The Levy County School Board has opened the evolution issue with the position that evolution is a theory not a fact. The definition of a fact: A thing that has actually happened or that is true. Evolution: The theory, now generally accepted, that all species of plants and animals developed from earlier forms by hereditary transmission of slight variations in successive generations. Obviously the theory of evolution is not generally accepted by the Levy County School Board as fact. Some Board members may object to saying "all species." The School Board's position on "hereditary transmission" is not clear. Mendel laid the ground work well over one hundred years ago. Watson and Crick, in 1950, put the icing on the hereditary theory over fifty years ago when they confirmed DNA as the basis of heredity. Where many people have trouble is the "successive generations" concept. The successive generations of the MRSA bacteria that cause human infections cannot be controlled by antibiotics occur about every half hour. That gives forty-eight generations every day, or over 15,000 generations in one year. It is not hard to imagine that such bacteria can readily be selected to be resistant to antibiotics with this many generations. Although it is hard to imagine how much change could occur in 15,000 generations of a mammal such as a dolphin or a human, we know that the dolphins, based on DNA evidence, are thought to share ancestors with cows back 30,000,000 years ago, time enough for millions of generations and many slight changes. Changes that result in the beautiful shape and behavior of dolphins. The problem of what to teach comes from what the FCAT test expects our children to know. Can the test question say...evolution...., or the theory of evolution, or the generally accepted theory of evolution? Or should we just skip the topic all together? The Cedar Key School will be graded on how well its students answer queations based on scientific facts, and logical conclusions based on facts and theories. This is not just an issue in Levy County, Florida. It has been hashed out in Kansas and Pennsylvania. The issue will not go away. Please let your School Board know what you think the children should be taught. | 