State College, PA, USA. Attaining medical and legal recognition for Harry Benjamin Syndrome (HBS) will not be enough. Research in parallel fields suggests that the real work of reforming schools and medical institutions may take many years before advocates achieve anything close to full understanding and cooperation. For example, a new essay in the journal PLoS Biology shows that a surprising number of public high school biology teachers still include creationism or intelligent design in their curriculum.

In many ways, much has changed since the famous Scopes Monkey trial of 1925. In recent years, US courts have consistently ruled that teaching explicitly religious alternatives to evolution in public schools is a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

 

The majority of biology teachers spend between 3 and 15 hours on evolution. This is a wide range for a topic considered by the US National Academy of Sciences to be “the central concept of biology.” The amount of time spent teaching human evolution is even less: the majority of teachers spend no more than five hours on the subject.

 

“This is the hottest of the hot buttons” says Berkman, suggesting that pressure from the community might play a role in how teachers structure their classes.

 

Even the strongest legal ruling “still gives boards of education, school districts, and especially teachers considerable leeway” he says.Teachers are still in charge of implementing state standards, adhering to court decisions, and integrating textbooks into their classrooms.

 

“And about this,” the authors write, “we are less sanguine.”

 

 

The authors show that the disparity in teaching evolution is not linked to differences in state regulations, but can more likely be attributed to differences of religious belief and education amongst teachers.

The teachers who hold creationist or intelligent design beliefs spent substantially less time teaching evolution than their Darwinist counterparts. Likewise, teachers with a stronger background in evolution spent 60% more time teaching it than those who had the least education in the subject.

 

There are no federal standards for class curriculums, and the state regulations are often inconsistent with recommendations of the US National Academy of Sciences. Rather than adjusting government regulations, Berkman et al. argue, raising the certification standards for teachers could have a significant impact on the amount of time they spend on evolution. The authors propose requiring extra courses in evolutionary biology. “The extra background could make a large difference” says Berkman.

 

”The legal ruling and legislative victories are clearly necessary for evolution to maintain its proper place in the biology curriculum,” the authors conclude, “but they are not sufficient.”

 

This research was supported by the US National Science Foundation (NSF).

Michael B. Berkman is Professor of Political Science, Julianna Sandell Pacheco is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science, and Eric Plutzer is Professor of Political Science and Academic Director of the Penn State Survey Research Center in the Department of Political Science, The Pennsylvania State University.

 

Evolution and Creationism in America's Classrooms: A National Portrait. Berkman MB, Pacheco JS, Plutzer E. PLoS Biol 6(5): e124. doi: 10.1371 / journal.pbio.0060124  [ Download PDF ]

Abstract. In 2004, the school board in Dover, Pennsylvania, voted to require its 9th grade science teachers to read a statement questioning the validity of evolutionary theory. “Because Darwin's Theory is a theory,” teachers were instructed to say, “it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. The Theory is not a fact. Gaps in the Theory exist for which there is no evidence.” Students in Dover High School were also encouraged to explore the concept of intelligent design (ID), described in the statement as “an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view.” Multiple copies of the ID text Of Pandas and People were made available, and the school board stated that “Students are encouraged to keep an open mind. The school leaves the discussion of the Origins of Life to individual students and their families”.

By promoting ID and questioning evolution, Dover's elected school board aligned itself with national public opinion, which consistently shows a majority favors teaching Biblical creationism in addition to evolution. Moreover, a 2005 poll conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reports that 38% of Americans would prefer that creationism was taught instead of evolution [3]. But the Dover public school teachers, citing ethical obligations, were unmoved by public pressure and refused to comply with their board's directive. The high school's science teachers issued a statement arguing:

     “…if I as the classroom teacher read the required statement, my students will inevitably (and understandably) believe that Intelligent Design is a valid scientific theory, perhaps on par with the theory of evolution. That is not true. To refer the students to ‘Of Pandas and People’ as if it is a scientific resource breaches my ethical obligation to provide them with scientific knowledge that is supported by recognized scientific proof or theory”

To scientists, the teachers' position is noncontroversial. Alternative approaches to evolution like ID are a “hoax” at best and “faith” at worst; in neither case do they have any place in a science curriculum. The National Academy of Sciences calls evolution “the central concept of biology”, and three respected national organizations have provided model high school curriculum guidelines with evolution as a unifying theme.

 

 

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