Download or read book Defending Evolution in the Classroom written by Brian J. Alters and published by Jones & Bartlett Learning. This book was released on 2001 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A novel handbook that explains why so many secondary and college students reject evolution and are antagonistic toward its teaching.
Download or read book Evolution Creationism and the Battle to Control America s Classrooms written by Michael Berkman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-09-20 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who should decide what children are taught in school? This question lies at the heart of the evolution-creation wars that have become a regular feature of the US political landscape. Ever since the 1925 Scopes 'monkey trial' many have argued that the people should decide by majority rule and through political institutions; others variously point to the federal courts, educational experts, or scientists as the ideal arbiter. Berkman and Plutzer illuminate who really controls the nation's classrooms. Based on their innovative survey of 926 high school biology teachers they show that the real power lies with individual educators who make critical decisions in their own classrooms. Broad teacher discretion sometimes leads to excellent instruction in evolution. But the authors also find evidence of strong creationist tendencies in America's public high schools. More generally, they find evidence of a systematic undermining of science and the scientific method in many classrooms.
Download or read book Creationism USA written by Adam Laats and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-24 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who are America's creationists? What do they want? Do they truly believe Jesus rode around on dinosaurs, as sometimes depicted? Creationism USA reveals how common misconceptions about creationism have led Americans into a century of unnecessary culture-war histrionics about evolution education and creationism. Adam Laats argues that Americans do not have deep, fundamental disagreements about evolution - not about the actual science behind it and not in ways that truly matter to public policy. Laats asserts that Americans do, however, have significant disagreements about creationism. By describing the history of creationism and its many variations, Laats demonstrates that the real conflict about evolution is not between creationists and evolution. The true landscape of American creationism is far more complicated than headlines suggest. Creationism USA digs beyond those headlines to prove two fundamental facts about American creationism. First, almost all Americans can be classified as creationists of one type or another. Second, nearly all Americans (including self-identified creationists) want their children to learn mainstream evolutionary science. Taken together, these truths about American creationism point to a large and productive middle ground, a widely shared public vision of the proper relationship between schools, science, and religion. Creationism USA both explains the current state of America's battles over creationism and offers a nuanced yet straight-forward prescription to solve them.
Download or read book Teaching Biological Evolution in Higher Education written by Brian J. Alters and published by Jones & Bartlett Learning. This book was released on 2005 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An important new book by the author of the bestselling text Defending Evolution: A Guide to the Creation/Evolution Controversy, this title examines the controversial issues surrounding this central concept of life science and explores students' common scientific misconceptions, describes approaches for teaching topics and principles of evolution, and offers strategies for handling the various problems some students have with the idea of evolution due to religious influences
Download or read book Not in Our Classrooms written by Eugenie Scott and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2006-10-15 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book . . . is an excellent resource to deal with the attack on evolution, which is a surrogate, and indeed a wedge, for a wide-ranging crusade against the scientific integrity of the public education system in America."--Rev. Barry W. Lynn from the Foreword More than eighty years after the Scopes trial, creationism is alive and well. Through local school boards, sympathetic politicians, and well-funded organizations, a strong movement has developed to encourage the teaching of the latest incarnation of creationism—intelligent design—as a scientifically credible theory alongside evolution in science classes. Although intelligent design suffered a serious defeat in the recent Kitzmiller v. Dover trial, its proponents are bound to continue their assault on evolution education. Now, in Not in Our Classrooms, parents and teachers, as well as other concerned citizens, have a much-needed tool to use in the argument against teaching intelligent design as science. Where did the concept of intelligent design originate? How does it connect with, and conflict with, various religious beliefs? Should we teach the controversy itself in our science classrooms? In clear and lively essays, a team of experts answers these questions and many more, describing the history of the intelligent design movement and the lack of scientific support for its claims. Most importantly, the contributors—authorities on the scientific, legal, educational, and theological problems of intelligent design-speak specifically to teachers and parents about the need to defend the integrity of science education by keeping intelligent design out of science curriculums. A concluding chapter offers concrete advice for those seeking to defend the teaching of evolution in their own communities. Not in Our Classrooms is essential reading for anyone concerned about defending the teaching of evolution, uncompromised by religiously motivated pseudoscience, in the classrooms of our public schools.
Download or read book Going Ape written by Brandon Haught and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Haught chronicles the war over teaching evolution in Florida's schools, from the first shouts of religious persecution and child endangerment in Tallahassee in 1923 to the forced delays and extra public hearings in state-level textbook adoptions today.
