It took a very long time for humans to evolve from apes. And at this rate, it may take even longer for science to rid us of primitive mind-sets.

Even today, nearly 86 years after the famous “Scopes Monkey Trial” in Dayton, Tenn., sparked an increased public acceptance of teaching evolution in public schools, the majority of our nation’s high school biology teachers still tiptoe around the topic for fear of backlash, a study published last month in Science magazine found.

Evidently, science is optional in biology class. Of 926 public high school teachers surveyed across the country, 60 percent said they avoid controversy by teaching evolution not as fact, but as if it were a matter of public opinion, according to Penn State researchers Michael Berkman and Eric Plutzer, who authored the study. Students can take their pick: science or mysticism.

Only 28 percent of teachers took an unabashedly pro-evolution stance, following the National Research Council recommendations to cite scientific evidence that evolution occurred. Thirteen percent of teachers openly advocated creationism — the idea that the Bible’s book of Genesis is a retelling of literal truths — or intelligent design, the theory that a higher power, not natural selection, guided evolving species.

Of the majority of teachers who hemmed and hawed, some opted to talk about evolution as though it only applies to molecular biology, completely ignoring the issue of how humans and other species evolved, the study found. Others told students it doesn’t matter if they really “believe” in evolution, so long as they know it for the test — or said they should just make up their own minds based on their own beliefs and research.

One teenage opinion doesn’t negate thousands of peer-reviewed scientific papers, or the fact that creationism has lost every major U.S. federal court case for the past 40 years, the researchers say. There’s a time and a place to talk about a higher power — just not in our public schools.