Evolution Must Be Taught in Public Schools

[Freddy]

The National Academy of Sciences has released a new book advocating the teaching of Evolution in science courses in US schools and not the non-science ideas of Creationism and Intelligent Design. More than 60% of Republicans do not believe in Evolution, while about 60% of Democrats and Independents do not believe in Creationism.

 

Science and Society

[Eclogite]

In recognition of the importance of practical work in any good science education perhaps the NAS could also provide buckets of sand for those individuals who do not wish to read the booklet. :)

[REASON]

Here's another important reason why we should stay focused on promoting the teaching of evolution:

 

The persistent intrusion of those promoting ID.

 

Spectator Article - Is Darwin Losing the Battle With God?

[HydrogenBond]

I believe in evolution but the proof of the theory has conceptual problems. This does not discount the theory but makes it a theory and not proof. Let me explain this subtle problem.

 

The data we collect for evolution is discontinuous data. Many of the early life forms appeared so long ago there is no practical way to get every data point. Here is the analogy. Say you had a child. At the day they were born and every day until they reached 18 years old you made an entry in a journal. That would be the entire data set. What we have is analogous to asking someone to randomly pick maybe 500 out of the 7000+ pages and using only that data, explain why the child is like he is at 18 years old.

 

Obviously the child progressed or evolved, but if certain critical pages are missing in the analysis, the conclusions could be out of touch with reality. For example, say at 13 years and 200 days, he was in a car wreck with his mother. This one event could alter his path for many years. If it was not included in the data sampling, one may assume it is genetic.

 

All theories with initial limited data appear like they correlate. But as soon as more data appears, the theories are usually revived. But with evolution, it is sort of carved into stone, like religion, even with most of the data is not there. It is good to teach it, but honesty would have a data addendum. It could go something like this "Based on the data available evolution is the best theory that fits all this data. However, since we have about 2% of the data, this theory may be subject to revision as new data appears".

 

If you look at it logically, the most likely data will reflect the most plentiful life forms. If there are a million units of one type it is a million times more likely we will find fossils of this unit, than if there was only one. So what the data is, are big bulk items, which seen to appear discontinuous. If we had ten times as much data, then species with only 100,000 units would also be more likely to be found. Are these small perturbations or mutant leaps? The answer to that question affects the fundamentals of evolution. Without this extra data, it is easy to assume only one of the answers.

[Lemon]

Living in Bible thumping Alaska, I'm always amazed at peoples ignorance when it comes to evolution. I don't understand how they can believe that Jonah lived in a whale, and then completely deny that evolution is even possible.

 

 

Evolution won't be taught a lot of areas, until there is strong leadership advocating that it is possible, right now religious zealots picket on the platform of hositility with science, perhaps if there was leadership talking about how maybe the two can coexist, there would be steps moved to allow evolution in schools.

[modest]

What kind of science teachers are we hiring when we have to tell them to teach evolution and not intelligent design? This seems like one symptom of a much larger problem - we are obviously hiring some less-than-average science teachers.

 

- modest

[REASON]

What kind of science teachers are we hiring when we have to tell them to teach evolution and not intelligent design? This seems like one symptom of a much larger problem - we are obviously hiring some less-than-average science teachers.

 

- modest

 

The real question may be: What is the motivation of school administrators when hiring or firing science teachers?

[Dracontes]

Hear, hear! :D It's just a pity the book isn't actually freely available as *.pdf. There's just a measly 8-page brochure...

 

The data we collect for evolution is discontinuous data. Many of the early life forms appeared so long ago there is no practical way to get every data point. Here is the analogy. Say you had a child. At the day they were born and every day until they reached 18 years old you made an entry in a journal. That would be the entire data set. What we have is analogous to asking someone to randomly pick maybe 500 out of the 7000+ pages and using only that data, explain why the child is like he is at 18 years old.

 

Obviously the child progressed or evolved, but if certain critical pages are missing in the analysis, the conclusions could be out of touch with reality. For example, say at 13 years and 200 days, he was in a car wreck with his mother. This one event could alter his path for many years. If it was not included in the data sampling, one may assume it is genetic.

 

Not that I entirely disagree with you but, usually, with the help of statistic methods, one does not need all data points to construct an informed model, and there is some economy of effort in not looking for all data points, obviously.

Your life journal analogy would be more apt if the parent would reffer previous pertinent important events in a succinct way as if to make each journal entry more or less self-sufficient. So selecting about 1000 pages would make good odds for finding a reference to the car crash :D

That's what happens with evolution, descent with modification, as populations' genetic pools change with time but carry with them the important events of their path as morphological or biochemical limitations.

 

The Tiktaalik case as presented in the brochure linked to at the end of the article linked above is a good example of the predictive abilities of current evolutionary models for basal tetrapod(omorph) evolution. True, it's just models, but it seems now they're pretty robust.

[Freddy]

The problem is not with science teachers. It is the state and local school boards located in areas where ignorance abounds. Many are trying to dictate a science curriculum that includes Intelligent Design, or Creationism's latest incarnation. It is about time the scientific community fights back with more vigor than in the past by making sure evolution is taught in science classes in all public schools.

