BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A state board has rejected a request from evangelical Christians to flag biology textbooks with a disclaimer that the theory of evolution is just that — a theory, not a fact.
A committee of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education had approved the disclaimer proposal earlier in the week but the full board rejected the panel's recommendation by a 7-3 vote on Dec. 12.
Had the disclaimer been approved, it would have made Louisiana the second state in the nation with such a provision. The other is Alabama.
"I am not prepared to go back to the Dark Ages," said Paul Pastorek, the board's president, who voted against the disclaimer.
Evolution, a theory developed by Charles Darwin and others, holds that the Earth is billions of years old and that all life, including humans, evolved from simple forms through a process of natural selection. Some religious fundamentalists and others object to the teaching of evolution, saying it contradicts the biblical account of creation.