“Question: If this little (fair skinned) girl grew up in Africa what would you predict would happen to the color of her skin?
Student: She’d get sunburnt, then tanned.
Question: If she then married someone of her own race and they lived in Africa and had children born in Africa, what would you predict their children’s skin would look like at birth?
Student: (Pause). The kids could be slightly darker at birth” (Brumby, 1984).
Unfortunately, throughout the span of history, evolution has been heavily linked with talks of it being just a theory. It is appalling because evolution has been proved true on countless occasions and in different manners, supported by numerous pieces of evidence. Instead, its critics have gone above and beyond to bring forth all sorts of non-scientific and problematic debates against evolution throughout history. How individuals utilize the word theory depends on their academic background and affiliations because, etymologically, the word theory has different comprehendible meanings. In science, a theory is a considerably repeated tested notion of proving or disproving a critical hypothesis to possibly explain the ways of life. In contrast, theory in everyday language means a suggested explanation for something that is still unclear of how it occurs or functions in reality. Therefore, when critics of evolution link evolution and theory, they imply that there is little evidence supporting evolution, asserting that it requires further testing to validate its authenticity. Morrison states, “Past research has established that students enter their science classrooms with ideas about the natural world that are not in alignment with accepted scientific beliefs” (Morrison, 2002). Critics of the theory of evolution disregard its significance by intentionally confusing the everyday usage of theory with the way scientists use the word, which is rather mindboggling because many of these critics do not hold substantial educational background to either accept or refute a scientific notion, in this case, evolution.
Naturally, scientists with the appropriate educational background reside close to or work in educational institutions. Unfortunately, these arguments against evolution as an acceptable reality appear in public discourse, especially in schools’ curricula. Schools, the prime place filled with developing students, have been the playing and controversial field for critics to fuel the disapproval of evolutionary concepts. Most importantly, the Southern region of the United States has been known for having significant and negative opinions because its population is heavily pro-religion in a public manner; with that, this region heavily favoured teaching Biblical creationism rather than evolution. A fascinating review by Berkman et al. explored themes centred around the controversy behind students not being adequately instructed concerning evolutionary concepts by their academic instructors. The review began with a perplexing statement “In 2004, the school board in Dover, Pennsylvania, voted to require its 9th grade science teachers to read a statement questioning the validity of evolutionary theory. “Because Darwin’s Theory is a theory,” teachers were instructed to say, “it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. The Theory is not a fact. Gaps in the Theory exist for which there is no evidence” (Berkman et al., 2008). The school board first-handedly fuelled the displeasure of teaching evolution to future generations by forcing its academic instructors to state that evolution remains to be tested; this clearly shows that this occurrence was the beginning of the deceitful webs of misconceptions concerning evolutionary concepts in academic institutions. Plutzeret al. state, “This 2007 survey found that only about one in three public high school biology teachers presented evolution consistently with the recommendations of the nation’s leading scientific authorities. And about 13% of the teachers emphasized to their students that creationism was a valid scientific alternative to modern evolutionary biology” (Plutzeret al., 2020). The statement by Plutzeret al. first-handedly show how negatively impacted the Southern education system, from a scientific standpoint, has been negatively impacted throughout the centuries of reasserting and disproving evolution as a fact to its population. Cunningham et al. excellently point out that “While it is arguable whether support for creationism is a result of a general lack of understanding of evolutionary theory, results based on nationwide polls and revitalized anti- evolution pressures” (Cunningham & Wescott, 2009). What properties of evolution make it quite controversial to teach future generations in heavily religious academic settings in the United States? How have these consequences impacted the Southern education recently? These mindboggling questions will be further expanded because the multiple attempts made to censor the teachings of evolutionary concepts has significantly led its students to have numerous misconceptions and not be confident enough in their knowledge about this controversial topic. Significant pieces of evidence will be brought forth to efficiently highlight the misconceptions by explicitly focusing on the academic levels of middle school, high school, and college in the Southern regions of the United States.
Research completed by Beardsley (2004) will primarily validate and highlight unveiled misconceptions surprisingly at the middle school level. It is important to note that Beardsley undertook rigorous research and uncovered a common consensus regarding a trend of students in the 90s, mainly at high school and university levels, already filled with misconceptions as he states that “Jensen and Finley (1995) employed a conceptual change teaching strategy using historical arguments to analyze under-prepared university students’ understanding of evolution. Again, significant increases in understanding were observed in this investigation. However, after instruction, students still answered fewer than 50% of all questions on their assessment …” (Beardsley, 2004). With this perplexing previous research, one would naturally wonder that if these students at a high school level are struggling to absorb evolutionary concepts, what is happening at the middle school level? Therefore, Beardsley obtained a robust sample size of 86 students at the middle school level to participate in his investigation and undertook an approach to teaching evolution using both historical arguments and inquiry-based activities. Most importantly, pre-test scores were extracted from these students, and 78.7% of them had poor levels of understanding before the investigation even began. For example, regarding the origin of new traits, pre-test results showed that 72.1% of students believed that this concept was due to the organism’s internal desire to change, which is problematic as no mention of new traits appearing by chance was mentioned by students. For this investigation, a doctoral candidate in evolution was selected, and significant improvements such that the most remarkable improvement in the role of variation came from students that moved from the poor category to the good category. However, it is excellently discussed that “However, these one-shot attempts to instill an understanding have proven to be insufficient in helping most students achieve a working knowledge of evolution by natural selection” (2004). Although middle school students were the primary focus of this study, Beardsley believed that the root of these problematic misconceptions came from unprepared biology teachers who themselves were not confident in their background knowledge of evolutionary concepts. An explored solution to this problem would be to incorporate training such as biology teacher preparation programs to emphasize understanding evolution on a higher pedestal. With Beardsley’s affirmation that “Until these goals are reached, however, it is unrealistic to assume that one teacher working with one class for one year can bring all or most of their students to a useful understanding of evolution” (2004).
