Macon County School officials are standing behind a research paper assigned in a 10th-grade honors biology class that requires students to research the merits of both evolution and creation and explain which one they support.

“To me this is a school assignment about two theories that exist in our world,” said Kevin Corbin, chairman of the school board. “You are asking students to evaluate those and come to their own conclusion.”

Corbin, 44, said the assignment does not violate the separation of church and state.

“The Constitution says the government should establish no religion. Period. This is not establishing a religion,” Corbin said.

Corbin said the research paper acknowledges the fact that religion exists, but does not promote it.

“The reason people get so messed up is because they think you can’t even talk about religion anymore,” Corbin said. “Any time you discuss religion or politics, it’s a touchy subject. Is it unconstitutional? No. Could it create controversy. Yes.”

But that’s no reason to deny students the chance to expand their mind.

“If the teacher wanted to assign the Bible as a book, and say ‘Read this as a historical work and write a paper on it,’ they could do that,” Corbin said. “Take something controversial in history, like Hitler’s treatment of the Jews. If you assign a paper on that, it doesn’t mean you are for or against it. Whether you agree with creationism or biological evolution, the fact is they are out there and exist. You aren’t going to do away with that.”

Gary Shields, principal of Franklin High School, also said he had no problem with the assignment.

“In the high school arena, we have to allow students to explore all sides,” Shields said. “They are intelligent enough to draw their own conclusions.

“We are not here to alter anybody’s beliefs,” Shields said. “This is neutral ground. Research is fine, but if you start moving to one side or another, you’re proselytizing.”

Shields said this assignment falls into that neutral area.

“He’s assured me he does not have a personal agenda,” Shields said of the teacher, John Cantrell. “As a teacher, he wants them to research this as a topic.”

When the assignment was brought to Shields’ attention, he did a little research of his own and found a philosophy he agreed with on the Web site of the American Center for Law and Justice, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit law firm founded to represent Christians in church-state cases.

“Students should be permitted to examine all sides of an issue — and that includes the origins of life. Don’t put up road blocks to knowledge,” wrote Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice. “Information is knowledge and there is nothing wrong or unconstitutional about presenting students with alternatives — especially when studying the origins of life.”

A place in science

Patti Nason, a science professor with the Institute for Creation Research in Texas, said evolution is the teaching of a religion just as much as creationism is. Evolution is the religion of humanism, the belief that life on earth is all a big coincidence rather than led by a divine being, Nason said.

“They regard the universe as self-existing and not created,” Nason said. “It believes that man is just a part of nature.”

Creationists believe the earth is only a few thousand — not billions — of years old. Nason points to the recent discovery of intact bone marrow in a dinosaur bone. Bone marrow cannot last millions of years, but instead of re-examining the purported age of the dinosaurs, scientists are re-examining how long bone marrow can survive, Nason said.

“We interpret evidence according to what we believe,” Nason said. “They say that science equals evolution. Creationists use the very same data that evolutionists use.”

But they come up with different conclusions. Nason said creationists believe there was a massive upheaval of the earth that created all the layers of fossils and rocks quickly, not over billions of years. Nason said the Institute for Creation Research also has disproved radiometric dating, a method scientists claim can date the age of rocks and bones to hundreds of millions of years ago.

“A creationist’s reasoning is that the earth is not that old and that God did it,” Nason said. “Just because God did it doesn’t make it not scientific.”

Nason said teachers that only teach evolution are brainwashing students.

“It is taught so dogmatically. They don’t want kids to start thinking because they would realize how ridiculous it all seems,” Nason said, citing the evolutionist idea that life randomly cropped up of its own accord. Nason said students should be taught creation science.

Corbin, the Macon County school board chairman, agrees that creation has scientific merit.

“I believe there is scientific evidence for creation,” Corbin said.

In the right

Rodney Shotwell, superintendent of the Macon County school system, said the assignment does not violate state teaching guidelines.

“When I looked at the assignment, it is asking for logical scientific evidence to support the student’s position, whether they support one system over another,” Shotwell said. “I think what he is asking is to put things in a logical order and support your statement.”

State curriculum requires the teaching of evolution in high school biology. Shotwell said the assignment strikes a balance between teaching evolution, but at the same time not discriminating against those who object to evolution on religious grounds.

“We teach evolution. It is in the standard course of study,” Shotwell said. “But there are some students who don’t believe in evolution. So on an individual basis they can take what they believe, and if they want to refute that theory, they need to use scientific proof to do it. I think it is important in the development of children to ask them to be critical thinkers, to ask them. ‘OK if you believe this, why do you believe it?’”

In fact, developing critical thinking is also part of the high school biology curriculum, Shotwell said.

“‘Inquiry should be the central theme in biology,’” Shotwell said, quoting from state curriculum standards. “‘The essence of the inquiry process is to ask questions that stimulate students to think critically and to formulate their own questions.’”

Shotwell said the question of creation and evolution is something the students will encounter in life, and this assignment will prepare them for that.

“People have Web sites and books out there that say they can prove creation scientifically and then there’s another side that says they can prove evolution scientifically,” Shotwell said. “I was told one way you can make your belief stronger is to defend it and have it challenged. It’s another way of using facts they can find to represent their side.”

Shotwell said if a student objects to the assignment, they should be entitled to an alternative research paper topic. Shotwell said similar exceptions were made for students opposed to dissecting frogs in biology.

Tommy Cabe, a member of the Macon County school board, is not quite as comfortable with the paper as his counterparts. Cabe questioned whether there is scientific evidence for creationism.

“I think about anything could be brought into question if you worked at it enough,” Cabe said.

Cabe said he does not plan to challenge the teacher’s assignment, however.

“It’s not really part of the curriculum, but it’s kind of a grey area,” Cabe said. “If a parent complained, then we would have something to go on.”

Shotwell said he received an anonymous letter from someone complaining about the assignment. Unless that person comes forward to talk about their concerns openly, Shotwell said the school system does not plan to address the issue nor ask Cantrell to drop the assignment in future years.