SCIENTISTS AND CONGRESSIONAL ANTIEVOLUTIONISM: A CASE STUDY OF THE "SANTORUM AMENDMENT"

Antievolutionists have managed to attract the attention of some important members of Congress. "Intelligent design" (ID) proponents have presented briefings to the House Education and Science committees, and were instrumental in shaping the "Santorum Amendment" to the 2002 "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) education act. The ID congressional briefing was a loud wakeup call to the scientific community, which expressed shock that antievolutionism would be countenanced by elected representatives with considerable influence on science policy. When the "Santorum Amendment" to the NCLB appeared, geological associations coordinated a response. Scientific associations worked with teacher education organizations both behind the scenes and publically to attempt to educate members of the conference committee to why the Santorum Amendment was bad science and bad educational policy; ultimately close to 100 scientific organizations signed a statement to that effect. We achieved only partial success as the amendment was indeed dropped from the bill, but wording in the conference committee report was seized upon by antievolutionists to promote the erroneous idea that antievolutionism was now required by the NCLB. Fallout from the Santorum Amendment is being felt in communities across the nation as antievolutionists lobby for changes in curricula to include "evidence against evolution", or "intelligent design theory."