Teaching the Controversy: Why the Creationism Vs. Evolution Debate Should Stay Out of Science Classrooms

COMMENTARY | Sometimes I can almost feel the fear and nervous energy that people ducking the 1950’s McCarthyite Communist witch hunts felt when I think about the current manufactured controversy of creationism vs. evolution as viable curricula in public schools. Then again, I live in Tennessee. It isn’t good policy to advertise a non-religious mindset at all here. This controversy about the teaching of evolution in public schools has been fomented by powerful political lobbies on the part of the Religious Right. It is political in nature, egged on by religious leaders and their followers, who often refuse to use common sense on the issue. It is all about the political power to force a worldview onto the most impressionable minds in the country, using the time-tested tool of religion to justify turning off the faculty of reason so that the propaganda may be implanted. Has anyone stopped to think about how this will affect children in their most important learning years?

It seems to be politically correct to hedge your bets by saying we should “teach the controversy” of evolutionary theory vs. “intelligent design” or ID, which is thinly veiled creationism masquerading as science. Should this controversy be taught in science classes? No. Why not? Well, it isn’t science. It is politics that uses religion for a shield. It is the Evangelical lobby that has brought pressure against the legislature to press a creationist agenda in America’s public schools. When the children who are taught the disingenuous, pseudo-scientific “Intelligent Design” grow up, they’ll be thoroughly indoctrinated for use by the Religious Right.

These unfortunate children will not, however, be equipped to enter the biological and research sciences. The basic science of evolutionary biology underlies so many diverse disciplines that it can be considered a basic necessity of knowledge in modern scientific society. Genetics, agriculture, biology, medicine, history and other disciplines are all dependent on understanding this basic scientific fact. I am not saying that there isn’t a controversy, but I am saying that it has no place in a science classroom. It is part of the politico-religious landscape of modern America. As it was with the hectic and short-lived Red Scare of McCarthyism, I hope that one day we will read about this unfortunate public tempest in history books, along with footnotes on the dangers of accepting political or religious authority without bothering to turn on your own capacity for critical thinking and reasoning.

The dangers to the future generations are not just limited to the pursuit of learning in hard sciences, either. According to this article in Live Science, 14 percent of high school biology teachers personally reject not only the theory of evolution but also scientific method, which teaches rigorous critical thinking skills and draws a clear path to the discovery of real truths and how to separate them from merely apparent truths. Why would we wish to cripple a child’s critical thinking skills? Is it right to deprive children of critical thinking skills that could help them in every walk of life just to advance a particular world view? Are America’s politicians and religious leaders this short-sighted and selfish?

This succinct webpage illustrates an intuitive everyday use of the scientific method to solve the problem of a light that does not work. It seems today’s Religious Right would raise a generation of kids who would perhaps conclude the lights are out because they used a curse word or took God’s name in vain. And maybe they’ll believe that bird flu was caused by calls to legalize gay marriage in Israel. Right.


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