Candidates say schools have right to question evolution

By WALT WILLIAMS Chronicle Staff Writer

Local school boards have the right to set curriculum in their own districts, even if that means teaching theories other than evolution in science classes, the two Republican candidates for state superintendent of schools say.

Candidates John Fuller of Kalispell and Bob Anderson of Fort Benton met in Bozeman this week for a forum sponsored by the Gallatin County Republican Women. Both are seeking their party's nomination for superintendent of public instruction, a job now held by Democrat Linda McCulloch.

The two men were asked what they thought about teaching creationism in public schools.

The issue has received a lot of attention ever since the Darby Board of Education voted in favor of an "objective origins" policy, which allows creationism and intelligent design to be taught in science classes there.

"The school board made a decision of what they wanted to teach in the schools and that's what our constitution says, that there is local control within our school system," said Anderson, who is both a school superintendent and an elementary school principal.

"I don't think the state superintendent has any business stepping into that," Anderson said.

The controversy in Darby made national news. McCulloch weighed in on the matter, telling reporters creationism wasn't based on science and warning the school district could lose its accreditation for adopting such a policy.

Fuller, a high school teacher, objected to the idea that Darby wanted to teach creationism, which is a philosophy that interprets Genesis as the literal truth about life's origins.

What Darby intended, he said, was to teach objective science in its schools, much like what the Ohio Board of Education recently did by adopting a policy allowing intelligent design to be taught in science classes.

"There was absolutely nothing wrong with it, but the superintendent of public instruction exceeded her authority," Fuller said. "She can't jerk accreditation."

Intelligent design is the belief that life is too complex to have come about without a designer. Its proponents make no claims about who or what the designer is, so they say their theory can't be construed as religious.

But intelligent design isn't accepted by the scientific community, and its advocates share ideological and financial ties to fundamentalist Christians who have long pushed for creationism in schools, as critics often point out.

Still, Fuller said the policy wasn't an attempt to sneak creationism into Darby classrooms.

"The teachers' union mounted a campaign and they lied, simple as that, about what was involved in that," he said.

It may be a moot point now. Voters in Darby recently voted out of office one of the school board members who approved the policy, giving the board a majority that's expected to overturn the decision.

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