Ohio State doctoral candidate Bryan Leonard's dissertation is being investigated by the School of Teaching and Learning in the College of Education as a result of controversies surrounding Leonard's views on evolution, his use of human subjects for testing and his public association of his beliefs with OSU.
On May 6, Leonard testified before the Science Committee of the Kansas Board of Education. In describing to the committee his teaching in the 10th grade classes at Hilliard Davidson High School in Hilliard, Ohio, he said, "And the way in which I teach evolution in my high school biology class is that I teach the scientific information, or in other words, the scientific interpretations both supporting and challenging macroevolution."
In response to questioning by Kansas officials, Leonard testified that he neither believed "that all of life was biologically related to the beginning of life," nor "that human beings are related by common descent to prehominid ancestors."
Upon learning of Leonard's testimony early this month, three OSU professors - Brian W. McEnnis, a mathematics professor, Jeffrey K. McKee, an anthropology professor, and Steve Rissing, an evolution, ecology and organismal biology professor - signed a letter to Carole Anderson, graduate school interim dean, that said, "There is evidence that Mr. Leonard's dissertation committee has been improperly constituted and that his research may have involved unethical human subject experimentation."
Leonard's main dissertation research question is, "When students are taught the scientific data both supporting and challenging macroevolution, do they maintain or change their beliefs over time? What empirical, cognitive and/or social factors influence students' beliefs?"
The three professors, in their letter to Anderson, said, "We note a fundamental flaw: There are no valid scientific data challenging macroevolution. Mr. Leonard has been misinforming his students if he teaches them otherwise. His dissertation presents evidence that he has succeeded in persuading high school students to reject this fundamental principle of biology. As such, it involves deliberate miseducation of these students, a practice we regard as unethical."
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