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Fort Wayne highschoolers sound off about evolution/creationism
Michael B. just pointed me to a recent article in today’s Journal Gazette called, rather obliquely headlined, “Species of education: Evolution teaching, beliefs vary for two local students“.
Reporter Jaclyn Youhana talked with two local students about how they felt about their evolutionary science education in high school. Because Indiana Department of Education rightly says that science class curricula must pertain to science, evolution is taught exclusively.
Youhana spoke with Thomas Humbert, a Carroll HS student:
Humbert doesn’t believe in evolution. Raised Lutheran – he now considers himself non-denominational – Humbert believes in the biblical account of creation: That God made the world in seven days.
…
Ideally, Humbert said, he’d like to see different classes on different theories: an evolution class and a creationism class. He sees the flaws in the plan – hiring more teachers requires more money the district just doesn’t have – but wishes the topic was handled differently.”I think the best way to understand which (theory) is the best is to present them to all the kids,” he says. “In no way do I think we should focus only on one perspective because it’s not realistic. You are going to have challenges (and people who disagree), but that’s how you become stronger in what you believe.”
Humbert says he enjoyed the evolution lesson and was excited for it beforehand. Shortly before, he read “The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence that Points toward God” by Lee Strobel. Once an atheist, Strobel started to question the facts of evolution and came to believe that much of evolutionary theory is outdated or incorrect. The information helped solidify Humbert’s belief in creationism.
Through Ben Stein’s “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” a documentary about suppressing discussion of intelligent design, Humbert learned that in France the government doesn’t dictate what can and cannot be taught in schools.
“To me, that seems like democracy at its best,” he says. “They get to teach what they want. Here, the government monitoring what teachers teach doesn’t make much sense.”
Really, Thomas Humbert? REALLY? Lee Strobel and Ben Stein? I think that Strobel can easily be debunked (warning: weird website with frames) and Ben Stein’s documentary is just facepalm-worthy.
If you value a democracy of ideas, Thomas, and want all sides of an issue put forth, add someone else besides Strobel and Stein to your repetoire. Maybe some Jerry Coyne, or some Ken Miller. How about Tim Berra or Carl Sagan?
Secondly, let’s talk about democracy, shall we? Science class isn’t a democracy. It’s fact-based, and the theory of evolution is fact. (And as such, a scientific theory is not the same as the more popular use of the word, in the second definition here.) Something isn’t true because a majority decides it is.
As the Guardian’s Susan McCarthy wrote today,
…(Y)ou don’t have to believe in science to benefit from it. You don’t have to believe in photons to flip a switch and get light. You don’t have to think geologists understand fossil fuel origins to fill a tank of gas. You don’t have to believe in natural selection to take a new antibiotic for bronchitis.
But to do medical research, it helps to understand natural selection. To get good scientists, it helps if they don’t have to play catch-up for half their college years. And to get informed voters, it helps not to teach them that science is a matter of personal intuition. Or fundamentalist faith.
(Link)
I couldn’t have said it better myself. Let’s keep politics and the culture wars out of science class.
Disclaimer: The views expressed by an individual contributor to this blog are not necessarily shared by all members of FreeThought Fort Wayne. That is what makes this organization so interesting. Commenters on the FreeThought Fort Wayne blog are expected to abide by our comment policy. About the author: Andy Welfle is a marketing professional in a non-profit arts organization by day, and a net junkie, an Apple fanboy, and a freethinker by night. Follow him on twitter: twitter.com/awelfle. | Read more from this author
The Fort Wayne highschoolers sound off about evolution/creationism by Andy Welfle, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Tags: creation science, creationism, education, evolution, Fort Wayne, texas school board, The Theory of Evolution Discussion
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By far the best website for dealing with the outrageous claims of Ben Stein and “Expelled” is http://www.expelledexposed.com
“It was almost like they were afraid of the subject.”
