Why should evolution be taught in public schools? (Another class project type topic)

Evolution should be taught in biology class because it is the cornerstone to understanding biology.In a presentation I attended by Dr. Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), she mentioned a common experience she had the intro anthropology class she taught. In college, you are required to take a certain number of classes from certain area in order to graduate: eg, English, history, foreign languages, general sciences. So every semester she would have senior biology majors in her class, where they expected to meet that requirement with an "easy A". At that school, the biology department didn't teach evolution, but she did. Part-way through the semester, every single semester, she would see on the face of every one of those biology students their sudden realization of "so that's why!". In their four years of studying biology, they had learned a mountain of disassociated facts, but it wasn't until they had finally learned something about evolution that they could see how all those formerly diassociated facts fit together into a coherent view.There are basically two ways to teach science:1. You can present a lot of disassociated facts that the students have to memorize, even though none of it makes any sense to them. My nephew learned this way and he found it very boring, he learned nothing, and he came out of it hating science.or2. You can show how everything fits together. Both I and my sons learned this way and we find science very interesting and accessible.Evolution shows how everything in biology fits together.PS
Here's a freebie for your paper. However, I strongly recommend that you go to the library and look it up. A more complete quote or more quotes from elsewhere in the article should earn you more points.Theodosius Dobzhansky, "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution", American Biology Teacher 35:125-129 (March 1973), p. 129:

quote:

---

Seen in the light of evolution, biology is, perhaps, intellectually the most satisfying and inspiring science. Without that light, it becomes a pile of sundry facts -- some of them interesting or curious, but making no meaningful picture as a whole.

---

Edited by dwise1, : added quote

---

{When you search for God, y}ou can't go to the people who believe already. They've made up their minds and want to convince you of their own personal heresy.
("The Jehovah Contract", AKA "Der Jehova-Vertrag", by Viktor Koman, 1984)Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world.
(from filk song "Word of God" by Dr. Catherine Faber, No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/WORDGOD.HTML)Of course, if Dr. Mortimer's surmise should be correct and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature, there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one.
(Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles)Gentry's case depends upon his halos remaining a mystery. Once a naturalistic explanation is discovered, his claim of a supernatural origin is washed up. So he will not give aid or support to suggestions that might resolve the mystery. Science works toward an increase in knowledge; creationism depends upon a lack of it. Science promotes the open-ended search; creationism supports giving up and looking no further. It is clear which method Gentry advocates.
("Gentry's Tiny Mystery -- Unsupported by Geology" by J. Richard Wakefield, Creation/Evolution Issue XXII, Winter 1987-1988, pp 31-32)

You only need one reason. Evolution is one of a number of important scientific theories, and the important theories of science are what we teach in science class.--Percy

Ringo: actually no I go to a public school. We have just recently been debating whether or not evolution should be taught in schools. Many of us, the students, feel that if one theory is going to be taught then all the theories should be taught. It seems as if the schools are trying to push one idea into our head and neglecting the other theories.

The problem is that there are no theories to teach other than the theory of evolution. Neither creationism nor ID are theories in the scientific sense. They are simply claims made without evidence. Either they are so vague that they make no predictions (and so cannot be tested), or where they do make predictions, the predictions are not observed (and so they fail the tests).The reason that evolution is taught in school is because it is a well-tested, well-verified scientific theory. It makes testable claims, and those claims have been verified. Very few other scientific theories have been as well verified as the theory of evolution. Evolution is an important part of biology -- as they say, nothing in biology makes sense without evolution. Evolution has been verified as well as any scientific theory can be. The only reason to avoid teaching evolution is that it offends a few people because of their religious beliefs, but, because of the principle of separation of church and state in the U.S., we cannot allow a minority to determine curriculum for religious reasons.The reason that creationism/ID is not taught in public school is that they either make testable claims that are not verified, or they make claims that cannot be tested. The only reason that anyone has to accept creationism or ID is because of religiously held beliefs. These cannot be taught in the public schools because in the U.S. we cannot teach religious beliefs as if they were verified scientific fact.Added by edit:Hey, Dani! The second paragraph answers the original question that you asked in the OP! How 'bout that!Edited by Chiroptera, : No reason given.

