Comments on: New England Faculty vs Students on Acceptance of and Teaching Evolution

By: abb3w

abb3w — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 19:38:05 +0000

Well, “intellectually progressive” is relative. New England, the Mid-Atlantic, and Pacific census regions tend to be comparably progressive; the South Central (East and West) and South Atlantic regions tend to be comparably less so.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 17:45:50 +0000

Steve,

I lived in the area much of my life (grew up in Albany, but was then based in Boston area for 17 years) and I agree. The region is more heterogeneous than any other part of the country I’ve lived in, though there may be equivalent areas of southern California.

But on average, certain numbers are almost always better for New England. But there is so much variation and overlap that the phrase is not very useful.

By: Steve Freeman

Steve Freeman — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 17:04:35 +0000

I glanced at the paper, and I was struck by the phrase “intellectually progressive Northeast”. Is there a bias there? Hell, I grew up outside of Boston, but that phrase is rather inaccurate.

By: gwen

gwen — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 07:51:10 +0000

I was lucky to have a top notch science teacher in my inner city high school (she won a ‘science teacher of the year’ National award–or something to that effect, and flew to DC the year after I graduated), she taught evolution, and I don’t remember it being a big deal. My reaction was WOW! Is THAT what happened, and it made perfect sense. My atheist mom believed in evolution–except when it came to humans. She couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that humans are animals too. I never asked her for her alternative view–it WAS NOT TO BE DISCUSSED.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 02:47:12 +0000

Well, another problem is who cares what college professors think? The issue is what happens in high schools. In teaching evolution in college, I’ve always done a two week version of what I think PZ does over a much longer period: A good history of science runs from the days when everyone was at least a theistic creationist if not someone like Agassiz, through the overthrow of all of those ideas way back when, with Darwin playing a major role.

By: Lorax

Lorax — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 02:38:16 +0000

Ill have to look up the study to see the questions. I could easily see 3.7% of faculty being 6000 year old creationists (I had a biochemistry professor who started out the lab class ranting about evolution not being taught in his class yadda yadda yadda). However, I could also see a well meaning faculty member seeing a question like this as a way to teach science by casting evolution against creationism. Personally, I think that is a great exercise in theory, but fraught with problems in practice.