Majority of Biology Teachers Hesitant About Evolution

Creation Evolution Headlines ^ | 03/10/2015

[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.

[tumblindice]

The article in Science can’t be read unless you have a membership, so I suppose we have to take its conclusions on faith.
And that’s a lot easier than reading the article—like saying, “The moon ate the Sun.” is easier than explaining how an eclipse works.
Creationism>Intelligent design. Global warming>Climate change. They put this old wine in a new bottle and that is supposed to make it different.
What’s really funny are the statements: “evolution is just a
theory”. E=mc2. That’s just a theory, too.

And “evolution is a religion,”—that may be my favorite. That’s saying, “You’re just like us ...” but ignoring the fossil record, molecular biology and direct evidence of natural selection. The religion of science?

When called and asked to show their cards, they toss some old books on the table—of doubtful authorship and filled with hearsay, contradictions and demonstrable nonsense (SEE: ‘Mormonism”), and demand that you acknowledge that their faith is fact, the ‘one true religion’—even though you are handling a Torah, a Koran and Bible, and thousands of other manuscripts, all claiming to be true.
That’s the only “theory” going on here and that’s why it’s called “faith”.

Just because the Aztecs really, really believed the moon was gobbling up the Sun didn’t make it true, and today most civilized people agree that carving out the hearts of thousands of non-believers to propitiate the moon was commendable in demonstrating their faith, but otherwise a complete, savage waste of life and time.

[OneWingedShark]

Of all the gifts God gave us, His Children, the ability to teach was the greatest (seriously — Christ enumerated them).

I don't remember that enumeration: do you have a reference?

[cpdiii]

I have degrees in science, geology and pharmacy and know a hell of a lot about chemistry.

I have held the rocks and bones in my hand. Evolution is real and a fact. To argue this is ridiculous. I do believe this as I have seen and held the facts in my hands.

However, the concept of a universe that was created from nothing some billions of years ago is totally illogical. Thus as a scientist the concept of the biblical explanation for man and the universe is equally valid as one of the universe being all from nothing.

The scientist in me says the biblical explanation is not valid. The scientist in me also recognizes that either explanation is equally valid as both are totally scientifically invalid.

[lavaroise]

I just listened to a lecture in Quantum Mechanic, and this stuff blows Evolution out of the water simply because it is becoming a completely different topic than even classical physics itself on which relies current Evolution theory!

Quantum physics producing verifiable results says that all electrons have a double state that is super-imposed. On the other hand, classical physics is simply another universe in which one or the other state of the electron is chosen and frozen in materiality (state of interaction).

There is thus no way for matter as we know in its classical physical form to EVER EVOLVE! It is already all preprogramed when we jumped from the flexible small quantum world to the classical physical world!

[freedumb2003]

Romans 12:1-21 is specific —1 Corinthians 1-12 also specifies “words of wisdom, words of knowledge.”

[boycott]

http://www.icr.org/article/no-fruit-fly-evolution-even-after-600/%23

And they’re still fruit flies,,

[lavaroise]

The problem with evolution is that what we are seeing, is it as a result of an evolution or something else? Where is the mathematical formula to which all these datas integrate into? Can the world we see be reproduced by deriving that formula?

I know a mathematician who is working on it, but with great difficulty. But he has found two problems:

1. probability makes an evolution improbable.
2. entropy means that evolution should worsen the species, not evolve them in positive ditections

There are instances of using chaos against chaos, such as when the body produces billions of different types of antibodies in random fashion during an infection. In effect, this is a live form of adaptation against a bug.

However, my friend has said that we can only rely on chaos theory, meaning we do not need to study the details of the process, just a global chaotic differential equation with strange attractor. To this day we still cannot predict whether the solar system is stable or not, let alone can we count on evolution for being a stable process leading to stability of life, or ever finding out for sure if it is indeed stable and inherent or not.

Last but not least is quantum mechanics. This is not even physics as we know it classically. It pretty much is a completely different topic of science in and of itself, a different world altogether. Evolution, or should I say, “SCIENCE”, relies on the laws of classical physics with determined particulate like particles, and not wave particles.

