The creationists don’t have to win their court cases to have an effect: all they have to do is threaten and badger teachers, and they effectively intimidate many into avoiding evolution, or work to make sure qualified science teachers don’t get hired at all. It happens here, and now it’s happening in the UK.
Teachers in UK schools are avoiding teaching evolution in science classes to avoid conflict with students, especially Muslims, who believe in creationism.
I don’t have any sympathy for students or their parents who think an education is a process of affirming what you think you already know.
Once again I’m reminded of this: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/44260 .
I thought about being a teacher for a little bit, and every now and then reports like that make me think a bit – maybe I should go teach, and try and aim for Muslim communities etc.
I wonder how long I’d last?
I don’t have any sympathy for students or their parents who think an education is a process of affirming what you think you already know.
Thanks, PZ. That’s going in my permanent list of great quotes!
I wait eagerly for what our local Christian creationists think of this, now that it’s pandering to fundamentalist Islam instead of fundamentalist Christianity—is it going to be “Creationists unite” or “look at secular Europe pandering to the Muslims, that’s what happens when you get rid of God” with no irony whatsoever?
This story made the rounds a while back. While I don’t doubt that there may be “some” teachers who want to avoid controversy, the complete lack of documentation as to the extent of this problem makes me suspicious — this sounds more like standard Islamophobia rather than a well-supported claim.
Note also how the original BBC article specifically attributed the claim to Professor Michael Reiss, whereas in the Daily Telegraph article PZ links to, editing has morphed the statement into a bald unattributed statement of fact.
I’m sure there are reasons to be worried about the state of UK education, especially as regards to the teaching of evolution and the impact of Muslim (and fundamentalist Christian) students, this specific story should be viewed with a critical eye, and not simply taken as “gospel truth”.
“I don’t have any sympathy for students or their parents who think an education is a process of affirming what you think you already know.”
Actually, I kinda do with the students, depending on their age.
1) If your faith requires protection from the world at large to survive, and instead continually loses in its confrontation with the world into which it is supposed to take account, perhaps it is not the world which is at fault?
2) Many of the immigrants came to Britain presumably because it was capable of providing freedoms that their previous homes were unable to provide. Part of what enabled that freedom was the scientific method and its fruits, which gave their adopted country both the economic and military strength to preserve the freedoms that they claim to value. How do they think they are going to preserve those freedoms if they can’t abide the methods that made them possible?
3) The Orwell quotation about freedom meaning the ability to tell people things which they do not want to hear seems apropos here. It also makes clear at least some of why Hitchens chose to write his apologetic of Orwell.
This is precisely why I’m back in college to get my teaching certification. Antiprogressive ideas must be crushed if we intend to survive in an increasingly science-dependent world, and the best way to do that is solid education.
It’s not just the Fundies who are an obstacle to teaching real biology. It’s the curriculum, thanks largely to No Child’s Behind Left Untested.
Where I teach, high school students are expected to explain protein synthesis, predict genotypes and phenotypes based on a largely fictional version of genetics, predict how a community is affected by removing one of it’s members, but they are not expected to know that a chicken is not a mammal.
Evolution has been relegated to the last marking period, and there are almost no questions on the state assessment about it. Instead of teaching natural selection, we spend the final marking period drilling students on what they should have learned in the first three.
Makes me glad I’m teaching Earth Science now, where the geologic time table gets by under the radar.
This has been going on for awhile actually. I remember reading about it last year. The method of fear as a tool is becoming blunter and more oftem used.
I simply wish that these techers had better ways to defend themselves.
On a similar note, also here in the sunny UK…
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article2603966.ece
Evolutionary biology is a LEGALLY COMPULSORY part of the English curriculum. Every single exam I have ever seen on GCSE biology has had a number of questions on the subject. Any parent whose child has not been taught it, should get in touch with the LEA
Isn’t it ironic that students passionate about teaching and science are pursuing other directions in life out of a fear that their version of the truth might not be accepted? We have in the entry to which I am responding a note that evolutionists are going silent in the face of questions. Isn’t that what science seeks to address at its core?
It is equally true that students who fall into the intelligent design camp fail to pursue careers in science out of a similar fear that they will not be allowed to teach or even hold a view contrary to that of their professors.
So evolutionary professors keep the creationist/I.D folks out of classrooms by intimidation (real or perceived) and creationist/I.D students keep the professors silent by intimidation (real or perceived). Where is a person to go then to have an honest debate and pursuit of the issues and evidence on the question of the origin of life?
I am equally perplexed by those creationists (intelligent design folks) who seek to eliminate the study of evolution and by those evolutionists who seek to eliminate the study of creation/I.D.
If it is possible to know and understand anything, then what is harmed by studying all theories out there and coming to a determination of what is true? If it is impossible to know anything for sure, then what is the harm of studying all theories out there and pondering them for the intellectual exercise that produces?
I find that in the creation/evolution debate, most people are so dogmatically committed to their presuppositions that new information bounces off their skulls with equal force regardless of whether God/god is presupposed to exist or whether he/she/it is presupposed to not exist.
What has happened to the pursuit of knowledge and truth? Why can’t intellectual honesty and philosophical curiosity be combined to result in a search for how things are?
Copernicus was treated with hostility by the Catholic church and he backed down even though he knew (and we now know) that he was correct in his understanding of truth.
I would propose that current mainstream science is as guilty now as the church was then of trying to slam the door on any truth which does not neatly fit within the most popular world-view found among evolutionists–a world-view which excludes the possiblity of God and the need for faith of any kind.
