SETAC North America Board of Directors statement on teaching science in the classroom

The governing Board of Directors of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) North America provides the following statement concerning the teaching of science in the classroom (approved November 2006):

The mission of SETAC is to support the acquisition of new knowledge and the development of principles and practices for protection, enhancement, and management of sustainable environmental quality and ecosystem integrity through sound environmental science. To accomplish our mission, it is important that all levels of science education are conducted at the highest level of quality and that science curricula are based on the most up-to-date knowledge.

The governing Board of Directors for SETAC North America is concerned that primary- and secondary-level science students in some areas of the United States may face challenges in their professional development and ability to compete in a global economy due to potential deficiencies in science curricula. We have observed that the definition and theories of science are at risk of being changed without scientific justification or additional scientific debate. The governing Board of Directors of SETAC North America here clarifies our expectations to ensure that our mission, and the general pursuit of good science, will be met by future environmental scientists.

The science classroom should be used for the presentation of scientific methods and theories. Science is the acquisition of new knowledge based upon observations, hypotheses, experimentation and the study of physical evidence and is based on the fundamental assumption that observations of the physical world can be explained by natural causes. Thus, scientists rely on hypotheses or testable questions to propose explanations and theories for the way the world works that can then be tested and either supported or refuted by experimental data. For example, the process of evolution by natural selection is a scientific theory. The theory is based on over a century’s worth of data and observations in the fossil record, comparative embryology, and biogeography. Recent advances in comparative biochemistry and molecular biology also are consistent with and provide additional support to the tenets of the theory of evolution by natural selection. Because credible scientific evidence has not been produced to refute these tenets or to support alternative theories, scientists consider evolution by natural selection to be an underlying principle in biology.

Contributing to effective science education in North America is one of the primary goals of SETAC. We support an emphasis on the understanding of the scientific method and the nature of defendable scientific theories in school classrooms. The governing Board of Directors of SETAC North America strongly affirms the importance of promoting the principles of good scientific education, which are essential both for an informed citizenry and for efforts to manage, protect, and enhance environmental quality and ecosystem integrity.