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Majority of Biology Teachers Hesitant About Evolution
Creation Evolution Headlines ^ | 03/10/2015

Posted on 03/10/2015 8:20:02 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

Secular scientists are at a loss over how to get their favorite origins story, Darwinian evolution, a more confident presence in schools.

After nearly a century of one-sided control of education on origins, Darwinian scientists shouldn’t be faced with this dilemma. After all, their own theory presupposes that human beings are material entities that can be conditioned like other animals. And yet, despite a near total exposure to Darwinian evolution in textbooks, museums, educational TV – and often in the general culture, such as in many sci-fi movies – a substantial majority of the public doesn’t buy the completely materialistic evolution scenario. This includes biology teachers.

In Science Magazine on March 6, Jeffrey Mervis tries to understand “why many U.S. biology teachers are wishy-washy” about teaching evolution:

When two political scientists asked a group of U.S. college students preparing to become biology teachers about their views on evolution, they were shocked by the answers. “I’m, you know, pretty ignorant on this topic … is there enough of scientific evidence to say for sure?” one replied. “Evolution is one of those subjects that I’m still a bit shaky about,” answered another.

Michael Berkman and Eric Plutzer of Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), University Park, knew from a previous study that more than half of the country’s high school biology teachers did a poor job in their classrooms with evolution. But they didn’t know why. Was the topic absent from the curriculum? Did the teachers fear a community backlash? Or were they simply choosing to avoid the subject?

The answer Berkman and Plutzer came up with was lack of confidence. Mervis seems to agree with their assessment of the problem: biology teachers take more education classes than biology classes. To the researches, this is a red flag about educating biology teachers: “Young preservice teachers are already on a path that is likely to lead to evolution instruction that falls short of the expectations of leading scientific organizations.” The majority comprise a wishy-washy middle:

In their earlier study, in 2007, Berkman and Plutzer surveyed a national sample of 926 high school biology teachers to better understand teachers’ role in the country’s long-running battle over evolution. They found that 13% were openly sympathetic to creationism, while 28% provided students with a thorough understanding of evolution. The rest, which the researchers label “the cautious 60%,” spent as little time as possible teaching this most fundamental concept in modern biology.

Surprisingly, the more recent 2013 survey revealed that Catholic teachers, of all people, “were more comfortable discussing the potential conflict between evolution and religion than were their peers at secular institutions.” The reason? They probably thought about it a lot. Secular science teachers assume evolution so strongly, they’re not likely to feel any need to discuss it. “You’re not going to get a Penn State professor to talk about that with their students,” Berkman surmises.

What this implies is that religious faculty know and think a lot more about evolution and its implications than secular faculty do. Another evolutionary biologist, Mervis relates, “recently surveyed 3000 Alabama students on what they think and know about evolution and found their religious faith trumps any book learning.

Not Republicans’ Fault

In a lengthier “Science Insider” piece on Feb. 26, Mervis included these findings with more general concerns about “Politics, science, and public attitudes.” Scientists are wanting to know “why people ignore solid scientific evidence in deciding what they think about all manner of science-based issues.”

And yet when it comes to scientific knowledge, Mervis admitted that science ignorance is non-partisan.

The U.S. research community has long lamented how often the public disregards—or distorts—scientific findings. Many media pundits point the finger at partisan politics, although they offer contrasting explanations: Liberals often assert that Republicans are simply antiscience, whereas conservatives often insist that Democrats tout scientific findings to justify giving government a larger and more intrusive role.

A leading social science journal, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, takes a deep dive into the debate by devoting its March issue (subscription required) to “The Politics of Science.” The issue, edited by political scientists Elizabeth Suhay of American University in Washington, D.C., and James Druckman of Northwestern University, includes some 15 articles that explore “the production, communication, and reception of scientific knowledge.” And nobody gets a free pass.

“It’s an equal opportunity scold,” says the journal’s executive editor, Thomas Kecskemethy. “I was fascinated by how the knowledge elites are vulnerable to their own biases.

The old stereotypes must yield to this evidence. There are no simple answers, Mervis says. One of the take-home messages of the special issue is, “Liberals are just as likely as conservatives to disagree with the prevailing scientific evidence.” The difference is only in the subject matter. If anything, the Republicans tend to be more skeptical of scientific consensus generally, while liberals are more liable to defer to it. But it’s not that simple; the results depend on the policy under consideration. Here was one party divide that the survey showed:

To Shaw, the biggest mystery is why Democrats put so much more faith in science to inform policy than do Republicans or independents. No other factor, such as education, income, or race, appears to explain that difference, he says.

