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Evolution Teaching 'Improving' in Schools, Report Says

August 14, 2009 RSS Feed Print

Science standards today tend to cover evolution more extensively than they did a decade ago, but "certain types of creationist language are also becoming more common in state standards," says a review of the standards of all 50 states and the District of Columbia, published online last week.

Conducted by the National Center for Science Education, the study graded the treatment of evolution in each state's standards on an A-to-F scale, and revealed 40 states received satisfactory marks. Published this month in the journal Evolution: Education and Outreach, the review was intended to update a similar evaluation of science standards conducted by the Washington, D.C., nonprofit Thomas B. Fordham Foundation in 2000, which gave satisfactory grades to only 31 states.

The NCSE researchers contend that while those who support creationism might realize they probably can't get evolution removed from state standards, they do try to ensure that language is inserted that casts doubt on the theory or gives teachers license to use materials that criticize evolution.

On its Web site, NCSE describes itself as an organization "providing information and resources for schools, parents and concerned citizens working to keep evolution in public school science education."

Some critics say that the nonprofit group is taking too narrow a view of science education in singling out evolution coverage.

"It would seem to me that K-12 science education is a broad area, and if they focus on one very narrow area of teaching, the grade [given in the study] doesn't mean very much," said Gail A. Lowe, chairwoman of the Texas Board of Education, in an interview with Education Week.

Texas received an F for its evolution instruction, because while its treatment was "generally comprehensive," the standards included "creationist jargon." Instances of language that the report deemed to be jargon included such instructions as, "In all fields of science, analyze, evaluate, and critique scientific explanations by using empirical evidence, logical reasoning, and experimental and observational testing."

But Lowe doesn't consider such language to be jargon. She feels that students should be required to do analysis, rather than "parrot back isolated facts that someone wants them to know about evolutionist theory."

Alabama, Louisiana, Oklahoma and West Virginia also received failing grades. Nine states and the District of Columbia received an A for their treatment of evolution.

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Tags:: evolution,; K-12 education,; education

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http://www.integraenvironmental.com/pdfs/Enhanced%20Applied%20Bioremediation.pdf
Microbes have; Obviously evolved within our life time; previously the elements they consume never existed before; nor did they.... Think about it.

Leslie Meyer of MN 7:16PM July 12, 2010

One creationist aguement I keep hearing is this: No one has ever witnessed evolution, therefore we can never cofirm that it is true. Think about it. Do you believed that the dinosaurs ate?
If yes, why? no one ever witnessed a diosaur eating. See how flawed the arguement is. Fossils and skeletons show that the dionsaurs had teeth and jaws. A fossilised dinosaur stomache was once found with leaves in it. A tryserotopse pelvis with T-rex teeth marks in it was once found etc etc etc but hey! No one ever witnessed a dinosaur eating anything,so we can't possibly be sure if they really did eat (by that logic anyway).
And if you look into the matter enough, you will find the evidence for evolution is there. There are thousands of intermediate species, despite what some creationists are claiming, some, like the archiopterix, were discovered well over a hundred years ago. If you really want to know which one is true, get some creationist and evolutionist DVDs and see which ones seem the most honest. I find that creationist apologists always contradict each other. Some say Darwin was a fraud, others say he believed in evolution, but only because he was stupid, others claim that he was a very good scientist but his theory has been disproven non the less. Some claim that trasitional fossils found by paliantologists are hoaxes, wheras others claim the fossils are genuine but they are not really transitional species at all and it is simply an honest mistake on the evolutionists part.

T 6:17PM March 10, 2010

Here is what I do not understand. If evolution is supposedly rock solid science, why are the evolutionist so terrified of the teaching of Intelligent Design? Now I am not talking about teaching the Bible, but simply teaching Intelligent Design. No evolutionist can deny that a cell contains organelles, that are more complex than any man made technology the world has seen. It was asked of one scientist "if Darwin thought a cell to be a Volvo, what do we now know a cell to be?" the answer was "a galaxy". The Greek word kosmos, from where we get our word cosmos literally means order. A 3rd century evolutionary philosopher wrote "I cannot understand why there is kosmos (order) in the universe. Now evolutionist will claim that if Intelligent Design is taught, the creationist would be pushing their ideas on people, yet isn't that exactly what the evolutionist is doing by not allowing the teaching of I.D.? Students are smart, why not give them evidence for evolution and Intelligent Design, and let them follow the evidence wherever that may lead. Isn't that the purpose of science to begin with? Let’s start with the term the “theory of evolution.” A scientific theory is In the sciences generally, a scientific theory (the same as an empirical theory) comprises a collection of concepts, including abstractions of observable phenomena expressed as quantifiable properties, together with rules (called scientific laws) that express relationships between observations of such concepts. A scientific theory is constructed to conform to available empirical data about such observations, and is put forth as a principle or body of principles for explaining a class of phenomena.4 Notice I emphasized observable phenomena, because for something to be a scientific theory there has to be observable proof that verifies the scientific theory itself. There has to be physical evidence of evolution occurring (remember from now on when I mention evolution I am talking about macro-evolution. The belief that our ancient ancestor was pond scum). So what am I saying, for something to be a scientific theory there has to be evidence that you can look at of the theory occurring. Here is where the first problem lies no one has ever witnessed the occurrence of evolution. NO ONE! Also there is no proof that verifies evolution ever occurred, so to say in its most basic form that evolution is a theory, according to the definition of a scientific theory is wrong. So evolution is not even a theory because there is no observable evidence that it ever occurred.

Chris Sanford of KY 11:53PM March 08, 2010

Evolution Teaching 'Improving' in Schools, Report Says

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