Dancin' to the music of life
Posted on 01/29/2004 3:08:06 AM PST by Ben Chad
Revised curriculum plan outrages science teachers
By MARY MacDONALD The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia students could graduate from high school without learning much about evolution, and may never even hear the word uttered in class.
New middle and high school science standards proposed by state Schools Superintendent Kathy Cox strike references to "evolution" and replace them with the term "biological changes over time," a revision critics say will further weaken learning in a critical subject.
Outraged teachers already have told the state it is undercutting the science education of young Georgians.
"Just like any major issue people need to deal with, you need to know the facts," said David Bechler, head of the biology department at Valdosta State University. A member of the committee that worked on the biology standards, Bechler said he was stunned to learn that evolution was not in the final proposal.
"Whether you believe in creationism or not, evolution should be known and understood by the public," he argued.
Cox declined requests for an interview on the issue. A spokesman issued a statement Wednesday that said: "The discussion of evolution is an age-old debate and it is clear that there are those in Georgia who are passionate on both sides of the issue -- we want to hear from all of them."
Cox, a Republican elected to the state's top public school position in 2002, addressed the issue briefly in a public debate during the campaign. The candidates were asked about a school dispute in Cobb County over evolution and Bible-based teachings on creation.
Cox responded: "It was a good thing for parents and the community to stand up and say we want our children exposed to this [creationism] idea as well. . . . I'd leave the state out of it and I would make sure teachers were well prepared to deal with competing theories."
Gateway course
Biology is a gateway course to future studies of the life sciences. And scientists consider evolution the basis for biology, a scientific explanation for the gradual process that has resulted in the diversity of living things.
If the state does not require teachers to cover evolution thoroughly, only the most politically secure teachers will attempt to do so, said Wes McCoy, a 26-year biology teacher at North Cobb High School. Less experienced teachers will take their cue from the state requirements, he said.
"They're either going to tread very lightly or they're going to ignore it," McCoy said. "Students will be learning some of the components of evolution. They're going to be missing how that integrates with the rest of biology. They may not understand how evolution explains the antibiotic resistance in bacteria."
The state curriculum does not preclude an individual public school system from taking a deeper approach to evolution, or any other topic. And the proposed change would not require school systems to buy new textbooks that omit the word.
But Georgia's curriculum exam, the CRCT, will be rewritten to align with the new curriculum. And the state exam is the basis for federal evaluation, which encourages schools and teachers to focus on teaching the material that will be tested.
A year in the works
The revision of Georgia's curriculum began more than a year ago as an attempt to strengthen the performance of students by requiring greater depth on essential topics. The new curriculum will replace standards adopted in 1984 that have been criticized by many educators as shallow. The state Board of Education is expected to vote on the revised curriculum in May.
The Georgia Department of Education based its biology curriculum on national standards put forth by a respected source, the American Association for the Advancement of Science. But while the state copied most of the national standards, it deleted much of the section that covers the origin of living things.
A committee of science teachers, college professors and curriculum experts was involved in reviewing the proposal. The state did not specify why the references to evolution were removed, and by whom, even to educators involved in the process.
Terrie Kielborn, a middle school science teacher in Paulding County who was on the committee, recalled that Stephen Pruitt, the state's curriculum specialist for science, told the panel not to include the word evolution.
"We were pretty much told not to put it in there," Kielborn said. The rationale was community reaction, she said.
"When you say the word evolution, people automatically, whatever age they are, think of the man-monkey thing," Kielborn said.
Pruitt could not be reached Wednesday for comment.
Cox released the state's proposed new curriculum on Jan. 12 and invited comments on all subject areas for the next three months from parents, teachers and students. She described the new curriculum as world-class and said it provides clear direction to teachers for the first time on what will be expected of students.
Backlash a result
The biology revision was eagerly awaited by a strongly organized network of scientists, university professors and classroom teachers. Several teachers and professors say they are pleased the state adopted large sections of the national standards, which include a strengthened explanation of the nature of science, the function and structure of cells and genetics.
But the treatment of evolution prompted a backlash. More than 600 Georgians, including professors and teachers, by Wednesday had signed an online petition challenging the curriculum as misguided.
If Georgia approves the revised curriculum, the state will be among six that avoid the word "evolution" in science teaching, according to the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit organization that advocates for evolution instruction.
Many other states, including North Carolina and South Carolina, have adopted national standards that cover evolution in detail.
The word "evolution" itself is important because it is a scientific term, said Sarah Pallas, an associate professor of biology at Georgia State University. "Students need to know the language of science," she said. "They don't need to know euphemisms. It's just silly."
