Creationism In US High Schools: 16 Percent Of US Science Teachers Are Creationists

ABC News reports on the findings of a study that concluded 16% of U.S. science teachers are Creationists, and that, disturbingly, one in eight are teaching creationism as a valid science:

Despite a court-ordered ban on the teaching of creationism in U.S. schools, about one in eight high-school biology teachers still teach it as valid science, a survey reveals. And, although almost all teachers also taught evolution, those with less training in science -- and especially evolutionary biology -- tend to devote less class time to Darwinian principles...

...The researchers polled a random sample of nearly 2,000 high-school science teachers across the U.S. in 2007. Of the 939 who responded, 2 percent said they did not cover evolution at all, with the majority spending between 3 and 10 classroom hours on the subject.

However, a quarter of the teachers also reported spending at least some time teaching about creationism or intelligent design. Of these, 48 percent -- about 12.5 percent of the total survey -- said they taught it as a "valid, scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations for the origin of species".

Related: Ben Stein: Front Man for Creationism's Manufactroversy

Comments

[TheBlackCat]

A lot of people think if you don't believe in every word of the Bible as literal fact, you are not a REAL Christian.

On the other side, a lot of people don't differentiate think if you are a Christian you're just as naive and ignorant as Bible fundamentalists are. Or they think that if you are a Christian it must mean you're an anti-science creationist.

There is a big difference between faith and gullibility.

There is a big difference between following Jesus...an­d stalking him.

[ramal]

Which obviously helps to clarify one of the reasons why American students lag greatly behind the rest of the first world 's students in science ability and comprehension. Give us another thirty years or so with teachers like this and a course in mircale healings will be required for each high school senior.

[sisterdebmac]

So God created everything in SIX LITERAL DAYS, huh? Well, then, define a "literal day" before there was a sun and moon...

[UnbiasView]

6 years, 8 hours and 26 minutes . . .

Explain how life started on this planet, same question that is unanswerable right back at you.

[Hirnlego]

You'd believe in a different fairy tale had you been born elsewhere or had parents of another religion.

I always amuses me how the religious people are (all too) convinced that they are so right

[Mort]

I dare you to show me a single scripture where your quote "literal day" is used. What is meant is 6 creative periods. The account is largely symbolic actually follows the scientific theories in its progression.

[wm1066]

I grew up in a scandinavian lutheran family with a scandinavian minister, and we didn't take the bible literally but as stories to draw wisdom from.
Thank God ! Before my parents passed away I thanked them for being raised in a sane religous environment and not a catholic fundamentalist church. The creation story was one I read over and over again but I never took it literally.

[Gakl]

Just a point here--Catholics are actually not fundamentalists. They do not teach that the text literally means everything. They do actually have the jesuits to thank for that; an actual intellectual culture stimulated within the church that explores the outside world.

Fundamentalism, however, is an entirely different animal; typically more radical and dangerous whether, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or Hindu.

[TocinoHumano]

I know fundamentalists in Georgia that don't even consider catholics Christians!

[mydogshakespeare]

Ah, but the Real Beauty of these stories, when taught literally, is that there is no reason to look for factual explanations.

Plus, the stories can be bent to allow moral persecution of opponents.

[Vern58]

I grew up a German Lutheran (Mo Synod) and i was taught that the Bible was the literal truth in every way- and to question this was heresy. Although i never bought into it- it was the expectation that you would believe it- lock stock and barrel. As a former student of Theology it was one of the reasons that i was exposed- and excommunicated (along with my admission that i was Gay, which also did not help) My old friends from College ditched me- to a person. I salute the ULCA for raising kids in that sort of fashion.

[helonias]

I which folks would point out that by creationism, they really only mean christian creationism.

And not the creationism of the worlds many many non christian religions and societies.

[LouisPWu]

Religion = Superstition = Religion = Superstiti­on..... Pure, utter nonsense

[BonzaiBoy]

Of these 16%, I wonder what percent are teachers in a parochial/private school. It wouldn't shock me at all if the majority (or all) of those who teach creationism or intelligent design are teaching in a Catholic or Christian school.

[TocinoHumano]

And in other related news, last week I heard Mike Malloy talking about a substitute teacher in Pasco County, Florida (not too far from where I grew up) who was fired. It seems he performed a little sleight of hand for the kids in which he made a toothpick disappear. The next thing he knew he was being called before the supervisor of substitute teachers and was told he would no longer be allowed to substitute in the district. His crime? Practicing wizardry!

IT REALLY HAPPENED! IN 2008, IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, A SUBSTITUTE TEACHER WAS FIRED FOR PRACTICING WIZARDRY! WHAT THE F*CK?!?!

They should put a sign at the state line: "You are now entering Florida. Set your watch back 600 years."

[BlueOnBlue]

So, let me get this right. The supervisor actually thought this guy had made a toothpick become invisible or otherwise disappear through real wizardry? He thinks magic is real?

And he is in charge of the education of children?

Yeah. Sounds like the Pasco County I know.

[TocinoHumano]

I spent my childhood and early adult years just down the road, in the Clearwater/Largo area. This and similar stories remind me of something I often say: It's no disgrace to be from Florida; it's just a disgrace to go back.

[Scurvybro]

The yokels here who believe that Fred and Wilma Flintstone chowed down on brontosaurus burgers alongside Adam and Eve unfailingly try to put forth what, on the surface, appears to them to be a fair, reasonable proposition: Teach creationism along with evolution, and let the kids sort out the "facts" and decide for themselves.

