Posted on 05/03/2005 2:12:35 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Some science teachers say they're encountering fresh resistance to the topic of evolution - and it's coming from their students.
Nearly 30 years of teaching evolution in Kansas has taught Brad Williamson to expect resistance, but even this veteran of the trenches now has his work cut out for him when students raise their hands.
That's because critics of Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection are equipping families with books, DVDs, and a list of "10 questions to ask your biology teacher."
The intent is to plant seeds of doubt in the minds of students as to the veracity of Darwin's theory of evolution.
The result is a climate that makes biology class tougher to teach. Some teachers say class time is now wasted on questions that are not science-based. Others say the increasingly charged atmosphere has simply forced them to work harder to find ways to skirt controversy.
On Thursday, the Science Hearings Committee of the Kansas State Board of Education begins hearings to reopen questions on the teaching of evolution in state schools.
The Kansas board has a famously zigzag record with respect to evolution. In 1999, it acted to remove most references to evolution from the state's science standards. The next year, a new - and less conservative - board reaffirmed evolution as a key concept that Kansas students must learn.
Now, however, conservatives are in the majority on the board again and have raised the question of whether science classes in Kansas schools need to include more information about alternatives to Darwin's theory.
But those alternatives, some science teachers report, are already making their way into the classroom - by way of their students.
In a certain sense, stiff resistance on the part of some US students to the theory of evolution should come as no surprise.
Even after decades of debate, Americans remain deeply ambivalent about the notion that the theory of natural selection can explain creation and its genesis.
A Gallup poll late last year showed that only 28 percent of Americans accept the theory of evolution, while 48 percent adhere to creationism - the belief that an intelligent being is responsible for the creation of the earth and its inhabitants.
But if reluctance to accept evolution is not new, the ways in which students are resisting its teachings are changing.
"The argument was always in the past the monkey-ancestor deal," says Mr. Williamson, who teaches at Olathe East High School. "Today there are many more arguments that kids bring to class, a whole fleet of arguments, and they're all drawn out of the efforts by different groups, like the intelligent design [proponents]."
It creates an uncomfortable atmosphere in the classroom, Williamson says - one that he doesn't like. "I don't want to ever be in a confrontational mode with those kids ... I find it disheartening as a teacher."
Williamson and his Kansas colleagues aren't alone. An informal survey released in April from the National Science Teachers Association found that 31 percent of the 1,050 respondents said they feel pressure to include "creationism, intelligent design, or other nonscientific alternatives to evolution in their science classroom."
These findings confirm the experience of Gerry Wheeler, the group's executive director, who says that about half the teachers he talks to tell him they feel ideological pressure when they teach evolution.
And according to the survey, while 20 percent of the teachers say the pressure comes from parents, 22 percent say it comes primarily from students.
In this climate, science teachers say they must find new methods to defuse what has become a politically and emotionally charged atmosphere in the classroom. But in some cases doing so also means learning to handle well-organized efforts to raise doubts about Darwin's theory.
Darwin's detractors say their goal is more science, not less, in evolution discussions.
The Seattle-based Discovery Institute distributes a DVD, "Icons of Evolution," that encourages viewers to doubt Darwinian theory.
One example from related promotional literature: "Why don't textbooks discuss the 'Cambrian explosion,' in which all major animal groups appear together in the fossil record fully formed instead of branching from a common ancestor - thus contradicting the evolutionary tree of life?"
Such questions too often get routinely dismissed from the classroom, says senior fellow John West, adding that teachers who advance such questions can be rebuked - or worse.
"Teachers should not be pressured or intimidated," says Mr. West, "but what about all the teachers who are being intimidated and in some cases losing their jobs because they simply want to present a few scientific criticisms of Darwin's theory?"
But Mr. Wheeler says the criticisms West raises lack empirical evidence and don't belong in the science classroom.
"The questions scientists are wrestling with are not the same ones these people are claiming to be wrestling with," Wheeler says. "It's an effort to sabotage quality science education. There is a well-funded effort to get religion into the science classroom [through strategic questioning], and that's not fair to our students."
A troubled history Teaching that humans evolved by a process of natural selection has long stirred passionate debate, captured most famously in the Tennessee v. John Scopes trial of 1925.
