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I have taken the liberty of inserting some links and commentary. - WJH

According to a recent Dispatch article, Gilroy High School will be proposing a new elective class on evolution, the biological theory that all living organisms alive today evolved from earlier species. [ This is a vast simplification of evolution.  Necessary for the forum, I'm sure.]

Well, it's about time. A full treatment of this major theory of science is long overdue.  The fact of evolution is certainly one of the greatest discoveries of all time.

Although reservations have been expressed about possible religious objections to the class, no one need fear.   Evolution has rigorously withstood the test of time, in spite of absurd creationist propaganda.  In a good science class that accentuates critical thinking skills, evolution will always win and creationism will only appeal to those who simply cannot resist religious myth as opposed to physical reality.  [ As I've said elsewhere on these pages, too often science and scientists are dismissive of absurd theories of pseudoscience like "scientific creationism" without really attempting to rebut the arguments.  This leaves the impression on the uninitiated observer that scientists just aren't listening, or that they are protecting their own belief systems. ]

Science, real science, is passing our youth by at an alarming rate. [ In the Dispatch article, the school board president insinuates that this class may not meet the board's current focus of literacy.  Well, as Mr. Penkethman says below,  this is an issue of literacy.  Science literacy.   It's fine to teach kids how to read and write, but you also have to inculcate a fundamental sense of wonder, and  a desire to learn.]  In a recent survey of what Americans know about science, only 44 percent understood that humans developed from an earlier species.  Only 52 percent realized that humans did not live at the same time as the dinosaurs.  This is an issue of science literacy, which, in our increasing technological society, will be critical for our student's success in any career.

Science literacy depends, according to Jere Lipps, professor and curator at Berkeley's Museum of Paleontology, on three abilities;  1.  critical thinking;  2.  use of evidential reasoning to draw conclusions; and 3.  the ability to evaluate scientific authority.  [ I would strike the word 'scientific' from #3.  The ability to evaluate authority in general is critical to science.  We humans are too often accepting ideas because they are 'known fact' (i.e., authoritative), but not necessarily 'known facts of science' ]

My guess:  this is what an evolution class would inevitably end up doing in today's controversial atmosphere;  less about the physical facts of evolution (though they are important too), more on science literacy.

GHS teacher Nicky Austin was quoted as saying that the course would not teach evolution as absolute truth.  That's good, but I hope that means that evolution will not be presented as [mere] belief, for that is the real crux of the matter.  Evolution is a well established fact based squarely on reasoning from physical evidence only.  That is how it must be taught.

Another point brought out in the Dispatch article was the alignment of the class on evolution to career paths.  Evolution is no longer purely a theoretical pursuit driven by curiosity.  There are many practical uses for a knowledge of biological evolution.

Landing almost any career in biology nowadays without a good knowledge of evolution is unthinkable.  It would be like studying space navigation while believing that the Earth is flat (which some Christian fundamentalists still profess, believe it or not).  [ See the Biblical Astronomer site for an example of this kind of muddy thinking ]

Biological questions ranging from genetic disorders to saving the rain forests to understanding life on the deep ocean floor all rest on evolution.  There's no understanding these puzzles without it.  Sometimes I think that if medical researches earlier this century had put antibiotics together with what was known about evolution, they might have embarked on a different course of disease control.  We are increasingly faced with resistant bacteria whose mutations protect succeeding generations from antibiotics.  Scientists are researching ways to get around this bacterial evolution.  They are facing to find a solution before we run out of antibiotics that work.  And evolution is the only understanding that will help.

Understanding biological evolution is critical to our future well being not to mention a real career asset.

As it happens, as you read this I will be in Death Valley with my friend Jere Lipps, Misha Fedonkin of Moscow University and other paleontologists on a field trip to find certain Precambrian rocks which have preserved Earth's early atmosphere in their chemical makeup.  We'll also be looking for fossil bacteria and algae mounds, called stromatolites, which were some of the earliest forms of abundant life on Earth.

What scientists hope to gain is some knowledge about possible suitable environments on other planets so that the chances of finding life out there, and the methods of detecting it, can be assessed.  Thus, even the search for extraterrestrial life depends deeply on understanding the evolution of life on Earth.  No one knows whether or not life is out there.  We have to go look.  Now that's exciting!  That's science.

Jack Penkethman is a Gilroy physicist who is married and has two daughters.  his column is published each Wednesday in The Dispatch