chicot60
01-31-2011, 12:33 PM
By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY
Most U.S. high school biology teachers "fail to forthrightly explain evolutionary biology," finds an educator survey. And at least 13% "strongly support" teaching creationism.
Evolution, the inheritance of changed characteristics across generations, is the fundamental unifying concept underlying biology, as a National Research Council science education standards released in 1996 noted. That report said, "... 'biological evolution' cannot be eliminated from the life science standards."
But only 28% of the 926 teachers surveyed, "unabashedly introduce evidence that evolution has occurred and craft lesson plans so that evolution is a theme that unifies disparate topics in biology," according to the Science report by Michael Berkman and Eric Plutzer of Penn State. Most biology teachers belong to the "cautious 60%," who are "neither strong advocates for evolutionary biology nor explicit endorsers of nonscientific alternatives," the study says. As mentioned, 13% of respondents advocated biblical creationism or "intelligent design" creationism in biology class.
Our data show that these teachers understandably want to avoid controversy. Often they have not taken a course in evolution and they lack confidence in their ability to defend it. Their strategies for avoiding controversy are varied, but three were especially common and each has the effect of undermining science. Some teach evolutionary biology as though it only applies to molecular biology—completely ignoring macroevolution of species. At best, this approach sacrifices a rich understanding of the diversity of species. At worst it lends credence to the creationist claim that there is no evidence for one species giving rise to others.
Others defend the teaching of evolution as a necessary evil, using state examination requirements as a convenient means to disassociate themselves from the very material they are expected to teach. These examinations have only been recently introduced in most states. Yet, many teachers told us that they tell students that it does not matter if they really "believe" in evolution, so long as they know it for the test. One Michigan teacher tells students that they need to understand evolution because the biology curriculum "is organized as if evolution is true".
Finally, a sizable number of teachers expose their students to all positions—scientific or not. Students should make up their own minds, explained a Pennsylvania teacher, "based on their own beliefs and research. Not on what a textbook or on what a teacher says." Many of these teachers might have great confidence in their students' ability to learn by exploration. But does a 15-year-old student really have enough information to reject thousands of peer-reviewed scientific papers? This approach tells students that well-established concepts like common ancestry can be debated in the same way we debate personal opinions.
"I think the real amount of under-teaching of evolution is likely even worse," says science literacy expert Jon Miller of Michigan State University in East Lansing. Miller published a 2007 report in Science ranking the U.S.A. 34th out of 35 developed nations (ahead of only Turkey) on public acceptance of evolution. Nearly a third of Americans said evolution was "absolutely false" in that study despite decades of evidence from genes, fossils and field observations confirming the idea. "Not many teachers have the backbone to stand up to parents and school boards for evolution," Miller says.
In particular, Miller notes, many U.S. adults dispute the notion of humans evolving from an ape-like ancestor within the last 6 million years, despite the genetic evidence showing a common ancestry with chimps, gorillas and orangutans, and a fossil record filled with precursor human species, including Neanderthals, now shown to be even more closely related to us by genes. "We can accept evolution for animals, but don't believe it about ourselves," Miller says.
"Teachers who are advocates for evolutionary biology are more likely to have completed a course in evolution than teachers who are ambivalent about evolution or who teach creationism," says the Penn State survey study. "Combined with continued successes in courtrooms and the halls of state government, this approach offers our best chance of increasing the science literacy of future generations."
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/01/evolution-teaching-poor-/1?csp=hf
Most U.S. high school biology teachers "fail to forthrightly explain evolutionary biology," finds an educator survey. And at least 13% "strongly support" teaching creationism.
Evolution, the inheritance of changed characteristics across generations, is the fundamental unifying concept underlying biology, as a National Research Council science education standards released in 1996 noted. That report said, "... 'biological evolution' cannot be eliminated from the life science standards."
But only 28% of the 926 teachers surveyed, "unabashedly introduce evidence that evolution has occurred and craft lesson plans so that evolution is a theme that unifies disparate topics in biology," according to the Science report by Michael Berkman and Eric Plutzer of Penn State. Most biology teachers belong to the "cautious 60%," who are "neither strong advocates for evolutionary biology nor explicit endorsers of nonscientific alternatives," the study says. As mentioned, 13% of respondents advocated biblical creationism or "intelligent design" creationism in biology class.
Our data show that these teachers understandably want to avoid controversy. Often they have not taken a course in evolution and they lack confidence in their ability to defend it. Their strategies for avoiding controversy are varied, but three were especially common and each has the effect of undermining science. Some teach evolutionary biology as though it only applies to molecular biology—completely ignoring macroevolution of species. At best, this approach sacrifices a rich understanding of the diversity of species. At worst it lends credence to the creationist claim that there is no evidence for one species giving rise to others.
Others defend the teaching of evolution as a necessary evil, using state examination requirements as a convenient means to disassociate themselves from the very material they are expected to teach. These examinations have only been recently introduced in most states. Yet, many teachers told us that they tell students that it does not matter if they really "believe" in evolution, so long as they know it for the test. One Michigan teacher tells students that they need to understand evolution because the biology curriculum "is organized as if evolution is true".
Finally, a sizable number of teachers expose their students to all positions—scientific or not. Students should make up their own minds, explained a Pennsylvania teacher, "based on their own beliefs and research. Not on what a textbook or on what a teacher says." Many of these teachers might have great confidence in their students' ability to learn by exploration. But does a 15-year-old student really have enough information to reject thousands of peer-reviewed scientific papers? This approach tells students that well-established concepts like common ancestry can be debated in the same way we debate personal opinions.
"I think the real amount of under-teaching of evolution is likely even worse," says science literacy expert Jon Miller of Michigan State University in East Lansing. Miller published a 2007 report in Science ranking the U.S.A. 34th out of 35 developed nations (ahead of only Turkey) on public acceptance of evolution. Nearly a third of Americans said evolution was "absolutely false" in that study despite decades of evidence from genes, fossils and field observations confirming the idea. "Not many teachers have the backbone to stand up to parents and school boards for evolution," Miller says.
In particular, Miller notes, many U.S. adults dispute the notion of humans evolving from an ape-like ancestor within the last 6 million years, despite the genetic evidence showing a common ancestry with chimps, gorillas and orangutans, and a fossil record filled with precursor human species, including Neanderthals, now shown to be even more closely related to us by genes. "We can accept evolution for animals, but don't believe it about ourselves," Miller says.
"Teachers who are advocates for evolutionary biology are more likely to have completed a course in evolution than teachers who are ambivalent about evolution or who teach creationism," says the Penn State survey study. "Combined with continued successes in courtrooms and the halls of state government, this approach offers our best chance of increasing the science literacy of future generations."
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/01/evolution-teaching-poor-/1?csp=hf