Creationism at the universities
A question. When studying paleontology or just geology in general at universities and colleges in the US, how much room is given to consideration for the feeling of creationists and others who dont believe in evolution or the geological time scale? One easliy gets the impression from media and internet forums that more and more of the academical world in the US is under the influence of these creationists. How bad is it? Can you really get a diploma or degree in the US in geology and not learn about the real scientific facts?
You who live in the USA, tell me of your opinion and experience.
In Sweden (which probably is the most secular nation in the world, at least in many aspects) we have almost no problems with this at all. And no consideration of religious feelings regarding evolution and such are ever taken at the universities since we make it very clear (by law even) that it is science that should be taught at schools and university and not religious myths. Of course there are problems here too, but not about religious fundamentalism vs natural science at the universities.
April 30, 2008 + Posted in Geoscience, Pseudoscience +
I live in San Antonio, Texas (deep in the heart of creationist territory, or its supposed to be) and go to a community college (in other words, the lowest form of accredited college) and I can say that I have had no trouble with this sort of thing. The professors in science that I’ve had in areas that even deal remotely with an old earth (geology, astronomy, biology, anthropology) were quite frank that evolution is real and there is no conflict over it in the scientific community. Both my astronomy and geology professors (since they were teaching intro science courses) took the opportunity to use evolution as a way to distinguish between a layman’s theory and a scientific theory, using evolution as an example of a theory that has held up to testing, criticism, and been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. The closest they’ve came to peddling to Creationists is to reassure us that science and religious belief do not need to be in conflict (in a very general way, such as what I just stated). In my biology course, creationism was not even discussed, we simply had a question on the first exam clarifying that evolution was the cornerstone of modern biology and made reference to it occasionally from there (though, speciation wasn’t discussed until Bio 2 which I didn’t take).
This image of it ‘taking over’ universities is really not the case. What’s happening is that Creationists/IDers are increasingly trying to lobby to get it taught in universities in fury over losing so badly and attempting to poison the well before people get to university by trying to have it (or ‘problems with evolution’ that don’t exist) taught in secondary school. We will occasionally have a creationist astronomer, biologist, paleontologist, or something like that but in those cases its uniformly a case where the truth was presented to them in their courses and they wrote it down their answers on tests, but plugged their ears and said to themselves that it must not be true, even though they need to give lip-service to get their degree. If someone is deluded enough, no amount of reasoning with them will do any good.
Comment by Thomas M. — April 30, 2008 @ 7:57 pm
I think that the biggest “fights” going on have been about teaching creationism or intelligent design (ID) side-by-side in high school science classes - biology and earth science. (High school = secondary school.) I don’t think it’s really made it into the universities, colleges, and as above, community colleges. Science classes in universities are taught by scientists.
Maybe, though, you will hear from some university professors in response to this!
Comment by Silver Fox — April 30, 2008 @ 11:53 pm
I will also note that in the case that we do end up with a Creationist science professor at a university (such as Behe) their department will make it quite clear that they don’t agree with them and will not allow them to teach those views in their courses. Behe’s page at his university has what amounts to a warning sticker saying the rest of the department doesn’t share his views and you shouldn’t judge them based on him. The guy can’t even convince his own fellow department members of the need to teach ID as valid.
Comment by Thomas M. — May 1, 2008 @ 12:12 am
Thomas and Silver fox: Interesting! Thanks for sharing your experiences and views. But surely there must be a great divide between a great portion of the public and the universities in the US since all statistics Ive seen talk about almost half the population believing in a created world according to the bible.
Comment by Antimonite — May 1, 2008 @ 7:00 am
I teach geology at a state university in western Kansas, so my experience is probably about as relevant as it gets. There’s no question that there have been attempts by two previous instantiations of the (elected) Kansas Board of Education to redefine the teaching standards at the high school level to include Creationism and (more recently) Intelligent Design. In fact, the most recent attempt to change the curriculum (the only one since I’ve been living and teaching in Kansas) didn’t even mention Intelligent Design by name - rather, it called evolution into doubt and redefined science to remove the dependence on natural causes. Fortunately the voters of Kansas have subsequently voted out the majority of board members that favored these unscientific policies.
To my knowledge there is no accredited institution of higher learning in Kansas that offers degrees in geology that is anything other than mainstream in its curriculum.
