Bad textbooks are a dime a dozen. Explore Evolution is an unusually bad textbook. Explore Evolution distinguishes itself with its systematic and disingenuous misrepresentation of scientific facts and the scientific process. Its underlying goals are not to educate students, but to proselytize fringe ideas and to confuse students. Many of the errors that lace Explore Evolution are introduced in the preface. These errors are not random; they are all essential to sustain a creationist attack on science.

p. v: “…the theory of evolution remains the focus of intense public controversy … [and there are] real (and more interesting) scientific controversies about evolution.”

Evolution is not scientifically controversial. To claim otherwise is simply wrong and, worse, unfair to students. Evolution is the fundamental, unifying principle of the life sciences, including medical and agricultural research, and recent advances in genomics and developmental biology.

Explore Evolution tries to compare evolution with the scientific controversies associated with string theory, plate tectonics, and global warming. This serves only to deepen confusion for students. String theory is currently scientifically controversial, just as plate tectonics was controversial until the 1960s, and global warming was scientifically controversial until the late 1990s. There has not been a scientific controversy about whether life evolved since the 19th century. Social controversies are independent of scientific assessments--and are subjects best taught in social studies, rather than science classes.

p. v: “…scientists question key aspects of [contemporary Darwinian theory].”

These supposed “key aspects” are issues that are not scientifically controversial, yet are persistent targets of creationist attack. Biologists have reached a strong consensus about the validity of universal common descent, the power of natural selection, and the importance of studying fossils, embryology, biogeography, and homologous structures. Ongoing disputes about the details of evolution do not support the implication of Explore Evolution that there is scientific doubt of the underlying validity of evolution itself. This classic creationist strategy is simply false.

p. v: “The approach we are using in this book is called ‘inquiry-based’ education.”

The approach toward learning actually used in Explore Evolution is old-fashioned, and directly at odds with the inquiry-based approaches developed by leading science educators. Inquiry-based education provides students with appropriate background information and encourages them to formulate testable hypotheses. Explore Evolution does not do this.

p. vi: “[U.S. and U.K. national policies] call for teaching students about competing views of controversial scientific issues.”

Neither government treats evolution as scientifically controversial, nor do they recommend teaching about these contrived controversies in science class. The “policy” statements listed in Explore Evolution are misrepresented and misquoted. The so-called “Santorum Amendment” was actually removed from No Child Left Behind before its passage in 2001. Creationists like to use the Santorum Amendment to justify their attacks on evolution, pretending it has the weight of policy or law. It has neither. Even if the Santorum Amendment were the law of the land - which it is not - the amendment is concerned with exposing children to the contrived controversy surrounding evolution, rather than the science of evolution itself.

p. vii: “The main thing you need to know is that ‘the critics’ are not … the same from chapter to chapter.”

A reader ought to know a good deal more about the “critics” cited throughout the book than that they “are not necessarily the same from chapter to chapter.” Most of the critics are creationists, motivated not by scientific interest, but by a religious agenda. In order to advance that religious goal, they and the book’s authors misrepresent science and scientists.

Major flaws

Scientific controversy vs. social controversy: Explore Evolution consistently muddles the idea of controversy within the scientific community with societal disagreement about the political and moral implications of a scientific idea. Evolution is scientifically well-established and accepted by every major scientific society. The only controversy surrounding it comes from particular religious groups who object to evolution for reasons well outside of science.

Educational policy: Despite claims in Explore Evolution, neither the British nor American governments treat evolution as scientifically controversial, nor do they encourage social controversies to be taught in science classes.

Educational terminology: Inquiry-based learning is a new pedagogical system that holds great promise for the improvement of science education. Explore Evolution does not employ this pedagogical approach. Explore Evolution discourages inquiry and independent exploration of topics, especially evolution. Instead, Explore Evolution harangues students, confusing them with irrelevant and often erroneous information, and encourages them to give up on answering what questions it raises.