A research paper assigned by a high school biology teacher at Franklin High School requiring students to delve into the scientific merits of creationism could potentially be unconstitutional, according to religion watchdog groups.

“This is a real constitutional problem,” said Eugenie Scott, executive director for the National Center for Science Education, upon seeing a copy of the assignment. “This is a bad idea on any number of grounds.”

Jeremy Leaming, spokesperson for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State in Washington, D.C., agreed.

“It looks constitutionally suspect, quite frankly,” Leaming said. “There is no such thing as scientific evidence for creationism. If you are teaching students that there is, you are not only giving them a poor education, you are also violating the Constitution.”

The teacher John Cantrell, has assigned the research paper in the past but remained under the radar. This year, a parent has spoken up about the assignment, however.

“My main thing when I saw the assignment was that creationism was put on par scientifically with evolution,” said George Hasara. “I think the fact that it is in a science class, it gives it credence.”

Hasara said the assignment was akin to proselytizing. If students failed to produce scientific evidence for creationism, they could not get a good grade on the paper, according to the scoring system outlined on the assignment sheet.

Kathy Tinsley, a retired biology teacher who taught at Franklin High School for 23 years, said approaching evolution can upset students who feel the concept violates their religious beliefs.

“I tried to make students feel comfortable that I wasn’t trying to challenge their faith. I tried to be very sensitive,” Tinsley said.

Tinsley said she did not elevate religious ideas to an academic plane, however.

“I kept issues of faith and issues of science separate,” Tinsley said. “We were in the classroom to look at evolution as a key component of biology. Faith is a personal journey and I wasn’t comfortable trying to address any one certain faith or story of creation.”

“Theories like evolution are powerful, powerful explanations of what we see, and are backed up by years of documentation and data,” Tinsley said.

Scott said there is a red flag in the language of the assignment that could indicate the teacher’s motives. The teacher, John Cantrell, repeatedly used the term “scientific evidences” in the plural form in his instructions for the paper instead of simply “scientific evidence.”

“You will have to look long and hard in a scientific journal for the word ‘evidences,’” Scott said. “The word ‘evidences’ is a term from Christian apologetics. The only place you pick up ‘evidences’ in the plural form is if you’ve read a lot of the creation science Web sites.”

Leaming also said the assignment appeared to be driven by religious motives.

“Science doesn’t have the tools to tell us whether there is a divinity or not,” Leaming said. “To me it looks like an effort to support creationism. He is saying creationism is science. It is disingenuous for him to claim all he has done is ask students to write an academically objective paper.”

In the beginning

Scott said the assignment is designed to mislead students that scientific facts are not real.

“For teachers to represent to students that there is a scientific dispute going on over the age of the earth is extremely bad education,” Scott said.

Leaming said the assignment presents evolution and creationism as dueling theories in science, which is not correct.

“In science, a theory is not just a hunch or a guess,” Leaming said, citing the theory of gravity as an example. “In a mathematics class, would you argue whether two plus two equals four? That would be awfully strange in a math class.”

The teacher had a DVD on creation science that students could borrow.

Greg Adkison, a biology professor at Western Carolina University, said the topics students were asked to debate — such as the age of the earth and whether dinosaurs lived tens of millions of years ago — are not a matter of debate in the scientific community.

“Are we talking 3.5 billion or are we talking 4.2 billion? That’s debatable,” Adkison said of the age of the earth. “But there’s no debate between whether the earth is 10,000 years old or billions of years old.”

The same goes for radiometric dating, something creationists consider a fallacy, but no reputable scientist disputes, he said.

“If you date a rock and it is 98 million years old, maybe it’s 100 million or 96 million, but it’s not only 10,000 years old,” Adkison said.

Adkison did not always think that way.

“I was a junior in college before I thought, ‘Oh, this evolution stuff is real,’” Adkison said. “I traveled the path of thinking it was a bunch of hooey to totally embracing it.”

Adkison assigns a paper similar to Cantrell’s in his introductory biology course at WCU. But Adkison does not require students to argue which side they believe – something that was worth 30 out of 100 points on Cantrell’s paper.

“I just want them to see where both sides are coming from,” Adkison said.

Another difference is that Adkison follows his paper up with lots of teaching on evolution. Otherwise, such a paper could be seen by students as validating creationism as an equal theory, when in fact it is not a theory, but a hypothesis or personal belief.

“I do acknowledge there are other ideas out there, but I think it is a real disservice to society to teach something that is wrong,” Adkison said.

Cantrell’s paper was turned in on the last day of class, which was a semester long on the block schedule.

By the book

High school students are required to learn about evolution, according to the curriculum set by the North Carolina State School Board. The curriculum calls for the teaching of “current scientific theories” on evolution and the origin of life, earth and the universe.

The curriculum specifically cites fossil evidence, radiometric dating, and natural selection of species — all of which Cantrell asked students to debate when writing their paper.

The state curriculum also requires science teachers to stick to “evolutionary process as outlined in the National Science Education Standards,” which don’t include creationism.

“Explanations on how the natural world changes based on myths, personal beliefs, religious values, mystical inspiration, superstition, or authority may be personally useful and socially relevant, but they are not scientific,” according to the National Science Education Standards.

The North Carolina State Board of Education has an ethics policy that requires teachers to recognize “the diverse views of students ... and not proselytize for personal viewpoints that are outside the scope of professional practice.”

The assignment could cross that line, according to Scott.