This is a 2019 article, and I’m not sure whether the topic is already discussed. Most schools refuse to teach evolution which is important to science. The Schools That Still Don't Teach Evolution - The Atlantic
Weber believed one of the primary issues with research and education is how the teacher/professor tends to stain a topic or discipline with a biased overview. He believed a teacher has to keep his/her bias outside the classroom, and expose students to possibilities and not enforce their beliefs dogmatically. I too believe in it. However, when school teachers with strong faith view evolution as necessarily against their religious beliefs. What could be the possible solution?
I find that horrific and thank God I’m Old World, although I was hijacked by an American creationist cult at 15 and it’s taken nearly 50 years to fully deconstruct that. The pace of social evolution in the Bible belt is at least as bad as that, but by the C22nd I imagine most Americans will know - not ‘believe’ - they evolved.
For better and for worse, it will be nearly impossible for teacher bias not to influence what students take away from their class. Any invested teacher worth their salt will not be able to prevent this. The most dispassionate, “objective”, poker-faced instructor that may leave their students guessing about their political affiliations, their religion, their personal views on any current hot-button issue, will nonetheless have, with such restraint, have promoted much in the way of deep ideology. There is no avoiding it.
I wonder if the whole “teach the controversy” slogan wouldn’t have a good counter-slogan such as “teach the consensus”. Neither one of those emphases should be entirely neglected in any well-rounded course, but I wonder if today it hasn’t been the latter one suffering the most neglect. And that is not at all to suggest both should get equal time at every level.
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Friend of BioLogos @Lee_Meadows has done research and writing on this topic.
There are some great links in this article:
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The U.S. landscape for teaching evolution may actually be changing. I’m beginning to see studies like this one showing more teachers are teaching evolution than in the past: Teaching evolution in U.S. public schools: a continuing challenge | Evolution: Education and Outreach | Full Text
I’m happy to answer any questions about the work I’ve been doing for awhile on this topic. Thanks, Christy, for tagging me in!
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The opposite of a Strawman argument is an Ironman argument. This is where you present a position in the best light possible which makes any falsification of the idea more credibile.
If these teachers truly think evolution is false and should be proven false, then the only way that can happen is to teach students about the theory in the best light possible so they can go out and disprove it. Any student who pursues a career in the biological sciences, especially in a research setting, is going to have to understand the theory of evolution just as any scientist needs to understand the consensus in their field. That doesn’t mean they have to accept the theory as true, only understand it.
If the ultimate goal is to “defeat” evolution, then anti-evolution teachers should be teaching their students about evolution. There’s no way around it. The only reason to not teach evolution is if they know what many of us know, that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming and the only way to stop students from accepting evolution is to keep them ignorant of that evidence. The problem is that you can’t shield children after they become adults and go out in to the world. Libby Anne’s story is quite instructive:
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Unfortunately my creationism was eroded over nearly 50 years. Despite a biological sciences degree from a reputable university in which evolution was taken for granted, an unexamined assumption. I remember one brief conflict at school and one at university, that’s it. I kept my ‘faith’ secret. The cult I was involved with for 30 years gradually rationalized, but still left me with ID thanks to Behe until 10 years ago. The Fermi Paradox kept me going until only a couple of years ago, closely followed by William Lane Craig’s Kalam Cosmological Argument. They winked out in the light of eternity, which had nibbled at me for years, and the realisation that nothing is missing. All apologists bar none fail to address that nature is sufficient. I have never encountered a robust existential theology, although I’m going to try another outing with Pete Rollins podcasts. I’m not optimistic, even of him, whose writings I loved as he dealt poetically with existential angst, but my wife says he addresses this more directly, more clearly recently. We’ll see. I daren’t go there as I know I’ll be disappointed! Watch this space.
It is remarkable that there is no robust theology of nihilism. The final suffering.
The only effort I know is mine. Emergent, liberal theology is excellent in every other way as epitomized by Brian McLaren’s A Generous Orthodoxy, Rob Bell, Steve Chalke, C. Baxter Kruger, Richard Rohr, Henri Nouwen, Nadia Bolz-Weber et al. They are excellent in dealing from the deck of assuming God as He is, at creating otherwise real theology of full inclusion, of suffering, of dealing with reality is if He were not whilst unquestioningly believing that He is and that regardless of the Bible and historical-grammatical exegesis, toxic, narrow, damnationist, worst case Biblicism, is Love. I envy them.
I live with the superposition of that AND that He isn’t.
Lord have mercy!
I believe, help thou mine unbelief.
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