This implies that Republicans are not ignorant of scientific positions. They know about evolution, climate science, and other hot-button issues. They just employ more critical thinking than Democrats who put “faith” in what science says (at least on those issues). Everyone, though, will disagree with a consensus if it opposes their values. An article on PhysOrg agrees that Republicans trust science except on four issues that contradict their values: global warming, evolution, gay adoption, and mandatory health insurance.

Insider Bias

Speaking of Penn State, a press release takes a more biased view of these surveys. In “Understanding faith, teaching evolution not mutually exclusive,” Matt Swayne pictures “religious anxieties” among evolution doubters as the problem. Swayne fingers “critics of evolution” using doubt as a tactic. “Critics of evolution often take advantage of a teacher’s limited understanding of evolution to foster doubt in the science and make the science seem less settled than it actually is.” It’s just an anti-science strategy, according to Swayne: “Denying evolution could, then, lead not just to doubts about evolution, but also to a broader misunderstanding of science in general, according to the researchers.”

Swayne can’t say that about CEH. We consistently and constantly quote the best and brightest of the Darwinians themselves. We let you hear their best efforts to prop up their vacuous theory. And if you don’t believe us, you can click the links to their articles and read their words for yourself. This is not just sowing tares in the dead of night; it is fair and open discussion in sunshine, the best disinfectant. Darwinians and liberals need to stop stereotyping the debate as religion-vs-science and Republican-vs-science. They need to stop the Association game of calling Darwin skeptics “anti-science.”

The problem with those who are “wishy-washy” about evolution is that they don’t get both sides. They get whitewashed versions of the “fact of evolution” from teachers, textbooks and TV. For instance, you are likely to find a diagram of Darwin’s finches in your biology textbook at school, where you will be told it supplies powerful evidence for evolution. But here at CEH, we quote the original papers of Peter and Rosemary Grant, who spent 30 years studying the finches, and found the finches to be mostly interfertile, with the slight beak variations found to be reversible when the weather changes (e.g., 2/12/15). Who is getting the better information to you? Check all the other major Darwin skeptic organizations, from AiG to CRS to ICR to the Discovery Institute. They all consistently give both sides a fair and open hearing. It’s the Darwinians who want to silence all opposition, so that their genetically-modified version can be spoon-fed to the public. If they have such an intuitively-obvious view, why can’t it stand up to fair and open scrutiny?

Darwinism is not suffering because of wishy-washy teachers, religiously-biased students, or lack of sufficient information. It is collapsing by its own accord, unable to support the philosophical weight heaped on it by those who wish the universe to support their materialist ideology. Darwin’s “one long argument” was a tentative suggestion only. 156 subsequent years of evidence-hunting (exemplified by Darwin’s finches and other shady icons) has failed to justify it, while the evidence for intelligent design in cosmology, the earth, and life has been booming with strong evidential support. We think students and teachers deserve to know that.



TOPICS: Education; History; Science
KEYWORDS: biology; creationism; education; evolution; youngearth
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To: BigEdLB

So you believe in God, but the doctrine you stated contradicts the Bible.

Can you cite Bible verses which support your statement that the earth is billions of years old ?


41 posted on 03/10/2015 9:35:50 PM PDT by PieterCasparzen (Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.)
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To: ifinnegan
Whatever additional factors may be added to natural selection—and Darwin himself fully admitted that there might be others—the theory of an evolution process in the formation of the universe and of animated nature is established, and the old theory of direct creation is gone forever. In place of it science has given us conceptions far more noble, and opened the way to an argument for design infinitely more beautiful than any ever developed by theology.

- Andrew Dickson White, HISTORY OF THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE WITH THEOLOGY IN CHRISTENDOM ( The link is to the Project Gutenberg version. )

This was written in 1894, and it still gives a thrill. I recommend it highly.

42 posted on 03/10/2015 9:36:59 PM PDT by dr_lew
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To: jsanders2001

Maybe they really have been studying DNA and that two different “kinds” cannot mate and paid attention as to how evolution came to be accepted as “religion” in schools all across the country on fraudulent information and very shifty evidence that later turned out to be pig’s tooth...


You’ve got it.

Sooner or later, the evolutionists should be supporting all their claims. They always fall short.


43 posted on 03/10/2015 9:38:13 PM PDT by boycott
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To: freedumb2003

You have a good time talking to the straw men in your head.

