A Colorado charter school quickly backed down from teaching creationism to eighth graders, but the incident illustrates that a lot of the public, and some people within public schools, remain antagonistic to the science of biological evolution.
Here’s the brief history of the recent controversy. On March 5, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) wrote to Rob Daugherty, CEO of James Irwin Charter Schools in Colorado Springs, relating that an employee of the school had emailed parents telling them eighth graders would be taught creationism along with evolution. On March 9, the Colorado Times Recorder published Sean Beedle’s article on the matter, based partly on the FFRF letter.
On March 10, Daugherty wrote back to FFRF:
[W]e confirmed that, in the past, instruction referencing intelligent design had been included as part of an eighth-grade evolution unit at James Irwin Charter Middle School. Please know that this practice has ceased. Intelligent design will not be taught in the middle school or in any other James Irwin Charter School as part of a science curriculum. Based on the information currently available to us, the instruction in question appears to have occurred only at the middle school level and appears to have been taught sporadically over a period of years rather than as a consistent component of the curriculum. As the current administration, we were not aware that this content had been included in classroom instruction until the concern was recently brought to our attention. Following our review, we have verified that intelligent design is not included in the science curriculum at any other James Irwin campus.”
On March 13, the Gazette published Eric Young’s story on the controversy. Interestingly, the news article, whether intentionally or inadvertently, offers a misleading remark about creationism and “Intelligent Design,” falsely claiming, “Intelligent design is a scientific theory that refutes concepts from natural selection.”
In fact, there’s nothing scientific about creationism, and it certainly does not “refute” anything about biological evolution. A less-biased description would have been something like, “Intelligent design is a set of claims about science purporting to refute or undermine aspects of biological evolution.”
Although the school quickly backed down, the incident is instructive.
Creationism as Widespread Belief
In 2019, Pew reported that the answers they got on evolution versus creationism differed to some degree based on how they asked the question. In one format, 31% of people in the U.S. agreed “humans have existed in their present form since the beginning of time”; in another format, only 18% of people agreed. Regardless, the poll indicates that somewhere in the neighborhood of a fifth to a third of people in the U.S. flatly reject the science of biological evolution.
The good news is that most people in the U.S. do embrace at least aspects of evolution. Depending on how the question was asked, either 40% or 33% of people agreed that people evolved such that “God or a higher power had no role in the process.” And either 27% or 48% agreed that “humans have evolved over time due to processes that were guided or allowed by God or a higher power.”
Unfortunately, the wording of the poll still leaves substantial room for ambiguity, especially with the phrase “guided or allowed.” There’s a huge difference between a God who actively guides the evolution of living things and a God who merely allows such evolution to proceed.
Regardless, the poll questions indicate that most people in the U.S. think that God either created people as they now exist or else actively guided evolution so as to create people. Those are both creationist views, although the view that God guides evolution is closer to the findings of science.
Pew’s questions would be more informative if they explicitly separated out the view that God set the universe in motion, but that living things then evolved without further supernatural input, from the view that God continuously guided evolution.
Creationism In Colorado
School board member Barbara Evanson of Grand Junction expressly rejects the science of biological evolution, as Erik Maulbetsch and I noted for CTR in 2023. So do two state legislators, as I pointed out in 2024.
Christian Home Educators of Colorado, on its website, takes an explicitly young-earth creationist position, as I noted earlier this year. (By contrast, Secular Homeschoolers of Colorado, a group I started, explicitly embraces biological evolution.) The controversial Riverstone Academy, self-described as a “public Christian school,” states on its website that it uses Berean Builders Science, which explicitly takes a creationist stance (see my November article).
Colorado’s centers of paleontology must also contend with creationist activists. In her recent look at paleontology from the perspective of an anthropologist, Elana Shever describes:
When I attended popular events such as Free Days at the Denver Museum [of Nature and Science] and Scout Days at Dinosaur Ridge, creationists were usually manning a table that looked like a legitimate information station, although theirs was full of creationist texts. . . . At the Denver Museum’s Prehistoric Journey, a creationist leader periodically gave unauthorized “Biblically Correct Tours”. . . . The majority of the scientists, educators, and volunteers at the places I conducted research had some interactions with [creationists], too. Of the creationists they had met, very few were combative or even tried to convince staff or volunteers of their views. Most were quietly schooling their children on their own tours, pointing out the ‘errors’ in placards and giving alternative interpretations.
