| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Bill" |
| Date: |
02 Feb 2005 04:44:57 PM |
| Object: |
Schools won't teach science of evolution |
Evolution Takes a Back Seat in U.S. Classes
By CORNELIA DEAN
Published: February 1, 2005
John Frandsen, a retired zoologist, was at a dinner for teachers in
Birmingham, Ala., recently when he met a young woman who had just begun work
as a biology teacher in a small school district in the state. Their
conversation turned to evolution.
"She confided that she simply ignored evolution because she knew she'd get
in trouble with the principal if word got about that she was teaching it,"
he recalled. "She told me other teachers were doing the same thing."
Though the teaching of evolution makes the news when officials propose, as
they did in Georgia, that evolution disclaimers be affixed to science
textbooks, or that creationism be taught along with evolution in biology
classes, stories like the one Dr. Frandsen tells are more common.
In districts around the country, even when evolution is in the curriculum it
may not be in the classroom, according to researchers who follow the issue.
Teaching guides and textbooks may meet the approval of biologists, but
superintendents or principals discourage teachers from discussing it. Or
teachers themselves avoid the topic, fearing protests from fundamentalists
in their communities.
"The most common remark I've heard from teachers was that the chapter on
evolution was assigned as reading but that virtually no discussion in class
was taken," said Dr. John R. Christy, a climatologist at the University of
Alabama at Huntsville, an evangelical Christian and a member of Alabama's
curriculum review board who advocates the teaching of evolution. Teachers
are afraid to raise the issue, he said in an e-mail message, and they are
afraid to discuss the issue in public.
Dr. Frandsen, former chairman of the committee on science and public policy
of the Alabama Academy of Science, said in an interview that this fear made
it impossible to say precisely how many teachers avoid the topic.
"You're not going to hear about it," he said. "And for political reasons
nobody will do a survey among randomly selected public school children and
parents to ask just what is being taught in science classes."
But he said he believed the practice of avoiding the topic was widespread,
particularly in districts where many people adhere to fundamentalist faiths.
"You can imagine how difficult it would be to teach evolution as the
standards prescribe in ever so many little towns, not only in Alabama but in
the rest of the South, the Midwest - all over," Dr. Frandsen said.
Dr. Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science
Education, said she heard "all the time" from teachers who did not teach
evolution "because it's just too much trouble."
"Or their principals tell them, 'We just don't have time to teach everything
so let's leave out the things that will cause us problems,' " she said.
Sometimes, Dr. Scott said, parents will ask that their children be allowed
to "opt out" of any discussion of evolution and principals lean on teachers
to agree.
Even where evolution is taught, teachers may be hesitant to give it full
weight. Ron Bier, a biology teacher at Oberlin High School in Oberlin, Ohio,
said that evolution underlies many of the central ideas of biology and that
it is crucial for students to understand it. But he avoids controversy, he
said, by teaching it not as "a unit," but by introducing the concept here
and there throughout the year. "I put out my little bits and pieces wherever
I can," he said.
He noted that his high school, in a college town, has many students whose
parents are professors who have no problem with the teaching of evolution.
But many other students come from families that may not accept the idea, he
said, "and that holds me back to some extent."
"I don't force things," Mr. Bier added. "I don't argue with students about
it."
In this, he is typical of many science teachers, according to a report by
the Fordham Foundation, which studies educational issues and backs programs
like charter schools and vouchers.
Some teachers avoid the subject altogether, Dr. Lawrence S. Lerner, a
physicist and historian of science, wrote in the report. Others give it very
short shrift or discuss it without using "the E word," relying instead on
what Dr. Lerner characterized as incorrect or misleading phrases, like
"change over time."
Dr. Gerald Wheeler, a physicist who heads the National Science Teachers
Association, said many members of his organization "fly under the radar" of
fundamentalists by introducing evolution as controversial, which
scientifically it is not, or by noting that many people do not accept it,
caveats not normally offered for other parts of the science curriculum.
Dr. Wheeler said the science teachers' organization hears "constantly" from
science teachers who want the organization's backing. "What they are asking
for is 'Can you support me?' " he said, and the help they seek "is more
political; it's not pedagogical."
There is no credible scientific challenge to the idea that all living things
evolved from common ancestors, that evolution on earth has been going on for
billions of years and that evolution can be and has been tested and
confirmed by the methods of science. But in a 2001 survey, the National
Science Foundation found that only 53 percent of Americans agreed with the
statement "human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of
animals."
And this was good news to the foundation. It was the first time one of its
regular surveys showed a majority of Americans had accepted the idea.
According to the foundation report, polls consistently show that a plurality
of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form about
10,000 years ago, and about two-thirds believe that this belief should be
taught along with evolution in public schools.
