At one of the Confirmation Classes I was sitting in on, the topic of evolution came up. All of the 13-14 year olds in the class go to public schools. The initial overwhelming insight the students shared is that they just have not been able to believe that we evolved from monkeys. So they do not really think that evolution is the explanation for animals (humans/apes) that exist today. Their perspective on creationism was less assured, but the thing that disturbed me was how dismissive they were of the scientifically supported theory of evolution.
It was disturbing to me because to my knowledge the state in which I live has not had the evolution versus creationism in the public schools thing. It was disturbing because they did not understand the theory of evolution at all.
While they talked, I was waiting until I heard them all and what they thought. The pastor let them finish and explained that the theory is actually that humans and apes, for example, have evolved the same amount of time from some common ancestor that, in a sense, resembled both humans and apes. That ancestor was not an ape or a human.
It took a two minute explanation by the pastor, and him sharing his belief in evolution and the moment at which he got it on a field trip growing up, for them all to be like, "OOOooooohhhhh...that makes more sense. I feel better that we didn't evolve from apes."
Also, Bill Nye is awesome. It is great to have visible people refuting crazy talk.
6 comments:
Speak for yourself, I'm pretty sure I evolved from an ape and I'm proud of it.
How hairy ARE you? <---- FYI, rhetorical question.
This is actually sort of scary to me! I can say will 110% certainty that Masconomet High School graduates 2012-2015 know AND understand the theory of evolution...and did when they were 13. SO, there you go.
April, that's because they had an awesome science teacher when they were 13!
This is helpful to me, because I need to know where people's "hang-ups" are about evolution. I hadn't thought about that people might be afraid. And since I teach freshman Bio, I need to know some of their potential misconceptions and fears.
Danielle, I'll keep you updated if more good ones come up. :-)
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