“Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.” This is the text on stickers that the board of education has ordered placed on high school biology textbooks in Atlanta. Gregg Easterbrook responds in The New Rebublic:
Speaking as someone who is on record as thinking it’s good for students to debate these topics–here is a 2000 Wall Street Journal article by yours truly saying that students should be taught a range of views regarding the origin of life, then encouraged to argue them through–the Cobb County sticker nevertheless makes me wince, and not just because I don’t like the modern fad for disclaimers. What makes me wince is that Darwin’s theory has nothing to do with “the origin of living things.” The wording of the ridiculous disclaimer shows that the Cobb County Board of Education has no idea what it is talking about.
It is not even clear to me what is meant by “fact” on the sticker. Is it a fact that the Earth is round, or a (very successful) theory? The text of the sticker is so confused that (as Wolfgang Pauli would have said) it is not even wrong.
There’s more here.