Why would science dismiss any evidence that exists (no matter how inconvenient it might be to the generally accepted view of things in the main stream field of science)? Why do evolutionary scientists dismiss and even battle against philosophical and faith issues presented by the question of the origin of life? If God exists, no amount of denying it will change that fact? Faith is part of believing any theory since by definition a theory is not yet proven and must be accepted by faith (not a faith that demands belief in God or a god but faith nontheless which is not able to be replaced by experimentation or observation).
Why would creation scientists dismiss any evidence–no matter how inconvenient–in order to further their agenda of proving that God exists? If God does exist, he does not need our help proving it.
If truth cannot be known, then all this debate is meaningless and teachers should teach whatever he/she wants in whatever way he/she wants. If truth can be known, then what danger is their in an open and honest discourse which presupposes only that truth can be known and that we should seek to find it where it may be found regardless of the cost or consequences to oneself?
Of course, the IDists are EXACTLY like Galileo, what with their equivalent of the observation of moons around other planets. What? They havent made that sort of breakthrough? You mean the analogy is fucking retarded? Nooooooooooo!
Oh boy, another one of THESE.
Look, John, when a creationist or design theorist brings something to the table that is worthy of being taught (or even discussed) at the level of a scientific theory, then your plea for academic inclusion will have a foundation. Your “acceptance of theory requires faith” claim is nonsense, though.
John Bogle:
What evidence do you know of for ID that hasn’t been dealt with at length by the biology community?
Not only that, the scales are not balanced, though John would have us believe that they are. The suppression or corruption of science education through intimidation of academics by powerful special-interest groups is NOT equivalent to the rejection of religious dogma as science curricula by the academic and science communities. One side is pushing for ignorance and acquisition of power. The other is not. They are not in any way the same.
“In my field of evolutionary biology, the most prominent urban legend – another ‘truth’ known by ‘everyone’ – holds that evolution may well be the way of the world, but one has to accept the idea with a dose of faith because the process occurs far too slowly to yield any observable result in a human life-time.”
* * *
“Man does not attain the status of Galileo merely because he is persecuted; he must also be right.’
If it is possible to know and understand anything, then what is harmed by studying all theories out there and coming to a determination of what is true?
Because it IS possible to know and understand things, and the determination of what is true has ALREADY BEEN DONE. At the moment the score is approximately Science: many thousands, Creationism: zero.
in response to #18
3 words: Nylon eating bacteria.
Anyone watch Boston Legal?
I freely admit that I watch it because I’m a Trekkie. Also, the swinging random camera shifts are annoying but the last episode had a 15 year old suing her school because they teach abstinence instead of proper sex ed. The guy from Stargate was her lawyer and made the point of our president mixes religious policy with government and it’s trickled down into the educational system. Basically, the school gets federal funds if they only teach abstinence and how a school needs to be more concerned about education not sucking up to our crazy president. In a nutshell.
I’ve seen an interview with Steve Jones where he says he meets creationist students all the time when he mentions evolution in his genetics lectures at UCL. He is mystified why people think they can study biology in general and genetics in particular without confronting the reality of evolution.
#20, I think you mean “And furthermore,…” :-)
“I am equally perplexed by those creationists (intelligent design folks) who seek to eliminate the study of evolution and by those evolutionists who seek to eliminate the study of creation/I.D.”
I don’t know of any “evolutionist” who’s made a statement that bald. What they HAVE said – and should keep ON saying, is that we should eliminate the study of Creationism/ID IN THE SCIENCE CLASSES. If you want to pretend evolution isnt’a fact, fine. Go to your Bible study. Pray in one hand and crap in the other. See which fills first. But don’t force me to put up with your nonsense. I gave up fairy tales when I was 7.
BaldApe #9 “Makes me glad I’m teaching Earth Science now, where the geologic time table gets by under the radar.”
I assume that you have no YECers complaining that geologic timescales are a lie based on faulty carbon 14 radiodating?
#18
8-celled chlorella,
Raphanobrassica and that one’s macroevolution
Salient #25 :
It’s actually rare that I get any serious argument from students. What is in the biology curriculum (really just natural selection) is pretty non-controversial. The 9th graders I teach in Earth Science aren’t “sophisticated” enough to say much more than “I don’t believe in that.”
And John Boggle # 13:
It’s not “evolutionists” (whatever that means) but science teachers and school administrators who are scared off by the pseudo-controversy. I am actually appalled at how little importance other biology teachers give to understanding evolution. Again, it’s teaching to the test.
Also from that article
This is an awesome idea.
Here the government automatically pays your University course fees, but on a basis of pay-back-as-you-earn loan scheme. The problem is prices for courses are valued on how much a student is likely to earn.
Not only do math/science courses have really expensive text books, and tools to buy (lab coat, pipette stuff, scalpels etc.) but it’s also has some of the most expensive courses too (by about a $1000-1500 a subject per term last time I checked).
Australia really needs more teachers and scientists. Yet another reason to vote for Labor.
The 19th century. Since then, one side has been entirely composed of liars, charlatans and ignoramuses. The term for one who chooses to occupy the middle ground between science and ignorance is not ‘open-minded,’ but ‘halfwit.’
I do wonder why fundamental religion seeks to discredit science. This, to my mind must be based on fear, to attack anything you must fear it. As science evolves ( no pun intended ) the rabid response from religion ( & yes the degree of rabidity does seem to be in proportion to the fundamentalism ) also increases. Truth hurts, even if you deny it.
Call me a pedant (“You’re a pedant…”), but I’m more annoyed by the Daily Telegraph’s hack Maralyn Parker’s abysmal lack of grammatical knowledge. “If raised by students, teachers are told to discuss how creationism…”
How many teachers out there are being raised by students, and in what ghastly conditions are they being kept? We need to know!