Real objects only exist when each electron’s state is chosen and determined. Other than that an electron, free, in its quantumic world, so to speak, has multiple states. The classical physics world is an opinion, like a sculpture that is frozen in space time, a flash image, that has a chosen a precise state for various electrons into their “ useful” material “purpose”.

In other words, if there is a path of evolution, that path, that equation, has been chosen, and it is real. So why not another one? Of course why not.

[freedumb2003]

>>I just listened to a lecture in Quantum Mechanic, and this stuff blows Evolution out of the water simply because it is becoming a completely different topic than even classical physics itself on which relies current Evolution theory!<<

Then it must also blow away Geology, chemistry and all other known sciences.

And what specifically does it decry about TToE? That quanta move backwards in time so modern forms preceded ancient ones?

Or is this just a Star Trek script where the writer scibbles in (”Tech talk here”)?

[dadfly]

good news. i guess there are some public school biology teachers who are able to divide scientific truth from atheistic faith indoctrination.

[freedumb2003]

>>And they’re still fruit flies,,<<

1) ICR — hahHAHAHAHA

2) Not the study I was referencing.

If you want to use references, use real ones.

[BigEdLB]

I believe that the beginning of Genesis is a parable not literal. It teaches us good lessons. It is not a history.

[freedumb2003]

>>What’s really funny are the statements: “evolution is just a
theory”. E=mc2. That’s just a theory, too.<<

The hardest thing to explain to ignorant people is that “theory” is not “a guess all grown up.” They think the sequence is “Guess>Hypothesis>Theory>Proof>Axiom”

You and I and others know this is wrong (the following is for those who might learn).

A Scientific Theory is the HIGHEST level of scientific thought. It is a concept that defines a known phenomenon and is consistent with all known scientific phenomenon.

Individual data may adjust theory towards more accuracy but it would take a massive new set of data (such as that which partially replaced Newtonian with Eisenstein) to completely replace it.

Not only that but a replacement theory must explain every last datum of its replacement.

Billions of fossils linked to geological events linked to cosmology linked to physics.

There is no replacement for TToE in the Scientific world.

The fact what I just said is too complicated for the “award for participating” generation is self-explanatory.

[ifinnegan]

“Thank God you are not in immunology or medical diagnostics.”

I take it you are not able to articulate your thoughts well and use insult in frustration.

[PieterCasparzen]

That wasn’t doctrine, just a statement of my personal belief about the role evolution plays in God’s Creation.

Some words to ponder...

That is doctrine - we're talking about the doctrine (teaching) of Creation. The Biblical teaching on creation is primarily given in Genesis (though other books also have key verses).

The Bible is the only authoritative source on God - it is God's Word. It stands to reason, as God provided the Bible to us, and he is all-knowing and perfect, a) the Biblical accounts are true and b) they are sufficient for our spiritual and temporal needs and c) they do not tell us a single lie.

An essential part of hermeneutics is to observe patterns and context; what we see in Genesis is consistently a historical account, not poetic figures, metaphors, etc.

If we thus tell ourselves that Adam was some metaphor for a process of turning pond scum into a person through millions of genetic mutations over millions of years, our interpretation flies in the face of the presentation given in Genesis.

If my personal belief about Creation is different than the account in Genesis, I am not placing my faith in the truth of God's Word. Both Old and New Testaments tell us that believers "delight" in the truth of God's Word, thus I am not given the latitude by God's Word to not trust 100% in God's Word as it is written, indeed, I hate the idea of wavering from that 100% trust and I delight in learning more about it and specifically not trying to rationalize differences between human-inspired science and God-breathed truth so I might profess to believe in both. Quite to the contrary, I trust in the Bible, and insist on proof of every man-inspired proposition.

Evolution, just by the simple numbers, is obviously impossible.

Simple arithmetic: humans for sake of argument can reproduce a new generation every 15 years. At maximum reproduction rates, therefore, if man has been around for 30 million years, that's only 2 million possible generations. This is not nearly enough to "evolve" "by accident" the various systems and body parts of mammals.