You are mixed up as to who is doing the poor teaching. It is the university professors who teach the classes the education students, and other students with other majors, take. These same professors are often the evolutionary scientists doing current research. I do acknowledge that there are also schools where no research is done and subjects are taught by those not actively doing research.

Evolution is quite simple to understand, but it is made a convoluted subject, very hand wavy with pseudo-complexity grafted on to give it an aura of gravitas it doesn’t merit, and is often subjective which makes it hard to teach even at the highest level of a research institution and even more so at secondary level non-research universities.

That has nothing to do with it being “false” or airplanes being built due to tornados. You do seem to be obsessed with such inanities.


44 posted on 03/10/2015 9:43:55 PM PDT by ifinnegan
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To: OneWingedShark

No.


45 posted on 03/10/2015 9:46:18 PM PDT by ifinnegan
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To: PieterCasparzen
One might cite Psalm 90:4

For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

I think that kind of opens the door, don't you?

46 posted on 03/10/2015 9:51:50 PM PDT by dr_lew
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To: ifinnegan

>>Evolution is quite simple to understand, but it is made a convoluted subject, very hand wavy with pseudo-complexity grafted on to give it an aura of gravitas it doesn’t merit, and is often subjective which makes it hard to teach even at the highest level of a research institution and even more so at secondary level non-research universities.<<

I admit it — you lost me.

TToE is indeed quite simple to understand. The basics are there for anyone to understand.

There is a teaching problem, but I suspect the subject matter (TToE, the USC or so many other subjects) is not the problem.

Teachers just don’t know how to TEACH and the students, who have spent their lives getting medals for having “tried” just don’t know how to LEARN.

This isn’t TToE at all and I think you and I are arguing about something we agree upon based on specifics rather than the principles we see the same way.

Of all the gifts God gave us, His Children, the ability to teach was the greatest (seriously — Christ enumerated them). My mom had it — I kind of have it but my foolish passion inhibits my ability to use it some times (this being one of those times).


47 posted on 03/10/2015 9:54:23 PM PDT by freedumb2003 (islam: The hands of the Chinese, the mouths of the arabs, the minds of the French.)
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To: boycott

>>Sooner or later, the evolutionists should be supporting all their claims. They always fall short.<<

Flies in NY from the same species went into the subways — after some generations the outside flies could not mate with the subterranean flies.

There is no scientific concept as “kind” — but stochastic speciation has happened before our very eyes.


48 posted on 03/10/2015 9:58:21 PM PDT by freedumb2003 (islam: The hands of the Chinese, the mouths of the arabs, the minds of the French.)
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To: PieterCasparzen

> So you believe in God,

Yes.

> but the doctrine you stated contradicts the Bible. Can you cite Bible verses which support your statement “I believe that Evolution is the action of God’s mighty hand, continually creating and re-creating the range and diversity of living things.”

That wasn’t doctrine, just a statement of my personal belief about the role evolution plays in God’s Creation. The Bible was written a few thousand years ago, long before the evidence of evolution as a tool of God was revealed to Man. God reveals things and gives us opportunities to expand our knowledge over time. So I believe that the Bible is the word of God revealed to Man, but the beginning of that process, not its entirety. I anticipate that we may disagree on that point, and I wish no quarrel, I’m only offering my answer to your question.

I cannot cite verse from The Bible to underscore my belief, as it is a personal revelation, thousands of years after the Bible was written. Nevertheless, I am convinced in my belief that the Author of the Universe, the Creator of all things, is entirely capable of creating natural processes such as evolution to allow His Creation to advance toward its fulfillment. No, I don’t know what that fulfillment is, except in general terms. :)


49 posted on 03/10/2015 9:58:23 PM PDT by dayglored (Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is...sounding pretty good about now.)
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To: freedumb2003

>>Maybe they really have been studying DNA and that two different “kinds” cannot mate and paid attention as to how evolution came to be accepted as “religion” in schools all across the country on fraudulent information and very shifty evidence that later turned out to be pig’s tooth...<<

Since “kind” is not a scientific concept, the rest of your statement is pretty meaningless.

Well you better go tell all the scientists thare using the term, “change in kind” that they are wrong. It may take you a few years though. Then you can come back and tell me their statements were meaningless...: )


50 posted on 03/10/2015 9:58:23 PM PDT by jsanders2001
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To: freedumb2003

>>Maybe they really have been studying DNA and that two different “kinds” cannot mate and paid attention as to how evolution came to be accepted as “religion” in schools all across the country on fraudulent information and very shifty evidence that later turned out to be pig’s tooth...<<

Since “kind” is not a scientific concept, the rest of your statement is pretty meaningless.

