AP Corrects Story on South Carolina’s Adoption of Science Standards Requirng Critical Analysis of Evolution

The Associated Press has corrected the lead paragraph of its story on biology standards adopted yesterday in South Carolina. As Discovery’s public policy officer Casey Luskin reported on Evolution News & Views last night, the AP’s original story erroneously stated that the new South Carolina standards do not require the critical analysis of evolution. But as of early this morning, the new AP story clearly states that the South Carolina standards do require critical analysis of evolution:

COLUMBIA, S.C. – The state Education Oversight Committee approved high school biology standards Monday that require students to “critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory.” (emphasis added)

The article correctly points out that teaching students to critically analyze evolution is not the same thing as teaching alternative theories such as intelligent design.

“Scientific inquiry is taught at every grade level and in every discipline,” Education Department spokesman Jim Foster said. “It does not require students to study alternatives to evolution that are decidedly out of the mainstream.”