Religious Apologetics Under Cover of Science
Let’s return to the original email, reproduced by FFRF (although not dated) and posted with Beedle’s article. Here’s the message that the school’s “science lead” Donna Wagner sent to parents:
During eighth grade year in our Evolution Unit, per the guidelines in the charter of our school, we teach Intelligent Design and evolution. We present a creationist theory and an evolutionist theory regarding natural selection, adaptation and evolution. All theories are taught through the eyes of science with an emphasis on the facts and reasons that support each theory. It is a great opportunity to work on critical thinking and fits in with teaching students how to think like a scientist. The material for each side is presented in a respectful, factual manner. For each claim, we look at any evidence and reasoning to support the claim and students are given the opportunity to think critically based on their world view. The goal is not to convince students to support one side or the other, but the data is presented so students are aware that there is more than one viewpoint on many areas of science, and, for any claim, evidence and reasoning must be present for the data to be accepted by the scientific community. This will help each student build a storehouse of knowledge so they can support their individual belief scientifically.
I have found no evidence that teaching creationism relates to “the guidelines in the charter of [the] school.” I did find a 2025 “course description” for the high school that mentions evolution but not creationism.
What about the claims of the message? We all want kids to be critical thinkers and to learn to evaluate evidence, right? Of course. But here, that purported aim is obviously a cover to introduce religious indoctrination into the classroom.
Notice how Wagner equates “creationist theory” with “evolutionist theory” and treats both as mere “viewpoints” within science, misusing the term “theory” in this context to mean something like mere supposition. In reality, biological evolution is a scientific theory in the sense of a well-proven hypothesis, like the theory of gravity. By contrast, creationism is not a scientific theory at all, but the implicit repudiation of the scientific method, in that it presumes supernatural intervention — in effect, magic — rather than natural causes.
Wagner’s aim is not that students learn facts in context, but rather that they “support their individual belief scientifically,” meaning with the use of scientific-sounding rhetoric. This is about religious apologetics, not science. It is about giving school children pseudoscientific talking points to encourage them to reject the science of biological evolution.
That said, in some contexts, students certainly can learn a lot from analyzing controversies and looking at ways that thinking can go wrong. For example, it might be useful for students to see why some people mistakenly believe that the earth is flat or that the moon landing was a hoax. The skeptic Michael Shermer co-wrote a book debunking Holocaust denial. While it might be appropriate in some contexts to assign Shermer’s book to students, it certainly would not be appropriate for teachers to present Holocaust facts and Holocaust denial as coequal “theories” of history.
I was raised in a church that denied biological evolution; one traveling singer sang, “Don’t Try to Make a Monkey Out of Me.” (In fact, humans are a type of ape, and we and other apes share a common ancestor.) I read creationist materials when I was a child, and that didn’t stop me from seeing the truth as an adult. Similarly, Kirk Johnson of the Smithsonian discusses how, as a child, he first learned about evolution via his church’s criticisms of it. So, certainly, children can be exposed to creationist ideas and come to embrace the science of biological evolution.
So, then, why should we worry about whether some charter school teaches creationism?
As Wagner presents the proposal, it is about encouraging kids to reject science and embrace dogma, not about digging deeply into the actual science. Biological evolution is a complex, multifaceted discipline that draws from geology and the fossil record as well as from biology, anatomy, genetics, and chemistry. Students have to learn quite a lot about the field before they have the conceptual sophistication and factual basis to critically evaluate creationist claims.
And time in the classroom is limited. Every hour spent on creationist pseudoscience is an hour taken away from learning about real science. And, judging from results of the Colorado Measures of Academic Success, students do not need to spend less time on real science. Only 37.6 percent of eighth grade students at James Irwin met or exceeded expectations in science.
Of course the broader concern is that tax funded public schools ought not promote any sort of religious indoctrination. If churches, private schools, and other private organizations wish to promote creationism, that’s their right, however much it might undermine children’s understanding of science. But keep it out of public schools.
