The junior-high and high-school libraries of the Detroit-area Melvindale–Northern Allen Park School District will soon receive books that question the validity of evolutionary science, thanks to an initiative passed February 8 by the school board at the behest of board President John Rowe.
A self-described creationist, Rowe explained that “Any time we can have our students gain additional knowledge from credible science, we should do that,” the Associated Press reported February 11. He attested to the books he was advocating as “scientific textbooks that offer scientific evidence that evolution may not be true.”
Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education, who helps the district evaluate its texts, disagreed. “There are some books that are just a joke,” she told the AP on February 9, dismissing some of the titles on Rowe's list as “frankly religious” and “bad science.”
Posted February 15, 1999.