Today, even as Kansas braces for another review of the question, parents in Dover, Pa., are suing their local school board for requiring last year that evolution be taught alongside the theory that humankind owes its origins to an "intelligent designer."
In this charged atmosphere, teachers who have experienced pressure are sometimes hesitant to discuss it for fear of stirring a local hornets' nest. One Oklahoma teacher, for instance, canceled his plans to be interviewed for this story, saying, "The school would like to avoid any media, good or bad, on such an emotionally charged subject."
Others believe they've learned how to successfully navigate units on evolution.
In the mountain town of Bancroft, Idaho (pop. 460), Ralph Peterson teaches all the science classes at North Gem High School. Most of his students are Mormons, as is he.
When teaching evolution at school, he says, he sticks to a clear but simple divide between religion and science. "I teach the limits of science," Mr. Peterson says. "Science does not discuss the existence of God because that's outside the realm of science." He says he gets virtually no resistance from his students when he approaches the topic this way.
In Skokie, Ill., Lisa Nimz faces a more religiously diverse classroom and a different kind of challenge. A teaching colleague, whom she respects and doesn't want to offend, is an evolution critic and is often in her classroom when the subject is taught.
In deference to her colleague's beliefs, she says she now introduces the topic of evolution with a disclaimer.
"I preface it with this idea, that I am not a spiritual provider and would never try to be," Ms. Nimz says. "And so I am trying not ... to feel any disrespect for their religion. And I think she feels that she can live with that."
A job that gets harder The path has been a rougher one for John Wachholz, a biology teacher at Salina (Kansas) High School Central. When evolution comes up, students tune out: "They'll put their heads on their desks and pretend they don't hear a word you say."
To show he's not an enemy of faith, he sometimes tells them he's a choir member and the son of a Lutheran pastor. But resistance is nevertheless getting stronger as he prepares to retire this spring.
"I see the same thing I saw five years ago, except now students think they're informed without having ever really read anything" on evolution or intelligent design, Mr. Wachholz says. "Because it's been discussed in the home and other places, they think they know, [and] they're more outspoken.... They'll say, 'I don't believe a word you're saying.' "
As teachers struggle to fend off strategic questions - which some believe are intended to cloak evolution in a cloud of doubt - critics of Darwin's theory sense an irony of history. In their view, those who once championed teacher John Scopes's right to question religious dogma are now unwilling to let a new set of established ideas be challenged.
"What you have is the Scopes trial turned on its head because you have school boards saying you can't say anything critical about Darwin," says Discovery Institute president Bruce Chapman on the "Icons of Evolution" DVD.
But to many teachers, "teaching the controversy" means letting ideologues manufacture controversy where there is none. And that, they say, could set a disastrous precedent in education.
"In some ways I think civilization is at stake because it's about how we view our world," Nimz says. The Salem Witch Trials of 1692, for example, were possible, she says, because evidence wasn't necessary to guide a course of action.
"When there's no empirical evidence, some very serious things can happen," she says. "If we can't look around at what is really there and try to put something logical and intelligent together from that without our fears getting in the way, then I think that we're doomed."
What some students are asking their biology teachers Critics of evolution are supplying students with prepared questions on such topics as:
• The origins of life. Why do textbooks claim that the 1953 Miller-Urey experiment shows how life's building blocks may have formed on Earth - when conditions on the early Earth were probably nothing like those used in the experiment, and the origin of life remains a mystery?
• Darwin's tree of life. Why don't textbooks discuss the "Cambrian explosion," in which all major animal groups appear together in the fossil record fully formed instead of branching from a common ancestor - thus contradicting the evolutionary tree of life?
• Vertebrate embryos. Why do textbooks use drawings of similarities in vertebrate embryos as evidence for common ancestry - even though biologists have known for over a century that vertebrate embryos are not most similar in their early stages, and the drawings are faked?
• The archaeopteryx. Why do textbooks portray this fossil as the missing link between dinosaurs and modern birds - even though modern birds are probably not descended from it, and its supposed ancestors do not appear until millions of years after it?
