Christian fundamentalists prevent teaching of evolution in US schools
Christian fundamentalists prevent teaching of evolution in US schools
NEW YORK John Frandsen, a retired zoologist, was at a dinner for teachers in Birmingham, Alabama, 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 Frandsen tells are more common.
In districts around the United States, 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 religious 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 John 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, and they are afraid to discuss the issue in public.
Frandsen, a 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 school 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," Frandsen said.
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.
[.....]
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, 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," Scott said.
"Data from various studies in various states over an extended period of time indicate that about one-third of American biology teachers support the teaching of creationism or 'intelligent design,"' Skoog said.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/02/02/healthscience/snevo.html
I didn't know that so many teachers were fundamentalist Christians. But I had a geology teacher in this little town in Texas that talked about the biblical creation of the earth, so I know what goes on in a lots of "out of the way" places in America. Maybe in big cities too?
Christian fundamentalists prevent teaching of evolution in US schools
NEW YORK John Frandsen, a retired zoologist, was at a dinner for teachers in Birmingham, Alabama, 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 Frandsen tells are more common.
In districts around the United States, 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 religious 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 John 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, and they are afraid to discuss the issue in public.
Frandsen, a 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 school 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," Frandsen said.
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.
[.....]
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, 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," Scott said.
"Data from various studies in various states over an extended period of time indicate that about one-third of American biology teachers support the teaching of creationism or 'intelligent design,"' Skoog said.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/02/02/healthscience/snevo.html
I didn't know that so many teachers were fundamentalist Christians. But I had a geology teacher in this little town in Texas that talked about the biblical creation of the earth, so I know what goes on in a lots of "out of the way" places in America. Maybe in big cities too?
