What Happened to Science Education: Kansas and Beyond
A. Introduction
A great deal has been written about the interaction between creationists and the rest of American society, especially the educational system. I’ll try to avoid adding to the noise by being as brief as possible, and by confining myself to remarks that may provide new information.In 1999, Kansas was the center of a media storm after the August vote of the Kansas Board of Education (KBOE) to remove certain scientific theories from the state standards. In fact, essentially similar events had happened in other states, but in our case the media were primed. We had a noisy, active, group of scientists and educators focusing attention on Kansas at least six months before that vote.Having been involved through all of this, I would like to recount some of the things that happened, describe the kinds of tactics creationists use, speculate about why the US has had this problem to such a great degree, and discuss the kind of influence it is possible for scientists to have.
B. What Happened in Kansas
In Kansas, the Radical Religious Right (RRR) captured five of the ten seats on the KBOE. All public campaigns were low-key and evolution (or other science issues) were not visibly important. In 1999, the question of new science standards arose. A 27-member KBOE- appointed committee of mostly science educators wrote and refined by successive comment and review a draft document which followed the lead of related national documents. Creationists began to follow the committee and testify during open public comment time against the inclusion of biological evolution, using recycled material from such as the Institute for Creation Research. A counter-group quickly formed, and matched or exceeded the participation level of the RRR group. In the end, the KBOE voted 6-4 to reject the committee draft, instead adapting a version that had been worked over by a few board members in collusion with a creationist group. The adopted document did not include the origin of species by biological evolution. It deleted mention of the Big Bang model, removed material on the age of the Earth and dropped global warming as a prime example of possible outcomes of human activity. The accepted draft adopted a view that "real science" is only that which can satisfy a heavy handed here-and-now falsifiability creation based on benchtop experiments.They quietly inserted a number of exercises, which look strange, but superficially harmless, unless one can recognize that they are specific "setups" for the introduction of RRR ideas. They can give students the idea (for example) that dinosaurs may have co-existed with human beings, or that trees may be as environmentally damaging as automobiles.
As I write, the battle continues. The public (most of whom oppose what the KBOE did) has become galvanized, and the KBOE has produced a new version to evade copyright problems with its standards. Four of the six seats of people who voted with the RRR are up for election in the year 2000.
C. What to Expect When They Visit You (They Will)
Don’t expect to be protected by geography. This is a national problem. Many of their techniques are tried and true, and continue. They may be unfamiliar, so it is worth pointing them out.
Outright lying and severe distortions by selective quotation out of context are rampant. A prominent analysis lab was reported to have put disclaimers on its 14C dating-they never have. S.J. Gould is made to appear to reject Darwinian evolution as lacking supporting data.
Creationists will use material that has been disproven. They will cite flawed experiments that were overturned by later work. They will repeat discredited ideas. They understand very well that ideas acquire power and become believable merely by repetition. In many ways they are more skilled in manipulating public opinion than the scientific community, who tend to operate within a much smaller toolbag of techniques. In fact, most scientists mistakenly discuss these things in public arenas using the methods and ideas of scientific dialog, which are almost useless in this context.
They have been successful in taking hostage the image of Christianity. One example of their technique is the statement "Christian geologists believe the Grand Canyon was formed in Noah’s flood." The situation is aggravated by the relative passivity of the mainstream churches. Many of the clergy are anxious about arousing a creationist minority in their own groups - fragmentation is a constant danger for churches. The flip side of this is that when clergy become active in support of good science they are extraordinarily powerful.
They (RRR) will mobilize a large fraction of their supporters, and will be very effective in producing letters to the editor - many of which may have identical content appearing under different name in different newspapers.
More and more, they are pushing a role reversal:they portray themselves as pushing "good science" against an intransigent "religion of atheistic naturalism." They have people believing that biological evolution and the Hot Big Bang model are actually under serious attack within the scientific community, and that supporting evidence is weak or missing. Their ideas are based on reading slick popularizations.
In September 1999, we were informed in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette: "Evolution violates at least four natural laws: the 1st. and 2nd. Laws of thermodynamics, the law of cause and effect, and the law of biogenesis."(R. Bixler) This sounds impressive, and will be repeated like a mantra in spite of pointing out the existence of the Sun or the real content of physical laws.
