Teaching Evolution Shouldn't Exclude Critique

Recently, the Tennessee Senate passed legislation guaranteeing that teachers can’t be disciplined for challenging the science of evolution and climate change. While I found it interesting that such a bill was deemed necessary, I didn’t necessarily think it had anything to do with science education in Illinois. I mean, we here in the Midwest pretty much believe in evolution, right? Was I wrong!

Just last year, a study published in Science magazine reported that only 28 percent of high school biology teachers teach evolution as recommended by the National Science Teachers Association. That is, as a unifying concept with importance across the disciplines of science, such as astronomy, geology, biology, and anthropology. Nearly 13 percent of teachers nationwide believe in creationism and present it in their classrooms, despite numerous court cases prohibiting teaching creationism on grounds of separation of church and state. In Illinois, as much as 30 percent of our biology teachers support the teaching of creationism.

The Tennessee legislation doesn’t require teachers to teach creationism. In fact, it supports a “scientific critique of the theory of evolution.” I don’t have a problem with kids applying a scientific critique to the theory of evolution and discovering how it stands up as a scientific explanation of natural phenomena. Frankly, I don’t have a problem with kids looking at creationism and how it stands up to the tests of what constitutes a scientific theory. I think that’s a pretty good way to teach the difference between science-based arguments and faith-based ones.

When I was a child, I was taught in church that God created man in his own image; I was taught in school that man evolved from a universal ancestor billions of years ago. It was my parents’ responsibility to guide my consideration of the two. Today, like more than 90 percent of scientists, I believe evolution provides an excellent science-based explanation for the billions of years of Earth’s natural phenomena. Creationism, intelligent design, or whatever other name it goes by these days, is not scientific theory. I don’t want my kids’ science teachers presenting it that way.