During the late 1970s and early 1980s, citizens of several states were appalled to learn that bills promoting "scientific creationism" were appearing in their state legislatures. Other Americans and Canadians were distressed that their local school boards were being pressured to allow, or even encourage, the teaching of "scientific creationism". Groups of scientists, teachers, parents, clergy and interested citizens banded together to oppose "scientific creationism." They had many reasons for doing so: They wanted to maintain the integrity of science education, so that their children would not be taught factual nonsense and a distorted view of how science works. They worried about separation of church and state, because "scientific creationism" is in reality a restatement of Biblical literalist religious doctrine. Parents and clergy who were not literalists were concerned that their own religious views would be undermined in public school classrooms.

These concerned citizens formed "Committees of Correspondence"; like their namesakes in the Colonial period, they saw themselves as associations of citizens seeking to share information on questions of public policy. In 1981, several Committees of Correspondence founded the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), and in 1983, NCSE was incorporated. NCSE was founded to provide a central information and resource clearinghouse, helping to coordinate the efforts of people working at state and local levels to preserve the integrity of science education.

In 1986, the NCSE board received a grant from the Carnegie Foundation to open a national office with one part-time employee, Executive Director Dr. Eugenie Scott. It quickly became clear that this was not enough, and Dr. Scott's position expanded almost immediately, with the addition of a part-time bookkeeper following soon after.

The best guarantee of good education is public understanding of the issues. NCSE continues to work constructively to promote public awareness of the importance of science education, and the role of evolution in science education. Meanwhile, even though the past few decades have seen several court decisions confirming that religiously inspired "scientific creationism" and its cousin "Intelligent Design" may not be taught instead of or alongside evolution, pressure to teach so-called "alternatives to evolution" continues. Most of NCSE's work still involves supporting citizens who oppose anti-evolution at the state and local level.

In-depth information on NCSE's history is available in NCSE's archives.

See also

Grassroots Organizing: From Committees of Correspondence to Citizens for Science, a talk by Eugenie Scott.