It’s very easy and a common reaction to be amused by this kind of thing and not regard it as a serious problem. After all, it is very silly. Nearly all, if not all, their claims fall apart when examined. The academic community needs to realize that this is a political conflict, and will be settled based on skill and numbers of people involved, not on scientific accuracy. No region of the country is immune. Furthermore, the creationist thrust is changing. It has become much more creative, which I will discuss next.
D. A New Look for the new Millenium
There has been been a major shift in style among the creationists recently. They’ve become more diverse, more creative, and more upscale. They use a variety of approaches, some inconsistent with others.
A variety of court decisions have held that "creation science" is a thinly disguised form of religion, and has no place in public school science classes. So, while the direct push for this has continued, it is no longer the sole emphasis of their efforts.
A variety of creative tactics not seen before have emerged recently. These are likely to succeed in making it harder to deal with challenges to real science, as is their intent.
For example the KBOE simply removed the normal understanding of evolution from the newest edition of the state science standards. In its place "creation science" was not introduced explicitly. However a large number of "hooks" were put in as secondary exercises. For example, some discussions were set up to look for evidence that dinosaurs lived in historic times, or that there were problems that make isotope dating wholly unreliable, or that anything not based on benchtop experiments is not science. Source material on these areas is readily available from creationist sources.
This is often described as local control of curriculum. Strangely, the RRR only wants local control in issues like this, otherwise they tend to favor rigid standards. In this case local control gives them the option of harassing each school district individually
In Pittsburgh, PA, WQED, needing an infusion of funds, had a complicated deal arranged with a religious channel, which regularly runs programs discussing (for example) the stopping of the Earth’s rotation at the Battle of Jericho. This could be considered as an educational program,unless legislation being pushed in Congress isa stopped. This legislation would allow religeous broadcasters to use reserved educational channels without meeting any standard for the educational content of their programming.
The philosophy of science has been introduced in ways not seen in this context before. What we tend to see as a basically empirical process in which answers come from data is transformed into a culture war of competing -isms. Although scientists are a diverse group and include many religious people, the RRR portray the situation as Christians versus atheistic secular humanists. Results such as a 4.5 billion-year-old Earth may be viewed as ideologically based. A heavy-handed falsifiability criterion is applied in a simpleminded way: was anyone around 4.5 billion years ago to see the Earth form? Consequently, any historical science is inferior.
Classical creationists went after evolution (of course) and geology (age of the earth) and not much else, with a fairly narrow focus on a 6-day creation in the last 10,000 years. There are two major changes in scope being tried out:
(1) The KBOE documents attacked not only these, but Big Bang cosmology, global warming, resource depletion, nuclear physics, and any research which either has no applied component or cannot be treated solely by benchtop experiments. This partly arose as a wish for self-consistency: one can’t dismiss isotope dating without running afoul of the nucleus.
This strategy provided a great deal of ammunition (we have bumper stickers that say, "Gravity is Next") and motivated many outside of biology and geology to get involved.
(2)There is another major movement called Intelligent Design (ID) which has become fashionable recently. This movement comes in two very different forms. Type 1 ID has emerged from earlier anthropic fine tuning arguments made by interpreters of physics. It is mostly concerned with what are claimed to be narrow ranges of values for physical constants such that the Universe can support life. This is used as evidence the Universe was crafted to allow creatures like us to develop. This point of view is certainly debatable. However, so far as I know,it has shown no tendency to threaten science or science education.
Type 2 ID, popularized by Michael Behe, constitutes a new, superficially intellectualized variant of traditional creationism. This concentrates narrowly on life forms, arguing that they have irreducible complexity-- structures or biochemical pathways for which no natural evolutionary path is possible (along which selection pressure drives the species towards its present state). Therefore they claim such attributes show the hand of design. They are careful not to name the Designer, so that they can label this a scientific theory. (An extensive literature search by one of my colleagues has revealed no papers in scientific journals which used intelligent design.) Type 2 ID advocates do not deny the geologic or cosmological time scales. They even do not deny the existence of some evolution, usually enough to account for small variations within species, but not major changes.
By doing this, they have added a veneer of respectability that has attracted such people as engineers and physicians to their movement. They have a great deal of overlap with the more traditional creationists, and many people move back and forth between the groups. However, often Young-Earth Creationists (YEC) will condemn them for not adhering more rigidly to Biblical literalism.
I expect that in the future this ID variant will grow, guided by the Discovery Institute, an organization with theocratic leanings. These group views Type 2 ID as a wedge for the change of our culture. They regard it as the first opening for the insertion of supernatural elements into physics, with others to follow. Type 2 ID is much more acceptable to many people, because of the poor public understanding of evolution. Most scientists, even many in biology-related areas, have studied evolution as only a fragment of a general-survey course. There is little attention to the origins of our understanding.
