16% of US science teachers are crackpot creationists

16% of US science teachers are creationists

* 01:00 20 May 2008
* NewScientist. com news service
* Bob Holmes

Despite a court-ordered ban on the teaching of creationism in US
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.
US courts have repeatedly decreed that creationism and intelligent
design are religion, not science, and have no place in school science
classrooms. But no matter what courts and school boards decree, it is up
to teachers to put the curriculum into practice.

“Ultimately, they are the ones who carry it out,” says Michael Berkman,
a political scientist at Pennsylvania State University in University Park.

But what teachers actually teach about evolution and creationism in
their classrooms is a bit of a grey area, so Berkman and his colleagues
decided to conduct the first-ever national survey on the subject.

‘Not shocking’

The researchers polled a random sample of nearly 2000 high-school
science teachers across the US in 2007. Of the 939 who responded, 2%
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% –
about 12.5% of the total survey – said they taught it as a “valid,
scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations for the origin of species”.

Science teaching experts say they are not surprised to find such a large
number of science teachers advocating creationism.

“It seems a bit high, but I am not shocked by it,” says Linda
Froschauer, past president of the National Science Teachers Association
based in Arlington, Virginia. “We do know there’s a problem out there,
and this gives more credibility to the issue.”

Better training

When Berkman’s team asked about the teachers’ personal beliefs, about
the same number, 16% of the total, said they believed human beings had
been created by God within the last 10,000 years.

Teachers who subscribed to these young-Earth creationist views, perhaps
not surprisingly, spent 35% fewer hours teaching evolution than other
teachers, the survey revealed.

The survey also showed that teachers who had taken more science courses
themselves – and especially those who had taken a course in evolutionary
biology – devoted more class time to evolution than teachers with weaker
science backgrounds.

This may be because better-prepared teachers are more confident in
dealing with students’ questions about a sensitive subject, says
Berkman, who notes that requiring all science teachers to take a course
in evolutionary biology could have a big impact on the teaching of
evolution in the schools.

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