Charity Report: National Center for Science Education

Second-quarter beneficiary National Center for Science Education gave us this report on how the funds they received from Foundation Beyond Belief will help them with their ongoing work:

Defending the Teaching of Evolution
By Glenn Branch, Deputy Director, National Center for Science Education

Here’s the bad news: Even now, in 2010—eighty-five years after the Scopes trial, in which a young teacher was convicted of the crime of teaching evolution—creationists are still trying to undermine the teaching of evolution in the public schools. It’s just that they’re getting a little craftier about it.

Recently, a parent complained to the Knox County, Tennessee, school board about a biology textbook (Asking About Life) that in passing described creationism as “the biblical myth that the universe was created by the Judeo-Christian God in 7 days.” The description, he claimed, was “bigotry” and “inexcusable.”

Further, his complaint seems to have served as a pretext for launching a broader assault on the teaching of biology. A sympathetic board member proposed to ban the textbook altogether. A different board member offered what she billed as a compromise: retain the textbook, but circulate a creationist critique of it.

Here’s the good news: When people in Knox County needed help in resisting the creationist onslaught, there was somewhere for them to turn: the National Center for Science Education—the only national organization wholly devoted to defending the teaching of evolution in the public schools.

In Knox County, NCSE not only helped to organize efforts at the grassroots level but also provided advice to the beleaguered authors. In the end, thanks in part to our efforts, the board decided instead to heed the advice of a committee of experts that concluded that the textbook was appropriate.

NCSE is able to provide such timely, thorough, and effective support to activists such as those in Knox County only because of the support of people concerned with the integrity of science education. We are pleased to thank Foundation Beyond Belief and its members for helping us to defend the teaching of evolution.

N.B. Foundation members donated $3,640 to NCSE last quarter -- the highest total for any FBB beneficiary to date.