OK, you cretins, here's what's wrong with that idea: Creationism is not science. It never has been and never will be, and does not deserve to be taught. And concealing it in the "intelligent design" Trojan Horse doesn't change that.

The federal case of Kitzmiller v. Dover School District absolutely demolished the asinine claim that intelligent design is science. This case was captured in brilliant, mesmerizing fashion by PBS' Nova series last year http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id//).

The case involved an order by the Dover school board to its science teachers to read a statement to high school biology students suggesting that there is an alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution called intelligent design. The teachers refused and a group of parents filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing the school board of violating the constitutional separation of church and state.

The case went against the school board. Ironically, the judge in the trial, John Jones -- get ready for this, Barney and Betty Rubble -- was appointed by none other than the Lyin' King himself, George W. Bush.

Say a prayer about that, Dino.

[BlueOnBlue]

My son misguidedly married into a Christian fundamentalist family from Dover. His in-laws were true yahoos and fully supported the side of the school board against the science teachers.

Thankfully, he came to his senses and got a divorce from both his wife and her crazy family. They continue to cling faithfully to both their guns (they have a lot of them) and their idea that their bible is literally true.

[Boboday555]

That PBS documentary was brilliant!!!
It should be required viewing in every classroom in America!
Intelligent Design was systematically dissected, revealing it to be, not only, non-scientific but also just a crude attempt to re-introduce religion, in the form of Creationism, into the classroom.
Every claim made by ID proponents was defeated soundly in a dispassionate scientific manner.
Their baseless claim that since Evolution is only a ‘theory’ it shouldn’t be taught as fact was silenced by simply explaining, in science, the ‘theory’ carries more weight than a ‘fact’ because the ‘theory’ has to withstand a constant barrage of scientific testing to retain the title ‘theory.’
And the Theory of Evolution has stood for well over 100 years and not one of its claims has been disproved.
And it should be noted that not one, let me repeat that, not one of the ID claims survived the trial.
Irreducible Complexity was denied using ID’s own ‘cause celeb’ the Bacterial Flagellum as proof.
They claim the rotary engine, that is the bacterial flagellum, is so complex that to remove one part makes the whole organelle useless.
But the science guys showed that you can remove a lot of parts from it and it still makes a perfect hypodermic needle to pass along pathogen and they even showed the bacteria that uses it for just that purpose!
But even in the face of this sound defeat, it appears, nothing has changed.

[NotaBeliever]

Given the makeup of the citizenry of the US, I'm surprised more science teachers aren't creationists. Creationism pretends to respect science while insisting that religious explanations be given equal or greater voice. I remember being told in fundie school that god was perfectly capable of misleading scientists in order to test our faith, so doubting science and scientists was a way of showing faith in god. It makes just as much sense as No Child Left Behind or the War in Iraq or fighting abortion by outlawing sex education.

[Citizen69]

Creationism is a REAL science!
Just like astrology, tarot, bingo and Penn and Teller shows.
The religious fringe within this country will destroy it faster than the religious fringe from without.
Having a rational "discussion" with one of these dogmaniacs is like shooting a BB gun at a swarm of bees.

Haven't we had enough religion?

[helonias]

Would religious snake handling replace zoology

[TocinoHumano]

Turning water into wine will replace chemistry class. The school lunch program will be replaced by five fishes and two loaves of bread (unleavened, of course). And instead of detention, students who misbehave will be stoned (and I don't mean the way some of them "stone" themselves at lunchtime!).

[helonias]

Will the cheese makers also be blessed.

[blueshield]

I'm curious how many people in America who believe in Intelligent Creation also believe in Intelligent Direction, as in, 'God directs me to (fill in the blank)'. The present Administration and cohorts admittedly took guidance from their Deity before going to war, just as the much-hated Islamic Jihadists do.

My point is that it's frightening simple to move from Creationism to Directionism, and teaching the first leads without much thought to acceptance of the second.

Independently of its erosive effect on public understanding of science, IC is a slippery slope towards theocratic government. Scary.

[helonias]

Teaching creationism is fine just as long as its only taught by the one true religion.

The northern, deformed, 3rd day visogoths of christ the geologist.

[JoeBlough]

American society has become one big Petri dish. An experiment in how far from fact and truth can you swerve and still not go off the tracks. So far, we have been able to out-source the important work to other countries or import people who know how to work and operate in a rational world.

As our own, home grown citizens become confused by fuzzy science and superstition; we will no longer be able to function on our own. The rest of the world will just laugh at America as being some kind of “voodoo” society unable to think and reason.

So let’s vote McCain/Bush into office and let the magic begin!

[Schallvain]

Haven't travelled or read much have we, huh?

Much of the world has its own flavor of religion, and believe it or not, many of the world's countries have a religous structure within their gov't. Religious belief was considered the only science up until a couple of centuries ago. Now that we have started to learn fundamental science through technology and discovery we are finding new answers to old questions. This is and will have an impact on how religion is perceive and used within the cultures of the world.

But just because we have made it to first grade in learning how our world works, we can't expect people to instantly change beliefs that have been part of our evolution for thousands of years. Instead of criticizing how people lead their lives, spend time on yours. Learn how things work, show and teach your children how things work. If your hell bent on not letting them be exposed to teaching that you do not agree with, teach them yourself. That is the beauty of our society, we can believe what we want. Don't take that away from other people to suit your own beliefs.