Creationism In Classroom

Creationism in the classroom

The debate concerning the teaching of creationism in public science classrooms has been raging for decades. This idea is contentious due to the strong religious convictions of its advocates and the equally fervent rationalism that opposes it. Creationism is a doctrine based in faith, and as such cannot be summarily proven or disproven with empirical and reproducible evidence. There is, however, a place for Creationism in the public school system. Creationism has no place in the science curriculum within the public education system, but it can be covered in a humanities course to investigate the distinctions between theology, philosophy, and science.

The word “Creationism” carries different connotations depending
on the social setting in which it is used. In certain parts of the United States, Creationism is a valid teaching with as much scientific merit as the theory of evolution by means of natural selection, as well as a vanguard against the moral decay brought on by the teaching of evolution. This attitude is usually found among religious Christians who lean toward a fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible (Chryssides). In other parts of the country, and to other groups of people, Creationism is viewed as a radical fundamentalist teaching that works against scientific literacy and technological progress (Chryssides). Within the scientific community, Creationism, and its intellectual descendant intelligent design, are also seen as threats to wider acceptance of other controversial scientific ideas, such as anthropogenic climate change. In contrast to legitimate scientific theories, neither Creationism nor intelligent design can be confirmed or disproven by experimentation or empirical observation. This is due to the fact that neither make any scientific claims or provide any data by which to support any such claims. In stark contrast, the theory of evolution by means of natural selection, first outline and advocated for by Charles Darwin (Duiker, 20), has withstood 100 years of rigorous scientific experimentation and has reams of empirical data in its support.

Since the Enlightenment, one of the stated goals of science is to be QUOTE ABOUT SCIENCE.
Bearing this in mind, science has historically been taught as fact, without providing an outlet for questioning by students. The only context in which a student can object to the veracity of a scientific assertion is if the student is pursuing a graduate degree and conducting their own research. This fact was brought into very public light during and after the famous trial Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. (Crowther). In October of 2004, the Dover Area School District, in Pennsylvania, began requiring that intelligent design be presented as an alternative to the theory of evolution by means of natural selection. Prominent in this curricular modification was the mandatory adoption of the textbook Of Pandas and People, a prominent example of literature advocating intelligent design. Upset by the decision, a group of parents successfully sued the school district. The change to the curriculum was overturned on the premise that it violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. This clause prohibits any government body from advocating for or enforcing a specific religious teaching or doctrine. The judge involved in the trial determined that intelligent design was a form of Creationism, and so a religious doctrine which could not receive official endorsement or mandate by the school district, a government
body.

In addition to violating religious freedom under the Bill of Rights, the study of Creationism has also led to the censorship of textbooks in certain states. As a consequence of the extremely decentralized nature of the public education system in the United States, each state has the freedom to determine whether it will permit its schools and districts to select the textbooks used in their curriculums, or require all schools and districts in the state to use the same set of textbooks. For this reason, the departments of education of Texas, New York, and Florida wield enormous influence over the American textbook industry, because their textbook selections are set at the state level and they have some of the largest student populations in the country. These conditions have led to the censorship of textbook materials in Texas. Beginning in 1982, the Texas State Textbook Committee began refusing the approval of textbooks for their content pertaining to or promoting the theory of evolution by means of natural selection. The 1982 instance of this prejudice manifested in the refusal to adopt the world geography book Land and People. This particular decision was made in objection to the following sentence in the text: “Biologists believe that human beings, as members of the animal kingdom, have adjusted to their environment by biological adaptation” (Edwards,40-42). This anti-evolution attitude has continued into the present day, as evidenced by the following quote from The Great Agnostic:
One compelling example of the largely undetected erosion of freethought advances in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was a change in one of the standard high school science textbooks, used throughout the nation for nearly four decades. The first edition of Truman Moon’s Biology for Beginners, published in 1921, had a portrait of Darwin as the frontispiece. The second edition, published after the Scopes trial in 1926, replaced Darwin with a drawing of the human digestive tract. The 1920’s also ushered in the downplaying of any connection between lower animals and human evolution. The E-word was censored and replaced in texts with euphemistic phrase like “changes over time”. The cyclical antiscience [sic] drama returned in the first decade of the twenty-first century with demand by the Texas State Board of Education, the second-largest purchaser of school texts in the nation, for changes to minimize the subject of evolution in high school biology texts (Jacoby, 187).
The bias against discussion of evolution in public schools has a long history, going back to the early twentieth century.
Perhaps the most famous example of this early prejudice was the famous Scopes Trial, which took place in Tennessee in 1925. The case involved a law that had recently been passed through the state assembly, known as the Butler Act, prohibiting the teaching of evolution in the public classroom. The American Civil Liberties Union offered to defend anyone charged with breaking the law. A Dayton high school science and math teacher, John T. Scopes, was asked by other locals who opposed the bill if he would agree to be charged with breaking the law under the Butler Act. Scopes agreed, and the trial generated national attention, even being broadcast over the radio. William Jennings Bryan, the nation’s foremost advocate for religious fundamentalism at the time, was on the prosecution team, opposing Clarence Darrow, the most famous criminal defense lawyer also well-known for being an agnostic. While Bryan successfully obtained a conviction of Scopes, it was overturned by the Tennessee Supreme Court following an appeal. Following the trial, several states saw a concerted effort by fundamentalists to ban the teaching of evolution in public
schools.

All of this is not to say that the study and discussion of Creationism should be banned from public schools. As a doctrine stemming from theology, Creationism would be appropriate to discuss in the context of religious studies or other social sciences. In such classes, discussions involving Creationism can be had with a provision for conflicting opinions and beliefs, which are not allowed for in the science classroom. Specifically, in the context of a world religions class, Creationism can be presented alongside other theological arguments and worldviews, taking into consideration its historical association with religious fundamentalism. Another aspect of studying the social sciences that would benefit the study of Creationism are the wide selection of reading sources available. An instructor could assign several readings pertaining to the topic, spanning scientific, theological, and philosophical works. Including the study of scientific material, such as Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species or The Descent of Man, can also encourage students to explore the distinction between objective science and philosophy and theology. This would also provide an excellent backdrop for the study of the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, and the various schools of philosophy that developed as a direct result of these social changes.

While Creationism has caused considerable controversy and misinformation, it should only be opposed in the science classroom. From the perspective of the social sciences and theology, Creationism is a perfectly valid subject of inquiry. Unfortunately, due its theological basis and the absence of empirical evidence supporting it, Creationism is not suitable to be taught alongside evolution or in any science curriculum. The religious convictions of many voters have resulted in the passage of laws prohibiting the teaching of evolution, or the adoption of policies very explicitly discouraging it. This trend continues in spite of court rulings stating that the endorsement of Creationism by government bodies constitutes a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution. Hopefully, the U.S.’s worsening economic competitiveness will prompt a resurgence of interest in science and technology, and the teaching of evolution will be one of the primary beneficiaries, to the detriment of Creationism.

Work Cited

Chryssides, George D., and Margaret Z. Wilkins. Christians in the Twenty-first Century. London: Equinox Pub., 2011. Print.
Crowther, Robert. "Dover Intelligent Design Decision Criticized as a Futile Attempt to Censor Science Education." Evolution and Views. N.p., 20 Dec. 2005. Web. 4 Apr. 2016.
Duiker, William J., and William J. Duiker. Contemporary World History. Boston: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2010. Print.
Edwords, Fredrick. "Creationism and Evolution (Volume 3, Number 4)." N.p., 1982. Web. 4 Apr. 2016
Jacoby, Susan. The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013. Print.