I encourage all Kansas citizens to strongly urge the Board to retain all reference standards related to evolutionary biology. 10th Ave., Topeka, 66612-1182. I encourage all Kansas citizens to strongly urge the Board to retain all reference standards related to evolutionary biology. Evolution, as a viable contemporary scientific theory, is an incredibly powerful and useful tool for helping every individual make appropriate personal health decisions. Natural selection offers individuals engaged in modern agricultural practices a powerful explanatory and predictive tool for understanding why a rotation of herbicides and pesticides is critical to maintain high yields.
Evolution is also a critical guide to the conduct of research important to public health.
Yet, despite the vast applied success of this theoretical tool, public school teachers often find themselves under pressure to avoid evolution as an instructional topic. Teachers should be nonjudgmental about the beliefs of students. In other words, it is important for students, parents, teachers and individual State Board of Education members to realize that they can have both tools in their tool belt. What one needs to learn to recognize, nonetheless, is where and when it is most appropriate to make use of each tool. L.C. Scharmann is a professor in and chairman of the Department of Secondary Education at Kansas State University.