Today, the NYTimes released results of a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press indicating that a full 42% of the US population believes explicitly in the creationist statement “Life on Earth has existed in its present form since the beginning of time.” This lends a lot of support to proponents of teaching Creationism/Intelligent Design (ID) alongside evolution in schools.
The problem with that line of thinking is that what is taught in our science classes should be based on a “poll” of real scientists. Here’s what should be done: take the NRC’s (National Research Council) latest numbers on how many practicing biologists are in academia and industry. Doctors don’t count, astrophysicists don’t count. We need to survey the people who work with evolutionary principles nearly every day of their career. If the overwhelming majority of those polled (of course done randomly) say that Creationism should not be taught alongside Evolution, then it should not be. However, if even a small minority, something like 10-15% of those real scientists feel it should be taught, then go ahead and teach both theories.
I’m all for teaching controversy to students, however, high school science students have not yet learned the tools necessary to discern between two competing theories if they are presented equally. This is normally not a problem; if the scientific community does not agree on a theory, then students should not be expected to come down on one side or the other. However, in this case, THERE IS NOT DEBATE. Scientists agree (though I don’t have the poll numbers to prove this assertion), it’s the nonscientific public that does not.
Religious leaders do have a point about the way that Evolution is sold, particularly by vocal atheists such as Richard Dawkins. Evolution should not be taught to students as being the Origin of Life. Instead, it should be taught as the mechanism for new species (including humans) to arise, because in this statement there is no scientific controversy. Religion can still assert that God/gods created Life, and then provided the physical structure for human life to evolve. We, and thus all life, could still be imbued with some spiritual stuff at conception/birth, but there is no arguing with the fact that humans share genetic material and ancestral lineage with fruit flies and other such lowly creatures (Apes now appear to be our most noble of ancestors! But the Scopes Slime Trial doesn’t have quite the same ring to it).
The populace should not be given the authority to decide what theories are taught in their science classrooms. Local and state school boards should not even have the right to choose what is science is taught, because the idea of preparing students according to local idiosyncratic standards is ridiculous in an age where we compete globally for jobs. National standards for science instruction should be set, and those should be determined by a panel of true scientists that represent a random selection of the field. Religion and politics have to be removed as much as possible, or else our public schools will truly fail to prepare our students for their roles in a global, scientific society.
Update 2:41 PMAlong the same vein, the Association of Christian Schools International is suing the UC (University of California) system because of discrimination against students taught creationism and religious principles in the admissions process. This lawsuit followed the conversation that went something like: “Damn their high standards! I can’t believe that they don’t accept our unprepared religiously-trained students into their science programs!” Editor’s Note: The offending nature of this previous quote was unintentional and should hopefully be construed as suggesting that perhaps some of the religious schools that use blatantly religious science textbooks are producing unprepared students. Those who teach real science in their classrooms, if they are being discriminated against, should have something to complain to UC about, however.href=”http://www.technorati.com/tag/Education” rel=”tag”>Education, Polls, Religion
