Glenn Beck doing his best howling monkey routine at CPAC conference. Magana/APA new study of America’s high school biology teachers confirms that despite 40 years of court cases ruling that teaching creationism or intelligent design violates the Constitution, most teachers don’t embrace the scientific facts of evolutionary biology.

A new study by Penn State’s Michael Berkman and Eric Plutzer says that only 28 percent of America’s biology teachers consistently teach the scientific evidence that evolution has occurred, while 13% only teach creationism. Sixty percent don’t teach much at all, omitting the subject because they don’t want controversy. via Science Daily

This evidence comes at a time when the Vatican embraces evolutionary theory for decades. Islam embraces evolutionary biology. The vast number of other religious denominations in America embrace evolutionary biology.

Intelligent design doesn’t deny evolution but insists that God started the big bang, which is the Vatican’s position and that of many US Christians.

“Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science and the Visual Arts” exhibitAs America’s students fall further behind the rest of the world in science, new research about the nation’s biology teachers dovetails with research about Americans in general. Gallup polled Americans on the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birthday and found that 39% of Americans believe in evolution; 25% reject it; and 36% have no opinion.

In the Gallup poll, 57% of America’s high school or less responders had no idea who Darwin even is.