In a previous post I indicated that the American Society of Agronomy, at the behest of its president James G. Coors, conducted an online poll regarding the teaching of alternatives to evolution in grades K-12 and then, presumably at his behest as well, removed the poll once it became clear that the poll did not constitute an overwhelming endorsement for evolution. Fortunately, a friend of mine found the Google cache of the poll results before they were removed from the website. As of this posting, they can still be found here. I saved this page as an mht file, which can be accessed here. Compare this page with the current ASA page here (which I’ve saved as an mht file here). It will be interesting to see, as attention is now being drawn to this poll, whether it reappears on the site.
Why is this significant? Consider the following numbers: out of 658 ASA members who responded before the poll results were removed, 33% favor teaching evolution only in K-12, 12% favor teaching alternatives (e.g., ID), 10% are unsure, and a full 50% favor teaching evolution as well as alternatives. It’s this last number that’s shocking. If these numbers are representative of the organization as a whole, half of this professional scientific society does not think that conventional evolutionary theory is sufficiently well supported to deserve a monopoly in science education. As this happens more and more across professional scientific societies, evolution’s monopoly over the teaching of biological origins will disintegrate.