I wonder if any high school science teachers would chime in. I guess he or she may be too afraid in this overly religious climate and the parents backlash. Hopefully, I am wrong and they could participate.
It sounds like they are only “fact” teaching science rather than defining science as an epistemology. (methodological naturalism). Calling creationism an alternative scientific theory is wrong because invoking the supernatural is unfalsifiable and not predictable or repeatable. That should be explainable to students. A scientist cannot control for the gods and that cannot be eliminated as a variable. It doesn’t look like either of these students were taught this.
Let me ask a question:
What do muslims believe as far as creation of the Universe goes? Any muslims here able to clue me in?
So, would the ID folks also agree that we should teach what muslims believe about the beginning of the universe? How about teaching Greek mythology in science class? Let’s bring the Titans ch
The definition of science does not include articles of “faith”. Faith is NOT, by definition, science. Period. Until any religion can provide multiple scientifically proven facts, observed and tested by multiple parties from around the world with the scientific method, I’m not interested in it being taught in a “science” class. Put it in the history classes where it belongs.
I got a good fundamental education in evolution in FWCS in ninth grade bio, though I already understood and accepted it thanks to Carl Sagan and PBS. (This was in the early ’90s.) The teacher covered it the same as any other topic, as I recall; I remember a publisher-supplied test asking about evolution’s status as fact accepted by the scientific community. There was also an Advanced or AP bio class that I never took; from my experiences in the regular class, though, I can only assume that the mechanics of evolution were covered in more depth.
The difference, of course, is that now there are more outside groups with political and media clout accepting kids into their in-group and actively encouraging them to be stupid by, for example, making asses out of themselves in front of a local newspaper reporter. Another data point in favor of religion as (reasonably and properly nonactionable, IMO) child abuse.
As a side-note: Is that cartoon from the Journal? It’s unfortunate that the artist conflates being poorly educated, or indeed having been lied to, about evolution with being a stereotypical fat, trashy, poor white slob. Stereotyping the opposition is neither accurate nor right. There’s plenty of attractive creationists in suits; moreover, the cartoon relies for its effect on the premise that if the rednecks are yellin’ it, it must be wrong. The notion is fallacious, as well as bigoted against obese and disadvantaged people. Further, the association, besides being puerile on its own merits, is simply not needed to fight the creationism wars: creationism is a ridiculous enough notion on its own, and there’s plenty of evidence of individual and institutional idiocy, lawbreaking, and dishonesty. Sneering at the plebs isn’t required.
I could complain at length about the fake “balance” of showing one student from each camp, and the reporter’s failure to give context, such as what the Indiana standards referred to in the story actually are and why they’re that way, but it’s the Journal, so I wouldn’t expect any better, and I’m tired.
And here I thought I was the only one who facepalmed at that. I read it at work today and just had to shake my head at that poor kid. He’s being led into ignorance.
I didn’t go to school around here, and don’t even remember much about my biology classes – if I’d figured I’d be at this point today, I would’ve paid more attention.
It’s unfortunate that the one teacher in the article taught the subject like, “you don’t have to believe but you do have to know it”. Was the teacher talking to the students or to herself?
Science shouldn’t be taught as body of knowledge but taught as a method. Using this method here is why we know what we know. As a result of this process *now* here’s the body of knowledge that we have collected. Each piece was built on the previous piece.
Not bringing the correlation between the method and the resulting body of knowledge simply betrays a poor curricula or a poor teacher.
Skeptigator:
That’s one reason that I think evolution and science in general don’t have much traction with kids sometimes: they’ve never encountered anyone who actually has the spine to say that’s it’s important and better than the alternatives, both morally and pragmatically. Displaying the courage of one’s convictions goes a long way, and any rational teacher who is too much of a coward to do so should be ashamed.
Of course, if they’re too ignorant to know the arguments in favor of the superiority of science as a method, and yet they’re teaching kids science in a public school anyway, they should be ashamed on that account too.