by Leon Lynn

About the author: Leon Lynn is an education journalist in Milwaukee. More than 70 years after the Scopes "Monkey Trial," the scientific theory of evolution is still too hot for some American schools to handle.

In that infamous 1925 case, worldwide attention focused on John T. Scopes, who was on trial for teaching evolution and breaking a Tennessee law which banned teaching "any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible." Despite decades of scientific advances supporting evolution since the Scopes trial, despite numerous court rulings aimed at protecting science and educators from religious zealotry, and despite ever-increasing rhetoric about helping students compete in the modern world by giving them the best possible science education, schools all across the country are under pressure to downplay, ignore, or...