Ed Brayton is a freelance writer and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
This time in Maine, where at least one resident wants to party like it's 1967:
The decades-old controversy over the teaching of evolution in public schools is resurfacing in Somerset County.A director of SAD 59 in the Madison area is urging the board to drop evolution from high school science curriculums on grounds that it's an unprovable theory that shouldn't be taught as fact.
Matthew Linkletter of Athens says neither evolution nor creationism belongs in a science curriculum.
Sorry, Matthew, the courts already ruled on this. Look up Epperson v Arkansas.
Comments
Linkletter's views and knowledge-base appear to be right on target for these "it's only a theory" folks. He has some quotes in other articles. It's very difficult to tell him apart from many people I read interviews by re: Dover or from that really uniformed 1/2 of the pro-IDiot crowd who always show up in online comments whenever an evolution/IDiot newspaper article goes up on the net. It's always the same tired, false points. We don't seem to be doing a particularly better job in educating the general public about what evolution actually is than we did 5-10 years ago. Maybe we are, but the evidence sure seems elusive.
I suppose we could really muddy the waters and tell Mr. Linkletter the truth:
This is science. We don't prove things anyway. Thanks for playing, but that's not how it works.
Posted by: Josh | May 15, 2008 10:24 AM
Perhaps we shouldn't teach relgion either, has anyone proved god(s) exist? -DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | May 15, 2008 10:30 AM
What does Epperson v Arkansas have anything to do with this.
In that case involved a law that made it illegal for a teacher to teach evolution and that a teacher could be charged with a crime if he did.
This bozo wants evolution dropped from the official curriculum. It would be a very bad idea, but is is hardly unconstitutional. Stupidity and ignorance are not outlawed by the Constitution, but forbidding teachers from teaching it or trying to push any form of creationism in science class are.
Posted by: a lurker | May 15, 2008 10:33 AM
Using that reasoning, no science at all should be taught in the schools. My understanding of the scientific method is that nothing is ever proved conclusively although, as with evolution, enough evidence in favor of a theory can be accumulated to make the complete overturn of that theory well nigh inconceivable.
So, you know, I guess we might as well all go back to the cave and sit huddled around the fire at night so that the animals and the evil spirits won't get us. What the hell is wrong with these people?
Posted by: Elaine | May 15, 2008 11:36 AM
What they totally misunderstand, and schools need to do a much better job of teaching is evolution is a fact, and has been know as such for close to 200 years. There is no doubt that life has changed progressively over deep time. HOW life evolved is the theory. Mr. Darwin resolved that process with the best observable theory.
Posted by: RAM | May 15, 2008 12:10 PM
a lurker wrote:
The court in Epperson did not rule that the law was unconstitutional because of the potential punishment, they ruled that it was unconstitutional because it was not religiously neutral. The court recognized that the only reason anyone wanted to prohibit the teaching of evolution was to give favor to their religious anti-evolution views.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | May 15, 2008 12:37 PM
Jumping off from what both Elaine and RAM wrote, what the schools really need to do a better job of teaching is what the hell science is (because if my experience is any indication, they don't appear to really be doing it at all), then we can worry about evolution. If the schools did as bad a job teaching American history as they do science, then I doubt more than 15% of graduating high school seniors would be able to correctly place the attack on Pearl Harbor as occurring in the 20th century. And no, I don't think I'm exaggerating all that much. The fundamental aspects of science just don't seem to get taught much. And it is my opinion, as a scientist, that this is the source of much of the problem with misunderstanding evolution.
Most importantly, I think, we need to stop teaching people that science is a collection of facts that are cast in stone. Science is a continually evolving process. A fact is nothing but an observation with an error attached to it. FACTS are tentative. "Good facts" have very very small error bars, but even very solid observations always remain provisional. They can and occasionally do get overturned. Science is not about "proven" facts. Even the fact of evolution, laid out by RAM above, has an error associated with it and can be overturned if it turns out that we have made fundamental mistakes with stratigraphy and absolute age dating (among other things). Is it likely? No bloody way, and it appears to be getting less likely with every paper that gets published. Is it possible according to science? YES. Are many pre-college teachers (heck I might have to say pre-graduate) teaching that all facts have error bars tied to them? I really doubt it based on what I've seen.
Posted by: Josh | May 15, 2008 2:10 PM
I'm not going to say "blame the schools," because it wasn't so very long ago that I graduated from HS, and I remember how frustrated everyone was with taking a week out of our schedule to test, how EVERY class was REQUIRED to give vocabulary tests my senior year, and how often all classes were shut down to practice shitty essay-writing.