Download or read book Why Darwin Matters written by Michael Shermer and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A creationist-turned-scientist demonstrates the facts of evolution and exposes Intelligent Design's real agenda Science is on the defensive. Half of Americans reject the theory of evolution and "Intelligent Design" campaigns are gaining ground. Classroom by classroom, creationism is overthrowing biology. In Why Darwin Matters, bestselling author Michael Shermer explains how the newest brand of creationism appeals to our predisposition to look for a designer behind life's complexity. Shermer decodes the scientific evidence to show that evolution is not "just a theory" and illustrates how it achieves the design of life through the bottom-up process of natural selection. Shermer, once an evangelical Christian and a creationist, argues that Intelligent Design proponents are invoking a combination of bad science, political antipathy, and flawed theology. He refutes their pseudoscientific arguments and then demonstrates why conservatives and people of faith can and should embrace evolution. He then appraises the evolutionary questions that truly need to be settled, building a powerful argument for science itself. Cutting the politics away from the facts, Why Darwin Matters is an incisive examination of what is at stake in the debate over evolution.
Download or read book Evolution Versus Creationism written by J. Peter Zetterberg and published by Greenwood. This book was released on 1983 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The University of Minnesota organized a conference ("Evolution and Public Education," December 5, 1981) to help clarify issues in the creation/evolution controversy and to examine arguments of the proponents of scientific creationism. This six-part book, a revised version of a resource manual compiled for the conference: (1) discusses the theory of evolution and its place in science education; (2) examines the creationist movement; (3) states the position of scientific creationists; (4) responds to creationists' arguments against evolution; (5) explores legal issues in the controversy; and (6) provides some perspectives on attempts to treat the Genesis creation account as science. The fifth section, on legal issues, includes Judge Overton's decision striking down the Arkansas Creationism Act, as well as pieces of legislation which reveal the changing tactics of creationists, who first sought to ban the teaching of evolution in the 1920s, then sought equal time for biblical creationism in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and now seek a two-model approach to earth science/biology teaching (evolution as one model, scientific creationism as the other). A comprehensive bibliography lists most of the important works that directly address the controversy, as well as many publications on the philosophy of science and faith issues. (JN)
Download or read book The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything written by Gordy Slack and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-04-25 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling eyewitness account of the recent courtroom drama in Dover, Pennsylvania that put evolution on trial. Journalist Gordy Slack offers a riveting, personal, and often amusing first-hand account that details six weeks of some of the most widely ranging, fascinating, and just plain surreal testimony in U.S. legal history—a battle between hard science and religious conservatives wishing to promote a new version of creationism in schools. During the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Areas School Board trial, the members of the local school board defended their decision to require teachers to present intelligent design alongside evolution as an explanation for the origins and diversity of life on earth. The trial revealed much more than a disagreement about how to approach science education. It showed two essentially different and conflicting views of the world and the lengths some people will go to promote their own. The ruling by George W. Bush-appointed Judge John Jones III was unexpected in its stridency: Not only did he conclude that intelligent design was religion and not science and therefore had no place in a science classroom, he scolded the school board for wasting public time and money. A sophisticated examination of the deep cultural, religious, and political tensions that continue to divide America, The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything is also journalist Gordy Slack’s personal and engaging story of the high drama and unforgettable characters on both sides of the courtroom controversy. Gordy Slack (Oakland, CA) has been writing about science and evolutionary biology for 15 years. He is a regular commentator on KQED, an affiliate of NPR, and his articles have appeared in Mother Jones, Salon.com, Wired, California Wild, the San Francisco Chronicle, and many other publications.
Download or read book Teaching Evolution in a Creation Nation written by Adam Laats and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-03-03 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No fight over what gets taught in American classrooms is more heated than the battle over humanity’s origins. For more than a century we have argued about evolutionary theory and creationism (and its successor theory, intelligent design), yet we seem no closer to a resolution than we were in Darwin’s day. In this thoughtful examination of how we teach origins, historian Adam Laats and philosopher Harvey Siegel offer crucial new ways to think not just about the evolution debate but how science and religion can make peace in the classroom. Laats and Siegel agree with most scientists: creationism is flawed, as science. But, they argue, students who believe it nevertheless need to be accommodated in public school science classes. Scientific or not, creationism maintains an important role in American history and culture as a point of religious dissent, a sustained form of protest that has weathered a century of broad—and often dramatic—social changes. At the same time, evolutionary theory has become a critical building block of modern knowledge. The key to accommodating both viewpoints, they show, is to disentangle belief from knowledge. A student does not need to believe in evolution in order to understand its tenets and evidence, and in this way can be fully literate in modern scientific thought and still maintain contrary religious or cultural views. Altogether, Laats and Siegel offer the kind of level-headed analysis that is crucial to finding a way out of our culture-war deadlock.
