T-784

CANs and CAN'Ts
of teaching origins
in public school science classes

On public school science course content standards, keep in mind the:

distinction between what teachers must teach,
and what they may teach

prevailing notion that evolution is scientific,
and that creation is religious

distinction between scientific weaknesses in evolutionary theory,
and scientific evidence for creation

distinction between requiring discussion of weaknesses
of all scientific theories, and "singling out" evolution

Texas has met those criteria over the years
with these variant wordings of its
public school science course standards:

"examining alternative scien­tif­ic evi­dence and ideas to test, modify, verify, or refute scientific the­o­ries"

"The student shall be provid­ed con­tent ne­ces­sary to for­mu­late, dis­cuss, critique, and review hypo­theses, theories, laws, and prin­ciples and their strengths and weak­nes­ses."

"The student is ex­pect­ed to ana­lyze, review, and cri­tique scien­tific expla­na­tions, includ­ing hypo­theses and theories, as to their strengths and weak­nesses using scien­tific evi­dence and in­for­ma­tion."