Ohio drops anti-evolution teaching plan

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) - In another setback for those who want schools to question the theory of evolution, Ohio education officials voted on Tuesday to remove a first-in-the-nation lesson plan that allowed teachers to do so.

By a vote of 11 to 4, the Ohio Board of Education pulled a model lesson plan on the subject it had approved in 2004 and sent the matter to a committee for revisions, according to J.C. Benton, spokesman for the state's education department.

He said the lesson plan in question permitted science teachers to encourage students to look at questions about evolution -- something that proponents of "intelligent design" generally call "teaching the controversy."

The lesson plan did not specifically mention intelligent design, the concept that God or some other higher intelligence must have been responsible for what happened in evolution from the start and through the process.

Benton said the optional lesson plan had been available to Ohio schools since it was approved but it was not known how many science teachers may have elected to use it.

The board had come under pressure from science groups to pull the lesson plan. Ohio was the first state to adopt such a teaching instruction.

The vote was at least the second major setback for proponents of intelligent design. Last year in Pennsylvania a federal court ruled that the theory could not be taught in a public school in that state which had required it. The school board in Dover, Pennsylvania, which had approved the teaching, was voted out of office.