Nonetheless, there is a real reason for concern. Many of my students (though by no means all or even a majority) are strongly resistant to the modern scientific understanding of evolution and even geologic topics such as the 4.5 Ga origin of the Earth. In my experience many of these students are unable to grasp the distinction between scientific explanations which cannot invoke supernatural causes (but do not pass any judgment on the possibility of supernatural causes) and the idea that because supernatural causes are not invoked, science is somehow attacking religious belief.
There are some private, religious colleges that sanction science professors that teach non-mainstream science, but by and large the threat to science teaching at public and secular private universities in the USA is not yet a clear and present danger.
Comment by Ron Schott — May 1, 2008 @ 2:21 pm
Antimonite:
Yes, there is a definite divide in US culture over these matters. Some people even insist that there’s an evil Darwinist, atheist conspiracy among academia to not teach ID (and the movie Expelled is playing off of those fears), however, education tends to be highly valued enough in this country for parents to risk sending their children to a public university where they may learn the truth in an attempt to get them educated. Sadly, there is the alternative of home schooling them (to make sure they stay nice and brainwashed) and sending them to a religious college afterward that teaches creationism. (Sadly, a couple of these ARE accredited by Christian accrediting organizations.)
Comment by Thomas M. — May 1, 2008 @ 2:42 pm
Ron Schott: Thanks for sharing your professional experiences. Very interesting indeed.
Comment by Antimonite — May 1, 2008 @ 3:58 pm
Thomas M: Interesting. In Sweden home schooling is very restricted and controlled by law. Im not sure but I think you can only apply for very short periods. No one can go through all of their years of schooling at home. There have been some exceptions from this, and these caused a lot of comotion and debate. The reason for this very restrictive policy about home schooling is basically that the guaranteed level of education cannot be controled for sure. It might seem a bit of a socialist approach to you americans perhaps, but I think that the freedom to miseducate children is less important than their right to a controlled curriculum. Im no fan at all of home schooling and I have a hard time seeing any benefits of it. The level of proper education cannot be controlled, the kids get no social interaction with other kids and so on… For dhort periods when something is happening in the family of the kid I can see it as temporary acceptable.
Comment by Antimonite — May 1, 2008 @ 4:06 pm
Antimonite:
Here in the US home schooling is allowed from primary up through secondary school but not for University training, for obvious reasons.
There are some regulations on home schooling here, too, however. I had a couple of fundie Christian friends who were homeschooled and their parents had to give documents to some section of the government, including test papers, displaying that their children were learning their basic skills of English, mathematics, etc. Sadly, the government is a bit more loose on the science curriculum.
I agree with you for the most part and don’t find the view ‘too socialist,’ by any means (and I have somewhat conservative leanings by US standards, so if I don’t think its too left-wing….
). The government should keep home schooling under tight control whenever possible and ensure that the children are not being mislead by their parents or being under-educated by well-meaning parents.
There is at least one distinct advantage to home schooling, though: In the US, the primary and secondary education system tends to be terrible. Its under-funded and somewhat unfocused (to say the least) and no one seems to know how to fix it. (Fortunately, our university system has managed to transcend this). If you have good teaching skills and a broad knowledge base in terms of basic skills (reading, writing, mathematics, etc.) you can arguably give your child a better education than you will get through the public school system here in the US. This is a common reason for home schooling in the US.
The only other advantage I can see is that it can be helpful if you live in an area with a lot of bullying in public schools that goes above and beyond the norm and/or heavy racial tensions which increase the problem. I had a friend pulled out of public school and home schooled by his (probably under-qualified) parents after another student threatened to stab him because he was ‘a worthless gringo [white guy]’ and the principal took an ‘I didn’t hear it, so it didn’t happen’ approach to the situation. I’m first going to note that this sort of thing is NOT a common occurance in the US, despite the stereotypes that people outside the US hold. I will also note that if the parents want to pull their kids out of school but were not qualified to teach their student that it is possible for them to hire a personal tutor for their student to go to that specializes in home-schooling children.
Comment by Thomas M. — May 1, 2008 @ 5:19 pm
Hm, does the comment feature have a restriction on response length? My somewhat detailed response doesn’t seem to be going through and I don’t get any sort of message indicating why. Either that or I triple posted and it won’t show up on my screen.
Comment by Thomas M. — May 1, 2008 @ 5:23 pm
Thomas: Your text was simply automaticly held for moderation. I cant control the spamfilter of blogsome.com sometimes. But your text was intact and I let it trough. Sorry for the inconvenience. There are no limitations to the length you can post. If it happens again fear not - its just held for moderation by the software. I will release it as soon as Im online.
