Latest Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

u re quite wrong.

Among GOP Contenders, Evolution is an Issue
(Evolution News & Views, August 26, 2011)

This is getting...interesting. Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman hit back at Rick Perry of Texas following Perry's comment about evolutionary theory having "some gaps in it." Mr. Huntsman tweeted, "To be clear I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy." Clearly he is strategically positioning himself to capture the entire constituency of liberal Republican Mormons. We've never met any, but there must be a few.

It does seem that most Christians are taught that reason is the enemy of faith so they choose to be the enemy of reason.

Rev Poe is a paleontologist in disguise if I am not mistaken!

Jon Huntsman and Evolution: A Missed Opportunity
(Michael Zimmerman, Huffington Post, August 29, 2011)

It's not often that there's good news coming out of the Republican Party -- for science in general or for evolution in particular. That pattern was broken on Aug. 18, when GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman took to Twitter to announce: "To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy."

As the head of The Clergy Letter Project, an organization of more than 13,000 clergy and 1,000 scientists who promote the teaching of evolution -- and work for a nuanced understanding of the relationship between religion and science -- I was delighted and immediately thought that I should do a profile of Governor Huntsman for my HuffPost series "Profiles in (Evolutionary) Courage."

I never thought that it would be all but impossible to write such a piece. But now, well over a week later, and without anyone in the Huntsman campaign willing to return phone calls or emails, I've come to the conclusion that I cannot write what I intended. Instead of learning more about Huntsman and what drives his respect for science, I'm beginning to understand why his campaign is mired in last place amid a non-distinguished field. As of today's Real Clear Politics poll, Huntsman's support is running 10-fold behind Rick Perry's (20 percent to 2 percent), significantly behind Michele Bachmann's (9 percent to 2 percent) and even a bit further behind the non-candidacy of Sarah Palin (11 percent to 2 percent). Amazingly, even Herman Cain's polling numbers (5 percent) are two and a half times better. Herman Cain!

Please don't misunderstand me. I recognize that I'm not a major media figure. Indeed, I recognize that I'm not even a minor media figure. However, the pieces I write for The Huffington Post are well read and receive hundreds, and often thousands, of comments. To quote Huntsman, "call me crazy!" but I thought that a positive piece elaborating on his tweet would be seen as a positive bit of media attention. Apparently not.

My calls to his campaign merely yielded a referral to an email address. My emails to his campaign remain unanswered. In an attempt to work a back channel, I contacted Eric Holcomb, the Chair of the Indiana Republican Party. Eric immediately responded enthusiastically and said that he would pass my message along to friends in the Huntsman campaign. Although I'm confident that he did so, no one has gotten back to me.

So, after more than a week of phone calls and emails, I've been unable to have any questions answered. My efforts have not generated a single acknowledgement that I even exist. Well, that's not exactly true! About 10 hours after sending an email to a generic address on the Huntsman website, I received three copies of a solicitation from the Republican Party of Pennsylvania. Coincidence? Could be, but I doubt it.

The thing is, exploring what brought Jon Huntsman to his position on science, a position so dramatically at odds with the rest of his party, is not a trivial matter. Scientific knowledge need not -- and should not -- be a political issue and yet it has become just that within the Republican presidential field.

Huntsman himself explained the importance of science to Jake Tapper on ABC's This Week on the Sunday following his tweet: "The minute that the Republican Party becomes the party -- the anti-science party -- we have a huge problem. We lose a whole lot of people who would otherwise allow us to win the election in 2012. When we take a position that isn't willing to embrace evolution, when we take a position that basically runs counter to what 98 of 100 climate scientists have said, what the National Academy of Science has said about what is causing climate change and man's contribution to it, I think we find ourselves on the wrong side of science, and, therefore, in a losing position. The Republican Party has to remember that we're drawing from traditions that go back as far as Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, President Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan and Bush. And we've got a lot of traditions to draw upon. But I can't remember a time in our history where we actually were willing to shun science and become a party that was antithetical to science. I'm not sure that's good for our future, and it's not a winning formula."

Huntsman is absolutely correct. It is neither good politics nor good public policy for one of the country's major political parties to shun science. Study after study has reached two consistent conclusions: First, the United States continues to lose its scientific edge. Second, the economic consequences associated with our collapsing scientific infrastructure are huge.

