New paper suggests evolution is still loosing out to creationist propaganda

A paper published on friday in Science has suggested that the teaching of evolution in the U.S. is being hampered, unsurprisingly, by creationist educators.

For some horrible statistics to put the fear in you on a monday morning:

• 13% of teachers spend at least 1 hour of class time presenting creationism in a favourable light
• A further 5% endorse it in passing
• they come out with comments like this: "I don't teach the theory of evolution in my life science classes, nor do I teach the Bug Bang Theory in my earth science classes...we do not have time to do something that is a best poor science."
• and: "I am always amazing at how evolution and creationism are treated as if they are right or wrong. They are both belief systems that can never truly or fully be proved or discredited."

And you have to wonder how the f*ck they come up with this stuff! If evolution is poor science then throw the bloody baby out with the bath water; if you deny evolution you deny the scientific method and modern science. You shouldn't teach anything. 

You have to remember that evolution is a more accurate a theory than Newtons law of gravity.

And I bet they teach that without question.

The truly ridiculous thing is that if science ever came up with "evidence" that their side of the argument was correct (I say all of this with deep and sincere scorn in my voice) then they would jump up and down screaming from every available pulpit and minaret that SCIENCE HAD PROVED THEM RIGHT. HA! 

This is cherry picking at it's finest, accept what you want to believe, throw out everything else. This is a feature of so much pseudoscience, in my personal experience with people who believe in homeopathy. They simply cannot believe they could be wrong ("well it works for me"), and will take anything that supports their cause as fact, and be overly skeptical of anything that suggests (again and again and again) that in fact there is nothing more than placebo at play.

Anyway back to the creation-nonsense. 

Perhaps almost more worryingly than the strong disbelief in evolution amongst high school biology teachers is the fact that the majority (60%) of them do not fee strongly one way or the other. The paper highlights this as a problem area, because they often lack the confidence or teaching to defend evolution to a mental mini-creationist in the back row, and so skirt the issue by:

• teaching micro-evolution (i.e. only at the molecular scale, harking back to an old creationist argument that they accept micro-evolution, just not that species can change into something else)
• stating that teaching evolution is what the school board makes them do, so they do it (spineless little %&*@'s)
• and teach everything. The science, and the "controversy". (See comments about spineless above.)

It is this worry majority who, as the paper notes, could be in fact playing the most damaging role of all. They are not openly religious (so you couldn't refute all their arguments on the basis of mental illness) and they are reaching the MAJORITY of students. Most of all they miss what science is truly about, and how it works, and how to draw a conclusion, throw away a hypothesis. Not every hypothesis is born equal, and if you can never throw one out, you never progress or get anywhere.

 Sometimes people have to be wrong.

If you think this is only a  problem in the U.S.A where religion still has powerful friends, you are wrong. Creationist schools are popping up all over the UK, many driven by forces within the U.S. and these schools shy away from the government curriculum in favour of more divine scriptures (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2006/nov/27/controversiesinscience.religion).

So our problem lies within the next generation, when the numbers of creationists are bolstered by these schools, and they in turn become teachers, people in positions of power. We must watch the american struggle and take notes, because next time the burden of proof will be on us.

Chris