Something
you might find interesting about how evolution is taught in
Canada:
The Standard (St. Catharines) Saturday, April 3, 2004
Page: A1 / FRONT Section: News Byline: Grant LaFleche
Source: The Standard
Glaring back at her from where it was scrawled across
the page, the words of God struck with the sting of an
open-handed slap to the face.
"I couldn't believe it. I was just stunned," Miriam
Richards says. "It was totally unexpected."
Richards, an evolutionary biologist at Brock University,
asked her third-year students to explain the origins of
life on Earth as part of a written exam.
For five students, the answer began with the words, "In
the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."
"I was so surprised. Here I am teaching a third-year
course on *evolution*, and these students were quoting
Genesis. It really threw me," she says. "I suppose I should
have asked them for the scientific explanations for the
origins of life."
That students would use the Bible to answer a question
during a science exam was a reminder the argument over the
theory of *evolution* is far from over.
Richards isn't the only Brock professor answering
questions from students who smell brimstone in the pages of
evolutionary textbooks.
"They rarely challenge me in class, but they are out
there," says professor Fiona Hunter, who teaches first-year
courses on *evolution*. "They e-mail me or visit me after
class. But they are challenging *evolution* with biblical
arguments."
Still, Hunter is not particularly troubled by the
questions and tries to provide answers without insulting a
student's religion. What does concern her is the level of
ignorance of evolutionary theory among first-year students
in the biology program.
"They don't really know. They have a vague notion of a
bloody struggle to survive. But that is not *evolution* at
all."
Part of the problem, some teachers suggest, is the
current high school curriculum that tucks *evolution* in a
single Grade 12 course most students will never take.
"I was horrified when I found out how *evolution* was
dealt with in the curriculum," Richards says. "Most
students will never learn about the theory that is the
absolute foundation of everything else in biology."
The virtual absence of *evolution* has prompted Joe
Engemann, a Brock University education professor, to launch
a provincewide study.
"My question is: Is *evolution* being taught?" says
Engemann, a former high school science teacher. "I firmly
believe knowledge is power and *evolution* is a key part of
our knowledge of how the world works."
Having recently received approval for the study from
Brock's ethics council, Engemann hopes to visit Ontario
teachers and students when school resumes in September.
"This hasn't been done before. We don't actually know
what the situation is yet."
Two years ago, the high school science curriculum was
rolled out after the then-ruling Conservatives at Queen's
Park had consulted with parent and teacher groups over a
period of years.
It is a busy curriculum, and while teachers' groups such
as the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation were
consulted by the Ministry of Education, many have serious
issues with it.
"That there is too much there, too many expectations, so
that teachers have to just rush through it, is a common
complaint about the curriculum, " says Peter Lipman,
director of educational services for OSSTF.
Others, such as Ridley College biology teacher Bob
Malyk, question the curriculum's very content.
"I hate the current curriculum," says Malyk. "Things are
left out of the biology curriculum that just drive me
crazy. I sometimes wonder if they ever consulted a
biologist."
While students are introduced to concepts related to
*evolution* in parts of the science curriculum -- such as
the Big Bang theory or genetics -- it is only taught as a
complete subject in one unit in an advanced biology course
for students who will take biology in university.
In that respect, the curriculum changed very little from
its previous incarnation when high school included Grade
13. Under the old system, *evolution* was only taught in a
single course.
"I don't see why the ideas couldn't be introduced
earlier, even as far back as in elementary school," says
Kerry Farrell, a biology teacher at Holy Cross Secondary
School in north St. Catharines. "But right now, the
curriculum is so full that it is really hard to see where
you could add something."
Malyk says it's a challenge, but it can be done to some
degree.
"I cannot avoid *evolution*. In biology, *evolution* is
everywhere," Malyk says. "So I slip it in wherever I can.
Not as a discussion of the complete theory, but to get the
students really thinking about it before they get to the
Grade 12 course."
When the government revised the science programs and
*evolution* remained isolated to a single unit, there were
media reports suggesting the curriculum was designed to
avoid trouble.
"Most Ontario students will go all through elementary
and high school without being taught about *evolution*
because of a new curriculum designed to avoid controversy,"
says an article from the Ottawa Citizen published in
October 2000, shortly after the new curriculum was
written.
Queen's Park declined to discuss the issue at the time
and the current minister of education, Gerard Kennedy, did
not answer repeated requests for an interview from The
Standard.
Since the 1859 publication of The Origin of Species,
*evolution* has been sparking intense and often highly
emotional debates.
Darwin knew it would happen and sat on the idea for
years. He might never have published had another naturalist
not hit upon the same notion. Faced with the possibility
someone else might publish first, Darwin went public. Every
copy of The Origin of Species sold out during its first day
of sale and a battle between science and religion began
that has yet to end.
Part of the reason for the longevity of the debate, says
Richards, is that an idea Darwin knew to be dangerous did
exactly what its religious detractors said it did -- it
created a universe where God wasn't necessary.
"I believe there is no other explanation that is as good
as *evolution*, but I don't know that *evolution* is
especially comforting," Richards says.
"Survival of the fittest" is the axiom often used to sum
up *evolution*, but as Darwin conceived it, the process was
more about survival of the best-adapted.
At the genetic level, every individual organism within a
species is born slightly different from the rest. Some of
these differences, say a resistance to a particular
disease, allow some of them to thrive while others do
not.
