Scientific Illiteracy and the Partisan Takeover of Biology

National Center for Science Education ^ | 18 April 2006 | Staff

[PatrickHenry]

A new article in PLoS Biology (April 18, 2006) discusses the state of scientific literacy in the United States, with especial attention to the survey research of Jon D. Miller, who directs the Center for Biomedical Communications at Northwestern University Medical School.

To measure public acceptance of the concept of evolution, Miller has been asking adults if "human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals" since 1985. He and his colleagues purposefully avoid using the now politically charged word "evolution" in order to determine whether people accept the basics of evolutionary theory. Over the past 20 years, the proportion of Americans who reject this concept has declined (from 48% to 39%), as has the proportion who accept it (45% to 40%). Confusion, on the other hand, has increased considerably, with those expressing uncertainty increasing from 7% in 1985 to 21% in 2005.

In international surveys, the article reports, "[n]o other country has so many people who are absolutely committed to rejecting the concept of evolution," quoting Miller as saying, "We are truly out on a limb by ourselves."

The "partisan takeover" of the title refers to the embrace of antievolutionism by what the article describes as "the right-wing fundamentalist faction of the Republican Party," noting, "In the 1990s, the state Republican platforms in Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Oregon, Missouri, and Texas all included demands for teaching creation science." NCSE is currently aware of eight state Republican parties that have antievolutionism embedded in their official platforms or policies: those of Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Texas. Four of them -- those of Alaska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Texas -- call for teaching forms of creationism in addition to evolution; the remaining three call only for referring the decision whether to teach such "alternatives" to local school districts.

A sidebar to the article, entitled "Evolution under Attack," discusses the role of NCSE and its executive director Eugenie C. Scott in defending the teaching of evolution. Scott explained the current spate of antievolution activity as due in part to the rise of state science standards: "for the first time in many states, school districts are faced with the prospect of needing to teach evolution. ... If you don't want evolution to be taught, you need to attack the standards." Commenting on the decision in Kitzmiller v. Dover [Kitzmiller et al. v Dover Area School District et al.], Scott told PLoS Biology, "Intelligent design may be dead as a legal strategy but that does not mean it is dead as a popular social movement," urging and educators to continue to resist to the onslaught of the antievolution movement. "It's got legs," she quipped. "It will evolve."

[doc30]

I also hate to see the supporters of evolution deny the existence of any scientist who thinks that there must have been some conscious plan for so complex a world.

One of the problems is that, like the article claims, many people do not have basic scientific literacy, yet they try to argue science with scientists. It's like bringing a knife to a gun fight. The scientists are faced with arguements that are below a freshman level in a lot of areas and the non-scientists lack sufficent versing to comprehend the arguements made by scientists. Frustration boils up on both sides and you get a situation where PatrickHenry has to remind everyone to be civil.

There is no problem with thinking there is a creative hand in our existence, but the problem comes when people try to introduce it as science. There is no evidence for it and, if one argues complexity, then there must also be an explanation for what this creative source is and how it operates. ID is an interesting philosophical concept, but does not rise to the level of science. Only those who do not understand the nature of science do not comprehend this situation.

[ToryHeartland]

The Republican party has been exploiting the fundamentalists' distrust of liberals

Well, I that's a distrust I both understand and share! Over here, we've had the socialists in power since 1997!

Thanks, btw, for your post, which is of interest. It seems to me there is a variety of polarisation in the American political scene that could do long-term damage to the basic cause of freedom, not just in the USA, but in the wider world as well. Here's wishing you good luck!

[SirJohnBarleycorn]

LOL. Ya got me there.

[wintertime]

One of the problems is that, like the article claims, many people do not have basic scientific literacy, yet they try to argue science with scientists. It's like bringing a knife to a gun fight. The scientists are faced with arguements that are below a freshman level in a lot of areas and the non-scientists lack sufficent versing to comprehend the arguements made by scientists. Frustration boils up on both sides and you get a situation where PatrickHenry has to remind everyone to be civil.

If adults are scientifically illiterate....what level are elementary, middle school, and high schoolers on? How can evolution be presented to them that doesn't sound magical ( religious)?

K-12 students are incapable of studying science. They don't have the basics to do it. What they are learning is merely general information about the natural world. Calling this general knowledge "science" teaches them a profoundly erroneous concept about the true work of scientists.

Children are by nature very accepting and lack critical thinking. They do indeed have a magical outlook on life. There is NO possible way for government to educate children in a manner that does not PROFOUNDLY influence their political, cultural, and religious worldview. Government must get out of the education business if we are to ever end these curriculum wars.

[dmz]

rational people will agree with me
____________

Well, allow me to be irrational, i.e., to disagree with you.

While you may have reached a logical conclusion based on the premises, it is those premises which I believe are faulty, thereby leading to an incorrect conclusion.

You state, as though it were fact, that teaching evolution in science class in a public school destroys the political, cultural, and religious belief systems of some of the students. You have not demonstrated this by providing an single iota of evidence to support your statement, though.

Were you exposed to evolution at any point during your education? Were your political, cultural, and religious belief systems destroyed as a result?

It seems not. Your boilerplate post is hyperbolic.

[TaxRelief]

Evolutionists and environmentalists have done more to undermine scientific education than all the "dumb-it-down-for-equality" civil rights activists combined.