Josh, two things. You very obviously haven't talked to any recent high school graduates about American history, have you? Granted, I took the AP course, so I'm a bit unusual, but some of my peers couldn't guess the year of the attack on Pearl Harbor, give or take a decade. They don't know who was President during the Depression, what the Dust Bowl was, or even that there was such a thing as the War of 1812. My Integrated Social Studies class was taught to the CATS test, Coach Malone admitted it from the start. We started at the Presidency of Clinton, and started teaching backwards. Yes, we learned about the Vietnam and Korean wars without learning about WWII. That was the winter we went to school thirteen days in February because of all the snow, so we covered a few things several times, like the Cuban Missile Crisis. Without that coincidence, I bet three students in that class would have walked out knowing what that was (more or less) what that was about. It would have been the WWII history junkie, me, and the kids with the eidictic memory.
Two, there's no time to teach the philosophy of science in science courses. Even if there was, do you know what admitting "But I could be wrong..." at the beginning of class would do for discipline? Science classes are already the worst, due to lab equipment, hormones, the high start-up cost of learning basic terms, and plain ol' disinterest. Admitting even the possibility that you could be wrong when students already disrespect you, well, it's make getting anything done rather difficult.
There was this girl in my College Prep Intro to Chem and Physics class who simply did not understand that there could possibly be a hundred centimeters in a meter. No analogy, no explanation we offered (the teacher or the rest of the class) could get her to understand. When I lab-aided for that same teacher during his Intro to Bio course, student after student would bring up "God did it," some because they believed it, some just to make trouble. In my first bio class, someone seriously made a report on how they didn't believe that we came from apes. The teacher explained that that's not right at all, and he just wouldn't listen. He went to church on Sundays, and just listened to his slightly nutty pastor.
What needs to be addressed is not simply how schools teach science, but how school success is measured and, most importantly, how science is viewed by laymen.
Posted by: Mac | May 15, 2008 2:51 PM
Josh,
I would argue that it isn't the teachers necessarily (though there are often problems there) it is likely a problem with the mindset of many of the students today. We, at the high school level see it all the time, kids don't want the knowledge, they want the grade. They say, regularly, "what do I have to do to pass (get the grade), etc." A very large proportion care not about the class, the subject, what they are learning, etc., but instead how the class can help them to get that scholarship, get that diploma, how they can "be done."
Then add in the students who don't want to learn about certain aspects of science because it challenges their faith, and you have a major problem. In many ways I think the scientific method is seen as a threat to science.
Posted by: dogmeatIB | May 15, 2008 2:59 PM
Every time I see comments regarding high school courses, especially for science, I realize how lucky I was. I went to a Catholic high school. I can't recall any student ever challenging evolution in the (at least) two science classes we covered it in. We certainly discussed evolution, and other stuff, outside of class, and there were a few guys who made their disagreements known (including one YEC), but never did we have anyone say the equivalent of "Evolution is wrong. God did it. I don't want to / have to learn it." I just find it rather bizarre that so many people fall back on religion to dispute evolution when I learned it at a Catholic school, from priests. Then again, them Jesuits were always the renegades anyway.
Posted by: Jason I. | May 15, 2008 4:02 PM
Josh, two things. You very obviously haven't talked to any recent high school graduates about American history, have you?
Sigh...yeah, the second I wrote that I figured it was a poor example to use. Damn...thanks for depressing me more (just kidding...sort of).
Two, there's no time to teach the philosophy of science in science courses.
Agreed, but this is where I think we're missing the boat. I think we should spend less time teaching them facts that they don't give a shit about and more time teaching them the philosophy/process of science. I've taught a lot of people at a lot of levels and I really think this is an experiment worth running. In my opinion, it would be better for the students to have a better sense of how science works/is done and know a little less actual science. I think we'd be ahead of where we currently are.
dogmeat, agreed, sadly, with everything you wrote. It doesn't get any better when they get into college. Every time a student has asked me "Is that gonna be on the test?" my answer has been "well, I wasn't sure, but now...yes"
Posted by: Josh | May 15, 2008 4:37 PM
What needs to be addressed is not simply how schools teach science, but how school success is measured and, most importantly, how science is viewed by laymen.
Well put. I've actually had people tell me it was hard for them to see me as a scientist. "But, you don't wear glasses...and you're like...uh, strong and shit."
"This may not be a fight that we can win."
Posted by: Josh | May 15, 2008 4:46 PM
First, I'm sorry if I came off as sounding a bit rabid in my previous post. I had some fantastic teachers in high school, and they did their absolute best to pass on their passion and knowledge to kids who usually didn't care. When people criticize the schools unspecifically, I tend to feel like these wonderful people are being attacked.
The rest of this post is pretty tangential, but I'm going to try to explain where I'm coming from here.
Granted, I come from a moderately-educated family. You have to go back two generations to find anyone with an actual degree, but my dad taught demo engineering and dive science at the Specialized Warfare Education Center. Yes, that one. My mom was a nursing school student who happened to not cut it because of several knee injuries. Those knee injuries also prevented her from graduating high school with a diploma, but she whizzed her GED stuff, so.