These survivors pass their genes onto the next
generation. The process is called "natural selection" and
it acts as the engine that drives the evolutionary process,
Richards says.
After these small changes build up over millions of
years, says Richards, an organism is no longer what it
started out as. Enough successive adaptations lead to the
emergence of a new species.
Species may look totally different, but their genetics
can show common roots, says Malyk, who points to
similarities between humans and chimpanzees.
"People get upset because they think Darwin said man
came from monkeys and if God created man in his own image,
does that mean God is a monkey?" says Malyk. "What Darwin
said is that man and apes came from a common ancestor."
Some 98 per cent of genetic material is shared between
humans and chimps.
"Over the last 12 months, there has been a move to
reclassify chimpanzees and put them in the genus 'homo,' "
the same classification that applies to humans, Malyk
says.
For Malyk, Darwin provides the explanation for how life
works. But it's not a universally shared feeling.
"What Darwin did was to make atheism fashionable," says
Richard Fangrad, chief executive officer of Answers in
Genesis, a Waterloo-based faith group that provides
churches with material to defend the faith against
evolutionary theory. "If you don't want anything to do with
God, you still have to explain the world around you.
Darwinism lets the atheist do that."
For Fangrad, the Bible provides all the explanation
he'll ever need.
Fangrad accepts animals change over time. During the
creation, some 6,000 years ago, according to Fangrad, God
placed biological templates on Earth that have since
developed.
"He put a dog on the earth and over time from those
first dogs we get all the different types of dogs we see
today," he says. "But a dog is a dog. It will never change
into something else."
Evolutionary theory, he says, is based on guesswork that
cannot hold water in light of the Bible, which is "the only
accurate record of the past we have."
This kind of interpretation of scripture led to fierce
debates over *evolution* in America. In 1999, for example,
*evolution* was stripped from Kansas high schools. A court
ruling brought it back.
Skip Evans, project director of the Oakland-based
National Center for Science Education, a grassroots
organization that defends the teaching of *evolution*, says
creationism was unable to hold its ground in American
schools.
"The debate has shifted. First they tried to ban it, but
that didn't work. Then they wanted equal time given to
creationism in science classes and that didn't work
either," Evans says.
Recent challenges in American schools have not come from
creationists per se, says Evans, but from a related school
of thought called "intelligent design."
This idea says life is so complex it must have a guiding
intelligence behind it. The Discovery Institute, a
Seattle-based public policy think-tank, and the
Ottawa-based Centre of Cultural Renewal, insist the theory
is scientifically valid.
In 2001, the Centre for Cultural Renewal, a group
dedicated to promoting religion in society, held a
symposium to discuss the introduction of intelligent design
into Canadian classrooms.
Both groups say God is the guiding intelligence, but the
Bible is not an active part of the idea.
The Discovery Institute, a vocal proponent of
intelligent design, says the theory is not quite ready for
classrooms.
"But there is a growing number of scientists who are
questioning Darwinism and we want to see that in the
classroom. Teach the evidence for and against *evolution*,"
says Robert Crowther, the institute's director of
communications.
Richards, who regards intelligent design as repackaged
creationism, says there has always been debate over
evolutionary circles. Darwin himself dedicated a chapter in
The Origin of Species to difficulties with his idea.
"Some of them are so serious that to this day I can
hardly reflect on them without being in some degree
staggered," Darwin wrote. "But to the best of my judgment,
the greater number are only apparent, and those that are
real are not, I think, fatal to the theory."
Richards says the hot debate among biologists is how the
mechanisms of *evolution* work. "Physicists argue over how
gravitation works, but no one has provided an alternate
theory that can replace gravity," she says. "I can come up
with three hypotheses when studying the *evolution* of
something, and they might even be contradictory ideas. But
it is absolutely clear that *evolution* is at work."
Compared to the U.S., where opponents to *evolution* are
well funded and organized, the debate in Canada is almost
non-existent. So it puzzles some teachers why *evolution*
is treated the way it is in Ontario's curriculum.
At Holy Cross, Farrell says the basic layout of the
curriculum that introduces the basics of genetics before
discussing the theory of *evolution*, isn't that bad.
"When I talk about *evolution*, I have to discuss genes
and the role they play in heredity. So they need to learn
about that first," Farrell says.
But unless students take the Grade 12 biology course,
they won't be exposed to the theory of *evolution* in
school.
*Evolution* shouldn't just be for students who will take
biology in university, says Richards. Today's students will
be tomorrow's decision-makers.
"There are those that believe *evolution* has ended,
that we are not impacted by it anymore. But that isn't the
case," she says.
Diseases such as AIDS adapt and change at astonishing
rates. Industry is changing the environment and genetic
engineering provides powerful tools to manipulate the
building blocks of life.
"All of these things could have an evolutionary effect.
We are reaching the point where we might be impacting our
own *evolution*," she says. "You cannot make decisions if
you don't understand the theory." Idnumber: 200404030121
Edition: Final Story Type: News Length: 2029 words
Illustration Type: Black & White Photo COLOUR PHOTO
Illustration: Photo: Grant LaFleche, The Standard / Ridley
College biology teacher Bob Malyk holds the skull of
Australopithecus, an early hominid. Photo: Hunter Colour
Photo: Denis Cahill, The Standard / Brock University
professor Miriam Richards feels high school students should
receive more exposure to the theory of *evolution*.
