The dreaded E-word. High school teachers avoid teaching it. Fundamentalist religious groups shower it with biblical wrath. And yet, the scientific community unanimously agrees that it’s the incontrovertible cornerstone of biology, that it is the true explanation of the gradual changes of species. Today, evolution is once again under fire from the creationist movement known as “intelligent design.”
Dr. Brian Alters, a professor at McGill University and director of the Evolution Education Research Centre, along with Dr. Dan Brooks, an evolutionary biologist at U of T, spoke of their encounters with ID at a seminar hosted by the Centre for Inquiry Ontario last Thursday entitled, “God and Evolution: Is ID Ruining Science Education?”
Alters is well known for his pro-evolution testimony at the 2005’s Dover school board trial, which questioned whether a school board in Pennsylvania should add ID to its curriculum. He was more recently involved in a controversy with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, a main source for funding for university-level research in those fields. The SSHRC refused to grant funding to a project of Alters’ that aims to show the detrimental effects of ID on Canada’s education system. The group claimed Alters presented insufficient evidence to prove that evolution, not ID, was correct.
Both professors agreed that SSHRC’s claim was audacious and indefensible, since evolution is an undisputed fact within the scientific community. Ironically, for such a large funding agency to question the validity of one of the prime tenets of the life sciences suggests that ID is already having a deleterious influence on Canadian education.
Brooks contended that scientists haven’t been doing enough to protect evolutionary education.
“We’re part of the problem. We just sat back and let it happen,” he said.
As ID snuck into education systems worldwide, the guests argued, scientists stood by, seemingly apathetic to the debate, and only later realized that new high school graduates have a skewed view of evolution and science in general when they entered university. This effect seems even to have reached the minds at SSHRC.
“I just want them to retract the wording, not the money. People get turned down for grants all the time. No one cares about that,” Alters explained.
SSHRC’s rejection triggered a barrage of complaints from major scientific organizations worldwide, who joined Alters in denouncing SSHRC’s reasoning for the grant refusal. The SSHRC has yet to retract their statements.
Creationists have broadcast their anti-evolution message through numerous media outlets. Some people laughed and others stared in disbelief at clips of church leaders singing anti-evolution chants and school board members demanding to see cows turning into whales as evidence of evolution.
“Nine per cent of the public believe that the theory of relativity is far from being proven, yet about 50 per cent believe that about evolution. Einstein must be doing something right,” Alters mused.
Brooks announced the scientific community’s latest plan to counter this wave of misinformation in the public. Springer Publishing, the second-largest publishing group in the world is hosting a new peer-reviewed journal called Outreach and Education in Evolution, meant to provide the general public with accurate knowledge of evolution.
This journal is directed at the public, namely parents, grade-school teachers and education ministries, to boost their understanding of science and evolution.
“This is the first time the scientific community at the highest level has gotten together and said, ‘Enough is enough. We’re tired of the lies and deception. We’re not going to use [creationist] tactics, but we’re not going to let the education system be attacked by people who know what they want, but don’t know what they’re talking about,'” Brooks proclaimed.
“The creationists, like the pornographers, know that the internet is a huge market,” Brooks said. To combat online misrepresentations of science, Springer Publishing hopes to offer greater interactive tools and content online.
Brooks emphasizes that a better understanding will show children that evolution is “a fundamental part of biology that affects their every day lives, and it’s not going to affect their belief system or their parents’ belief system.”
Teaching evolution to the public and to kids will hopefully erase misconceptions, and maybe one day, we can say the E-word without worrying about the sky falling on our heads.
