Problems with U.S. science education regarding evolution?

In Message 69 pink sasquatch brings up an idea that I’ve been wanting to discuss for a long time: America’s apparent lack of good education standards regarding evolutionary theory.I’ve been following the evolution/creation debate for a little over a year. After interacting online with people all over the country, the thing that amazes me most is the incredible amount of misinformation out there regarding evolutionary theory. At first, it appeared limited to a handful of aggressive fundamentalists educating their fellow churchgoers through pamphlets or websites, but I have also heard it from allegedly educated/scientific people. I have been asked questions from a professional chemist like If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys? Perhaps he, too, fell prey to the propaganda, but I would assume that he took at least one biology class in high school.The push to teach ID in schools has also exposed the lack of understanding by the general public. My mother is a 6th grade science teacher in Wisconsin. Whenever parent/teacher conferences come around, she and the other science teachers are inundated with questions from parents wondering why the school teaches evolutionat all! (There is a small fundamentalist population in the village, but I suspect that some of these parents subscribe to more mainstream denominations as well)Given the fact that these discussions are popping up all over the country, both online and at school board meetings, I get the feeling that there is a broad lack in the quality of evolution education at least at the elementary and high school levels, perhaps in university programs as well. It’s hard for me to pinpoint a particular problem area, but I would like to discuss the following:1. Is this problem partially the result of current science knowledge advancing far past what was known when today’s parents were in school? This seems to be true as parents and school board members continually demonstrate a lack of understanding even in the most fundamental aspects of biology and evolution.2. For the teachers out there, what standards are you obligated to meet when teaching evolution? How many class periods/lectures will you spend covering the material?3. Are the particulars of evolutionary theory too hard for the average person to grasp, or are they too-often glossed over in the classroom? Is this is why it is so easy for creationism and ID to capture the imagination of the public?4. Is it more likely that students generally aren't interested enough in school to want to understand evolutionary theory?5. Is reform needed on a national level to increase standards across the board? It seems as though the quality of education varies from school district to school district.Admins, I feel that this is an important topic as the board was partially created out of concern for the introduction of creationism into schools. I haven’t seen a topic devoted to it, but if you feel that it has been discussed well enough in other topics, then there’s no need to promote it. I would like to see it in Education and Creation/Evolution.This message has been edited by vossy, 02-22-2005 14:00 AM

That's a big problem right there. Evolution is one of the cornerstones of "regular" biology. Considering that the majority of students don't take AP level Biology, this is a good illustration of the problem perpetuating itself. I can see an absence of knowledge getting filled by misinformation pretty easily.Interestingly, the Rhode Island Department of Education has set up a detailed science education framework. If you scroll down to the evolution section there are 6 benchmarks given for a proper grounding in evolutionary theory. I suppose it's up to the teacher whether or not they discuss these benchmarks, but to not even broach the subject is pretty appalling.How long ago were you in high school, if you don't mind me asking?

I'm sure you've looked into that, Ned, but I have heard otherwise, albeit on only one occasion. On Valentine's Day, Ronald Numbers gave a talk here at UW, and he suggested that Canada is worse off than we are regarding the public's perception of evolution. IIRC, he was referring to surveys that indicated an even smaller percentage of Canadians believed that evolution was fact than in the US. He didn't get into specific numbers, but he twice suggested problems in Canada were worse than our own (and sort of chuckled). Would you say this is inaccurate? (Perhaps this is off-topic, but I'm curious) Agreed. I believe the key component to breaking the cycle of misinformation is getting some of our teachers to quit skirting the issues at hand. This is way easier said than done, of course. I can't think of a way to hold teachers accountable other than students' performances on standardized tests. Perhaps standards need to be raised in order to get teachers to shape up their lesson plans? I'd hate to put the onus on the people that are getting mounting pressure from all sides, but I think that might be the best place to start.