Fueled by weak public understanding; by its perplexing nature as islands of self-organization appearing in nonequilibrium; and by decades of effective creationist propaganda, evolution is a suspect idea. It appears that natural selection will cause ID to grow and possibly replace YEC. For example, a recent TV panel discussion in Kansas City pitted about ten supporters of science against an equal number of ID proponents and with no YEC’s included. Public comment in newspaper letters has shifted to ID in a way that indicates some top- down shift in strategy.
There is a considerable danger in this. As Type 2 ID does not attack the traditional turf of the physicist we are less likely to clearly understand its problems and less likely to take action to as a direct threat. This may leave biologists isolated, and give creationists an easy victory - the wedge they are seeking.
This slick, new movement is likely to grow rapidly, accreting large numbers of middle-class, educated persons. I regard it as the biggest threat to the integrity of science education in the near future. The writers are slick, and well-spoken, and reasonable replies to their claims require an understanding of complex phenomenae, which cannot be delivered in sound bytes.
E. Why the USA?
This sort of attack on science seems at odds with the highly developed US technical culture, and is a source of puzzlement to people around the world. To be sure, there are isolated instances related to Islamic and Hindu fundamentalism. For example, there was a major attack on biology under Stalin which was a contributing factor to Soviet crop failures. However this kind of attack has reached epidemic proportions now only in the United States.
This may be related to Americans’ anti-elitist tendencies. They make us unlikely to accept the word of experts just because they are experts. What began as a rejection of hereditary aristocracy now causes the public to think the opinion of someone who has spent a large fraction of a lifetime studying something is no more worthwhile than the opinion of anyone else.
In fact, creationists often directly compare their ideas to those of Galileo and others. The implication is that since they, too are at odds with the establishment, their ideas will actually win out. There is no evidence of any comprehension that (1) most new ideas are wrong and (2) those that survive do so by experimental vindication and a great deal of developmental work.
The US religious heritage is a contributing factor. We were, after all, a refuge for people who did not fit in back home. The secular nature of our government is a device not arrived at by any great principle, but rather as a way to keep people off each other’s throats.
Confusion over what constitutes creationism is widespread. In terms of timescales there are at least three kinds:
YEC: Everything was created in six days, about 6,000-10,000 years ago.
OldEarth (Type 2 ID): The Universe and Earth are old, as the evidence indicates, but intervention by God was required to (1) start life (2) move life along at crucial intervals or (3) create humans or modify them in some way.
OldEarth/Evolutionary (Type 1 ID): The development of the Universe and the life in it is portrayed more or less according to the results of scientific investigation. The creation element is present because of belief that God created the Universe.
I have observed a particular confusion in public reaction which assists the creationists and Type 2 ID er’s. Many people are religious, and in Western religious traditions equate this with belief in a Creator-God. They know they believe in this Creator, so they think they are the same as the creationists they read about. They are victims as are scientists of the YEC tactic of portraying this as a black and white issue. They probably don’t realize they are falling in with people who claim T. Rex was a harmless vegetarian in the Garden of Eden. We need new words other than "creationist" to describe these people.
The reaction of the large numbers of Americans who are scientifically illiterate but sympathetic to science and who are religious but are not fundamentalist fanatics will determine the outcome. Many of them have been seriously misled. They’ve been misled into thinking there are substantial scientific controversies here- about whether they Universe is old or evolution can account for the development of life.
I have to cast journalists as major villains here. With regard to newspaper or TV stories about scientific issues, my personal experience has been that more than half have one or more substantive errors. What’s your estimate? (Please base your estimate only on those stories in which you have detailed knowledge of the content area).
Even more serious than the disregard for accuracy is the need to cast every story as a conflict. New, usually incremental discoveries are painted as sources of great conflict. The views of dissenters, which should be included, are magnified until there is no indication that a consensus exists. This makes a story about competing views which is much more exciting. So, a 90-10 or a 99-1 proposition in the scientific community becomes a 50-50 news story. No wonder we have problems formulating public policy based on scientific recommendations!
This is made worse by the cult of fairness. In terms of evolution: this emerges as fine, let’s teach the children all the theories and let them decide what to believe.
