Buttars: Evolution teachers in Utah "will be dealt with."
Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, said Thursday that after talks with the state Superintendent of Public Instruction Patti Harrington, he is comfortable – at least for now – with what Utah classrooms are teaching.
“She assured me in a phone call and then followed up with a letter, that we should not be teaching human evolution of any kind,” Buttars said Thursday.
The state’s core science curricula doesn’t teach the evolution of the human species as a scientific fact, Harrington said. It does, however, emphasize that biological diversity is a result of millions of years of evolution.
Buttars drew a lot of attention in recent weeks over his interest in intelligent design or as Buttars calls it, divine design – the theory that an intelligent cause is behind the origin of the universes and its life forms. Proponents of the theory say it should be taught in classrooms as an alternative to Charles Darwins’ theory of natural selection.
Opponents say “intelligent design” is just another form of “creation theory” and that the Bible doesn’t belong in public schools.
See also previous blogging on PT, and a previous blogpost showing some of the evidence for common ancestry of humans and apes.
Interestingly, the first google hit on “Sen. Chris Buttars” is the ““Who is the Bigger Dummy?” Challenge! at Accountability Utah.