The newest (March 2008) issue of Evolution: Education and Outreach features the timely article, "Overcoming Obstacles to Evolution Education: The OOPSIE Compromise-A Big Mistake."
OOPSIE is the acronym coined by authors Eugenie Scott and Glenn Branch for "opt-out policies specifically including evolution." The article supports their contention that
A teacher who tries to present biology without mentioning evolution is like a director trying to produce Hamlet without casting the prince. By the same token (and to vary the play), a student who is opted out of evolution is likely to regard biology as a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Since evolution underlies all of biology, a la Dobzhanzky, then evolution will (ideally) be taught throughout the course. Scott and Branch noted that
A student opting out of evolution in such a course would have to bob in and out of the classroom several times a month, disappearing, for example, when the structure of the cell is taught (and with it the endosymbiotic origin of mitochondria), and again when taxonomy is taught (and with it phylogenetic systematics), and yet again when genetics is taught (and with it molecular homology), and so on.
All in all, an article worth reading, containing practical advice on how to resist appeasing the controversy.
posted by Cheryl Shepherd-Adams