Right from the early 90s, the educational viewpoint of high schools in the Southern region of the United States has been the prime academic participating institution for promising research in uncovering rigorous enforcement of misconceptions on its students. Research by Goldston et al. explored the multiple misconceptions instead of three Southern biology teachers in the United States. The methodology for this investigation entailed observing teachers’ teaching strategies over nearly a full school year and their thoughts on teaching non-controversial versus controversial topics, in this case, evolution. This investigation revealed a significant correlation between existing practices when teachers incorporate or neglect evolution within the curriculum and the repercussion of these liabilities with their problematic thinking. This research team immediately discovered a broad range from instructors who taught no evolutionary concepts to those who went in-depth about them, stating that “The teaching identities, however, ranged from no instruction on evolution to in-depth instruction. Furthermore, those who taught evolution transformed their typical pedagogical approaches when teaching evolution. The following themes depict in part, the complex sociocultural networks that influenced each teachers’ teaching identities and decisions to teach evolution in their Southern classes” (Goldston &Kyzer, 2009). Thankfully, interviews were conducted in this study, and a striking conversation with a participant called Margaret was especially perplexing. When Margaret was posed the question regarding how she shortened the length of time when talking about evolutionary concepts, she responded that “Well, honestly, I guess because of the controversial nature of the subject, I wanted to give the pertinent information, have a class discussion, and I just chose to make it a shorter lesson. I guess I am more nervous about the topic than I am about any other topic in biology” (2009). It is highly evident that Margaret’s nervousness was because of the heavily religious community that surrounded her. With these common misconceptions, many instructors like her have skirted around evolutionary concepts by giving them a lower emphasis and priority, negatively impacting these students. In comparison, similar and intriguing research done by Yates et al. focused on extracting statistical data to understand better the causes of evolution-related misconceptions from students at the high school level. The purpose of the research done by this team was to highlight the fact that instructors were the primary cause behind this intentional negligence of not emphasizing the importance of learning evolutionary concepts. Results obtained concerning the nature of evolution revealed that “Responses from statement 11 (“New traits within a population appear at random”) were evenly split with 41.2% (n = 409) of participants in agreement whereas 41.6% (n = 413) adhered to the misconception. Statement 13 (“Evolution is a totally random process”) resulted in 25.9% (n = 257) of participants agreeing with the misconception while 51.5% (n = 511) disagreed” (2009). These misconceptions in this investigation originally stem from the fact that 33% of Oklahoma public school life-science teachers placed little or no emphasis on evolution. These evolutionary-related misconceptions are alarming because, with the large sample size of this study of 993 students, they represented 21% to 25% of U.S. high school graduates who would move on to higher academic institutions with no rigorous effort to correcting these misconceptions.
After exploring the misconceptions at the middle school and high school level, naturally, an investigation behind what lies at the college education level would also be needed to highlight the thesis further. Research done by Paz-y-Miño- C et al., although not relatively recent, would provide a clear divide by comparing the Southern education system from the 90s to the present time. This investigation is one of exemplary importance because of its varied sample size, which was “Highly educated New England faculty (n = 244; 90% Ph.D. holders in 40 disciplines at 35 colleges/universities) and college students from public secular (n = 161), private secular (n = 298), and religious (n = 185) institutions” (Paz-y-Miño- C & Espinosa, 2010). Obtained results reaffirmed a common consensus of properly understood evolutionary concepts by both the faculty and its students in public secular institutions. However, the results behind the religious institution in this study were rather interesting because it unveiled that its students were less supportive of the view of the origin of life on Earth and its place in the universe. In addition, students from public, private and religious institutions were about four, six, and ten times respectively more likely than the faculty to think that evolution and creationism are in harmony. Thinking that both concepts could be in harmony would continuously arise problematic thinking as creationism is not and has not been proven as a scientific fact, rather a theological way of thinking. Paz-y-Miño- C et al. noted that 982% of the faculty and 58% of the students thought evolution was true; however, what is unsettling is why there are still significant percentages of people who still refute evolution as a fact? These inconsistencies at a college level are still currently alarming because it shows how far gone and negatively impacted the Southern region of the United States has been. In addition, research done by Paz-y-Miño- C et al. published in 2012 instead, asserted that “The patterns of hesitant support to evolution by the educators of prospective teachers, due to a deficient understanding of science and the evolutionary process, combined with high religiosity, are concerning since these educators are responsible for mentoring prospective teachers” (2012). This statement showcases that after all these years of studies to promote biology instructors to receive further training, there are still instructors who lack the proper capacity to rectify these inconsistencies. Therefore, a more direct and rigorous approach is needed to address these misconceptions and inconsistencies absorbed by its students.
