Another swipe at evolution was taken Friday, as a bill that would have banned teaching parts of the theory was narrowly defeated in the Arkansas House of Representatives. We applaud the legislators who took a stand voting against the bill, and we think the failure of this bill should send a message to those who continue to fight against evolution in the classroom: Give it up and focus on the real problems.

The legislators in Arkansas, for example, could instead focus on finding the money to give their public school teachers the raises they've been promised, as George Arnold of The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette pointed out in an editorial last Tuesday. Arnold points out many areas the legislature is neglecting in favoring a pointless discussion about a bill that, as precedent has shown, would surely be struck down by the courts as being unconstitutional.

Not only would the bill be unconstitutional, but it would be patently wrong. As this page has argued, evolution may be just a theory, but it's the best explanation science has to explain the diversity of life on earth. So-called "creation science," an oxymoron in our opinion, continues to come up with weak arguments against evolution, while sound scientific acheivements, such as discoveries made during the mapping of the human genome, continue to support the tenets of natural selection. Denying students the right to learn about these discoveries is tantamount to intellectual abuse.

This is Jesus Week on campus. Awareness activities such as these are the proper way to go about educating people about faiths. But state-sponsored censorship in schools is un-American and unconstitutional. Science classes should teach science, not religion.

We would like to see the day when these petty attacks on science by zealots cease to distract legislators' attention from the important issues at hand.
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