---

If it's truly good and powerful, it deserves to engender a thousand misunderstandings. -- Ben Ratcliffe

Then you're also pushing for the flat-earth "theory" to be taught? And the "theory" that diseases are caused by evil spirits?You can make a case for teaching why superstition isn't science.But the question you raised in the OP was whether evolution should be taught, not whether alternatives should be taught.

---

Disclaimer: The above statement is without a doubt, the most LUDICROUS, IDIOTIC AND PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WILLFUL STUPIDITY, THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN OR HEARD.

To clarify that a bit for the OP -- in part because at first I had not quite read it right myself -- here is a quote from an article, "Science at the Bar- Causes for Concern", by Larry Laudan, a philosopher of science. That article criticized some statements made by Judge Overton in his decision on McLean v. Arkansas (1982) {McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education}, the famous creationism trial that exposed "creation science" to actually be religious, contrary to the creationists' claims. Both creationists and "intelligent design" leader Phillip Johnson have misquoted this article to support their position.

quote:

---

At various key points in the Opinion, Creationism is charged with being untestable, dogmatic (and thus non-tentative), and unfalsifiable. All three charges are of dubious merit. For instance, to make the interlinked claims that Creationism is neither falsifiable nor testable is to assert that Creationism makes no empirical assertions whatever. This is surely false. Creationists make a wide range of testable assertions about empirical matters of fact. Thus, as Judge Overton himself grants (apparently without seeing its implications), the creationists say that the earth is of very recent origin (say 6,000 to 20,000 years old); they argue that most of the geological features of the earth's surface are diluvial in character (i.e., products of the postulated worldwide Noachian deluge); they are committed to a large number of factual historical claims with which the Old Testament is replete; they assert the limited variability of species. They are committed to the view that, since animals and man were created at the same time, the human fossil record must be paleontologically co-extensive with the record of lower animals. It is fair to say that no one has shown how to reconcile such claims with the available evidence- evidence which speaks persuasively to a long earth history, among other things.

​

In brief, these claims are testable, they have been tested, and they have failed those tests.
(my emphasis)

---

Bibliography:
"Science at the Bar- Causes for Concern" by Larry Laudan, from Science, Technology and Human Values 7, no. 41 (1982):16-19, reprinted on pages 351-355 of Michael Ruse's book, But Is It Science.My own copy of the article is a xerox copy that Duane Gish had sent me. Unfortuately, parts of where it came from were badly garbled and/or had fallen off the edge of the page:

quote:

---

"Science at the Bar: Causes for Concern", by Larry Laudan,Professor of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, as it had appeared in Appendix B of "Evolution, ??????? of Life," by Jeffrie G. Murphy of A??. State Univ, 1982, Rowman & Littlefield, Totowa, NJ

---

Edited by dwise1, : added emphasis

---

{When you search for God, y}ou can't go to the people who believe already. They've made up their minds and want to convince you of their own personal heresy.
("The Jehovah Contract", AKA "Der Jehova-Vertrag", by Viktor Koman, 1984)Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world.
(from filk song "Word of God" by Dr. Catherine Faber, No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/WORDGOD.HTML)Of course, if Dr. Mortimer's surmise should be correct and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature, there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one.
(Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles)Gentry's case depends upon his halos remaining a mystery. Once a naturalistic explanation is discovered, his claim of a supernatural origin is washed up. So he will not give aid or support to suggestions that might resolve the mystery. Science works toward an increase in knowledge; creationism depends upon a lack of it. Science promotes the open-ended search; creationism supports giving up and looking no further. It is clear which method Gentry advocates.
("Gentry's Tiny Mystery -- Unsupported by Geology" by J. Richard Wakefield, Creation/Evolution Issue XXII, Winter 1987-1988, pp 31-32)

I've always had a different interpretation of that part of the Overton decision. I thought he called creationism untestable because there were no tests that creationism could fail that would cause its adherents to reject it. In other words, although it makes empirical claims that can be tested, in the eyes of creationists its impossible for any tests of these claims to fail, and therefore regardless of the results of any test, the claims are still considered true.--Percy