The proposed changes in the Georgia curriculum would leave students with tremendous gaps when they reach college, Pallas said.
"The students from other states always perform better in my classes, and that's a real indictment of the state educational system," the professor said. "North Carolina, another very conservative state, adopted all of the benchmarks. If they can do it in North Carolina, why can't Georgia do it?"
Debate over how and whether to teach evolution has divided communities and states for years.
In metro Atlanta, the Cobb County school system became the center of national attention in 2002 after it placed disclaimers about evolution in science textbooks and adopted a policy that could have allowed discussion of alternate views in science class.
The Cobb superintendent defused the dispute by issuing guidelines for teachers that told them to stick to the state curriculum.
Board of Education to hear evolution debate [New Mexico].
Down with Evolution! Creationists changing state educational standards.
7 School Board candidates would oppose teaching creationism .
School board gives nod to creationism, abstinence-only.
'Intelligent design' theory threatens science classrooms.
School Board Panel: Ohio Students Should Be Taught Evolution, Controversies That Surround It .
W->... Creationists never lack creativity, that's for sure. Now we have a guy who admits "transitionals" exist, but not really b/c they are such good "transitionals" that they must be the same species!?
I read it quite differently. He is saying that the macroevolutionists are taking specimens from the outer edges of a species normal physical distribution (that is, the tallest or shortest etc) and claiming that it really isn't the same species but that it is an intermediate species. Roughly akin to saying that people of less than 4'11" tall are a predecessor species to humans when in reality they are just on the short end of the normal height range for humans.
If evolution was true then the fossil record would contain at least once the entire chain of changes, that is, we'd be able to see specimens from each state that the species takes between species a and new species b.
Exactly. You got that dead on.
The "speculations" of Lyell may be summarized as follows: What look like lots of different sedimentary layers deposited at different times under different conditions were deposited at different times and different conditions. You can do relative dating as illustrated here.
If you believe that the geological column was formed by natural catastrophe, then it is evidence against macroevolution.
But it is already totally inconsistent with the evidence within the geologic column to assume that it is the result of a single natural catastrophe.
Some geologists have seen rock strata formed each way, it is impossible to tell which belief is scientifically correct.
Just for starters, if you find swamp plant life fossils in shale, that rock really is petrified swamp mud. Period.
*The fossil record: There is no clear intermediate links in the fossil record. The very few that macroevolutionists can produce are so similar to one of the two species they supposedly link, it is more scientifically sound to consider them a part of that species.
This is actually a fine statement of the creationist "bin" game. Whatever the facts, every fossil offered as transitional is lumped as "A whale! Just a whale!" "A bird! Just a bird!" "An ape! Just an ape!" Archaeopteryx is thus usually dismissed as "A bird! Just a bird!" despite this list of dinosaurian characters. No modern bird, not the Hoatzin, the ostrich, or anything else, comes close to being so reptilian. Similar ambiguities exist for Caudipteryx zoui, variously classed as a dinosaur or a bird depending upon what web site you're reading.
The bin game gets particularly funny when hominid fossils are the topic.
*Structural homology: The similar structures are not a result of inheritance from a common ancestor, because the similar structures are determined by quite different species.
This is so poorly written as to be little more than hand-waving. Evolution explains why a bat's wing bones look more like a tarsier's claws than a bird's wing bones. Creationism just shrugs.
*Molecular biology: There is no evolutionary patterns in the sequence of amino acids of common proteins.
Flat-out false! You can use such information as molecular clocks and the pattern of viral infection "scars" in DNA (their appearance and mutations) to build trees of relatedness which correspond far, far, far above the chance level with trees derived from morphological taxonomy. This points clearly to common descent. To invoke an intelligent designer, you basically have to invoke him as deliberately faking the appearance of a long evolutionary history.
Because we can't cover the curriculum and teach 'all theories'. As scientists, we make educated judgements about which theories have a basis in fact, and which are garbage. We do this in all fields, not just biology. That's our job. We don't teach the crackpot theories of Velikovsky in physics, we don't teach non-Cantorian mathematics, we don't teach cold fusion in chemistry. We don't pontificate on theology, and we wish biblical literalists would stay away from science.
They were out when I was a boy. I took high school biology in the 50s in Georgia. The teacher used to rail against evolution and atheists.
Er, you're not allowed to assume that different species have no common ancestor in order to prove that different species have no common ancestor.
Though this does seem to be a typical example of what creationists present as "logic".
Can you name a living organism that isn't 'of its own species'. 'Species' are human categorizations. Archaeopteryx lithographica is a species because we classed it as such. It's also a transitional form.
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