October 1, 1999

Manheim Park : Social Analysis Consortium

Darwin’s Theory of Evolution – Should it be Taught in Public Schools?

Pamela Ashmore

Simply stated, evolution is change that occurs in gene frequencies over time. It is nothing more or nothing less. Shifts in the characteristics of organisms are perpetuated by shifts in the circumstances of their environment. Nature "selects" by allowing those individuals to survive and reproduce who, by chance, are best suited or adapted to their environment. The positive, negative or neutral value of a characteristic changes over time as do the selective agents and the environments in which they are found – our natural world is not static and we are presently seeing many examples of the ebb and flow of natural forces. In other words, evolution can be described as an experiment in time and space, it ultimately reflects variation in design and all members of every population exhibit variation. This experimentation yields interesting results. The rule on this planet has always been one of extinction not survival: greater than 90% of all the species that have ever lived are now extinct.

Let’s focus for a moment on what evolution is not. Evolution is not goal oriented, it is not directional and it is neither immoral or moral. It IS utterly impersonal. The mechanisms of evolution are purely mechanical much like those of gravity. To support the fact of evolution one does not have to be an atheist or an agnostic, evolutionists do not teach that humans were ever monkeys, (this is simply not a fair assumption on the behalf of monkeys let alone us humans), and evolution does not strive to produce human beings out of other species (the chimpanzee is not on it’s way to becoming human nor did it fall short of that goal) and you or I are not ever going to evolve in a single lifetime. The ingredients that evolution does require are: time, variation, and changing natural environments. It can occur on a small scale or a grand scale, it occurs at varying rates and speeds, and it is an on-going process that can be measured, tested and observed.

A national survey conducted by Time magazine two weeks after the Kansas vote showed an interesting trend that has been characteristic of the United States. A trend that underscores the highly conservative and Christian based orientation of our country as opposed to that of all other industrial nations. Based on 14,357 votes, 61.37% said that evolution should not be taught in (public) schools, 0.95% were unsure, and 37.73% said yes – that evolution should be taught. My question however is what was the knowledge base about evolution of those who were polled? I too would vote that children should not be taught that humans were once monkeys if that was, in fact, what I perceived evolution to be. Does the majority of the general public even know that in his October 22^nd, 1996 statement to the pontiff’s Academy of Sciences, that John Paul II defended both the evidence for evolution and its consistency with Catholic teaching? But, perhaps even more interesting and significant is the fact that this was not a new call to the members of the Catholic Church. Pope John Paul II followed the suggestions of Pope Pius XII (1950).

Now, I am not saying that all who are against the teaching of evolution are ill informed. Typically, however, because we often do not receive a base foundation in the nature of evolution in school (at either the pre collegiate or collegiate level) we do carry misconceptions with us. This phenomenon is something that we are presently investigating on this campus.

Melva Ware, diane Ousley and myself conducted a preliminary study funded by an NSF Powre Grant that Melva secured and a portion of this project looked into what people know about evolution, the geological time scale, human origin, and variation. All individuals surveyed were college level with 109 having completed an undergraduate degree. The vast majority (259) of the 322 individuals surveyed were either pre service or in service teachers. One of the questions asked about the relationship between human and chimp evolution. Fortunately, 53% responded that chimpanzees and humans evolved from a common ancestor, but 24% responded that humans evolved from chimpanzees, 13% that humans are a more advanced form of chimpanzee and 5% did not know – a total of 42% plus additional no responses.

A question addressing whether or not the concept of evolution is a theory, a fact, an unproven or false hypothesis resulted in 48% of the participants rating it as an unproven hypothesis, 7.5% a false hypothesis and almost 4% did not know – a total of 59.5%. In contrast, 33% rated it as a well tested theory and 7.5% as a scientific fact.

The term "survival of the fittest" was coined by…not Darwin as 80% of the respondents thought but the sociologist, Herbert Spencer (3%). Only 13% of those surveyed knew that over 90% of the species that have ever lived on earth have gone extinct.

And finally, 28% of the participants responded that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years, 12% that God created humans 10,000 years ago in a slightly less advanced form than the present, 38% that Humans developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, 11% that Humans have developed over the past 10,000 years as savages who developed into barbarians, and finally into civilized beings and 11% were not sure how to respond.

We are presently analyzing these data and are going to refine our survey and expand our sample size. What this preliminary investigation does illustrate is that there is a great deal of "noise" in the perceptions of people regarding the nature of evolution. It is this noise that concerns me and makes me wonder about the knowledge of those who have participated in national surveys such as that devised by Time Magazine.

A great deal of the noise that enters into the evolution debate arena certainly stems from different world views – perceptions that are shaped by culture and form how people perceive, explain and relate to the world around them. The creation event as depicted in Genesis is one of many perceptions regarding the creation of the world. The vast majority of cultures for which we have either oral or written traditions indicate that cultures construct a story referred to as a myth that tells about the creation of the world and humans in that world. Now, the term myth does not reduce or diminish the significance or cultural reality of a story. There are many definitions of myth, but one that I prefer is that of Rollo May, a psychiatrist, who defines myth as "a way of making sense in a senseless world" or in the words of the anthropologist, Bronislaw Malinowski, "a myth is not merely a story told but a reality lived." Although I believe that the realms of scientific investigation and religious beliefs are separate, (but not out of necessity mutually exclusive), I find it very ethnocentric that conservative creationists promote the story of Genesis over that of all other creation stories. And, in fact, some of these creation stories are indeed very evolutionary in nature. For example, in both the origin myths of the Zuni and Navaho peoples, human beings experience a series of underground worlds. In each successive cave, humans change shape and form as does characteristics in their surrounding environments. The Yanomami (Brazil and Venezuela) depict a story that includes a catastrophic flood event much like that depicted in the story of Noah, and in their story humans have to be recreated from the blood of one of the original spirit beings (Periboriwa). Olorun, The Supreme Being, Owner of the Sky, is the Creator of the traditional Yoruba people of Nigeria. In the beginning, "the earth was all watery, just a marshy place, a waste" terra firma was created by putting earth that was contained in a shell a pigeon and a hen with five toes down on this marsh. "It didn’t take long for them to scratch the soil over the whole marsh-waste." And, the first humans came from a place not unlike Heaven. Now, if we need to give fair time to the creationist point of view, the question becomes the creationist point of view from which culture? As we all know diversity in ethnicity is becoming ever more important and a reality in the composition of our student populations. The bottom line is we cannot afford to turn our science classes into comparative religion courses. These realms are distinctly different in nature and in methods of investigation.