Good Science, Bad Science: Teaching Evolution in the States

September 1, 2000

More than one-third of the states get low grades for the standards they have developed for teaching evolution, according to this new report. This report is the first comprehensive analysis of how each state handles evolution in its science standards for the public schools.

Foreword

Trouble in Kansas

When two state school board members were unseated in the August (2000) Republican primary election in Kansas, the story made national news. Indeed, the media spotlight had shone on the Kansas race for months. And the school board contest itself was fought harder than such races generally are. One candidate raised over $90,000 and purchased the first TV ad in school board election history.

Why so much attention? Because this election hinged on perhaps the touchiest issue in the school curriculum, one that has drawn headlines at least since the celebrated Scopes trial in 1925: whether and how the public schools will teach evolution. When the votes were counted, the defeated candidates included two of the incumbent board members who a year earlier had voted to erase evolution from the state's academic standards.

It was not just Charles Darwin and biological evolution that vanished in August 1999 (by a 6-4 vote) from the list of topics that young Kansans are expected to master as they pass through the state's public schools. So did the "Big Bang" and all references to the age of the earth itself.

Putting All Fifty States Under The Microscope

All this came as a shock to Americans who assumed that the political debate over teaching evolution in the public schools had itself evolved into generalized acceptance of this central principle of biology. But we were not very surprised. Since 1998, when the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation published its first appraisal of state science standards by Dr. Lawrence Lerner, we have known that a number of states treat evolution in less than competent (and sometimes less than forthright) fashion. When Lerner reviewed state science standards a second time for this Foundation (see The State of State Standards 2000), he identified slipshod treatment of biological evolution as a continuing problem in many places. We wanted to know more and felt the public would want to know more.

For example, to what extent is weak handling of evolution simply a manifestation of generally weak science standards and to what extent does it reflect something more complicated? So we asked Lerner (now emeritus professor of physics and astronomy at California State University, Long Beach) to revisit the science standards of the fifty states yet again (using the latest version of these oft-revised documents). This time, the specific focus was on how they treat evolution; the present report is the product of his investigation.

Structure of this Report

The report begins by explaining the role of evolution as an organizing principle for all the historical sciences. Lerner then outlines the components of good science standards that don't shrink from expecting children to learn evolution's central role. He recounts the main arguments that are advanced against the teaching of evolution. (This discussion appears in the report's text, in an appendix, and in an annotated bibliography.) And he characterizes various ways in which states have responded to anti-evolutionist pressures.

The core of his report is a state-by-state evaluation of the treatment of evolution in science standards. The good news is that thirty-one states do an adequate-to-excellent job of this. They do not all have exemplary standards, but they handle evolution pretty much the way they handle the rest of science. (There are a few interesting exceptions, which Lerner discusses.)

The bad news is that nineteen states do a weak-to-reprehensible job of handling evolution in their science standards. Twelve of them shun the word "evolution" and four avoid teaching biological evolution altogether. (Several of the nineteen don't "discriminate" against evolution; they simply have weak science standards across the board.) Tables in the body of the report show the areas in which various state standards are lacking -- and also allow for easy comparison of a state's "evolution grade" with Lerner's evaluation of its overall science standards.

Politicization of Science

Besides reporting this mixed news, can we help to explain what is going on? Part of the explanation is contained in another (April 2000) Foundation report, Politicizing Science Education, by Paul Gross, University Professor of Life Sciences emeritus at the University of Virginia. Gross found that evolution is just one of a number of domains where science education is beset -- from both left and right -- by efforts to bend it to advance the enthusiasms, viewpoints, or doctrines of particular groups. This was disconcerting to learn. While anyone following the K-12 education scene has become accustomed to efforts to manipulate standards and curriculum in other subjects, we might not have expected them in science. But they are there in plenitude -- with grave consequences for our children's scientific literacy.

With respect to evolution, Gross was as blunt as one would expect from a distinguished biologist. He dismissed as pure propaganda the claims made by creationists and others trying to discredit the theory of evolution or shield children from learning it. "No evidentiary claim against 'Darwinism' has so far withstood testing," Gross wrote. "On the other hand, the evidence in favor of natural selection grows exponentially and meshes ever more tightly with the rest of science....Any scientist who found a basic flaw or a genuine, deep gap in evolutionary theory would be an overnight celebrity."

Gross's report, particularly the case study of evolution, provoked a strong reaction from some of our readers, including people with whom we ordinarily agree about education issues. As their calls, letters and, especially, e-mails and web postings revealed, the dispute over teaching evolution in U.S. schools is far from over.

Debate over Evolution not so Simple

This dispute, however, turns out to be more complicated, more interesting and more nuanced than many people suppose. Secular liberal intellectuals tend to simplify it into a battle between truth and superstition. People of deep religious faith are more apt to see it as a contest between God and atheism. Political analysts are inclined to depict it as a clash between left and right. In fact, it contains all those elements and more; it is not easily put into a little explanatory box.

As Gross and Lerner both attest, there is no serious debate among today's scientists over whether evolution occurs, though there are disagreements over how it occurs. But even as evolution is accepted as the central concept of biology by almost all scientists, a 1999 Gallup poll found that 68 percent of Americans favor teaching both creationism and evolution in the public schools. In an early-2000 survey by People for the American Way, half the respondents said that evolution is "far from being proven scientifically."

The public, in other words, is not nearly so ready as the scientists to mandate that all schools teach evolution and only evolution. This important political fact begins to explain the dilemma that state policymakers encounter when they set about to promulgate standards for science education.

