By JENS ALAN DANA
Daily Universe Staff Reporter
Utah senators usually receive phone calls on a cornucopia of issues, but one senator has been going ape over the plethora of calls over one particular issue.
Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, said he is tired of concerned parents calling him to ask why their children are only being taught about evolution in public schools. Buttars said he agrees with the concerned parents because he thinks there is no stability for teaching man ascended from lower species.
'Why don't plainly say 'We don't know how man has become?'' Buttars said. 'All they want to do is tell you that has evolved as fact, and they have no fact that man evolved from any other species. The missing link is still missing, in fact the whole chain is missing.'
Buttars is drafting a bill that would require schools to teach evolution in conjunction with alternate theories of how life began. Buttars said he is keeping the bill confidential until he works out some issues. He would not say what those issues are, but he said he will unveil his bill Jan. 14, 2006 at the Utah Eagle Forum Convention at Salt Lake Community College.
When asked if the bill would require teaching intelligent design, the idea that an unnamed designer directs life and creation, Buttars said he was not sure, although he said he thinks intelligent design should have equal footing with evolution in school.
'There are several theories of how life began,' Buttars said. 'Yet the only one teach is evolution. That's censorship.'
Karianne Lisondee, a Utah Eagle Forum executive board member, said her organization is supporting Buttars' bill by lobbying Utah lawmakers. She said she personally supports the bill because she does not agree with evolutions' tenants.
'I support this bill because I believe evolution is bad science,' she said. 'And I believe that a lot of renowned scientists around the world are beginning to agree with us.'
Brett Moulding, curriculum director for the Utah State Board of Education, said the board's current position on evolution has been carefully drafted by science experts and closely resembles the National Academy of Science and National Science Teacher's Association's position statements.
'The concept that describes diversity of life on earth uses evolution,' Moulding said. 'And that is the accepted scientific theory currently.'
Larry St. Clair, BYU's department chair for integrative biology, said The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has no definitive statement on evolution, but in 1992 the BYU Board of Trustees compiled a packet containing four documents, which include two First Presidency statements regarding evolution.
He said the faculty members are encouraged to use these documents when students have questions about religion and evolution.
'We teach them the best information from a scientific perspective,' St. Clair said. 'But we also let them know that we are believers.'
Michael Whiting, a BYU integrative biology professor, said BYU, a well-known faith-based institution, has a solid evolutionary program.
'Our students perform very well at national meetings,' he said. 'We win national awards, we publish in prestigious journals, and there's a recognition in the scientific community that BYU is a very good place for students to receive a solid education in evolution.'
Whiting also said he doesn't know of any BYU biology professors who support teaching alternate theories to evolution, because it is not a theory in the scientific sense of the word.
'Professors who teach evolution and do evolutionary biology research at BYU disagree with the notion that intelligent design is scientific,' he said. 'There is no experiment which could be designed or data one could collect that could refute the notion of intelligent design. If it is non-refutable, it's non-science.'
Whiting also said evolutionary science has provided researchers the tools to solve complex problems such as tracking the cause of bird flu, whereas intelligent design provides researchers with no useful tools.
'Evolutionary biology provides us with tools to deal with real world problems,' he said. 'Intelligent design provides us with nothing.'
Jack Sites, another BYU integrative biology professor, said he supports the Utah Board of Education's evolution statement because he thinks there should be a strong distinction between science and religion.
'We will be better off if our citizens can distinguish science from pseudo-science and make informed judgments based on scientific findings in the domain where those are relevant,' Sites said. 'And not in the issues of morality or how we treat our neighbor.'
Duane Jeffery, BYU integrative biology professor, said America's scientific preeminence is already in jeopardy because the general population does not have an adequate grasp of scientific concepts.
'If the general public sees science as an enemy, it's going to be both science and society that lose,' Jeffery said. 'America is a very religious society. Scientific research becomes stagnant; this is the reason, for instance, that federal funding for embryonic stem cell research has been halted.'