Maybe it's the fact I was practically weaned on sci-fi (and not the pulpy kind, either) and my parents have several pictures of my brother and I both hiding behind chairs "reading" anatomy texts and moderately classified explosive chemical tables as toddlers. To me, going to school and not picking at least something up is a waste of my time, and seriously boring. I did Science Olympiad for four years, a quiz-bowl style academic team since I was in third grade (qualified for state in indiviual tests every year but my freshman year, but in Language Arts and Humanities), captained said academic team my last two years, and helped the quiz team to state for the first time in seven years. I took AP English, Cal, and Bio my senior year, and AP US history in my junior.
My teachers, may all good things come to them, made sure I knew the basics of science, of philosophy. They had not gotten burnt out on arguing with stupid, out of touch administrators. They remembered what brought them to the job. We got picked out and polished with after-school discussions, cleverly drawn in by free pizza and movies. It was never "Oh, you're smart. Write me an extra assignment on ..." which is all too often the case with anyone who shows a hint of intelligence. While a lot of us got hijacked to help explain concepts to students who couldn't quite follow along, we were always rewarded for going the extra mile. Sometimes the reward was as simple as a fun-sized Milky Way, sometimes it was getting out of class early (if it was our SO coach, it was usually to work on whatever project we were fascinated by, and determined to finally medal at state this time, by Gould!)
In high school, it's just plain uncool to actually learn something. You get treated like a freak. "How do you know all that?" Uh, it's been all we've talked about for the past week, guys. Oh, 'cept you were talking about football. My bad. It's a hell of a lot more entertaining to talk about music, movies, TV, politics, or gossip.
If you go to school to learn valuable skills, why waste your time not learning it? This was mind-numbingly prevalent in my Pre-Med classmates, who were obsessed with partying, cramming the night before a test, and never looking over lab reports before turning them in. I'm not sure how many of them were on scholarships, but not learning what I'm paying outrageous tuition for is a waste of my money. The funny thing is, when I switched over to aquatic biology, there's still cheating, but it doesn't seem quite so rampant. It's that whole social clique thing again. Nobody pushes their kid to get a degree in things that live in the water so they can get a teaching post in some college somewhere and crank out papers on some esoteric arthropod that leaves glowing mucus as a mating signal, with each species leaving a different pattern. Not so glorious as being a doctor.
For my peers, all this science is just memorization until they get out. While I understand that not all people are fascinated by enzymatic reactions or bacterial symbiosis, what bothers me is that they can get by just fine without knowing a damnable thing about the world they live in. They don't know who the Veep is, or who bombed Pearl Harbor in what year, but they sure as rain know the latest celebrity to get arrested, and who has a "baby bump." They are willing to be spoon-fed information without thinking twice, even those who are anti-establishment. I know that my fellow underage drinkers have a limited amount of experience; it's only natural. We're young, we have our lives ahead of us, and anything that is keeping us from doing what we want, when we want is, at best, an inconvenience.
Err, so, more to the actual point. I don't imagine young adults not paying attention in school is anything new. Nor, really, is the addition of people trying to add their own specific leanings to the curriculum. I don't pretend to understand all the fine nuances of running a hotel, and my boss really ought not to correct me on the specifics of certain fish species in tropical waters. But we should be well-educated on all the basics, math to science to humanities. Only with a solid foundation can we begin to make educated decisions, and only by making educated decisions can we be responsible human beings, since almost every decision we make influences the circumstances of the next human being over. Too bad ignorance is at such a premium, despite the over-large supply.
Sorry for the super-extra long post.
Posted by: Mac | May 15, 2008 5:48 PM
Ed,
We're safe for now:
http://news.mainetoday.com/updates/026968.html
Posted by: James F | May 15, 2008 7:18 PM
Thought that was why it was always called the THEORY of evolution whenever I was taught it. It's the best explanation we've come up with so far to explain something as complex as life on this earth.
Is he going to get rid of all the other theories in science, mathematics, economics, psychology, sociology, social sciences, etc. Dang, that means I could have graduated from high school and college in about six months time!
Posted by: Rev. AJB | May 15, 2008 7:34 PM
I'm not a biologist. But common sense and what I understand of the evidence tells me that evolution is a fact.
When we talk about the President of America, by the standards of science it is a theory that he's George W. Bush. No-one can prove that he's George W. Bush. Especially not science. But we don't preface every political discussion with this caveat. So why do it with evolution? During a discussion of the philosophy of science, yes, it's important that the theory of evolution is, like all theories, the best provisional explanation for the evidence.
But that's totally irrelevant to common usage. As far as ordinary meaning of "theory" goes, calling it "The Theory of Evolution" is flat-out wrong. Saying that evolution cannot be proved is wrong. It's not a theory, it's a fact. And Darwin proved it 149 years ago.
Posted by: David Ratnasabapathy | May 16, 2008 8:59 PM
On the wall of my "senior" biology class was a sign that summed up perfectly Mrs Kohler's philosophy:
"I see and I forget; I do and I remember". Boy do I remember my bio classes! (and Chem for that matter) -DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | May 17, 2008 2:25 AM