The theory of the evolution of the British naturalist Charles Darwin is a fallacy and the existence of the human being can only be explained by a "creator". This is what creationists want to be taught in schools since the 1920s. And they have not always used the same strategy for it. As their particular arguments have been rejected by the courts as unconstitutional, they have been adapted with others modified to gain influence and power. Does it sound like something? Is not it precisely what animals and plants do to survive? A new study by the National Institute of Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) and the National University of Australia (ANU) ensures that, ironically, the particular creationist battle over the years to modify the way in which biology is taught in The classrooms are very similar to the theory of evolution that they criticize so much.

The researchers, who have published their findings in the journal Science, have developed a kind of phylogenetic tree that reflects the variations in the texts of the legislative proposals of these fundamentalist ideologues in favor of Creationism from 2004 to the present, ten years totaling 65 bills.

Initially, the creationists advocated directly to eliminate the teaching of the evolution of the classrooms. They managed to enact prohibitionist laws in several states, but the Supreme Court considered them contrary to the Constitution in 1968. They then opted for a new strategy and tried to introduce an alternative subject to biology, so that students could also learn the "design intelligent ", which maintains that life is so complex that it can only be explained as a designer's work, just as a watch is the work of a watchmaker. After achieving it several times with great controversy, Justice turned its back on them again.

As "intelligent design" challenged legality, creationists opted for a stealthier last strategy, which fosters policies of "critical analysis" of evolution and the origin of life, and of other scientific aspects such as cloning or global warming. This is what happened in Louisiana and Tennessee, where they managed to pass laws so that schools can study Creationism. The trick is to defend that teachers have academic freedom to teach what they want and question what is in the textbooks. So if a teacher says that the theory of evolution has gaps and that there are alternative explanations, it is in all its right.

"It is clever, because they do not mention creationism, but they give teachers permission to include pseudoscience and protect them from public administrations that say that these things should not be taught," explains Nick Matzke, ANU researcher. However, his analysis shows "that most of these bills can be related to Creationism again through the presence or absence of phrases that reveal their shared history".

In fact, the study found that anti-evolutionist proposals show evidence of "offspring with modification", suggesting that anti-evolutionist legislators are copying proposed ideas recently, instead of writing new bills from scratch. "Most of the proposals do not make sense, they have been copied from another State and changed without thinking," says Nick Matzke, and jokes: "They are not terribly well designed."