Well you better go tell all the scientists that are using the term, “change in kind” that they are wrong. It may take you a few years though. Then you can come back and tell me their statements were meaningless...: )


51 posted on 03/10/2015 9:58:40 PM PDT by jsanders2001
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To: jsanders2001

>>Well you better go tell all the scientists thare using the term, “change in kind” that they are wrong. It may take you a few years though. Then you can come back and tell me their statements were meaningless...: )<<

I have never seen that term in a single scientific journal, and I have ready plenty especially having to do with TToE and Earth Sciences. I am going to need a link to see the context.


52 posted on 03/10/2015 10:00:42 PM PDT by freedumb2003 (islam: The hands of the Chinese, the mouths of the arabs, the minds of the French.)
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To: SeekAndFind
We need to be teaching real science like this ......... some_text :>)
53 posted on 03/10/2015 10:03:00 PM PDT by boycott
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To: dayglored; PieterCasparzen

The Bible tells us of our relationship with God and His Son, Jesus.

It is not a scientific text.

The Bible does not define Gravity (nor tells us from whence it comes which is less known than TToE), defines the Speed of Light, Avogadro’s Constant onr how to eek light out of excited molecules, much less Boolean logic as an applicable discipline.

God speaks to use through the Bible and the biggest statement is: “I gave you a rational Universe with rational laws: discover them and you will see Me with each discovery.”


54 posted on 03/10/2015 10:07:16 PM PDT by freedumb2003 (islam: The hands of the Chinese, the mouths of the arabs, the minds of the French.)
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To: freedumb2003

Your assertions I am not sure are borne out.

If your assertions are correct there would be a corresponding difficulty across the disciplines.

But there does not seem to be the same problem with chemistry, biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, physiology, physics etc...

Why is evolution the exception?


55 posted on 03/10/2015 10:08:21 PM PDT by ifinnegan
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To: freedumb2003

My observations are

Evolution is simple to understand, but it is sparse.

It barely merits a section in a biology class to explain.

It is puffed out with a lot of hand waving and what can be called scientific histrionics to make a full class, much less a major.


56 posted on 03/10/2015 10:10:19 PM PDT by ifinnegan
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To: ifinnegan

>>If your assertions are correct there would be a corresponding difficulty across the disciplines.

But there does not seem to be the same problem with chemistry, biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, physiology, physics etc...

Why is evolution the exception?<<

Because it may not be the sole exception and it is the only scientific discipline attacked by religious zealots who introduce foolish notions such as “intelligent design.”

My analogy still holds. Why is American History and the USC so difficult to teach and understand?

Might it be people with another agenda have poisoned the waters?

And why geology gets a pass is beyond me — if the Earth is only 6,000 years old, Continental Drift is a huge problem.

But the inability to teach and understand something (which has been understood by grade school kids for 50+ years) means nothing to the actual theory.


57 posted on 03/10/2015 10:15:21 PM PDT by freedumb2003 (islam: The hands of the Chinese, the mouths of the arabs, the minds of the French.)
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To: ifinnegan
*sigh*
Now I have to explain the joke.

Mitosis — Mitosis is a part of the cell cycle process by which chromosomes in a cell nucleus are separated into two identical sets of chromosomes, each in its own nucleus.

Clone — Cloning in biotechnology refers to processes used to create copies of DNA fragments, cells, or organisms.

Therefore mitosis is a form of cloning; albeit a natural process.

58 posted on 03/10/2015 10:15:26 PM PDT by OneWingedShark (Q: Why am I here? A: To do Justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God.)
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To: ifinnegan

>>Evolution is simple to understand, but it is sparse.

It barely merits a section in a biology class to explain.

It is puffed out with a lot of hand waving and what can be called scientific histrionics to make a full class, much less a major.
<<

Thank God you are not in immunology or medical diagnostics.


59 posted on 03/10/2015 10:16:48 PM PDT by freedumb2003 (islam: The hands of the Chinese, the mouths of the arabs, the minds of the French.)
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To: freedumb2003

> God speaks to us through the Bible and the biggest statement is: “I gave you a rational Universe with rational laws: discover them and you will see Me with each discovery.”

I like that, it aligns well with my own experience in physics, philosophy, engineering, and my efforts to understand the nature of God and the Universe. Thanks!


60 posted on 03/10/2015 10:17:41 PM PDT by dayglored (Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is...sounding pretty good about now.)
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