Between March 5 and May 1, 2007, Michael Berkman and Eric Plutzer, political science professors at Pennsylvania State University, sent out mail and e-mail surveys regarding evolution to US public high school biology teachers. Based on the 926 responses that came from nearly every state (no responses from Wyoming), they found that only around 28 percent of teachers consistently taught evolution in a forthright manner. The majority of teachers (60 percent) taught evolution cautiously, allowing room for debate and doubt. The rest of the teachers openly advocated creationism.

In a recent issue of Science, Berkman and Plutzer focus much of their article on that 60 percent of cautious teachers who, for one reason or the other, fail to fully support evolution. The authors propose that it is possible to persuade those timid teachers to become advocates of evolution, as the teachers do not exhibit strong conservative markers like believing that the universe is only 10,000 years old. Berkman and Plutzer suggest that the main cause of the problem is that these teachers lack confidence in their grasp of evolutionary biology.

Many of these teachers lack the educational expertise to defend evolution, so they resort to dodging the creationism vs. evolution "controversy" altogether. Some of them shift the blame of having to teach evolution to state examinations, while pointing out to students that they do not need to actually believe it. Other teachers focus on molecular evolution, avoiding macroevolution of species, which prevents students from understanding the complete picture. Finally, some teachers like to provide students with both sides of the discussion and allow students to draw their own conclusions. Berkman and Plutzer find this last approach particularly worrisome, as it gives students the impression that a well-established concept, which is supported by thousands of scientific papers, is debatable based on personal opinions.

To reduce the harmful effects of teaching evolution in an ambivalent way, Berkman and Plutzer recommend requiring biology teachers to take a course in evolution. They argue that if teachers are armed with knowledge, they will be better equipped to stand up to arguments from students and parents.

To learn more about Berkman and Plutzer’s survey and their viewpoints on teaching evolution in the classroom, Ars chatted with Prof. Plutzer about the study.

Ars Technica: What prompted you to conduct this study? What did you want to add to the ongoing battle between creationism and evolution in schools?

Eric Plutzer: Michael (the coauthor) and I had young children entering public schools. As political scientists, we felt we weren’t prepared to enter the argument right away, but we got more interested in the politics of the education process. We started with what we were familiar with, which is public opinion and education finance. Once we were adequately familiar, we came back to the topic that originally got us interested. We felt that as political scientists, we can look at it through a new lens.

People have been talking about it for decades, but typically, people looked at it as a clash of ideas, but ignored the fact that the battle really takes place in the schools, not other institutions.

Schools are quite different. We invest a lot in public schools. Schools are especially a volatile arena for politics, because it’s close to people and it reflects the opinions of local communities.

Ars: Not surprisingly, you found a correlation between social conservatism and the acceptance of evolution in schools. I imagine that even if a teacher wanted to teach evolution in a conservative district, they may face parental censure. In your studies, did you get the sense that teachers are afraid of conservative parents?

Plutzer: To answer that, we have to go through several important findings. First, teachers often end up in districts that are like the communities in which they were raised. You can find conservative districts everywhere, not just the stereotypical Evangelical south. Often teachers reflect the opinions of their district, so many of them don’t have a problem with the parents in conservative communities. As a result, they do the bare minimum in teaching evolution. We have found that 4 in 10 personally do not accept evolution.

Second, it may not be so easy for liberal teachers to find jobs in conservative communities, as they might have red flags in their records like having completed a course in evolution. Or, if they do work in a conservative community, they might become uncomfortable and eventually move away. Homogenous districts are easy for teachers, because they can find the lay of the land without difficulty.

Ars: It’s actually the diverse communities that are the most difficult for teachers?

Plutzer: Where it’s really difficult are in diverse districts, where there is a highly educated and cosmopolitan workforce along with fairly conservative megachurches. The challenge is for these teachers to stay out of trouble. They have to teach in a cautious way to avoid complaints from either side. They want to avoid what everyone wants to avoid, which is being called to the principal’s office.

