Creationism and college students - the battle for young minds.

Creationism is a popular belief in the United States and not surprisingly here in SmallTown, religion is ubiquitous. In a town of 21,000 people, there are 21 different churches, that's 1 church for every thousand people. There's one church that takes up a entire block of the town and is the size of Walmart. On Sunday morning it's parking lot is packed, I'm not kidding, packed with cars. The density of churches here is akin to the density of Tim Hortons in eastern Canada. I guess we Canadians prefer the sweet cakey goodness of doghnuts to hell and damnation.

(At least this Canadian does.)

I'm not a religious person at all, although I grew up in a family where religion (not Christianity) was a big deal. And in the last few years of my dad's life, he and I would have these phone conversations that would trickle down into the difficult waters of my non-religious beliefs.


I don't object to other people holding whatever beliefs they want, but I seriously object when those belief systems are used to discriminate against others or attempts are made to disguise faith/belief within a scientific framework. Religion is not science. Science is the use of "evidence to construct testable explanations and predictions of natural phenomena, as well as the knowledge generated through this process" (National Academy of Sciences, 2008). Religon is founded in belief and faith.

The National Academy of Sciences has officially stated that "acceptance of the evidence for evolution can be compatible with religious faith," but they are clear that intelligent design or creationism just shouldn't be taught as equals in a science class.

That's why when I read this new study in the May issue of BioScience, I was both concerned and happy that someone had finally suggested there may be a link to how college students recieve scientific facts, evolution to be precise. This study found that college students will either accept or question evolution, depending on how it was treated in high school. In a survey of 1,008 students taking introductory biology classes at the University of Minnesota, researchers asked students if their high-school biology course included (a) evolution but not creationism, (b) creationism but not evolution, (c) both evolution and creationism, or (d) neither evolution nor creationism. They then used a Measure of Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution (MATE) (Rutledge and Sadler 2007) to determine how they viewed evolution.

The study showed that students whose high-school biology class included creationism (with or without evolution) were more likely to accept creationism than were students whose high-school biology class included only evolution. Furthermore, students whose high-school biology course included evolution (and not creationism) were more likely to accept evolution-based statements than were students whose high-school biology course did not include evolution. Seventy-two to 78 percent of students exposed to evolution agreed that it is scientifically valid while 57 to 59 percent of students who were exposed to creationism agreed that it can be validated.

What surprised me the most was to read that approximately 20 to 35 percent of high-school biology teachers in the United States include creationism in their science curricula. And that reports that suggest one-fourth of biology teachers believe that creationism has a valid scientific foundation (Moore and Kraemer 2005).

The survey also had some interesting comments written by students. Of the 45.3 percent of students that advocated creationism, some wrote,

I believe in creationism and intelligent design.
I do not believe [evolution] happened.

And from those that expressed uncertainty (34 percent)

I am a little confused about it.
I really don't know what to think.
I don't know enough on the issue to have much [of] an opinion.

Shocking.

As scientists, we must be concerned about the malpractice of high school science teachers because they have an impact on a new generation of citizenry. We are educating students who lack the ability to understand and accept one of the most important and unifying ideas of modern science. The distinction between science and religion is necessary in order to make informed and thoughtful decisions about a vast majority of social and political issues that can have enormous consequences for future generations. Imagine trying to make decisions about combating epidemics, like SARS, without consideration to the fact that organisms evolve.

Furthermore, what kind scientists are in the making in America if intelligent design is seen as valid science? These types of views reject scientific findings, well-established facts, and scientific methods in favour of unsubstantiated claims.

Science is embedded in a society. And thus the types of questions asked and funded, scientific norms, and the trajectories of scientists are affected by cultural and political values. Right now, Americans lead the world in scientific discovery and innovation, but if these young voices have any say in political policies, science in the US could end up like bourgeois pseudosciences in Russia under Stalin - on its way to watering their crops with gatorade.