Wading into the undeniable

In his review of Bill Nye's Undeniable, Nicholas Wade proposes a "treaty" to defuse controversies over the teaching of evolution: describing evolution as a theory ambiguously - as a well-established scientific theory to supporters of evolution education, but as "just a theory" to opponents of evolution education. On inspection, Wade's proposal misidentifies the focus of the creationist objection to evolution, distorts the nature of science, and involves a blatant equivocation. Rather than equivocating on the term theory à la Wade, teachers ought to focus on ensuring that students understand not only the important theories in the field of evolutionary biology but also what a theory in science is and isn't. © 2015 Keep et al.; licensee Springer.