[Physicist]

Is evolution soooooooo important in the daily work and lives of ordinary people, that government should have the right to actively promote or destroy the religious, political, and cultural worldview of some children while establishing the worldview of others? I don't think so, and rational people will agree with me.

It's shamanism that is the bane of the Western Intellectual Tradition, not science.

[ml1954]

the embrace of antievolutionism by...."the right-wing fundamentalist faction of the Republican Party"

This could become a DIM and MSM slogan as the 2008 election approaches.

[ToryHeartland]

K-12 students are incapable of studying science. They don't have the basics to do it.

What "basics" do they lack, and how do they acquire them by simply growing older? I am struggling to understand your point here.

There is NO possible way for government to educate children in a manner that does not PROFOUNDLY influence their political, cultural, and religious worldview.

Hmmm. If this is true (and I am very far from persuaded that it is), is it not true of all educators, or true about the nature of education? In other words, do not Church schools (and my own daughters attend one, btw) also influence the 'political, cultural, and religious worldview' of their pupils?

Your point really isn't clear to me.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

Evolutionists Creationists and environmentalists have done more to undermine scientific education than all the "dumb-it-down-for-equality" civil rights activists combined."

There. fixed it for you. :)

[grey_whiskers]

One of the problems is that, like the article claims, many people do not have basic scientific literacy, yet they try to argue science with scientists. It's like bringing a knife to a gun fight.

Yup. Of course, together with the government schools, this has elements of its own "chicken or the egg" conodrum.

Are the students so ignorant of science because of the dismal state of the schools?

Or are so many of the students uninterested in science (Math Class is Tough^TM!) that even the best instruction can't reach them and they fall prey to fads?

Interesting side point: Why is it that other controversial non-scientific things (crystal healing, astrology, alternative medicine) generate just as much laughter but not as much contempt as Creationism? Is there an element of intellectual pride? Is it that other non-scientific-mainstream worldviews are not as, well, pushy? Or is it that the other worldviews are rejected by nearly everyone as quacks, and therefore thought to be not nearly such a threat?

Just stirring the pot...

Cheers!

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

...it tests whether the subjects reject the evidence (common descent)

There is no evidence that any species or any form of life originated exclusively from this planet...

Evolutionists believe in the primordial spaghetti sauce theory.

[Physicist]

Perhaps it's the fact that there isn't a widespread movement to teach those beliefs in public schools as an alternative to an established science.

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

Just stirring the pot...

Evolutionists believe in the boiling primordial spaghetti sauce theory.

[Gumlegs]

Why is it that other controversial non-scientific things (crystal healing, astrology, alternative medicine) generate just as much laughter but not as much contempt as Creationism?

Perhaps not here at FR, but I assure you they do. You might look here or here for starters.

[js1138]

It would seem to me that if evolution corrupts, then those who know the most about it would be the most corrupted.

Perhaps someone should do a study comparing the conviction rates for child molestation of biology teachers and clergymen.

[MissAmericanPie]

Well said. As a believer in intelligent design, I cannot understand the necessity of the scientific community to come down on either side of the question of evolution vs intelligent design.

Science is greatly limited regarding evidence for either position, and science is not the last word because science does not have all the evidence and can never attain it. What evidence they have, should be presented with no preconceived theory, or opinion of where the evidence they possess leads.

Christians and believers having read in Genesis that the world was created already old, that the chicken came first with the egg inside it, that the fruit tree was created mature with the fruit on the limbs and the seed inside the fruit, see scientists as two dimensional creatures blindly feeling their way around attempting to understand a three dimensional world.

It doesn't help when science says that when the earth was young, long before man arrived, that the earth was watered by a mist that rose from the ground, when Genesis says that from the time of Adam to the time of Noah, it had never rained, but the earth was watered by a mist that rose from the ground.

It does no good to point out that man and cockroaches have a common enzyme therefore it should indicate some branching off from each other during some period of evolution, when it would be ridiculous for an Intelligent Designer not to use the same needed chemicals in more than one creature to make that creature function as the designer wants it to. Why would an Intelligent Designer need to keep reinventing the wheel, when He already has on hand what He needs to plug in to make a creation tick?

I think science has come to a point where it becomes purely political to take a position either way. They can no longer simply write off Intelligent Design and only support the Theory of Evolution. Let science present what it does know and then let the individual study the evidence and make up his own mind without agenda creeping into it.

[ml1954]

You must have missed the (tens of?) thousands of times in this forum when those who are pro-evo have been either called or equated with Communists, Nazis, etc. and blamed for all that is presently ill with society and the world, not to mention responsible for the massacre of hundreds of millions in the 20th century.

And I'm only scratching the surface of the things blamed on 'evolution' on this forum.

[Physicist]

There is no evidence that any species or any form of life originated exclusively from this planet...

I'm not sure what that means, but there's plenty of evidence that species developed from earlier forms over time.

Evolutionists believe in the primordial spaghetti sauce theory.

OK, you caught us. The "sauce" part does sound a bit crazy, what with its tomatoes and herbs and all, but at least we're not trying to get that part into the school curriculum. </s>

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"There is no evidence that any species or any form of life originated exclusively from this planet..."

Not only is there abundant evidence, speciation has been observed, directly.

Your ET hypothesis isn't going to convince many.