Why does the teaching of creation versus evolution in the public schools stir up such controversy?
Creation versus evolution, a divisive topic since the 1960s, closely relates to debates about religious freedom in public schools. The issue began in 1925 when Tennessee passed a law stating that it was illegal to teach any theory that denies the story of Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animal. The creation verses evolution debate rekindled in the late 1950s. The Russian satellite, Sputnik, had just successfully entered space causing the U.S. to realize it was falling behind in science. At that time, the National Science Foundations funding of the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study influenced the study of evolution in high school textbooks. In the 1980s, Arkansas and Louisiana passed laws forcing the teaching of creation versus evolution. But in 1987 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled these laws unconstitutional because they violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment. Creation science was consider
