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[greenyes] Science in America in the 21st Century
- Subject: [greenyes] Science in America in the 21st Century
- From: "Peter Anderson" <anderson@no.address>
- Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 11:32:23 -0600
I sometimes wonder what I will respond to my grandchildren when I'm 69
and they ask how my generation could have let all this (add global warming,
uncontrolled political corruption, etc. etc.) have happened at the dawn of
the third millenium. Slack-jawed, drooling uncontrollably, perhaps, I'll
intone, "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times."
Peter
NEW YORK TIMES
February 1, 2005
Evolution Takes a Back Seat in U.S. Classes
By CORNELIA DEAN
Dr. John Frandsen, a retired zoologist, was at a dinner for teachers in
Birmingham, Ala., recently when he met a young woman who had just begun work
as a biology teacher in a small school district in the state. Their
conversation turned to evolution.
"She confided that she simply ignored evolution because she knew she'd get
in trouble with the principal if word got about that she was teaching it,"
he recalled. "She told me other teachers were doing the same thing."
Though the teaching of evolution makes the news when officials propose, as
they did in Georgia, that evolution disclaimers be affixed to science
textbooks, or that creationism be taught along with evolution in biology
classes, stories like the one Dr. Frandsen tells are more common.
In districts around the country, even when evolution is in the curriculum it
may not be in the classroom, according to researchers who follow the issue.
Teaching guides and textbooks may meet the approval of biologists, but
superintendents or principals discourage teachers from discussing it. Or
teachers themselves avoid the topic, fearing protests from fundamentalists
in their communities.
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There is no credible scientific challenge to the idea that all living things
evolved from common ancestors, that evolution on earth has been going on for
billions of years and that evolution can be and has been tested and
confirmed by the methods of science. But in a 2001 survey, the National
Science Foundation found that only 53 percent of Americans agreed with the
statement "human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of
animals."
And this was good news to the foundation. It was the first time one of its
regular surveys showed a majority of Americans had accepted the idea.
According to the foundation report, polls consistently show that a plurality
of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form about
10,000 years ago, and about two-thirds believe that this belief should be
taught along with evolution in public schools.
These findings set the United States apart from all other industrialized
nations, said Dr. Jon Miller, director of the Center for Biomedical
Communications at Northwestern University, who has studied public attitudes
toward science. Americans, he said, have been evenly divided for years on
the question of evolution, with about 45 percent accepting it, 45 percent
rejecting it and the rest undecided.
In other industrialized countries, Dr. Miller said, 80 percent or more
typically accept evolution, most of the others say they are not sure and
very few people reject the idea outright.
"In Japan, something like 96 percent accept evolution," he said. Even in
socially conservative, predominantly Catholic countries like Poland, perhaps
75 percent of people surveyed accept evolution, he said. "It has not been a
Catholic issue or an Asian issue," he said.
Indeed, two popes, Pius XII in 1950 and John Paul II in 1996, have endorsed
the idea that evolution and religion can coexist. "I have yet to meet a
Catholic school teacher who skips evolution," Dr. Scott said.
"....
"Data from various studies in various states over an extended period of time
indicate that about one-third of biology teachers support the teaching of
creationism or 'intelligent design,' " Dr. Skoog said.
Advocates for the teaching of evolution provide teachers or school officials
who are challenged on it with information to help them make the case that
evolution is completely accepted as a bedrock idea of science. Organizations
like the science teachers' association, the National Academy of Sciences and
the American Association for the Advancement of Science provide position
papers and other information on the subject. The National Association of
Biology Teachers devoted a two-day meeting to the subject last summer, Dr.
Skoog said.
Other advocates of teaching evolution are making the case that a person can
believe both in God and the scientific method. "People have been told by
some evangelical Christians and by some scientists, that you have to
choose." Dr. Scott said. "That is just wrong."
While plenty of scientists reject religion - the eminent evolutionary
theorist Richard Dawkins famously likens it to a disease - many others do
not. In fact, when a researcher from the University of Georgia surveyed
scientists' attitudes toward religion several years ago, he found their
positions virtually unchanged from an identical survey in the early years of
the 20th century. About 40 percent of scientists said not just that they
believed in God, but in a God who communicates with people and to whom one
may pray "in expectation of receiving an answer."
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But several experts say scientists are feeling increasing pressure to make
their case, in part, Dr. Miller said, because scriptural literalists are
moving beyond evolution to challenge the teaching of geology and physics on
issues like the age of the earth and the origin of the universe.
"They have now decided the Big Bang has to be wrong," he said. "There are
now a lot of people who are insisting that that be called only a theory
without evidence and so on, and now the physicists are getting mad about
this."
_________________________
Peter Anderson, President
RECYCLEWORLDS CONSULTING
4513 Vernon Blvd. Suite 15
Madison, WI 53705-4964
Ph: (608) 231-1100
Fax: (608) 233-0011
Cell: (608) 698-1314
eMail: anderson@no.address
web: www.recycleworlds.net
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