• Peppered moths. Why do textbooks use pictures of peppered moths camouflaged on tree trunks as evidence for natural selection - when biologists have known since the 1980s that the moths don't normally rest on tree trunks, and all the pictures have been staged?
• Darwin's finches. Why do textbooks claim that beak changes in Galapagos finches during a severe drought can explain the origin of species by natural selection - even though the changes were reversed after the drought ended, and no net evolution occurred?
• Mutant fruit flies. Why do textbooks use fruit flies with an extra pair of wings as evidence that DNA mutations can supply raw materials for evolution - even though the extra wings have no muscles and these disabled mutants cannot survive outside the laboratory?
• Human origins. Why are artists' drawings of apelike humans used to justify materialistic claims that we are just animals and our existence is a mere accident - when fossil experts cannot even agree on who our supposed ancestors were or what they looked like?
• Evolution as a fact. Why are students told that Darwin's theory of evolution is a scientific fact - even though many of its claims are based on misrepresentations of the facts?
Source: Discovery Institute
Very mature of you. Unfortunately, the Real Patrick Henry isn't around to disclaim being associated with you. :-)
Canis is the family, not the species.
Yes, they are all birds (class: aves). You said earlier that this was a serious question. Could you share what you're getting at?
I'm guessing that you're pointing out that they are the same 'kind'? If this is going to be your point, how many birds would Noah have taken on the ark?
Yes, they are all birds and I don't think anyone suggested otherwise. So I don't really understand the point of your question.
What is the difference between family and species, biologically?
I'm not sure - I think the Bible says two of each kind but I could be wrong.
That birds reproduce other birds, that's all.
What was your original point of your question though (they are all still birds) - I don't want to go off on an unwarranted tangent if I guessed it wrong.
According to the story, ravens and doves were both on the ark - maybe even more birds. Although all birds, they were still considered different "kinds".
Not sure if this is where you are going with this, so disregard if it's not.
Yes, but not the same speices of birds. Do you consider all birds to be the same species? If so, that violates your interbreeding criterion. Please explain why you think that being birds matters in this discussion.
Oh my gosh. And eukaryotes reproduce eukaryotes, vertebrates reproduce vertebrates, mammals reproduce mammals, etc.
Evolution actually predicts a nested hierarchy.
Good. I think I understand better where you are coming from.
I have to head for work soon, but let me try to clarify something that may have been a big hole in how you were taught about evolution.
You have probably learned about the "kingdoms" of living things (3, 5,7 or more depending on who taught you and when). You are also aware of larger subgroups like insects, mammals etc. and within those groups. sub-groups like canines, butterflies and so on.
Somehow it seems that in presenting evolution to you, it was done in such a way that is seemed as if a cat could evolve into, say, a squirrel. That can't be expected to happen. All a cat can do is change (over millions of years) thusly: a short tailed mutation becomes predominant for cats living in shrubby areas. The shrubs are replaced by trees. Among the short tailed cats another mutation shows up that makes it easier to climb down trees as well as up. This time it's the spacing between the toes so they get a better grip.
Still some kind of cat, right? Short tail and widespread toes, but cattish.
More millions of years. Ice Age. Thick body fat layer mutants survive better (note, the thick body fat mutant would have been deleterious and died off earlier, only now does it preferentially survive.). So now it's rotund, wide toed and short tailed.
Ice melts. trees drown in meltoff and a lake develops. The successful mutations this time lead to webbed feet. Are we sure this is still some kind of cat?
It is still a mammal, though.
It's never going to become a cow or a butterfly, but, wave the time wand again and maybe the hair will kink up and form nodules that the offspring can eat so they can be nurtured past lactating time of the mother. We are now moving away from mammals. And this critter is sure not breeding with cats that stayed cats.
Normally I try to prune these, but my time is short and posting will be spotty today.
If this is at all helpful in seeing how the changes happen...both limitations and potential, I'll be happy to elaborate or clarify...
The theologic position I come from is that God was not writing a biology textbook in Genesis.
BTW, I mistyped, I meant to say that Canis is the GENUS, not the FAMILY.
To answer your question, Genus is grouping of similar species that share common characteristics. That is a very simplistic answer and there are some criteria in place to group species into genus but it's not exact.
