These topics are crucial if students are to gain a scientific understanding of the universe. The resolution also warns that the Kansas decision will make it more difficult for Kansas to recruit capable science teachers because it will discourage them from using the best-available knowledge of their profession related to the nature and history of the universe. The resolution urges the people of Kansas to restore the topics of evolution and cosmology to the state curriculum. AAAS also calls on its affiliated societies to endorse the resolution and communicate their concerns to public officials in Kansas. The resolution opposes measures that could adversely affect the teaching of science, wherever they may occur.
Evolution is a central part of contemporary science.
In 1859 Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, his famous treatise on evolution. Since then, evolution has also been a source of ongoing religious commentary and sometimes controversy. Those defending creationism against evolution argue that a literal reading of Biblical texts should be the basis for the study of the origins of man and the universe. In the 1920s, several states banned the teaching of evolution. The 1925 Scopes trial resulted in the conviction of a Tennessee high school teacher.