Role of State Standards

To be sure, state standards do not single-handedly determine what is taught and learned in U.S. schools. Many factors come into play, including the selection of textbooks, the adequacy of teachers' own knowledge, the organization of the curriculum (e.g., how much time is devoted to science), what is included on statewide tests, and whether the tests' results bring consequences for children, teachers, schools, or others. We're also mindful that some states with low marks for academic standards have nonetheless embraced bold and imaginative education reform strategies that appear to be bearing fruit. Standards are obviously not the whole story.

Yet the knowledge and skills set forth in state standards are supposed to form the core of "standards based" education reform. They are meant to serve as the frame to which everything else is attached, the desired outcome that drives countless other decisions about how best to attain it. If a state's standards are unsatisfactory, some of its other reform efforts are apt to be less likely to succeed, maybe even futile. That is why standards matter -- and why we have gone to considerable pains to have them carefully evaluated. Academic standards are where a state (or other jurisdiction) spells out what it wants its pupils to come away from school having learned. It may produce good results without having good standards -- and fine standards don't assure solid results -- but the odds are a lot better if it begins with clear and well-conceived academic expectations.

Standard setting, however, is itself something of a political act. (How political varies with place and circumstance.) The typical state seeks to promulgate standards that represent a reasonable consensus of what experts, practicing educators, and laymen judge to be important for children to know and be able to do. In an area of the curriculum where no such consensus exists within the state, it's exceedingly difficult to establish good standards for students, teachers, and schools.

Science and Faith

As this report makes rather painfully clear, a number of states have not been able to find -- or develop -- much of a consensus about how and whether evolution should be taught. That's why state standards in this area are such a mixed bag. But the politics of evolution aren't simple. Which is to say, while scientists are more or less unanimous about the science itself, those who oppose teaching evolution and only evolution to schoolchildren are a surprisingly diverse group. As Lerner describes, there are "young earth" creationists who believe that the Earth and its inhabitants arose roughly 6,000 years ago through a process described in the Bible. There are "intelligent design" people who argue that certain complex biological structures and processes could not have arisen through natural selection, and therefore must have been created by some outside force or prior intelligence. There are others -- harder to label -- who believe simply that what is taught in K-12 science classes goes far beyond what has been proven by scientists and includes uncertain claims on behalf of science that disrespect religious faith. And there are lots of Americans who are okay with evolution being taught so long as religious explanations are also taught -- somewhere in the curriculum.

Speaking for ourselves, we believe that schools have an obligation to teach the best science there is. We have certainly not been persuaded by "young earth" advocates or "intelligent design" theorists that K-12 science standards should refrain from providing a full and accurate measure of evolution. Yet we also find much merit in the claims of Americans who believe that schools must respect people's religious and philosophical beliefs, that they should teach about religion and about people's diverse and strongly held beliefs (even if they are precluded from efforts to impart religious faith or observance). They ought not address such matters in science class. But what about history, civics, geography, "contemporary issues," or literature?

The Limits of Science

Scientists, alas, can be as intolerant of religion as creationists are of evolution. Each "side" is too apt to insist that its explanations account for everything, even to shun opportunities for open discourse with people who favor other explanations. Dogma and orthodoxy can be found in science as well as in communities of religious faith.

We don't believe that schools, especially public schools, have any business imparting anybody's dogma. Of course, science classes should teach science, and proper science includes evolution. No equivocation there. People who feel strongly that their children should not be exposed to evolution ought not expect the public schools to assist them with this project. They remain free to consider the options of private or home schooling.

But science teachers also need to respect the religious faith of their pupils and ought not bridle when parents and clergymen (and other teachers) explain to children that what they're learning in science class is not the whole story. Educating children, after all, entails a lot more than ensuring that they learn science. The school curriculum, too, includes more than science. If it neglects the powerful role of religious faith in human history and contemporary culture, it is not doing a good job of educating its students.

In the concluding section of this report, Dr. Lerner quotes a defense of science education by the primatologist Andrew Petto: "We must help our students master complicated information so that they can appreciate the wonder and grandeur of this view of life..." Scientists and science teachers do well to keep in mind that a large majority of Americans believes that faith in God is the surest way to appreciate the wonder and grandeur of life itself. Schools need to recognize and honor that faith.

By now, we suspect, the reader will at least appreciate that this has been a tough issue for many states, one that a number of them have not handled well. While Kansas has gotten most of the attention, those who set science standards in dozens of other states have faced pressure from groups opposed to the teaching of evolution. We are especially admiring of those state policymakers who, after a fierce battle over evolution, ended up with satisfactory science standards. We wish there were many more of them. We wish, too, that all fifty states would see that their schools respect the elements of a child's education that science alone cannot explain.

About the Author and the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation

Lawrence S. Lerner is Professor Emeritus in the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at California State University, Long Beach. He has published extensively in condensed-matter physics, history of science, science and religion, and science education and he is a frequent commentator on various aspects of K-12 science education, including curriculum, standards, textbooks, and teacher education. He contributed to the development of California's landmark 1990 science framework and has advised on science standards for a number of states. He is a member of the National Faculty for the Humanities, Arts, and Sciences, and other organizations concerned with K-12 science education. He can be contacted at lslerner@csulb.edu or at the Department of Physics & Astronomy, California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA 90840.

The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation is a private foundation that supports research, publications, and action projects in elementary/secondary education reform at the national level and in the Dayton area. Further information can be obtained from our web site (www.edexcellence.net) or by writing us at 1627 K Street, NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20006. (We can also be e-mailed through our web site.) This report is available in full on the Foundation's web site, and hard copies can be obtained by calling 1-888-TBF-7474 (single copies are free). The Foundation is not connected to or sponsored by Fordham University.

Chester E. Finn, Jr., President
Marci Kanstoroom, Research Director
Thomas B. Fordham Foundation
Washington, DC
September 2000

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Good Science, Bad Science: Teaching Evolution in the States

Contents

Foreword