Download or read book Evolution and Religion in American Education written by David E. Long and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-08-03 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evolution and Religion in American Education shines a light into one of America’s dark educational corners, exposing the regressive pedagogy that can invade science classrooms when school boards and state overseers take their eyes off the ball. It sets out to examine the development of college students’ attitudes towards biological evolution through their lives. The fascinating insights provided by interviewing students about their world views adds up to a compelling case for additional scrutiny of the way young people’s educational experiences unfold as they consider—and indeed in some cases reject—one of science’s strongest and most cogent theoretical constructs. Inevitably, open discussion and consideration of the theory of evolution can chip away at the mental framework constructed by Creationists, eroding the foundations of their faith. The conceptual battleground is so fraught with logical challenges to Creationist dogma that in a number of cases students’ exposure to such dangerous ideas is actively prevented. This book provides a detailed map of this astonishing struggle in today’s America—a struggle many had thought was done and dusted with the onset of the Enlightenment.
Download or read book Living with Darwin written by Philip Kitcher and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-04-28 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Darwin has been at the center of white-hot public debate for more than a century. In Living With Darwin, Philip Kitcher stokes the flames swirling around Darwin's theory, sifting through the scientific evidence for evolution, Creation Science, and Intelligent Design, and revealing why evolution has been the object of such vehement attack. Kitcher first provides valuable perspective on the present controversy, describing the many puzzles that blocked evolution's acceptance in the early years, and explaining how scientific research eventually found the answers to these conundrums. Interestingly, Kitcher shows that many of these early questions have been resurrected in recent years by proponents of Intelligent Design. In fact, Darwin himself considered the issue of intelligent design, and amassed a mountain of evidence that effectively refuted the idea. Kitcher argues that the problem with Intelligent Design isn't that it's "not science," as many critics say, but that it's "dead science," raising questions long resolved by scientists. But Kitcher points out that it is also important to recognize the cost of Darwin's success--the price of "life with Darwin." Darwinism has a profound effect on our understanding of our place in the universe, on our religious beliefs and aspirations. It is in truth the focal point of a larger clash between religious faith and modern science. Unless we can resolve this larger issue, the war over evolution will go on.
Download or read book Confronting Creationism written by D. R. Selkirk and published by UNSW Press. This book was released on 1987 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Expansion of the proceedings of the symposium: In defence of science.
Download or read book Evolution fact or just one of many theories written by Anna Jell and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2010-05-07 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,0, University of Brussel (Institut supérieur de traducteurs et interprètes), language: English, abstract: The objective of this paper is to describe the controversy between Darwinism and creationism in public education in the United States. Part One defines key terms such as “creationism“, “Intelligent Design“ and “Darwinism“ and examines the arguments, views and concepts of all schools of thought in the controversy. Part Two gives a brief overview of the present situation in public education in different states and explains the legal status quo in connection with current judgments and trials. Part Three describes the background of the debate and mentions historical key events and court cases concerning evolution. Part Four examines what the American public thinks about teaching creationism and shows how views differ between social groups and political preferences with the aid of recent surveys and opinion polls. In addition to that, it describes President Bush’s opinion and his contribution to the debate up to now. Part Five considers future developments in this matter that are to be expected. Part Six, the conclusion, draws conclusions and describes my personal understanding of the issue.
Download or read book Give Me an Answer written by Cliffe Knechtle and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 1986-03-31 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cliffe Knechtle offers clear, reasoned and compassionate responses to the tough questions skeptics ask.
Download or read book National Center for Science Education written by and published by . This book was released on 199? with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), an organization that defends the right to teach evolution in school classrooms. Gives an overview and history of the Center. Provides information about NCSE's activities and publications. Lists officers, directors, and supporters. Contains membership information. Includes a schedule of public lectures. Offers suggestions on how to support evolution education. Links to other related Web sites. Posts contact information via mailing address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail.
Download or read book A Framework for K 12 Science Education written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2012-02-28 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science, engineering, and technology permeate nearly every facet of modern life and hold the key to solving many of humanity's most pressing current and future challenges. The United States' position in the global economy is declining, in part because U.S. workers lack fundamental knowledge in these fields. To address the critical issues of U.S. competitiveness and to better prepare the workforce, A Framework for K-12 Science Education proposes a new approach to K-12 science education that will capture students' interest and provide them with the necessary foundational knowledge in the field. A Framework for K-12 Science Education outlines a broad set of expectations for students in science and engineering in grades K-12. These expectations will inform the development of new standards for K-12 science education and, subsequently, revisions to curriculum, instruction, assessment, and professional development for educators. This book identifies three dimensions that convey the core ideas and practices around which science and engineering education in these grades should be built. These three dimensions are: crosscutting concepts that unify the study of science through their common application across science and engineering; scientific and engineering practices; and disciplinary core ideas in the physical sciences, life sciences, and earth and space sciences and for engineering, technology, and the applications of science. The overarching goal is for all high school graduates to have sufficient knowledge of science and engineering to engage in public discussions on science-related issues, be careful consumers of scientific and technical information, and enter the careers of their choice. A Framework for K-12 Science Education is the first step in a process that can inform state-level decisions and achieve a research-grounded basis for improving science instruction and learning across the country. The book will guide standards developers, teachers, curriculum designers, assessment developers, state and district science administrators, and educators who teach science in informal environments.
