American science teachers reject science

Evolution is about as much a fact as we can know a fact, and if you don't understand evolution, you can't understand life on Earth. That is why the U.S. National Research Council recommends teachers describe in a straightforward way the evidence for evolution and explain the ways in which it is a unifying theme in all of biology.

American teachers are, it seems, largely ignoring the advice. A recent survey showed that only 28 percent of biology teachers consistently follow the Council's recommendations. Thirteen per cent advocate creationism thereby, according to the federal courts, violating the First Amendment to the Constitution. The other 60 per cent simply avoid controversy by endorsing neither evolution nor creationism, even though creationism is faith, not science, and there are about as many creation theories as there are peoples.

If American science teachers are having trouble with evolution, we can't help but wonder how they are doing with the big science question of today—climate change, another inconvenient truth that attracts irrational denial. Anther survey is in order.