EVOLUTION ??
(Simon, The Los Angeles Times, Mar. 31, 2006)
LIBERTY,
Mo. -- Monday morning, Room 207: First day of a unit on the origins
of life. Veteran biology teacher Al Frisby switches on the overhead
projector and braces himself.
As his students rummage for their notebooks, Frisby introduces his central
theme: Every creature on Earth has been shaped by random mutation and
natural selection -- in a word, by evolution.
The challenges begin at once.
"Isn't it true that mutations only make an animal weaker?" sophomore
Chris
Willett demands. " 'Cause I was watching one time on CNN and they mutated
monkeys to see if they could get one to become human and they couldn't."
Unruffled, Frisby puts up a transparency tracing the evolution of the whale,
from its ancient origins as a hoofed land animal through two lumbering
transitional species and finally into the sea. He's about to start on the
fossil evidence when sophomore Jeff Paul interrupts: "How are you 100%
sure
that those bones belong to those animals? It could just be some deformed
raccoon."
Two decades of political and legal maneuvering on evolution has spilled over
into public schools, and biology teachers are struggling to respond. Loyal
to the accounts they've learned in church, students are taking it upon
themselves to wedge creationism into the classroom, sometimes with snide
comments but also with sophisticated questions -- and a fervent faith.
As sophomore Daniel Read put it: "I'm going to say as much about God as I
can in school, even if the teachers can't."
Such challenges have become so disruptive that some teachers dread the annual unit on evolution -- or skip it altogether.
In response, the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science is
distributing a 24-page guide to teaching the scientific principles behind
evolution, starting in kindergarten. The group also has issued talking
points for teachers flustered by demands to present "both sides."
The annual science teachers convention next week in Anaheim will cover
similar ground, with workshops such as "Teaching Evolution in a Climate of
Controversy."
"We're not going to roll over and take this," said Alan I. Leshner,
the
executive publisher of the journal Science. "These teachers are facing
phenomenal pressure. They need help."
Liberty High School senior Sarah Hopkins was proud of her response when a
botany teacher brought up evolution last year: "I asked, 'Have you ever read
the Bible? Have you ever gone to church?' "
Such personal questions can make teachers uncomfortable, but they're fairly
easy to deflect. Far tougher are the science-based queries that force
teachers to defend a theory they may not ever have studied in depth.
"If a teacher is making a claim that land animals evolved into whales,
students should ask: 'What precisely is involved? How does the fur turn into
blubber, how do the nostrils move, how does the tiny tail turn into a great
big fluke?' " said John Morris, president of the Institute for Creation
Research near San Diego. "Evolution is so unsupportable, if you insist on
more information, the teacher will quickly run out of credibility," he
said.
Anxious to forestall such challenges, nearly one in five teachers makes a
point of avoiding the word "evolution" in class -- even when they're
presenting the topic, according to a survey by the National Science Teachers
Assn.
Though he retired from his Kansas teaching job in 2002 for personal reasons,
Frisby remains active in efforts there to elect a more liberal state school
board. His job across the state line in Missouri is less political; Missouri
does not require teachers to introduce criticisms of evolution or
alternative accounts of life's origins. Nonetheless, those views come up in
Room 207 every year.
Toward the end of his second class one recent morning, Frisby held up an old
issue of National Geographic. The cover asked in bold type: "Was Darwin
Wrong?"
"Yes!" one student called.
Another backed him up: "Yes!"
Six or eight other voices joined in. Frisby quieted them and opened to the
article inside, which began with the one-word answer: "No."
"It's my job to show you the overwhelming evidence for evolution," he
said.
"What about the other side?" Jeff Paul called. An approving murmur
swept the
room.
Frisby, 59, rarely gets angry at such interruptions; even his most skeptical
students praise his willingness to listen. He has attended two creationist
conferences to hear their evidence firsthand; he digs out articles that
respond to their doubts; he'll even sit down with a student to talk about
God -- though only after class.
[At age 22] Frisby still believed that God created the universe, but his
faith couldn't tell him what happened next; to answer that question, he
concluded, he would need science.
He decided the best way to honor his faith was to hold it sacred in his
heart -- and to keep it out of his lab.
Casting about for ways to explain that to his students, Frisby tried a new
approach this year: He strapped a leather tool belt around his waist. Life,
he told the class, required a variety of tools. Sometimes they would find it
helpful to use art or music to help them make sense of their world.
Sometimes they would use religion.
"We're in science class now, so we're going to use our science
tools," he
told them. "I don't want to be in a debate about religion or literature or
art. My job is to explain evolution so you can understand it. Whether you
accept it or not, that's your business."
On the wall behind him, a poster read: "Courage is what it takes to stand up
and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."
To engage students who might be inclined to tune out, Frisby fills his
lesson plans with hands-on activities.
In one, he'll unspool a long roll of adding-machine tape and have the kids
make a timeline of Earth's history. They'll be able to see at a glance how
long it took for a vast diversity of creatures to evolve, from the humble
worm 430 million years ago to the first fish 345 million years ago and on
through dinosaurs and mammals. On his timeline, early man won't appear until
the very end of the paper.
Frisby hopes the exercise will make an impression on students like Chris
Willett, who offered this rebuttal to evolution: "I think it's kind of
strange that they can find all these dinosaur fossils from what you say is
millions of years ago, but they can't find any transitional human
fossils."
Frisby promised to show the class several fossils that document the halting
and gradual evolution from apes to humans. Then he reminded them not to
expect equal numbers of human and dinosaur remains, because hominids emerged
only recently, while dinosaurs ruled the planet for nearly 200 million
years.
At that, sophomore Derik Montgomery snapped to attention. "I heard that
dinosaurs are only thousands of years old, like 6,000. Not millions," he
said.
"That's wrong," Frisby responded briskly. "What can I tell you?
You can't
believe everything you read."
Sprawled out across his chair, Derik muttered: "You can't believe
everything
you hear in here, either."
Frisby put up his next transparency.
__________________
( TBC: Though a secular article, it is interesting to note that the plan of
those promoting evolution is to "forestall" questions. If evolution
were
truly the "slam dunk" some have deluded themselves to believe it is,
then it
would be to their advantage to allow the discussion to be brought to the
point where "science" could crush alternative viewpoints. They can't, so
they won't. )
_____________________