Ars: There’s a very surprising sentence in your paper. You and Prof. Berkman state that “public opinion has been remarkably immune to outreach and public science efforts over the past three decades.” Can you elaborate on that? How did you come to this conclusion, and why do you think that is?

Plutzer: According to the Gallup organization, the percent of people who give the answer that "God created human beings" has stayed basically the same for the last few decades. The NSF Science Indicators survey has a quiz format on basic science questions, and the percentages on those have stayed relatively the same for a long time, too. This is a population average, so this is not to say that individuals don’t change.

On the one hand, we have a more educated public than 30 years ago, and it’s more diverse. It’s difficult to know the details, but basically in spite of an explosion in higher education, we haven’t seen much change in polls. Public education and outreach take a lot of forms. Anyone who’s gone to a museum has been exposed, along with people who read a magazine article devoted to science, watched discovery channel, etc.

People have a lot of opportunities to take in information about evolution, but there’s a lot of information in churches and the Internet that takes a contrary position, too.

Outreach by itself has not been sufficient.

However, almost every American has taken a general biology class in high school. It’s around 97 percent of people. This seems like a place that might make the most difference. We know that the material taught in many schools is really cursory. While there are terrific teachers, most typically teach evolution as an isolated unit. Teachers also dissociate from it and not say it has been confirmed by the scientific community.

Some of these teachers change evolution from an institution to an opinion.

Ars: You suggest implementing a rule that requires biology teachers to complete an evolution course. In your paper, you note that completing an evolution course is a strong predictor of how much time a teacher will devote to teaching evolution. But that can be from natural inclination, right? Do you really think taking a course in evolution will have an effect on people who strongly believe in creationism?

Plutzer: You’re right. Correlation is not causation. For those who have a fairly coherent religious belief system, taking an evolution class will probably not change their opinion of the findings of evolutionary biology.

We recommend targeting those who are in the middle 60 percent, because very few of them are creationists. They are open to finding an accomodation between science and religion. They don’t see an inherent problem with evolution, but they don’t feel confident about their understanding of evolution.

Their command of the material is not there. They don’t feel confident in explaining things to parents. So, when they are challenged, the best way to avoid a problem is not to push the envelope. They then teach in as uncontroversial a way as possible. If we can improve their confidence, teach them the counter arguments, and update them on the scientific evidence, they will be less timid and be more willing to implement an evolution curriculum enthusiastically.

Ars: How do we implement the rule that biology teachers must take a course in evolution?

Plutzer: Curriculum in schools is highly decentralized. The required curriculum for teachers is made by individual institutions, and then it’s subject to approval by the state. For example, the curriculum of UCLA will be different than Cal State University-Chico.

The work to change the curriculum for future biology teachers can be initiated by the faculty at institutions that train teachers. Once initiated, it would need approval at the state level. It does not involve lobbying at the legislative level. The scientific community can take the initiative from institution to institution, and this is especially valuable at the mid-level institutions, where the majority of teachers are trained.

Ars: Overall, you would say that we have to take this fight in the direction of changing how we train biology teachers, who will then go teach future students to be more aware of science. Combined with the finding that the public seems to be immune to outreach, should we just give up on the current generation? Is it a bit hopeless for people who already have been taught wrongly?

Plutzer: If we’ve learned anything, it’s that change is going to be slow. Issues with strong moral components are hard to change over a life course. Very few people change their views that are linked and solidified to their value systems within decades or even in their lifetime.

Public change can happen by replacing the population with newer generations.

Population change is a powerful engine of change, but it is slow. Evolution shares certain characteristics with some of these other moral issues that really require patience and long-term plans.

Young Americans will be the engine of change, so we have to focus on their education.

Berkman and Plutzer’s article in Science is only a brief introduction of their research. A thorough analysis is presented in their book Evolution, Creationism, and the Battle to Control America's Classrooms, which came out late last year.

Science, 2011. DOI: 10.1126/science.1198902 (About DOIs).

Listing image by National Science Foundation