Teachers Afraid to Teach Evolution
There are some teachers out there, who aren't forbidden from teaching evolution, that have decided on their own not to teach it because it is too controversial. Or maybe they have decided that since they can't teach everything, they will leave that part out.
Dr. John Frandsen, a retired zoologist, was at a dinner for teachers in Birmingham, Ala., 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."
I think that's pretty kookie, because evolution is the main theory that all of biology is built on. I don't understand how you could teach how all the nice pretty animals and plants and flowers came about without that theory.
It's no wonder that American students are falling behind students in other countries in science. If we don't teach kids the prevailing scientific theories, then they are going to be stupid in science.
"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," Dr. Scott said.
And because of this whole not-teaching-evolution-thingy, other areas of science like physics and geology are being affected.
But several experts say scientists are feeling increasing pressure to
make their case, in part, Dr. Miller said, because scriptural literalists
are moving beyond evolution to challenge the teaching of geology and
physics on issues like the age of the earth and the origin of the universe.
"They have now decided the Big Bang has to be wrong," he said. "There are
now a lot of people who are insisting that that be called only a theory
without evidence and so on, and now the physicists are getting mad about
this."
And no one wants to make the physicists mad.
Dr. John Frandsen, a retired zoologist, was at a dinner for teachers in Birmingham, Ala., 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."
I think that's pretty kookie, because evolution is the main theory that all of biology is built on. I don't understand how you could teach how all the nice pretty animals and plants and flowers came about without that theory.
It's no wonder that American students are falling behind students in other countries in science. If we don't teach kids the prevailing scientific theories, then they are going to be stupid in science.
"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," Dr. Scott said.
And because of this whole not-teaching-evolution-thingy, other areas of science like physics and geology are being affected.
But several experts say scientists are feeling increasing pressure to
make their case, in part, Dr. Miller said, because scriptural literalists
are moving beyond evolution to challenge the teaching of geology and
physics on issues like the age of the earth and the origin of the universe.
"They have now decided the Big Bang has to be wrong," he said. "There are
now a lot of people who are insisting that that be called only a theory
without evidence and so on, and now the physicists are getting mad about
this."
And no one wants to make the physicists mad.
posted by cookie christine @ 2/01/2005
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