fundamentalists had pressed for, and accomplished in some states, the passage of anti-evolution laws. More lately, as reported in Science magazine in the year 1996, creationists have attempted a new strategy: persuading local school boards to give ‘equal time’ in school curricula to alternative theories like ‘scientific creationism’. In some states-Ohio and Georgia being two-legislatures are considering bills that will need biology teachers to present ‘alternative theories’ to evolution.
Sandra Maxwell and her fellow biology teachers were confused and not happy regarding the condition. As a teacher, Sandra wasn't sure what to do.
What must Sandra do? Give three options.