Who’s Afraid of Evolution?
Why Anthropologists Need to Take Responsibility for Teaching Evolution
I have been thinking about this for a while, and I have been waiting for a nudge—or perhaps an invitation- to contribute to the dialogue. Although I have received no embossed request for my opinion, I am taking the leap and starting the conversation about why the anthropological perspective on evolution is important.
Why now?
Three things happened over the course of the last semester that got me thinking and/or angry. Earlier this year, the Rocky Mountain Collegian published an article on evolution and creationism, and interviewed a few engineers—and maybe a molecular biologist thrown in for good measure- from CSU. These folks were asked how they rectify their personal religious beliefs with a scholarly reliance on evolutionary theory common to their respective disciplines. I was angry because I wanted someone to ask me that question. I wanted to say, “Hey… I study evolution…in fact I study human evolution, and others in my department study human variation. I have something to say about this.” Too often, biological anthropologists aren't considered ‘real’ scientists and are left out of the dialogue when in fact we are on the front lines of how the public views evolution and the place of our species in the natural world.
And then just last week, I realized I needed to work on my messaging; that perhaps biological anthropologists aren’t relating the narrative of evolution right. Maybe I don’t know what to say… or how to approach this fraught landscape. ME, someone who is well-versed in evolutionary perspectives and theoretical approaches, someone who knows the human fossil record (and even found some humans fossils, well…. just one 5th metatarsal, but a fossil nonetheless) intimately.
Here is what happened: My daughter’s third grade class visited the biological anthropology teaching lab, a.k.a. the Bone Room, for a field trip. My task was to set up a few laboratory stations for her class to explore. We had boxes of human skeletons out for the students to assemble, primate skulls, stone tools, and a smattering of hominin fossil casts. The kids were excited and full of questions. They also easily identified the similarities and differences among the crania on display. They clearly articulated how an australopithecine skull was similar to a chimpanzee, except for that pesky tusk-like canine, etc. They were impressive. However, my graduate students and I were quickly flummoxed when these nine-year-old students asked questions about our relationship to monkeys, and baffled when they asked “What about God?”.
We floundered with our narrative. I can only speak for myself when I report my worry over what the kids would tell their parents, some of whom surely would take issue with such stark talk of our relationship to the great apes. Teaching about evolution, particularly human evolution, is an emotional topic; it gets right at the contact point of society and science. I wasn't ready for some of their questions, and I certainly wasn't sure what to say to these young kids. I had this on my agenda to think about, as I want our biological anthropology program to be part of this conversation, but how do we educate the public about evolution successfully? What is the role of the biological anthropologist?
While all of this gave me things to consider, I was prompted to take action when this study was released on SpringerLink.
Frankly, it’s depressing news for those of us who teach evolution. The study tested biology teachers and students in Oklahoma on their misconceptions of evolution (participants were asked if the agreed or disagreed with statements like “Evolution is a totally random process” and “The size of the population has no effect on the evolution of a species”), and 475 students had 4,812 misconceptions before taking high school biology.
After biology? The number increased to 5,072. What’s even more worrying is that student confidence concerning their respective knowledge of evolution was higher after taking biology than before, despite understanding it less.
“There is little doubt,” Yates and Marek argue, “that teachers may serve as sources of biological evolution-related misconceptions or, at the very least, propagators of existing misconceptions.”
If this seems like they are placing the blame on teachers, they are. “Who is culpable?” Yates and Marek ask. “Certainly one’s first compulsion is to implicate the teacher. Such a verdict can be justified in many cases as research has revealed ‘… instruction in evolutionary biology at the high school level has been absent, cursory, or fraught with misinformation’ and ‘about one-fourth of Oklahoma public school life-science teachers place moderate or strong emphasis on creationism’”.
This strikes me as just plain wrong. How can we blame teachers? I am not on board with the vilification of public school teachers, and my recent experience with my daughter’s class leads me to believe much more is going on here.
My colleague in the department, Kim Nichols, explains that a number of things could be contributing to these disheartening numbers, from poor text books, to an emphasis on creating technicians instead of scientists, not to mention educators being afraid of teaching evolutionary processes due to fundamentalist pushback and school boards marketing “marquee” courses in advanced topics like microcellular biology instead of working on solid scientific foundations. In this environment, it’s no wonder that there are so many misconceptions about evolution.
It, therefore, shouldn't strike anyone as a surprise that teachers themselves have misconceptions about evolution. If high school teachers don’t remember lessons from college evolutionary science courses, it’s because they are discouraged from employing them. According to Kim, this is a real case of “use it, or lose it”.
I would add that even at the college level, with students majoring in anthropology and perhaps concentrating in our biological sub-discipline, evolutionary theory requires constant reinforcement before mastery is achieved. Misconceptions are the product of poor literacy in the LANGUAGE of evolution. How we describe the evolutionary process is precise, and students must treat it like learning a language. And, again, learning about our place in the natural world and our relationship to other animals often confronts and contradicts the social context in which many of our students are raised (i.e, their families, communities, churches, mosques and synagogues).
AND THEN, the authors summarizing this research suggest that high-school-aged students are incapable of learning about evolution implying that it is just too complicated for them. This seems to be a completely ridiculous conclusion. My younger child, a 1st grader, can see that cows and buffaloes must be related. “They are like cousins,” she says. And she is right… and so are chimps and humans. How do we take these observations to the next level? How can biological anthropologists engage?
Another colleague in my department, Michael Pante, believes students should be exposed to evolutionary theory long before reaching high school. Biological anthropologists can be involved in this education by reaching out to children and teachers in their communities and encouraging the exploration of scientific research that has uncovered our long and fascinating evolutionary history. The Palaeontological Scientific Trust (PAST) based in South Africa has been very successful in engaging children across Africa and addressing perceived conflicts between science and religion head on through theater and direct communication between research scientists and students. He suspects a similar program in the United States could help quell misconceptions about evolution and extinguish ongoing feuds between scientists and those that feel threatened by topic.
The truth of the matter is that we, as anthropologists, often relinquish the conversation to other scientists, and this is to our detriment. We are the discipline that produces the evidence that supports the theory that humans evolved, and we should be the ones helping the public navigate the meaning of that data.
This article was written by Dr. Mica Glantz, the Chair of the Anthropology Department at Colorado State University. She specializes in Neanderthals.
Dr. Michael Pante is a paleoanthropologist who specializes in early Homo feeding ecology.
Kim Nichols teaches primatology and leads the Paleontology Field school.
