Evolution Education

Last year the McGill Journal of Education published a special issue on teaching evolution. One of the most interesting articles was by Craig Nelson on TEACHING EVOLUTION EFFECTIVELY: A CENTRAL DILEMMA AND ALTERNATIVE STRATEGIES.

Nelson points out that much of the blame for the evolution/creation controversy stems from poor teaching of evolution in the high schools. The two most obvious failed strategies are:

TEACH THE SCIENCE AND IGNORE STUDENTS’ PRIOR BELIEFS

This is the most common approach to teaching evolution. Students are exposed to the factual material on evolution from a strictly scientific perspective. The fact that most students may have conflicting religious beliefs is not taken into consideration and no time is spent discussing possible conflicts between religion and science. Nelson points out that this strategy is ineffective at getting students to change their minds about evolution. He adds, "However, when students make direct comparisons of their naïve misconceptions with scientifically better-founded schemes, change is frequent. These approaches can lead to greater acceptance of evolution (e.g., Ingram & Nelson, 2005; Scharmann, 2005; Scharmann et al., 2005; Verhey, 2005; Wilson, 2005, 2007; Alters, 2005 reviews earlier work). Thus, naïve views predominate publicly with regard to evolution, perhaps even more than elsewhere in science, at least partly as a predictable consequence of post-secondary pedagogical choices that ignore naïve views and are otherwise sub-optimal."

He's saying that it's better to confront creationism and intelligent design than to ignore it.

AVOIDING AN EVEN WORSE APPROACH: TWO EQUAL MODELS

One alternative is to teach both evolution creationism but to treat them as equivalent theories of origins. This is not appropriate.

Nelson advocates the teaching of creationism and intelligent design in school, but not as science. Instead, they should be used as examples of what science is not. It would be an excellent way of confronting the misconceptions of students head-on to show them why these false ideas are wrong. He echoes a similar call by Bruce Alberts writing in Cell [A Wakeup Call for Science Faculty].

For all those who teach college biology, the current challenge posed by the intelligent design movement presents an ideal “teachable moment.” I believe that intelligent design should be taught in college science classes but not as the alternative to Darwinism that its advocates demand. It is through the careful analysis of why intelligent design is not science that students can perhaps best come to appreciate the nature of science itself.

Alberts is talking about college courses but Nelson wants to use these "teachable moments" in high school. He suggests three possible strategies.

• Discuss common misconceptions, like the second law of thermodynamics or missing links, without explicitly mentioning creationism or religion.
• Make the nature of science a central theme and use evolution as the prime example of how science is supposed to be done. Countering creationist claims would be used as examples of non-scientific arguments.
• Discuss creationism and intelligent design directly in order to make it clear that creationist arguments fail when considered from a scientific perspective.

I agree with Nelson. He is talking about American schools but I think it would be much easier to implement a "teach the controversy" strategy in Canada. If the goal is to teach critical thinking then this is the way to go.

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