The New York Times gives us these stunning numbers:
Teaching creationism in public schools has consistently been ruled unconstitutional in federal courts, but according to a national survey of more than 900 public high school biology teachers, it continues to flourish in the nation’s classrooms.
Researchers found that only 28 percent of biology teachers consistently follow the recommendations of the National Research Council to describe straightforwardly the evidence for evolution and explain the ways in which it is a unifying theme in all of biology. At the other extreme, 13 percent explicitly advocate creationism, and spend at least an hour of class time presenting it in a positive light.
That leaves what the authors call "the cautious 60 percent," who avoid controversy by endorsing neither evolution nor its unscientific alternatives. In various ways, they compromise.
Yes, that's right. A full 60% of all biology teachers would rather "compromise" on teaching the foundation of modern biological science than face the griping of rabid creationists. Apparently these teachers have used varying methods of minimizing the importance of evolution, many begin the lessons with the disclaimer that "they are required to teach evolution because of state examinations" and "that students do not need to "believe" in it". Some of these teachers only instruct students about evolution at the molecular level and avoid the entire idea of "the origin of species".
To me, the most damaging fact is that many teachers conflate the blind faith of creationism with the long-studied scientifically accepted theory of evolution. They say that:
students are free to choose evolution or creationism based on their own beliefs
Bullshit. If a child wants to believe in creationism, they are certainly allowed. It's their right. The school, however, is required to teach science. The students are required to learn science. If creationism is to be discussed at all, it should only be in a larger discussion which reinforces the difference between science and faith. That most biology teachers would equivocate the two is sickening.
Faith is what you believe. Science is what you can prove. Faith provides simple answers to very complicated realities. Science attempts to break down and understand those realities to the point that we can describe and predict the working of nature by a set of physical laws. Faith has thousand-year-old infallible holy books and those who claim to understand the mind of God. Science has the concentrated work and knowledge of millions of humans working in an interconnected, self-correcting framework which requires both novel ideas and rigorous debate. Religion ultimately requires unquestioning faith. Science ultimately requires constantly questioning skepticism.
This leaves us with the 13% of biology teachers who "explicitly advocate creationism". 13%. That's 13 out of every 100 teachers. More that one in ten biology teachers rejects the very foundation of their discipline. This boggles the mind. How comfortable would you be if you went to the hospital and one in ten doctors wanted to treat ill patients with prayer rather than with modern medications?
"With 15 to 20 percent of biology teachers teaching creationism," he continued, "this is the biggest failure in science education. There’s no other field where teachers reject the foundations of their science like they do in biology."
More to the point, how would you like it if six in ten doctors left it up to you to decide whether you had pneumonia or were possessed by a demon? How would you like it if they equivocated and implied that both were equally likely? After all, aren't your fever, cough and chronic shortness of breath just as likely to be cured by an exorcism or prayer as they are by aggressive antibiotic therapy?
Teach the controversy, am I right?
(The sources of those statistics is an article from last week's Science magazine, which I unfortunately do not have a subscription to. Therefore, I'll have to trust that the NYT reported this article correctly.)
(I did a quick search and didn't see anything posted here about this topic. If anyone has written about this before, please let me know in the comments and I will link to it.)