These findings set the United States apart from all other industrialized
nations, said Dr. Jon Miller, director of the Center for Biomedical
Communications at Northwestern University, who has studied public attitudes
toward science. Americans, he said, have been evenly divided for years on
the question of evolution, with about 45 percent accepting it, 45 percent
rejecting it and the rest undecided.
In other industrialized countries, Dr. Miller said, 80 percent or more
typically accept evolution, most of the others say they are not sure and
very few people reject the idea outright.
"In Japan, something like 96 percent accept evolution," he said. Even in
socially conservative, predominantly Catholic countries like Poland, perhaps
75 percent of people surveyed accept evolution, he said. "It has not been a
Catholic issue or an Asian issue," he said.
Indeed, two popes, Pius XII in 1950 and John Paul II in 1996, have endorsed
the idea that evolution and religion can coexist. "I have yet to meet a
Catholic school teacher who skips evolution," Dr. Scott said.
Dr. Gerald D. Skoog, a former dean of the College of Education at Texas Tech
University and a former president of the science teachers' organization,
said that in some classrooms, the teaching of evolution was hampered by the
beliefs of the teachers themselves, who are creationists or supporters of
the teaching of creationism.
"Data from various studies in various states over an extended period of time
indicate that about one-third of biology teachers support the teaching of
creationism or 'intelligent design,' " Dr. Skoog said.
Advocates for the teaching of evolution provide teachers or school officials
who are challenged on it with information to help them make the case that
evolution is completely accepted as a bedrock idea of science. Organizations
like the science teachers' association, the National Academy of Sciences and
the American Association for the Advancement of Science provide position
papers and other information on the subject. The National Association of
Biology Teachers devoted a two-day meeting to the subject last summer, Dr.
Skoog said.
Other advocates of teaching evolution are making the case that a person can
believe both in God and the scientific method. "People have been told by
some evangelical Christians and by some scientists, that you have to
choose." Dr. Scott said. "That is just wrong."
While plenty of scientists reject religion - the eminent evolutionary
theorist Richard Dawkins famously likens it to a disease - many others do
not. In fact, when a researcher from the University of Georgia surveyed
scientists' attitudes toward religion several years ago, he found their
positions virtually unchanged from an identical survey in the early years of
the 20th century. About 40 percent of scientists said not just that they
believed in God, but in a God who communicates with people and to whom one
may pray "in expectation of receiving an answer."
Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, said he
thought the great variety of religious groups in the United States led to
competition for congregants. This marketplace environment, he said,
contributes to the politicization of issues like evolution among religious
groups.
He said the teaching of evolution was portrayed not as scientific
instruction but as "an assault of the secular elite on the values of
God-fearing people." As a result, he said, politicians don't want to touch
it. "Everybody discovers the wisdom of federalism here very quickly," he
said. "Leave it at the state or the local level."
But several experts say scientists are feeling increasing pressure to make
their case, in part, Dr. Miller said, because scriptural literalists are
moving beyond evolution to challenge the teaching of geology and physics on
issues like the age of the earth and the origin of the universe.
"They have now decided the Big Bang has to be wrong," he said. "There are
now a lot of people who are insisting that that be called only a theory
without evidence and so on, and now the physicists are getting mad about
this."
--
Bill
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| User: "CAW!" |
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| Title: Re: Schools won't teach science of evolution |
03 Feb 2005 02:04:49 AM |
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I wish folks would leave teachers alone. THey shouldn't have be afraid
to teach!!
I go to college and the students bring up these issues with professors
of various subjects they are always respectful, but they still teach
and test on the subject.
I for one don't want my kid to grow up ignorant and not know half what
I know!!
I say if they don't want science taught they need to take thier kids
to special church schools that don't offend. Or maybe spend time with
them and explain things from thier point of view!
If a community is very religious they might opt for comparitive
religion class or even studies of thier own traditions. College offers
these so I see no reason they can't be **OPTIONAL** (the child's
option) classes in high school. In no way should they be required
classes though.
If I found out my kids school was that weak and foolish I would
homeschool them. The public education system is gonna fall apart under
these sorts of pressures. Not that it is great anyway.
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| User: "RS" |
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| Title: Re: Schools won't teach science of evolution |
03 Feb 2005 05:37:34 AM |
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"CAW!" <crowscaw@rocketmail.com> wrote in message
news:1107395754.573516.118050@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
I wish folks would leave teachers alone. THey shouldn't have be afraid
to teach!!
I go to college and the students bring up these issues with professors
of various subjects they are always respectful, but they still teach
and test on the subject.
I for one don't want my kid to grow up ignorant and not know half what
I know!!
You know, school isn't the only way children can learn. If your children
aren't being taught something in school, teach them it yourself. The
wonderful thing about information is so many people can have it at once.
(this isn't to you, specifically. I agree that a school should teach
evolution in science and creationism in religion classes).
-RS
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