A potential argument against the stated thesis could be the debate that academic institutions are not the problem behind these misconceptions but instead what is discussed behind the students’ households. It has been public knowledge throughout centuries that the Southern region of the United States is one that publicly and heavily practices its religiosity. A review article by George (2001) confirms this public knowledge by exploring how the controversy and disagreement of Evolutionism versus Creationism began. George excellently points out that parents have fueled most topics of controversial nature because of their personal worries with present societal issues. George states, “Given the recent well publicized violent incidents, parents are worried about their children’s safety. Parents worry not only about their children’s physical well-being, but also about their children’s behavioral and moral development. In response to these wide-ranging concerns, a great variety of approaches have been introduced, considered, and even implemented, including school vouchers, metal detectors, morning prayer, and charter schools” (George, 2001). Evidently, parents demanded the incorporation of more morally accepted activities in schools with these worries. It begs the question that if these parents have such a massive impact on academic institutions, how far is creationistic ideology promoted in their households? However, this argument has apparent gaps because, firstly, children begin attending academic institutions at the age of six, which is the prime age of intellectual development. Secondly, they spend more time in schools than in their houses. Finally, academic institutions cater more to the child’s intellectual capabilities, and instead, their parents cater more to the emotional and mental aspects. Therefore, this possible argument against the thesis still proves that the educational view should be maintained to rectify these misconceptions and inconsistencies in evolutionary concepts.
All these pieces of evidence have shown how negatively impacted the Southern education system has been through the centuries since evolution’s perceptibility started. This impact was mainly made by fuelling students’ misconceptions from different academic levels. Science instructors have been at the forefront of instigating these misconceptions without having a strong enough foundation for evolutionary concepts to relay these teachings to future generations. By exploring the academic levels of middle school, high school and college, much striking information about these inconsistencies unearthed. Firstly, the middle school level was explored as it unearthed multiple observations of students at this level not having substantial knowledge of evolutionary concepts. One striking result highlighted the fact that 78.7% of middle schoolers had poor levels of understanding even before the study commenced. Although by selecting a doctoral candidate in evolution, the results were slightly mediated as at the end of the study, the students improved significantly in understanding evolutionary concepts appropriately. Secondly, high schools have been the prime academic institutions for studies due to their accessibility. The selected research by Goldston et al. reaffirmed the thesis by showing that common misconceptions from students arise from instructors shortening lectures about evolution and not emphasizing them enough with testing assessments. Finally, surprisingly at the college level, when honing in three different types of institutions (public, private and religious), there was still significant, although low, hesitancy from some students and faculties in accepting evolution as a fact rather than a theory. Ultimately, all these pieces of evidence point to the fact that even though evolution has been proved as a fact countless time, there is nonetheless a substantial amount of its disapproval lurking through the corners.
References
Beardsley, P. M. (2004). Middle School Student Learning in Evolution: Are Current Standards Achievable? The American BiologyTeacher, 66(9), 604–612.
Berkman M. B., Pacheco J.S., Plutzer E. (2008). Evolution and Creationism in America’s Classrooms: A National Portrait. PLoS Biol 6(5): e124.
Brumby, M.N. (1984), Misconceptions About the Concept of Natural Selection by Medical Biology Students. Sci. Ed., 68: 493-503.
Cunningham, D.L., Wescott, D.J. (2009). Still More “Fancy” and “Myth” than “Fact” in Students’ Conceptions of Evolution. Evo Edu Outreach 2, 505–517.
George, M. (2001). And Then God Created Kansas? The Evolution/Creationism Debate in America’s Public Schools. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 149(3), 843–872.
Goldston, M. J., &Kyzer, P. (2009). Teaching evolution: Narratives with a view from three southern biology teachers in the USA. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 46(7), 762–790.
Morrison, J.A., and Lederman, N.G. (2003), Science Teachers’ Diagnosis and Understanding of Students’ Preconceptions. Sci. Ed., 87: 849-867.
Paz-y-Miño C., G., Espinosa, A. (2011). New England Faculty and College Students Differ in Their Views About Evolution, Creationism, Intelligent Design, and Religiosity. Evo Edu Outreach 4, 323–342.
Paz-y-Miño-C, G., Espinosa, A. (2012). Educators of Prospective Teachers Hesitate to Embrace Evolution Due to Deficient Understanding of Science/Evolution and High Religiosity. Evo Edu Outreach 5, 139–162.
Plutzer, E., Branch, G. & Reid, A. (2020). Teaching Evolution in U.S. Public Schools: A Continuing Challenge. Evo Edu Outreach, 13:14.
Yates, T. and Marek, E. (2015). A Study Identifying Biological Evolution-Related Misconceptions Held by Prebiology High School Students. Creative Education, 6, 811-834.