Evolutionary theory is as well understood a scientific theory as any and far better than most. Rejecting it on political grounds in an attempt to pander to a small but very vocal subset of the population that believes evolution and religious conviction cannot be compatible is a disgrace, and it distorts the public's understanding of what science actually is.

I am absolutely delighted that Jon Huntsman has opted to clearly state his support for both science and evolution, and I wish I could have been in a position to more fully explore the reasons for his actions. Given the current nature of the Republican Party, it was courageous of him to be as outspoken as he has been. However, if he has any hope of moving up from last place in the race, I suspect that his staff is going to have to be more willing to respond to requests for information about his positions. And since any campaign staff ultimately takes its orders from the top, I can't help but wonder about the direction Huntsman is providing.

I took rl's comment to be a generalized statement about religions DENIAL of evolution. I dont deny that there are huge numbers who buy into that crap, I merely wantede rl to understand that its really a MINORITY position from church leadership.

It seems to me that high level leadership says the right things. But I don't get the feeling that they are going out of their way to try to push that message down to the local levels very well.

Creationism not fit topic to teach
(By Patrick Seick | THE EASTERN ECHO | August 30, 2011)

“Should public schools teach evolution?”

This was the prompt provided to 51 delegates in a Miss USA 2011 interview. As amusing as it was to watch the beautiful women struggle with the question, their answers indicated more that they were American rather than stereotypical beauty queens.

Most responded to the question with a qualified yes, being sure to flaunt Christian credentials in the process. The smiling faces mustered up the compromising, accommodating answer: “Both sides of the story” should be offered for students (in reference to Biblical creationism).

The caveat here is the Miss USA pageant is, at some level, a popularity contest, so the crown hopefuls are sure to give the answer they suspect is most wanted by the American public.

As referenced in a 2009 Pew Research Study, 63 percent of Americans believe in the “both-sides-of-the-story” approach. The study goes on to equate evolution with gravity in terms of scientific validity and notes a vast majority of the nation’s scientists agree evolution is a sound theory.

For scientists, as the aforementioned study explains, a theory is “an established explanation for a natural phenomenon… that has repeatedly been tested through observation and experimentation.”

Of course, if certain Americans are insistent upon offering creationism alongside evolution in the classroom, then they must admit they are tyrannical, hypocritical, quixotic, or some combination of the three.

These “accomodationists” assert their faith-based creation narrative is the only one deserving of a place in the classroom while denying other similarly non-scientific ones. But if one creation story is included in the curriculum, then all such narratives should be taught – an impossible task given the hundreds that are available.

Aside from that sticky situation in which creationism supporters and apologists find themselves, there are Constitutional concerns.

The teaching of creationism/intelligent design in a state institution is an assault on the secular law of the land, particularly the First Amendment and what Thomas Jefferson christened a “wall of separation between church and State.” That was an opinion echoed by the Supreme Court in Edwards v. Aguillard and Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District.

Shockingly, most public school biology teachers across the nation are still hesitant to deny creationism and intelligent design a place in the classroom. A January 2011 Wired Science article reports that 13 percent of high school biology teachers explicitly endorse creationism (or intelligent design, noting it as equally as unscientific), 28 percent base their lesson plans solely on evolution and 60 percent entirely avoid choosing sides.

The article continues by expressing concerns that creationism, even presenting it alongside evolution, undermines scientific literacy and the scientific method.

Although it would be an easy solution, one cannot completely blame the teachers. It’s easy to see their desire to be cautious. They are caught in the middle of a clash where theology, politics, science and popular opinion are involved. Ultimately, we must remind ourselves teachers are not theologians or politicians.

A 2006 National Geographic study notes the issue of evolution is far more politicized in the United States than in any Western European nation or Japan, where teaching evolution is commonplace.

Along these lines, it should not surprise us United States citizens were more likely to reject the theory of evolution than all other 32 nations in the study besides Turkey. In order to fully grasp the lunacy of that statement, replace “evolution” with “gravity” in the previous sentence.

In her 2011 Miss USA evolution interview, Miss California, Alyssa Campanella, said, “Well I was taught evolution in my high school growing up and I do believe in it, and I mean, I’m a huge science geek,” implying a rare unabashed support for teaching evolution in the classroom. Miss California also won the pageant. Perhaps, then, a glimmer of hope is reflected off the beauty queen’s crown.

In actual fact, the whole point of ramming evolution theory up the schoolkids asses