Funnily enough, it is NOT controversial to the majority of the scientific community!
Many of you have expressed concerns about whether or not to teach evolution in your classroom, and I'm here to tell you, there is no way you can avoid it.
Evolution is such an important and critical Theory (capital T) that it crosses virtually all scientific disciplines that study living things: biology, chemistry, anthropology, genetics, paleontology, molecular biology, etc. It is THE unifying theory of biology, and our understanding of the natural world is based upon its tenets.
Even if you don't mean to teach evolution, if you are studying cells, ecosystems, anatomy, botany, zoology, whatever... if it's about living things, you ARE demonstrating the viability of evolution.
When people think of evolution, they think of Darwin, they think of natural selection, maybe they even think of humans spontaneously popping out of pregnant monkeys, but if you do not seek your own answers that is all you will ever know.
Evolution is simply (though it really isn't that simple) a change in organisms over long periods of time through generational heredity:
We are, truly, part of a single tree of life!
Religion has its place, certainly, but it does not belong in a science classroom. They are not equal, they aren't even comparable. Religion is a beautiful expression of us mortals seeking something great, something divine, it guides us to live our lives in special, unique ways. It, cannot, and does not, replace scientific inquiry and discovery.
Once upon a time, Galileo told the Church that their calendar was wrong because they were using a mathematical model based upon the assumption that the Earth was the center of the universe. Galileo, and Copernicus (who said the same thing 100 years earlier), and Kepler (who said the same thing 100 years later) did not allow their religion (because they were ALL Catholic) to cloud what their observations were telling them. The sun, was indeed, the center of our solar system, and the calendar was wrong not because the math was bad but because the whole concept was wrong! It took a long time for the Church to change their mind, but that didn't matter to the mathematicians and astronomers of the day. Institutions always take their precious time to acclimate to change, it does not mean, however, that the change hasn't already taken place.
Some may argue that they will cover "both sides" of the controversy. I am, again, here to tell you that that is ridiculous.
The idea of giving "equal time" to both evolution and creationism is preposterous. Unless you are teaching in a private Christian school, it is completely inexcusable. Creationism or intelligent design or whatever you want to call it is not science. It may be parading around as "science," but it is un-observable and unknowable and un-proveable and therefore totally NOT SCIENCE!
Another problem with "equal time" leads to the misconception that evolution is under some type of serious debate in the scientific community. It implies that there is not a consensus, or there is no agreement... which is totally untrue. As stated above, the majority of all the stakeholders in these scientific disciplines accept Evolution and base their research and understanding upon it!
In closing, I encourage you to do your own research. If not for yourself, than for your future students. And if that isn't enough. Here is another representation of the tree of life, and biblical scripture that accompanies it.
Star-dust, to be precise.
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