[sciencegirl94]

I agree.. Evolution HAS to be taught in public schools. We can't always look at religion. Geez, there are sooo many! Everything taught at school could not be taught.. we can always find a religion which the subject hurts, or proves wrong.

Teachers should just say, scientist think it happened this way, you don't have to accept it...

 

This is interesting- I read it in National Geographic:

-45% of American adults do not believe in evolution.

-37% of them somehow believe in it- they say God created the Universe, but Evolution formed the shape of life.

-only 12% said that they believe in evolution, and that God did not take part in the creation of humans.

[freeztar]

Teachers should just say, scientist think it happened this way, you don't have to accept it...

I agree, to a point. It still leaves open the possibility of the teacher saying something like "these kooky scientists think this is what happened but those of us with the lord in our hearts know better".

 

This is interesting- I read it in National Geographic:

-45% of American adults do not believe in evolution.

-37% of them somehow believe in it- they say God created the Universe, but Evolution formed the shape of life.

-only 12% said that they believe in evolution, and that God did not take part in the creation of humans.

 

:eek2: :shrug:

Which issue is that from?

[sciencegirl94]

I agree, to a point. It still leaves open the possibility of the teacher saying something like "these kooky scientists think this is what happened but those of us with the lord in our hearts know better".

 

 

 

:eek2: :shrug:

Which issue is that from?

 

- Yes, you are right. But every issue can't be solved. And if it isn't taught...is that better, than hearing that from a teacher? I guess this is a very complicated question, there isn't a right and wrong solution. However teaching evolution is still better, than if kids don't even know about it.

 

- It's from 2004. November... I have it in Hungarian, I don't know the name of the article in English... But it should be something similar to "Is Darwing wrong?", or "Did Darwin make a mistake?"--

[modest]

- It's from 2004. November... I have it in Hungarian, I don't know the name of the article in English... But it should be something similar to "Is Darwing wrong?", or "Did Darwin make a mistake?"--

 

The one with the lizard on the front - "Was Darwin Wrong"

 

I have it here...

 

Other people too, not just scriptural literalists, remain unpersuaded about evolution. According to a gallup poll drawn from more than 1,000 telephone interviews conducted in Feb. 2001, no less than 45% of responding US adults agreed that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so." Evolution, by their lights, played no role in shaping us.

 

Only 37% of the polled Americans were satisfied with allowing room for both God and Darwin - that is, divine initiative to get things statted, evolution as the creative means. (This view, according to more than one papal pronouncement, is compatible with Roman Catholic dogma) Still, fewer Americans, only 12%, believed that humans evolved from other lifeforms without any involvrment of a god.

 

The most startling thing about these poll numbers is not that so many Americans reject evolution, but that the statistical breakdown hasn't changed much in two decades. Gallup interviewers posed exactly the same choices in 1982, 1993. 1997, and 1999. The creationist conviction - that God alone, and not evolution, produced humans - has never drawn less than 44%. In other words, nearly half the American populace prefers to believe that Charles Darwin was wrong where it mattered most.

 

Sorry 'bout any typos. This is really sad. Gallup is very trustworthy in their polls. I'm looking for a way to not believe this and I'm drawing a blank.

 

Very sad.

 

-modest

[freeztar]

Yeah, that's simply amazing and very hard to swallow. :eek2:

 

Perhaps they only polled people in the bible belt. :shrug:

[REASON]

Not shocked.

 

What do you think those polling numbers would look like if people regularly attended biology class every Sunday, with a dose of Darwin study on Wednesday nights?

 

Americans are indoctrinated into this mindset.

 

All the more reason to remain steadfast with science education and the teaching of evolution.

[modest]

Yeah, that's simply amazing and very hard to swallow.

 

Perhaps they only polled people in the bible belt. :shrug:

 

Perhaps the poll went like this:

 

"Hi, this is Jim from your local church and/or place of worship. I have a couple questions for you, and remember, God is listening..."

 

That's all I can figure :eek2:

 

-modest

[CraigD]

Welcome to hypography, sciencegirl!

This is interesting- I read it in National Geographic:

-45% of American adults do not believe in evolution.

-37% of them somehow believe in it- they say God created the Universe, but Evolution formed the shape of life.

-only 12% said that they believe in evolution, and that God did not take part in the creation of humans.

Though minor differences with these statistics are found in different surveys, all of those with which I’m acquainted have similar results.

 

As shown by this 3/2007 article about a 8/2006 article illustrates, the fraction of people who accept Darwinian evolution vs. religious creation stories varies substantially from country to country (of the surveyed countries, only Turkey favored creation over evolution more than the US).

 

The article contains a lot of expert speculation about possible reasons for people’s beliefs, and about relics and biases of survey designs.

 

Personally, I feel the US’s unusually low rate of acceptance of evolution is largely due to its tradition of questioning authority. Combined with the usual lack of strong science education by most people in all countries, I believe this skepticism results in a tendency among Americans to favor intuitive conclusions. Religious creation stories are, I believe, more intuitively compelling than scientific theories, and thus favored.