South Carolina: the state where the Official State Fossil is the wooly mammoth “that was created on the Sixth Day along with the other beasts of the field.” And now the state continues its abysmal record of opposing evolution in favor of the bogus Biblical accounts of the origin and diversity of life.

According to the Post and Courier paper from Charleston, legislators in South Carolina are now trying to pass a “teach-the-controversy” bill regarding evolution—a tactic that creationists have adopted since their failure to get any kind of creationism (including Intelligent Design) taught directly in the schools. Their last resort is to simply question evolution. I quote from the article:

COLUMBIA – New language for high school biology standards is headed for consideration to the State Board of Education that would have students learn “the controversy.” The S.C. Education Oversight Committee on Monday sent proposed language to the board that would require biology students to construct scientific arguments that seem to support and seem to discredit Darwinism. The decision comes more than two months after the subject became a divisive issue for many in the Palmetto State and nationally in February, when Sen. Mike Fair, R-Greenville, voiced opposition during the review and approval of a new set of science standards for 2014. At the time, Fair argued against teaching natural selection as fact, adding there are other theories students deserve to learn. He said the best way for students to learn was for the schools to teach “the controversy.” On Monday, he reiterated his stance. “We must teach the controversy,” Fair said. “There’s another side. I’m not afraid of the controversy. … That’s the way most of us learn best.”

The oversight committee’s recommendation will go back to the state Board of Education, which must approve the language before it becomes policy.

If you’d like to contact the South Carolina Department of Education, you can find an easy email form here (go to “contact” under the bar at the top). A few short words could make a difference, especially if you’re a state resident. I’ve dropped them a line, though I’m a Yankee carpetbagger.

But what is the bloody controversy? It’s can’t be about whether evolution happened, or that there was common ancestry and lineage splitting, or about the fact that evolution happened over 3.5+ billion years, or that natural selection was an important component of the process. No, it simply can’t be about those fundamental tenets of neo-Darwinism, because they are uncontroversial. Insofar as we can regard anything in science as “true,” these things about evolution are true.

But in fact these things are precisely what the controversy is about: whether those tenets of evolution are true. And they’re controversial not because scientists doubt them, but because creationists doubt them. If there’s a controversy about evolution, then, there must be a controversy about medicine because of homeopathy and “alternative” medicine, so they should “teach the controversy” in health class. And perhaps psychology classes should teach the “controversy” about astrology versus conventional non-determination of our fate by the alignment of celestial bodies.

So if we’re talking just about evolution, there is no controversy—at least not one about the major aspects of evolutionary theory. Insofar as there are controversies, there are indeed aspects of evolution that we don’t understand, like the relative importance of selection versus drift, the way sexual selection works, and so on. Richard Dawkins and I once wrote a piece in the Guardian about these real controversies in evolution. But of course that’s not what ignoramuses like Senator Fair mean. When they say “controversy,” you can bet they don’t mean “the relative role of natural selection versus genetic drift in the evolution of DNA sequences.”

To show the polarization on this issue, as well as the fact that there are some voices of sanity in the state (and voices of ignorance as well), here are two successive comments from the posts following the article:

Meanwhile, columnist Brian Hicks at the paper, a brave man, has written a scathing editorial about this recommendation, calling its proponents “knuckleheads.” And his piece, while passionate, is quite sensible:

Trying to inject religious teaching into schools is not only unconstitutional but will do nothing except cost this state money in needless lawsuits. And we don’t have enough money to pave roads. Or maintain bridges. But this is not all Fair’s fault – blame the General Assembly. You see, allowing insurance salesmen and politicians to determine sound scientific curriculum for the classroom is not an intelligent design. The Education Oversight Committee was created on the excuse that there was too much politics on the state Board of Education. So they decided to double the politics. The oversight committee voted, 7-4, Monday to recommend that the state board “teach the controversy.” Sound familiar? It should. This “teach the controversy” battle cry is the same old creationism argument that’s been going on for decades. It’s just trying to adapt and survive – you have to love the irony.

Hicks makes only one misstep:

Frankly, the story that the science of natural selection tells is horrifying to fundamentalists. It calls into question their view of the world. But it doesn’t have to be that way – many people of faith have no problem with actual science. Or facts.

Well, yes, it does have to be that way for people who are either literalists or so discomfited by the implications of naturalistic evolution that they simply can’t accept it. This kind of accommodationism is a bit patronizing, I think: telling people that they really don’t have to be so down on evolution even if it contradicts, literally, and emotionally, everything they believe. Let’s just accept the fact that for some people evolution isn’t palatable, and not try to tell them what kind of religious belief they should adopt!

But Hicks redeems himself at the end:

It’s about time people with so little interest in any other world view stop trying to foist theirs on everyone else. After all, you don’t see science teachers out there raising a stink to teach Sunday school.

This isn’t a new bon mot, but it’s still apposite, and emphasizes the deep need the religious have to get their sticky fingers into the public sphere.

If South Carolina does enact this language, they’re in for a long and expensive series of lawsuits. Good luck to them! (Not really.)