It is a little more exact than species since it deals with larger population groups. Like in the previous example, its a judgment call if wolves and domestic dogs are of the same species, but it's hard to see that they are closely related enough to certainly be part of the same genus.
Just making sure I understood correctly regarding species, though I'm still not sure I do. Anyway, I find it strange that different breed dogs (and other animals) can reproduce with each other but it seems like birds can't/don't. For example, can a blue jay and cardinal reproduce? Or do they just choose not to? I'd never really given it any thought until this thread. And I really don't mean to take up your time - but I am curious. Thanks.
Not sure I understand the point you are attempting to make, if indeed you are trying to make one.
Sorry - I know you're busy so just whenever you get a chance. What do you think causes physical mutations? Or why are there mutations? Obviously for continued survival - I realize that - but what/how does it happen? And why are some species/kinds/whatever able to do it and others not? Thanks.
I have to leave in a few minutes but I will explain it later.
I wouldn't be for the first time. If you believe I'm saying one thing and doing another don't see how that is anything other than an accusation of hypocrisy.
It is intellectually incoherent to talk about "prebiotic evolution" or to ask how the first biopolymers could have evolved and then say that evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life.
I have to go back to the definition of evolution. The modern synthesis theory is comprised of Darwin's theory of natural selection, Mendel's theory of inheritance, and theories of molecular biology that have come about since the description of the DNA molecule by Watson, Crick, and others. The word evolution in this context is defined as the rate of change in patterns of genes that occur in populations of organisms over time. As with the usage of the word "theory" and the idea that mankind "evolved from monkeys," there is a disconnect between the common usage of the term and the technical definition. That's why when I mean the theory of evolution I often go to the trouble to type out theory of evolution or the modern synthesis theory of evolution. The connotation of "evolution" means change over time, and the denotation of the theory of evolution means the change over time of patterns of genes in populations of organisms. To further confuse things, many non-living systems are also said to evolve.
Investigating a naturalistic origin for life as we know it is not the same thing as the study of how life forms change over time. It no doubt a related question in the minds of many biologists. It is an offshoot of the study of biology and is related to both molecular biology and inorganic chemisty as well as the study of astronomy and the early solar system. It is an interesting field, and one that is worthy of attention. However, I am standing fast here because hypotheses of the origin of life and the theory of evolution are two different things. Evolutionary theory does not depend on hypothesis of naturalist origins in order to make predictions.
Because the Talk.Origins archive devotes a section to abiogenesis, and because biology textbooks make reference to Miller's experiments do not make hypotheses of origins part of evolutionary theory. Nor is the name of a Usenet newsgroup evidence that abiogenesis is really part of Darwin's theory. Without going into some boring Internet history, the "talk" heirarchy is the place where unmoderated, or lightly moderated discussions on controversial topics occured. The other top level groups, such as sci and soc were more more strictly moderated, and were considered places for more scholarly discussion. Talk.origins was a newsgroup where both evolutionists and creationists could have the very same discussion we are having now. Eerily the same, sometimes, as anyone who has read talk.origins will attest. However, the name of chat channel and a website does not mean that hypotheses of the origin of life are necessarily part of evolutionary theory.
To a philosophical naturalist, a naturalistic accounting of the origin of life is a logical necessity. This intellectual bias...
This is another way of saying that to an atheist, an atheistic genesis is necessary. Thus the bias towards atheism people accuse of evolutionists and evolutionary theory. To this I say science only deals with the natural. The supernatural lies outside the realm of scientific investigation. It is not that there is a bias toward atheism. It is simply that naturalism is the limit. Science is a tool for describing the physical world in concrete terms. However, to include the supernatural would mean it is no long science but, at best metaphysics, and at worst pseudo-science like ghostbusting. However, it is wrong to suggest that all scientists are without faith and are necessarily atheistic. Science is neutral on the question of faith and rightfully so. Scientists of different faiths may work on questions of biological evolution. This neutrality is frequently condemned as atheism, yet it is a vital part of scientific investigation. It is not that science is biased towards atheism, only the limit of scientific inquiry is bounded by the physical world.
Guys, if you get a chance, could you address posts 455 and 457. )I think these are serious questions.)
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