Stop and think about the purpose of science education. I don't have handy my copy of the California Framework for science education, but it explicitly stated that the purpose of education is not to compell the students to believe something. Rather, the purpose is for the students to understand the subject matter being taught. In other words, the schools are presenting ideas to you so that you will know what those ideas are and so that you will understand them. Again, knowledge and understanding, not conversion.For example, when I went through the US Air Force NCO Academy, we had to study and learn communism. Did that mean that the Air Force was trying to turn us into communists? No, of course not! It meant that the Air Force wanted us to know more about our enemies.BTW, in instances where creationism have been taught in the public schools, their materials explicitly sought to compell belief in the students, frequently requiring the students to choose between the Creator and "godless evolution". That conflicts directly with the purpose of education. In comparison, how often do instructional material on evolution instruct the student to choose between God and evolution?Centuries ago, a great Chinese general, Sun Tzu, wrote a treatise on military strategy which we call The Art of War. From the third scroll, "Offensive Strategy", we have the best known exerpt:

quote:

---

31. Therefore I say: "Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.
32. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal.
33. If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril."
(Sun Tzu The Art of War, translation by Samuel B. Griffith, Oxford University Press, 1963)

---

Now, what you had expressed is basic creationist "balanced treatment" which the 1981 Arkansas and Lousiana laws required: if evolution is taught, then creationism must also be taught, but if evolution is not taught then creationism does not need to be. The purpose of such "balanced treatment" is to return to the 40-year period from the mid-1920's to the end of the 1960's when "monkey laws" barred the teaching of evolution. It's not about fairness nor academic freedom, but rather, as Paul Ellwanger, the author of the model law that both laws were based on, wrote to a supporter:

quote:

---

... -- the idea of killing evolution instead of playing these debating games that we've been playing for nigh over a decade already.

---

But, Sun Tzu has taught us that creationists are committing a grave mistake. They don't want their kids to learn about evolution. The consider evolution their enemy and they want to fight against evolution and they want their children to also join that fight, and yet at the same time they want everybody to be ignorant of evolution. They don't want to know their enemy. But shouldn't they want to learn everything they possibly can about their enemy? Couple that problem with the fact that they also do not know themselves (eg, they don't realize that their claims are utterly and ludicrously false, they believe that they have an incredible amount of evidence for creation when in fact they have no evidence at all) and they are in the situation Sun Tzu described in paragraph 33, they "are certain in every battle to be in peril."So here's another reason why evolution should be taught in public schools, especially to the creationist kids: so that every student will know what evolution is. Creationists especially should learn this so that when they oppose evolution, then they will know what they are opposing and will conduct their anti-evolution campaigns accordingly. Up to now, all the creationists have been attacking are strawman caricatures of evolution and of science, lies constructed out of their own misconceptions about science. If only they were to learn what evolution really is, then they could direct their attention to the real thing and, hopefully, the quality of their claims would improve (hopeless idealist that I am).Of course, creationists' desire to keep everybody ignorant of evolution is all too understandable. Because their claims are such hogwash that anybody at all knowledgeable in science and evolution could see through in an instant, the only way they can make those claims work is if they could ensure that nobody knows the truth. It's easily to fool someone who's ignorant about what you're selling than someone who is knowledgeable.PS
Go here for a report on a "balanced treatment" class in California: No webpage found at provided URL: http://members.aol.com/dwise1/cre_ev/Livermore.html
The case was featured in a PBS program in 1981, for which I have the transcript. In that class, students were repeatedly urged to decide between God and evolution; since it was made clear that choosing evolution was the same as choosing atheism (which is a lie, BTW) some of the students chose atheism because, as one of them had put it, creation was so ridiculous. These were fifth- and sixth-grade elementary students.

quote:

---

There are hundreds of newspaper clippings on every aspect of the Livermore affair. The following indicates the feelings of some of the parents: The situation in Livermore developed slowly over a period of three years, according to Finger. During that time, Finger says, a sixth grade teacher, Ray Baird, ordered about $700 of materials, primarily from the Institute for Creation Research and the Creation Science Research Center, and was using the material to teach a unit on creation/evolution. The money came from the state grants to California school districts to be used for materials for gifted children.

​

Finger's son Eric took the unit in 1979. On the first page of Eric's notes for the class is a statement of the Genesis account of creation. According to Eric, his teacher emphasized the mutual exclusiveness of the two models. "He said that either both were wrong, or one, but not both, could be right," Eric says.

