Thursday, April 29, 2004

What was that all about?
Italy removed evolution from the national high school curriculum then restored it in a ten week period.

On February 19 Italy released a new national middle school curriculum that made no mention of evolutionary theory. On April 23, a group of Nobel laureates launched the petition through the daily La Repubblica to restore of evolution to Italy?s high schools. After three days and 44,000 signatures, the Minister of Education not only reversed he decision, but expanded the teaching of evolution to all grades of public education and appointed a committee of scientists to provide guidelines for teaching evolution.

The only concession of Education Minister Letizia Moratti that she might have had an ulterior motive in removing evolution from the national curriculum was her statement that "On my side, I will try to give space to different views about evolution."

No comments: