Candidates take stands on ‘creationism’

Last week’s debate between Sisters School Board candidates Rob Corrigan and Jeff Haken revealed no major conflicts — until it was over.

At the end of the formal session, some members of the audience engaged both men in what reportedly became a discussion of creationism.

Later, The Nugget asked each candidate for his views on that subject.

Corrigan said that while he supports everyone’s right to practice religion, “that should be done in the church or the home, not in the public schools.” He said he agrees with court rulings in Oregon and nationwide “that clearly state that teaching creationism or prohibiting the teaching of evolution both constitute religion and are therefore illegal in the schools.”

If creationism is to be covered in the schools, Corrigan added, it should be done in classes on comparative religion or ecumenical studies “or some other elective that would be great to have in our curriculum if we could afford it.”

He said, “I’ve worked the last dozen years of my life with scientists and this is something I feel very strongly about. I really do believe in the scientific method and the idea that a theory is something that can be disproved or can be falsified by observable data but can never be proven.

“So that when we call evolution a theory that doesn’t mean that it’s speculation. It just means that in the scientific method a theory can be supported and I think that at this point evolution is supported by an insurmountable bounty of data going back to 1849 with the publication of ‘On the Origin of the Species’ (by Charles Darwin).”

Haken is clearly on the other side of this issue, although he began by saying, “I don’t necessarily think it’s my place on the school board to just come in and say, ‘Oh, we’ve gotta add this into the curriculum.’”

He continued: “Basically, I did a lot of study on this because I’m a Christian…But the number one thing is that if you’re gonna teach a theory on one side you’ve gotta teach a theory on the other side. If you’re gonna teach facts, that’s fine. But…if you want kids to draw conclusions on one side you’ve gotta let them draw conclusions on the other side. That’s my thing, is just the fairness in it, because you can’t just say, ‘Look, you’ve got six types of birds here and they’ve got different types of beaks and this and that, and that explains that evolution is real.’”

He added: “To me a theory is what we think, but you can’t just sit there and give the kids one thing to think about….As long as the teacher doesn’t teach theories as facts that’s all I really care about. If they’re gonna teach theories as facts that’s where I have a problem.”

Haken said he does not know what is taught in Sisters schools science classes today. But he said, “We’ve got good teachers. I have confidence in the teachers we’ve got in the district.”