Has the accuracy of teaching on evolutionary theory improved in standard biology textbooks in recent years? On this ID The Future, host Daniel Reeves, Director of Education & Outreach at Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, speaks with a recent high school graduate named Natalie about her senior year research project. Natalie has had an interest in evolution and intelligent design for years, and she's noticed that textbooks don't always cover important or controversial topics fairly. So when she discovered her school was trialing a new biology textbook, she decided to evaluate the proposed textbook's approach to accuracy and fairness in light of the available scientific evidence. Focusing on the fossil record and genetics, Natalie organized quotations from the textbook into three categories - misrepresented, underdeveloped, or well-aligned - based on how well they conveyed the available evidence. From whale evolution to genetic differences among organisms, Natalie found that more often than not, the textbook was misleading to students in the way it presented or omitted important scientific ideas. "High school students are in such a pivotal time in their life because they're forming their worldview," says Natalie. "And evolution is a theory on the origin of life...that's huge to answering those questions." Natalie encourages her fellow students, and anyone interested in origins, to question and dive deep as they evaluate competing ideas. As biologist and Center for Science and Culture Senior Fellow Jonathan Wells puts it at the start of his latest book, Zombie Science, this book is "dedicated to the students who will need to discern the truth for themselves." Here's one young scholar who is doing just that.
AN IMPORTANT NOTE
In the interview, Natalie shares her personal view that intelligent design should be included in public school science classrooms. However, as a matter of public policy, Discovery Institute opposes any effort to require the teaching of intelligent design by school districts or state boards of education. Attempts to require teaching about intelligent design only politicize the theory and will hinder fair and open discussion of the merits of the theory among scholars and within the scientific community. Furthermore, most teachers at the present time do not know enough about intelligent design to teach about it accurately and objectively.
Instead of recommending teaching about intelligent design in public K-12 schools, Discovery Institute seeks to increase the coverage of evolution in curriculum. It believes that evolution should be fully and completely presented to students, and they should learn more about evolutionary theory, including its unresolved issues. In other words, evolution should be taught as a scientific theory that is open to critical scrutiny, not as a sacred dogma that can’t be questioned. Read more of our recommendations for science curriculum here: https://www.discovery.org/a/3164/ Read More ›
On this ID The Future, host Rob Crowther chats with Kristin Marais about her new online chemistry course launching this fall through Discovery Institute Academy. Her chemistry class is a two-semester, virtual, synchronous, and lab-based course which integrates the fundamentals of chemistry with applicable intelligent design concepts and topics. Students will progress through the course with Marais and fellow students together, with ample opportunity for real-time teacher-student engagement and student-to-student engagement. Class meets three times a week via Zoom to discuss content, ask questions, and work on problems together. Students can also utilize optional drop-in sessions after class, as well as the opportunity to set up one-to-one live video sessions with the teacher. "What's a wet lab?" Crowther asks during their discussion. Marais explains that a wet lab involves hands-on physical experiments. Students will conduct both physical and simulated virtual experiments during the state-of-the-art course, from equilibrium labs designed to see reversible reactions to reaction rate labs they'll get to design themselves. This chemistry course is unique among other available chemistry courses because it's connected to the Discovery Institute. As such, Marais will be able to connect students with questions to a global network of scientists and scholars in the intelligent design research community, as well as a mountain of books, articles, videos, and animations to help them learn more about chemistry and science in general.
Learn more and register for the course today at www.discoveryinstitute.academy. Get a discount on registration through June 30th, 2023. Read More ›