​

Eric says that at the end of the unit, the teacher conducted an anonymous vote in which the students had to choose between evolution and creationism. According to Eric, six students out of a class of about 30 voted for evolution; the rest voted for creationism. The teacher presented a tally of the votes to the class.

​

"Most of those for evolution were among the gifted students," Eric says, who is himself among the gifted students. "I thought a lot of the others were maybe influenced by how Mr. Baird presented it. I don't know if that's true, but it could be."

​

Eric and the rest of the gifted students were given extra assignments in the class: They were required to view filmstrips over again in the library.

​

Those filmstrips were blatantly religious, according to Sheila Karlson, another of the mothers. "One of them started out by saying, and this is almost a direct quotation, that 'Either the Bible is true or evolution is true. You must make a decision.' It goes on from there to give this very distorted picture of evolution and this glowing picture of creation.

​

. . .

​

The protesting parents give a different picture. They say Baird's course was slanted to creationism and his presentation of the issue conformed to the ICR's teachings, in particular its doctrine that the choice between creationism and evolution is a choice between God and atheism. The parents also contend that Baird was fully aware of the content of the materials, some of which had been in his classroom since last year. (The Independent, 7 January 1981)

​

The point overlooked by both Baird and parents is that these materials or their equivalents from the ICR are the only ones he could have used. They are designed and published for schools and without them there would have been no course. He would have been doing no more than standing up in the front of the class voicing his own opinion.

​

There is more than a little doubt that Baird gave equal time to evolution and creationism.

​

"I think it's true he gave more time to evolution, says one parent. "He spent 40% of the time telling the kids why creationism is good and the other 60% telling them why evolution is bad."

​

Another parent, whose child observed Baird teaching this subject three years ago, relates that while Baird succeeded in winning some converts to the creationist view, other students, including her own child, were so appalled that they completely rejected religion in their own lives. According to this mother, all the teacher really accomplished was to polarize the class into two camps, the believers and the nonbelievers. (The Independent, 7 January 1981)

​

One of the mothers writes:

quote:

---

The most dangerous information to the scientific creationists was the fact that the gifted students could see how bad the science was and that they were voting evolutionism which was, in the context of the course, the same as voting atheism. Some of the gifted students voted evolutionism because they could see the fallacy of the either-or approach. Some actually, in anger, did give up religious belief. (Finger, 1988)

---

---

And that is from a real-world case of an "equal-time" "balanced-treatment" creationist class. That was only a small portion of the web page, which is an entire chapter from a book.Edited by dwise1, : added paragraph at endEdited by dwise1, : PS

---

{When you search for God, y}ou can't go to the people who believe already. They've made up their minds and want to convince you of their own personal heresy.
("The Jehovah Contract", AKA "Der Jehova-Vertrag", by Viktor Koman, 1984)Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world.
(from filk song "Word of God" by Dr. Catherine Faber, No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/WORDGOD.HTML)Of course, if Dr. Mortimer's surmise should be correct and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature, there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one.
(Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles)Gentry's case depends upon his halos remaining a mystery. Once a naturalistic explanation is discovered, his claim of a supernatural origin is washed up. So he will not give aid or support to suggestions that might resolve the mystery. Science works toward an increase in knowledge; creationism depends upon a lack of it. Science promotes the open-ended search; creationism supports giving up and looking no further. It is clear which method Gentry advocates.
("Gentry's Tiny Mystery -- Unsupported by Geology" by J. Richard Wakefield, Creation/Evolution Issue XXII, Winter 1987-1988, pp 31-32)

That would be great if there were other theories. The facts are that you can spend a good part of your career learning the material already available for something like the Theory of Evolution. It's pretty well supported.Now from a students perspective I can see your point, it is certainly a lot easier to memorize the "GodDidIt" mantra then to actually have to learn material, often pretty complex material. That is because, despite what folk may have told you, there are no other scientific theories on evolution.

---

Immigration has been a problem Since 1607!

Dani, there are no other scientific theories out there competing with evolution. I'm a PhD holding professional scientist who works with evolution on a daily basis. There is NO controversy within science regarding evolution. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying or is so ignorant about the subject that their opinion isn't valid. There are no other theories that qualify as science. Are there a few scientists out there who don't believe evolution? Yes. There are a few scientists out there who think the world is flat too.