The only response evolutionists have to this is that evolution "speeds up" and "slows down", i.e., the Cambrian Explosion, I think about 60 million to 80 million years ago (give or take), for some "unkown" reason, evolution sped up like crazy. Since then it has slowed down. Apparently, for the last 10 million years, they say there's been basically no evolution in humans.

Just consider one system:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_digestive_system

and you see that it's impossible that a person could live without basically the ENTIRE system functioning. It can't function if there are only pieces and parts working, thus it's preposterous that such a system could possibly "evolve".

And that's only one bodily system, and it has a whole bunch of extremely complex subsystems and relationships with other bodily systems.

Important verses on creation:

Psalm 136

A litany of God's wonders

"O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.

2 O give thanks unto the God of gods: for his mercy endureth for ever.

3 O give thanks to the Lord of lords: for his mercy endureth for ever.

4 To him who alone doeth great wonders: for his mercy endureth for ever.

5 To him that by wisdom made the heavens: for his mercy endureth for ever."

Psalm 104

God the creator of the earth

"24 O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches."

I then reflect on these verses. Is it only by physical power that God created the heavens and the earth ? Massive as it would be the effort required to place the moon in orbit around the earth, for example. But God's Word tells us "by wisdom" he made what he created.

[ifinnegan]

“it is the only scientific discipline attacked by religious zealots who introduce foolish notions...”

Yet, you provide another example: “...if the Earth is only 6,000 years old...”

Geology is attacked just as much by young Earth proponents.

In fact, all sorts of sciences are “attacked” by pseudoscience.

It’s interesting that evolution is the only discipline that feels threatened and where the practitioners in the field are defensive and feel compelled to respond.

[boycott]

Please provide this study.

I hope you realize I wasn’t saying my link was referencing your post. I was just referencing that flies have been researched for over 100 years and evolutionists are further away from being able to make their claims using flies than when they started.

[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?

Very good Dr Lew, you've got the one argument that could possibly be employed ! (more than most have, unfortunately).

But, alas we must consider:

An essential part of hermeneutics is to observe patterns and context; what we see in Genesis is consistently a historical account, not poetic figures, metaphors, etc.

If we thus tell ourselves that Adam was some metaphor for a process of turning pond scum into a person through millions of genetic mutations over millions of years, our interpretation flies in the face of the presentation given in Genesis.

(see post #74 for more).

[Benito Cereno]

And why, pray tell, would you expect them to change? To what evolutionary advantage would such a change be put? Evolutionary change doesn’t simply happen in a vacuum, it happens in a real world where organisms compete with one another in an ecosystem and not all survive. What change would you expect in 6,000 generations of fruit flies born and living in a science lab?

[PieterCasparzen]

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.

Yes, the Bible is not a scientific text.

But the Bible does give us a historical account of Creation, along with many other historical accounts. The Book of Genesis is not loaded with imagery and metaphors, but it is consistently historical, as opposed to a book like the Song of Solomon, a very large, complex and incredibly beautiful poetic discourse on the relationship of Christ and his Church.

The book of Genesis even quite specifically gives several geneologies, lending even more weight to the idea that the book is largely factual, not allegorical. Of course, as is the case with much of the Old Testament - history documented in Genesis, as God caused it to unfold, certainly does have a a lot of rich meaning relating to the New Testament, prefiguring Christ, etc., making the entire Bible a perfectly unified expression. But that in no way can be taken to mean that Genesis historical accounts are not factually true. It simply means that in all of history God is glorified, and he is indeed the author of history.

[stormer]

Absolutely correct. The people they spoke to were teachers, not biologists. This demonstrates one of the fundamental flaws with the way we teach teachers - often times, they simply don’t know enough about the subject to adequately address students’ questions. The field that’s worse than biology is math. How many people do you know that hate/can’t do/don’t understand/fear even basic math? It’s because their teachers had the same problem when they went to school. I grew up in a small college town and was lucky enough to have high school math teachers with Masters and PhDs - not in education - in math. I learned math from people that understood and liked their subject, and it gave me the foundation to study science - specifically, biology.