I was involved in an organization call FLAT whose goal was to exploit and expose this attempt to conflate science with religion. We pointed out that previous efforts did not go far enough. FLAT advocated the FLATness of the Earth, and a ban on foreign language teaching, all based on Biblical verse. We held a press conference announcing our stand. This was picked up by the media-about half the stories, including the largest local radio station took it seriously and for about 36 hours, it was a powerful message.We succeeded locally in that creationist pressure on our local school board came to be seen as a joke. On the other hand, many people (Americans are parody-impaired) thought we were mocking the Bible, rather than the YECers. Still, fairness is a serious problem, rampant in a society with freedom of expression as a fundamental value, in which people are poorly trained to discriminate what’s worth listening to.
F. What to Do?
The first thing is to do something. One thing few people realize is the small numbers of people needed to accomplish a great deal. In Kansas, a national focus, the majority of the action has come from about 20 people (including both sides). I would estimate that 200 people would account for 90% of the public debate and pressure.
Do not assume that your contribution will have a small effect.Do not assume your community is safe due to geography or tradition. At the last count, there is significant creationist activity in 45 states of the US. They are well-organized, well-funded, have learned to use contemporary communications technology, and have ready franchise outlets in nearly every town. While the leaders seek power, their followers believe they are saving souls. This is a powerful combination.
Join and support organizations supporting and defending good science education (cf., the list at the end of this essay).
Do not assume that your academic area is safe because it is not biology. The YECers have an explicit agenda, and the Type 2 IDers a hidden, long-term agenda, to theocratize all of science. Evolution is simply the easiest target, which draws press attention.
Watch for local quirky news items. They may lead to unusual surprises.
Don’t think your influence cannot be large if you are not an expert on specific scientific issues being discussed. They aren’t experts either!
This is a political struggle, not an academic one. It is important to realize that the techniques of propaganda can be very useful. I use the word propaganda without value judgement, merely to mean techniques for convincing people of things, regardless of content. Thus, for example repetition is valuable. Appeal to self-interest ("look at all the advantages we’ve gotten from biotechnology, most of which relies on evolutionary science.") is more useful than abstract appeals to "truth."
Because it is a political struggle, statements by parents, students, etc. are of great value. Although we were defeated in the Board vote of August 1999 in Kansas, the clergy were of great assistance. Few of them became involved, but in fact the overwhelming majority who did were on our side. The public impact is strong, and gives the lie to the self-identification of YEC as Christianity. It is a little-known fact that large numbers of mainstream denominations adopted statements supportive of evolution and of science generally in the early 1980’s. This is unknown because, unfortunately, most of them have done little or nothing to implement those resolutions.
When engaging in any public forum, it is important to avoid the debate format. This format rewards sound bytes and does not leave adequate time for the kind of detailed explanation that real science usually requires. It also elevates creationists to serious contenders in the eye of the public. The rules are set up not to determine the truth, but to reward the most persuasive. They have few scientists well trained in the areas they dispute, but they have many hired guns skilled in debate tactics.
Whatever the context, it is important to ignore some of your usual instincts, and pay attention to their methods and tactics as much or more than the content. This can be difficult but valuable. Usually if you find a weakness, the creationist will simply change the subject. It can be useful to point out what just happened to any audience present.
Notice that they will often not make claims of their own, but will merely attack science. They set up an unspoken assumption that if not A then B which many people unconsciously accept. Thus, if they score points against the Big Bang, it must mean their alternative is right. You can point out this tactic. You can ask them for the evidence supporting their claims.
More generally, in a public confrontation, a creationist will continue to attack areas of science. If challenged, he will keep moving on until he finds an area his opponent doesn’t know. Then he’s home free. It doesn’t matter that he really knows none of these areas - he’s now free to use the Big Lie, having successfully probed the boundaries of his opponents’knowledge.
G. Further Information
I urge you to pay attention to what is happening in you community, and act. It would not hurt to investigate actual course content. Many teachers are now silently intimidated and skip or skim over topics like evolution.I can recommend several URLs for further information (the first two are rich with useful links; on line book purchases made through these two URLs will generate income for these non-profit organizations):
http://www.natcenscied.org (National Center for Science Education) http://www.kcfs.org (Kansas Citizens for Science)
- http://www.connect.to/flat (FLAT (Families for Learning Accurate Theories))
- http://www.cipbonline.org (Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting)
- [Also, my own home page has a link to an elementary-school level curriculum on origins: http://kusmos.phsx.ukans.edu/~melott/Melott.cfm]
Adrian L. Melott
Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas 66045 U.S.A.