I'm going to have to echo Ringo's response, so I'll try to add something in the repetition.There are many theories out there on every subject you can study. What gets taught in science classes (or any class for that matter) are the most well-developed theories, with the most evidence to date, holding the most practical value.In Chemistry we are not teaching phlogiston theory anymore. In Physics, we are not teaching about the ether, or that light is only waves, or that Newtonian physics is the only mechanical theory. In Astronomy we no longer teach that the sun goes around the Earth or that the sky is just a dome with holes punched in it.These were all theories. They have gone away in time. There are very good reasons they have, and it is a waste of class time (at an elementary level) to go over them all. Science lives on a mountain of dead theories.You have to ask yourself why you are being pushed to ask for an exception to one theory within Biology. Isn't it suggestive, if they won't accept you discussing any other theories in other classes, like the sun going around the Earth for instance?One theory I haven't mentioned yet is that of the age of the earth, within Geology. It is currently theorized to be old (OE), as opposed to that assumed in creation stories which is young (YE). Those scientists which determined OE to be the best scientific theory were not setting out to debunk or ignore YE. At the time they believed that to be true. Only the evidence kept working against that theory and suggested OE. Eventually they had to change.It was that theory, OE, which set the stage for evolutionary theory to take hold. That gave its mechanisms an explanatory plausibility. Likewise biologists did not set out to debunk creationism. From what I understand they were devout to some extent. The point is that evidence from differing scientific fields converged to make evolutionary theory the powerhouse that it is.And its utility has only continued and been reinforced.Why then is it of any value to teach the previous theories? Any of them? Particularly at your level?

---

h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard

Okay so I see where all of you guys are coming from. I understand that evolution is the most widely accepted theory and that it is the most relevant one for a science course. Thus being the reason for it being taught in biology courses. However, what about the other side of the arguement: are there any valid reasons as to why evolution should not be taught in schools? Aside from the "violating freedom of relgion," reason.

No.

---

Immigration has been a problem Since 1607!

If the truth offends your religion, that's not a "violation" of freedom.

---

Disclaimer: The above statement is without a doubt, the most LUDICROUS, IDIOTIC AND PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WILLFUL STUPIDITY, THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN OR HEARD.

Read my other responses for the reasons behind this response.No, there is no reason to not teach evolution.It is a major scientific idea. As such, it must be taught in science. There is no reason for arbitrarily choosing to keep the students in ignorance.It is the cornerstone of biology, which ties everything together. Without it, how can you understand biology?The fact that some students' religious beliefs cause them to reject evolution, that is not an issue. They are not going to be required to accept evolution, only to know it and understand it. Just as in history class you would be required to know and understand feudalism, but most certainly not be required to practice it (class-room exercises notwithstanding).And, as I have pointed out, it is especially important for the anti-evolution students to learn evolution. So that when they go on the attack against it, they will at least have some idea of what it is.PS
And, the only reason to remove evolution from the science curriculum would be to comply with the creationist agenda of "killing evolution instead of playing these debating games that we've been playing for nigh over a decade already." Edited by dwise1, : PS

---

{When you search for God, y}ou can't go to the people who believe already. They've made up their minds and want to convince you of their own personal heresy.
("The Jehovah Contract", AKA "Der Jehova-Vertrag", by Viktor Koman, 1984)Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world.
(from filk song "Word of God" by Dr. Catherine Faber, No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/WORDGOD.HTML)Of course, if Dr. Mortimer's surmise should be correct and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature, there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one.
(Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles)Gentry's case depends upon his halos remaining a mystery. Once a naturalistic explanation is discovered, his claim of a supernatural origin is washed up. So he will not give aid or support to suggestions that might resolve the mystery. Science works toward an increase in knowledge; creationism depends upon a lack of it. Science promotes the open-ended search; creationism supports giving up and looking no further. It is clear which method Gentry advocates.
("Gentry's Tiny Mystery -- Unsupported by Geology" by J. Richard Wakefield, Creation/Evolution Issue XXII, Winter 1987-1988, pp 31-32)