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Titolo: [OT?]Dibattito: Orrore in Georgia, USA

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"LARRY KLAES"
Fri, 30 Jan 2004 18:13:54 -0500
"BioAstro" 
Georgia uncomfortable with the word Evolution 
Georgia Takes on 'Evolution'
By ANDREW JACOBS
Published: January 30, 2004
ATLANTA, Jan. 29 &#8212; A proposed set of guidelines for middle and high
school science classes in Georgia has caused a furor after state education
officials removed the word "evolution" and scaled back ideas about the age
of Earth and the natural selection of species. 
Educators across the state said that the document, which was released on
the Internet this month, was a veiled effort to bolster creationism and
that it would leave the state's public school graduates at a disadvantage.
"They've taken away a major component of biology and acted as if it
doesn't exist," said David Bechler, who heads the biology department at
Valdosta State University. "By doing this, we're leaving the public
shortchanged of the knowledge they should have." 
Although education officials said the final version would not be binding
on teachers, its contents will ultimately help shape achievement exams.
And in a state where religion-based concepts of creation are widely held,
many teachers said a curriculum without mentioning "evolution" would make
it harder to broach the subject in the classroom.
Georgia's schools superintendent, Kathy Cox, held a news conference near
the Capitol on Thursday, a day after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
published an article about the proposed changes. 
A handful of states already omit the word "evolution" from their teaching
guidelines, and Ms. Cox called it "a buzz word that causes a lot of
negative reaction." She added that people often associate it with "that
monkeys-to-man sort of thing." 
Still, Ms. Cox, who was elected to the post in 2002, said the concept
would be taught, as well as "emerging models of change" that challenge
Darwin's theories. "Galileo was not considered reputable when he came out
with his theory," she said.
Much of the state's 800-page curriculum was adopted verbatim from the
"Standards for Excellence in Education," an academic framework produced by
the Council for Basic Education, a nonprofit group. But when it came to
science, the Georgia Education Department omitted large chunks of
material, including references to Earth's age and the concept that all
organisms on Earth are related through common ancestry. "Evolution" was
replaced with "changes over time," and in another phrase that referred to
the "long history of the Earth," the authors removed the word "long" Many
proponents of creationism say Earth is at most several thousand years old,
based on a literal reading of the Bible.
Sarah L. Pallas, an associate professor of biology at Georgia State
University, said, "The point of these benchmarks is to prepare the
American work force to be scientifically competitive." She said, "By
removing the benchmarks that deal with evolutionary life, we don't have a
chance of catching up to the rest of the world."
The guidelines, which were adopted by a panel of 25 educators, will be
officially adopted in 90 days, and Ms. Cox said the public could still
influence the final _document_._ "If the teachers and parents across the
state say this isn't what we want," she said, "then we'll change it." 
In the past, Ms. Cox, has not masked her feelings on the matter of
creationism versus evolution. During her run for office, Ms. Cox
congratulated parents who wanted Christian notions of Earth and human
creation to be taught in schools.
"I'd leave the state out of it and would make sure teachers were well
prepared to deal with competing theories," she said at a public debate.
Educators say the current curriculum is weak in biology, leading to a high
failure rate in the sciences among high school students across the state.
Even those who do well in high school science are not necessarily
proficient in the fundamentals of biology, astronomy and geology, say some
educators.
David Jackson, an associate professor at the University of Georgia who
trains middle school science teachers, said about half the students
entering his class each year had little knowledge of evolutionary theory.
-- 
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