Finally, Sanity

Teresa Heinz has chimed in on the debate over whether evolution should be taught in high schools to explain life on Earth, as opposed to religious concepts such as creationism.

She came down on the side of teaching evolution, saying that in no way conflicts with her personal religious faith.

"I believe God did create us, and that evolution was his tool. I see no contradiction at all between science and religion -- none," she said during a speech Thursday night at an event in Pittsburgh.

"The purpose of science is to teach science and not religion," she added.

Heinz, a Roman Catholic, said only God "could create such a complex and beautiful thing" as life.

"I'm glad to be back in Pittsburgh," she said. "It's an honor always to be working in Pittsburgh."

She and her husband, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., used the Pittsburgh region as a key staging area in Kerry's presidential bid as the Democratic nominee against President Bush.

Heinz, chairwoman of the Howard Heinz Endowment and the Heinz Family Philanthropies, gave the keynote address kicking off "Pittsburgh 2005: Health and the Environment," a three-day conference in Shadyside.

The event, held at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, is a regional meeting of the Collaborative on Health and the Environment in Pennsylvania.

The issue of teaching evolution in public schools, long a subject of contention, heated up again in October when a school board in a rural southcentral Pennsylvania community, Dover, mandated the teaching of "intelligent design."

The concept holds that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by an unspecified higher power. Critics called the change in the ninth-grade biology curriculum a veiled attempt to require public schoolchildren to learn creationism, a biblical-based view that credits the origin of the species to God.

Schools typically teach evolution, the theory that Earth is billions of years old and that life forms developed over millions of years.

Heinz told about 300 participants at the conference that just as scientists are attacked when they offer evidence of global climate changes, teachers and school board members are being intimidated for teaching evolution.

"This abandonment of science is happening...without any fanfare at all," she said.

David M. Brown can be reached at dbrown@tribweb.com or (412) 380-5614.