According to a recent Gallup poll, about 46 percent of Americans don’t believe in evolution. Apparently, the Alabama Department of Education isn’t quite sold on it yet either.
Besides claiming that natural selection has not been “directly observed,” the State Board of Education encourages students to “wrestle with the unanswered questions and unresolved problems still faced by evolutionary theory.” Alabama is the only state to include such an explicit disclaimer about evolution in its course of study.
Alabama Department of Education spokesperson Mark Sibley told Fox News in 2011 that while the course of study didn’t address creationism directly, it presents several “theories of evolution” and “creationism is one of those theories.”
Worse still, recent gubernatorial candidate (and UA alumnus) Bradley Byrne admitted to CBS News in 2010 that he “fought to ensure the teaching of creationism in [Alabama’s] school text books.” Byrne served on the Board of Education from 1994 to 2002.
Despite a massively compelling body of scientific evidence in support of the “theory of evolution,” it’s really not that surprising that so many Americans disregard common sense and are natural selection disbelievers. It is, however, shocking that educators and politicians in this state are tolerant of such profound ignorance and even promote this anti-intellectual thinking.
If the wishy-washiness about evolution – one of the cornerstones of modern science – is reflective of the state’s scientific curriculum in general, it’s probably not an accident that Alabama ranked 47th out of 50 states in the 2011 Science and Engineering Readiness Index with a score of 1.60 – the national average was 2.82 and the leader was Massachusetts at 4.82.
But Alabama isn’t alone in its logic-defying crusade against science. It seems Alabama’s fundamental misrepresentation of evolution is in fact symptomatic of a larger intellectual disconnect in the American educational community. Even highly-educated people just aren’t ready to let go of those creationist Bible stories, causing the U.S. to be alone as a developed nation in its evolutionary skepticism.
Unfortunately, it will be impossible for the U.S. to maintain its position as a global intellectual leader if the population remains scientifically illiterate on such basic concepts as natural selection.
Every individual in this and every other American state maintains the constitutional right to believe whatever they want about religion, so long as it doesn’t infringe on the rights of other citizens. So, if you would like to interpret the Bible literally and insist that God created Earth in seven days, you are legally permitted to do so. However, it is the responsibility of the public schools to teach students the scientific facts, not present them with tainted theological ideology and let them “wrestle” with the discrepancies themselves. In the case of evolution, science has already “wrestled” with this problem and has made its decision.
As Bill Nye “The Science Guy” has said: if grownups want to “deny evolution and live in [a] world that’s completely inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe, that’s fine, but don’t make your kids do it because we need them.”
Interestingly, even the Catholic Church largely embraces evolution at this point. Father George Coyne, the Vatican’s Chief Astronomer, stated that “intelligent design isn’t science even though it pretends to be. If you want to teach it in schools, [it] should be taught when religion or cultural history is taught, not science.”
I’m with “The Science Guy” and Father George on this one. Freedom of religion, yes, but students should also have the right to not be indoctrinated with ignorance because of the views of a vocal minority of “young earth” creationists. When it comes to the state curriculum, it is dangerously unintelligent to even hint at the legitimacy of pseudo-sciences like “intelligent design.”
Henry Downes is a sophomore majoring in economics. His column runs on Tuesday.