Comment by Antimonite — May 1, 2008 @ 6:36 pm
Thomas: I get your point and understand. Schools in Sweden are far from perfect, but since theres no control at all over the quality of home schooling I would still, in most cases, or at least in general, favour public schools in general. Its probably my opinion since the known examples of home schooling in Sweden has been horrific. Fundamentalists that wants to keep their children separated from the rest of the “ungodly” society and their “evil values”. People who definitely dont give their kids a better education than the worst schools we have here in Sweden.
Theres bad schools and then theres bad home schooling. I would choose the former.
But I guess our oppinions are somewhat a result of just how bad the worst schools can become in our separate countries. We have many quite strict laws that regulate the standards of both the curriculum and teachers level of education - both for public and private schools. No school can dictate their own curriculum without it being in line with the rules of what is to be teached. So theres at least a minimum (theoretical) standard even in the worst of schools.
But Im not saying its good here, far from it. It could be a lot better and the general knowledge has declined among students every year - especially in the natural sciences. Less and less know the basic facts of science that you must know before taking on the bigger theories. Everybody wants to go from A to C and skip B.
Comment by Antimonite — May 1, 2008 @ 6:52 pm
Antimonite:
As I said: I agree with you for the most part on the home schooling issue. It has some advantages, but I think public schooling (or at least a good private school) would be better in most cases. We have some standards here, too, however, its hard to achieve since the teachers are under-paid which makes it hard to find good ones. After all, who wants to spend four + years in college to get a low-paying job that will likely require that they have a spouse that works, too? That said, there are a large number of factors that dictate the quality (or lack thereof) of the public school system and never having been a teacher I don’t think I’m qualified to comment on much of it outside of the range of my personal experience as a student so I’ll let others take care of that.
I guess it only moderates the longer comments, and that’s fine. It just threw me off since I didn’t get a page telling me my comment was being held for moderation, it just acted as if nothing had happened.
Comment by Thomas M. — May 1, 2008 @ 7:35 pm
Thomas: Im sorry about that moderation-stuff. But at least now you know whats the problem if anything acts strange.
Comment by Antimonite — May 1, 2008 @ 9:14 pm
The answer to your question is yes, a person can graduate despite believing in Creationism. A good example is Kurt Wise, who was a student under Stephen Gould. He followed the strategy of learning the material and correctly performing on tests. Now he teaches at a Bible-oriented institution and has stated that if he is ever faced with data that contradict what the Bible says, he will ignore the data.
When I was an undergraduate (early 1970’s in New Jersey), Creationism never came up except as a historical oddity. As a grad student in Indiana, I could hear one undergraduate in an adjoining classroom questioning evolution and arguing his position (which was expressed on the side of his pickup truck–in Biblical passages). I suppose he graduated if he learned the material (in the manner of Kurt Wise), but I would bet his field is not paleontology. In the pages of Geotimes, and elsewhere, I come across letters to the editor from evolution deniers, but they tend to be engineering geologists or economic geologists, doing no research or work directly involving evolution.
Comment by mark — May 4, 2008 @ 11:38 am
mark: Thanks for sharing your experiences.
Comment by Antimonite — May 4, 2008 @ 5:08 pm
Next to the southern states and Kansas, the Central Valley of California is one of the most conservative regions in the United States, and I have had many students who ‘believe’ in creation-science due to the role of fundamentalist churches in the region. Home-schooling by scientifically illiterate parents plays a large part in these numbers.
I teach at one of the community colleges described in earlier posts, and I replaced a ‘geologist’ who had been teaching creationism in his classes, but it was neither condoned or supported by the college administration or the science division.
I have found that many of the students who succeed in my classes end up with a different understanding of evolution. They cannot get through a college degree program without a full understanding of evolution and geological principles. But my confidence does not extend to the society at large. I am concerned about science education in our region. For every college professor or high school teacher teaching good science, there seem to be dozens of preachers railing against evolution, trying to make it a moral issue.
Comment by Garry Hayes (Geotripper) — May 7, 2008 @ 6:40 am
Gary: Wow, that sounds disturbing from my secular perspecitive. Im glad that we have none of these problems.
Comment by Antimonite — May 7, 2008 @ 10:15 am